Up until June, there were no major content updates for Team Fortress this year, which shouldn't be surprising for a 5 year old game, but then again, this is Valve, which had released 20 major updates before that (and 318 patches up til now). So I was kind of wondering what was up, until now, when I have been hit by 3 major updates pretty much one after the other.

While I am enjoying all the new content (new items and a new game mode), I am a bit overwhelmed, as I haven't been able to keep up with all the new items, and Mann Up tickets have been eating into my resources, more than any previous game mode.

A couple of years ago, I watched the movie King of King: A Fist Full of Quarters, and first learned of the existence of the American Classic Arcade Museum. Having enjoyed a number of games from the 80's (and a few from the 70's), once I found out about this place, I wanted to visit it.

It is perhaps one of the best museums in existence, since unlike a typical museum, you are not only able to touch the exhibits, you are able to play them! I was able to relive the days of old arcades, playing many of my favorites, TRON, Space Ace, Star Trek, Gyruss and Star Wars Trilogy, among others. It was quite a thrill to see and hear all the old games.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only arcades in existence are those which are geared toward kids, which have a lot of those game which distribute tickets, that are not even fun to play, and the ticket are only good for crappy prizes. Even Dave and Busters is a bit disappointing to me, as , though there are a few good games there, but not enough of the classic games for me.

While FunSpot (the home of the American Classic Arcade Museum) does have a large number of those ticket generating games, the large number of classic games is unsurpassed anywhere else in the world and will satisfy any old school gamer. Still, I did notice that some of the games had slight signs of wear, and I think one of the games had control issues (or perhaps my arcade skills have really deteriorated...)

I was waiting for Valve to start it's summer event, (with hopes of them releasing some exclusive items again) and I was beginning to think they had released Pyromania as their only summer event, when it turned out they had something else up their sleeves.

I had never heard of Mann vs Machine until some guy on a trade server just happened to mention it two days before it's official release. Now, instead of just playing again other players, we can face off against hordes of bots.

The real challenge comes from Mann Up mode. While the bot attack is much more intense, the real challenge comes from trying to find team mates who can work together with a good strategy and not quit at the first failed attempt. I've joined many a team with players who would join a class that wasn't really helpful to the effort, or would lose focus from the primary goal (pretty much just stopping the bot carrying the bomb).

There are six levels, and the first one took me 3 days to get through it, but the second one only took a single hour long session. So far, I haven't worked with a team that has been able to overcome the 3 level.

Team Fortress hadn't been adding much new to the game for a little while, but abut two weeks ago, Valve started dropping hints that something big was coming. At first, people were getting weird drops, pocket link, goldfish, banana peels, cheese and a couple of other things. I was excited about getting these items, but could not for the life of me imagine how they would be used in the game. But one thing I was fairly certain of, was that this update would be Meet the Pyro, an "introduction" to the Pyro character class, the last class to be introduced. With the introduction of Meet the Pyro, there would certainly be new video, as well as new content. I was not disappointed!

A LONG time ago, a friend of mine was bragging to me about how great the original Fallout was, and went to show me it on his computer. When he went to start the game, it turned out that he had damaged the disk, and he was unable to show me the game. I have heard a number of good things about Fallout, and thought I should try it out for myself some day. A while back, when Steam had a promotion on Fallout: New Vegas, I purchased the game, but didn't start playing it until a week ago.

I was quite surprised when I first started playing the game, because I thought all the Fallout games was 3rd person from a 2/3 perspective, but once I started playing Fallout: New Vegas, of course I found out it was a first (though can be over the shoulder third) person perspective game.

While I like the concept of a role playing game, most of those games are from the 2/3rds perspective, with wooden (non-moving) card board cutout NPCs, who stay in the same place at all times. When I think of role playing games, I would prefer something a bit more like Deus Ex or System Shock 2.

I am quite impressed with the NPCs in New Vegas, as they walk about the town, engaging in various activities and react to my actions and words in mostly appropriate ways. If I steal something, kill someone or say the wrong thing, the NPCs will change their attitudes towards me. This makes for a much deeper gaming experience than the usual RPG gives.

Still, there is a bit of a short coming of the games reliance on what appears to be roll base attacks. While there is no turn based attacks, which are an unnecessary hold over from the days of pen and paper RPGs, still I think that some attacks would instantly kill, where as I have to wear the enemies stats down in order for me to defeat him.

I finally returned to Deus Ex the Human Revolution, and after a couple of marathon days of playing, finally made it to the end. Because of my praxis point hording, I ended up with several unused praxis points at the end of the game.

The game was excellent pretty much all around, though I though some of the boss battles were uneven. Several were very tough, and a few seemed too easy.

Some day I hope to go back and replay Deus Ex the Human Revolution again, but I still have a pile of games that I purchased but haven't played yet. Next it will be on to Fallout: New Vegas

Once again, I was shanghaied into playing some free game in an attempt to get a hat for Team Fortress 2. This time the game is Super Monday Night Combat, a game set up as a spectator sport, complete with announcers and a cheering audience.

The basic premise of the game is actually quite appealing. Each team has a set of turrets, and a respawning army of bots, with are fighting to take down the enemies defenses and finally destroy their enemies money ball, which will then win the game for them. In basic premise, this game remind me of Command & Conquer:Renegade, and game which I greatly enjoyed, but I don't believe was overwhelmingly popular.

But there are many short comings to Super Monday Night Combat First, there is a big disparity between the rookies and the veterans. There are a few attacks that are not readily apparent when you first play the game. Even now, I don't understand how some players are able to execute grappling moves, even more perplexing how some players can take out a gunner, with a chaingun firing at point blank range, with melee attacks.

Making this worse, the match making system gives the player no choice of what game they will join, nor the level of the players they will be matched with. So a number of the games are stacked in one teams favor, making for a slaughter. In addition, the matching system repeatedly gives messages with an accept button, which serves no purpose. Many times, it will say you are joining a game, only to be kicked back to the game joining screen.

Also, there are only 3 maps, and the commentator banter is quite limited, as you will probably hear the same phrases repeated in your first match, and again for each match you play.

With the release of user created level of Portal 2, I thought I should go back and play the DLC that was released for Portal 2 a ways back. It turns out that the DLC is only or co-op mode, which has it's ups and downs, that is tied to the quality of your team mate . If you don't choose some one from your friend's list, you will be randomly joined with another member, and you never know what you are going to get. I got a mix of every thing, a couple of kids who sounded really young and didn't really seem to understand the concept of the game, a few people who wanted to give up after they couldn't find the solution right away, as well as one guy who just rushed through the level, without give me time to solve it on my own. But there were two or three (all that were needed to get through the DLC) people who were spectacular and cooperative. It's those people who make the co-op levels on par with, or perhaps surpassing, the single player game.

As for the levels, all I ever asked for was new levels for Portal 2 and that is what this DLC gives you. The new mechanics added to Portal 2 (that didn't exist in Portal 1) were unexpected surprise for me. This DLC doesn't add any additional mechanics, but you would be better off playing the prior levels of Portal 2 co-op before trying the DLC. For free (for owners of Portal 2), that make a great deal, as the levels give more of what you expect from Valve and Portal (and GlaDos)

I had no idea how to access the DLC before I played the game, since just looking at the game menu gave me no clue where to begin, but once I was in the right game mode, it was fairly easy to figure out what had to be done to access it.

I resumed playing Deus Ex again and this time went back to Detroit.

I was a bit confused at first, and then when I was given a mission to find Taggart, I never ended up coming face to face with him, so I thought I had missed and objective or something. It turns out that I had planted some evidence on a computer, thus completing an objective without noticing it.

The only real problem I found was that when I was about to leave Detroit, the game asked me if I was sure I wanted to leave, because if I did, I could no longer complete any uncompleted side quests. After checking, I found that there was a side quest, Acquaintances Forgotten, I hadn't completed, but it required me to have done some activity before I had previously left Detroit. I like to try and complete every side quest, so I as a bit annoyed that I was unable to complete that particular side quest, and there really was no way of knowing that there were such requirements.

Well I continued playing Deus Ex today and did the Montreal. It was pretty good, but at some points I found no way to avoid killing, as I prefer hacking and sneaking around.

I found the fight with Yelena extremely frustrating, as she has the ability to move much faster than Adam, who is especially slow, dragging around the heavy rifle, which I assume is the only weapon to be used against Yelena. Making it worse, she can rush Adam with incredible speed, and repeatedly give off blasts of energy. And she is also armed with two machine guns. Oh yeah, and she can also turn invisible. So the odds were heavily weighed in her favor, and it was a real bitch defeating her. To compound the problem, earlier in the day, I had 9 praxis points that I hadn't used, and I kind of squandered them on non-fighting abilities a couple of hours before the fight with Yelena. Since I was mostly playing stealth and hacking, this boss fight was rather frustrating, since it required combat skills. I finally made it through it, but it was a long and frustrating battle.