On the other hand, Gabe has said said they’re working with biometrics in order to… do fancy unspecified things. I’m just hoping it doesn’t turn into some wii-fangled accessory that monitors your heart rate or something. They have said they’re trying to come up with a lightweight noninvasive method of gathering data like this, but I just want my HL2EP3. And the polycount update.

My only complaint is that it kind of steals a few cliches from FEAR and Condemned. And a few scares you’ll just see coming from a mile away. But hey, don’t let that prevent you from playing the game. Download that shit now.

Now time for a small rant. Actually, hit the jump, I don’t think this is related and I shouldn’t throw walls of texts at you, but anyone that has a paypal account should give it a read.

So. See that little paypal donate link on the left column somewhere? You don’t? Oh, right paypal screwed me over and annoyed the crap out of me the past two weeks. Basically my account got limited after I apparently hit a transaction limit without warning. Now nevermind the fact that I’ve used this account for two years without a problem, I have to verify myself!

So I have to provide Photo ID and proof of address. Well, the first one was relatively easy, but the second one is where shit gets annoying. Let’s just say I’ve submitted about a dozen documents, half of them signed and official, and my account still remains limited. I’ve called them internationally about 5 times, as their mailbox just shits out boilerplate replies every time, and I haven’t made any progress, even though support assured me otherwise.

Now I do have a nice debit card, and I can pay through that, so why is this such a big deal? You see, my account got limited as I was trying to order the EU version of SC2. The transaction got frozen, and the shop freaked out asking me what I’m trying to pull. Neither of us can’t cancel that transaction, so I’m stuck with this now. Hopefully the shop understands what the situation is and works something out with me.

Here’s my advice to anyone that frequently uses a paypal account. Don’t. You can google around and you’ll find plenty of horror stories, but you’ll disregard them until inevitably one of them happens to you. If you are receiving money through paypal, withdrawl anything to your card as soon as you can.

See, paypal isn’t even that secure. You can get scammed, and paypal won’t rush to your aid. It’ll just freeze accounts until something happens, but they won’t reimburse you for your losses if the guy already got his money. With your bank, however, this problem doesn’t exist. And with a bank I wouldn’t be out of a couple hundred dollars for the next months, nor would I have had a crap week waiting on phone calls all day.

EDIT: Yeah, my limitation isn’t going to get lifted any time soon. 180 days to be exact. I’ve submitted official, signed documents that contain the right information, and support kept reading over what I sent telling me everything’s right, but whoever verifies that information blows me off every single time.

Take it from me, if you’re using paypal, you’ll enjoy the service until they screw you over with their overly paranoid policies. Use your bank to make payments, it’s a lot more secure.

I don’t recall if Portal 2 Co-op was announced in the past, but Valve’s release a nice little trailer for it on youtube.

This isn’t news, but some guy hacked up a trombone and fitted it with some incendiary equipment. Okay, the flamethrower trombone is cool but am I the only one that feels nervous when he turns it on in his room near all those easily combustible materials?

Oh, and a random item generator. It churns out some really underpowered stuff, we know.

EDIT: Oh, you silly racing fans. The heavy ain’t a truck.

Now, have this vid I had a ton of fun collaborating on.

However there also was an some update sometime in the past that increased the maximum resolution for sprays from 256×256 to 512×512. I don’t recall it ever being jotted down in any patch note. The maximum permitted size as also been increased, allowing for more frames in an animated spray. It’s weird that Valve actually cares about sprays, it’s something you almost never see in any other game and it’s not exactly a feature you’d use to get copies sold, but I sure as hell am glad there’s someone on the dev team that cares about them!

The TF2 part of  the Steam forum now has a Trading board. Come on, Gabe, stop teasing and give us that polycount update already.

EDIT: Actually, have another one. Can’t see it because of some ass backwards music group? Have a mirror.

Valve is most likely making a DotA clone. Because the other two clones aren’t enough.

Then just as I back, Robin gets interviewed by PCgamer, and he reveals the polycount update will be coming out with item trading and a new game mode. Next month. Blast.

I guess we’ll just have to stare at some videos while we wait.

No comment, it’s very hot and humid near the sea and I’m tired.