There’s an exploit in Alien Swarm right now that allows you to easily level up using demos. The fun thing is that this is like the third time I’ve seen this bug in multiplayer in a source engine game. You just record a demo before you end a level, and if you replay it you can re-earn the XP you get at the screen. Theoretically you could earn achievements this way or use some other guy’s demo that went through insane to get a lot of XP at once. Or maybe SAM works on it too.

On a more interesting note, you can mod the game just like you would TF2 (edit: Nevermind, it’s got VPKs). Someone’s already made a mod that makes the rifle sound like the pulse rifle from AvP. The scanner’s modded too, real nice. With a few console commands you can even play the game in first person. For a free game this is really nice.

EDIT: Well, a few hours after this post, Valve released an ASW patch that fixed the XP bug. Sorry for getting you all excited.

Remember that fake engie update posted a while back? A video’s been released showing the Amplifier sort of working ingame. Wonder when this will be downloadable for server admins in Sourcemod script form…

Also, I seem to have missed a recent L4D2 blog post detailing achievements and a number of new gameplay mechanics. This new campaign just seems to get better and better.

EDIT: And an hour or two later, Valve drops a significant change to the drop system. More details on their blog. Idling will be a lot less useful now, and everyone that isn’t obsessed about models in a video game will now receive them more frequently. About time.

Over the past few days I’ve worked on the backend of the mod vault and other areas of the site, so we’ve had a bit of a pause in updates. That, and all of our editors decided to take an unannounced vacation.

Anyway, a new TF2 patch is out, and the TF2 blog got updated too with an interesting new section that allows you to submit avatars and custom weapons.

They’ve messed about with the dead ringer, making the fake deaths more convincing, but what’s still baffling is that a spy that feigns his death still gives a head to an eyelander wielding demoman. It seems Valve has some work to do on their priorities, as the gunboat and equalizer taunt combo sadly doesn’t work anymore. It’s quite a nerf to people who enjoyed that bug, and I’m certain I haven’t seen droves of steel-toed soldiers grenading themselves to the top of the scoreboard. Well, all in all there’s a ton of small changes to talk about, so I’m not going to go on on this subject. Rest in peace, scootlegs.

Also, feel free to spread my formspring around.