"Hey, is anybody keepin' track of my heads batted in?"

A couple weeks ago the Scout update for Team Fortress 2 came out and I finally got a chance to play with it a little.  Looking back, it looks like I've never reviewed TF2 for my blog -- when I first got it with the Orange Box I didn't play it much -- the cartoony graphics didn't really do much for me at the time and I tend to prefer slower-paced tactical shooters, like Rainbow Six or Day of Defeat.  I finally tried it out a year or a little longer ago and I've been hooked ever since.  Valve did a great job balancing the classes and making them distinct and all useful in their own niche.  I won't say much more about the base game, since it's been out for quite a while now -- if you haven't played it though, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.  You can get it for 20 bucks off Steam (or just get the Orange Box or the Valve Complete Pack), or wait for it to go on sale (as it often does, especially around the time new updates come out) for $10.

However, one thing I really like about TF2 has been Valve's updates to the game over the last year and a half or so; every few months they've put out new maps, as well as a bunch of new stuff for one of the classes.  This has been in the form of about 30 or so achievements and three new weapons you can unlock by getting those achievements, which, by and large, have not been "better" than the original ones, but simply different.  The Medic, for instance, got a medigun that comes with an ubercharge that lets the target do critical hits instead of making them invulnerable.  So far, the Medic, Pyro, and Heavy have gotten this treatment, and the Scout got it a couple weeks ago.

The Scout has never been one of my favorite classes.  I'm not very good at the hyperkinetic gameplay that the Scout sort of requires -- I tend to prefer the Heavy, Pyro, and Medic.  With the new update though, I thought I'd give it a try and I found out that the Scout can be a lot of fun.  While you definitely have to play differently, the hit-and-run style of attack and bouncing past the enemy team while they chase after you is hilarious.  I still get pinned in, which I'm pretty sure is my inexperience showing -- I know people who are good enough with the Scout to dance around enemy Heavies and Soldiers and beat them with impunity, all the while spouting the Scout's hilarious dialogue.