From the "day old news" department - Valve has unveiled The Ambassador - a fancy handgun for your suit-wearing Spy kin:

We'll let Valve explain:

There are two sorts of men in this world: the sort with blood pouring out of a hole in their heads, and the sort holding the Ambassador. It has the ammo count of a revolver and the pinpoint accuracy of a sniper rifle, even at long range. (But remember, a gun that packs this much heat needs to cool off between shots, so make every shot count.)

We wouldn't mind Valve making liars out of us, but if our calculations are right, the next step is to release the update.

And for those who haven't seen the Meet the Spy video, note the Spy achievements are also online (and linked after the jump). They're not spelt out on the page, but with titles like "The Melbourne Supremacy" you're encouraged to let your imagination run wild.

The Ambassador

Meet the Spy + Achievement listing

Perhaps anticipating the tears from Spies who felt the Razorback sniper add-on was targeting them, the Team Fortress 2 team has released a "takeover" over the sniper update page.

Going to http://www.teamfortress.com/sniperupdate/ automagically redirects you to http://www.teamfortress.com/spyupdate/. Very amusing.



And what do you see on this page, which cheekily crosses out "sniper" replaces it with "spy"? Perhaps the coolest update ever: feign death for spies!

Upon taking a (non killing) hit the "Dead Ringer" will cloak your spy, leaving a fake corpse on the ground. It lasts for eight seconds, more than enough to swoop on a sucker for the stabby stab.



The "Cloak and Dagger" is just as juicy (and arguably also World of Warcraft inspired): your cloak will regenerate when you stand still. Move, and you drain it. Now that is sure to anger the rest of the TF2 community just fine.



Top marks, we say. Well played, Team Fortress 2 gang.

The Sniper Spy update [Team Fortress 2]

As we play catchup with the Team Fortress 2 team's update schedule, the latest reveal *today* US time, is Payload Race.

Payload Race takes the existing Payload mode where teams take turns in pushing a cart of explosives through checkpoints to a final destination...and doubles it. Two carts, so teams will have to figure out their division of labour accordingly. Accompanying the new mode is a map to play it on - Pipeline. The existing Payload map - Gold Rush - is obviously tuned for only one cart track.

Accompanying the new mode and map are two new arena maps: Sawmill, featuring the first ever inclusion of weather effects, and Nucleus, which features a "doomsday device" suspended over a void. Both are sure to be a favourite amongst players who like being "killed by world" - aside from falling to your doom in Nucleus, Sawmill will feature "two deadly saw blades near the cap".

Out any day now, so bring that on we say.

Sniper Update [T2 blog - thanks Wally3K]

Moving targets are hard work for a TF2 sniper, so what better way to make your job easier than to pin them into place?

Enter day 1 of the Team Fortress 2 Sniper update info bleed, The Huntsman:

From the official blog:

One headshot from the Huntsman can mean an instant crit, in addition to a bolt-riddled corpse hanging from a wall that's gruesome and funny.

And even if you don't kill them, they'll carry around a certain arrow-shaped something as a living testament to your awesome archery skills and their frankly unawesome dodging skills. Comes with 18 arrows and a one-second charge for full power shots.

Looks hilarious, and probably a gift from heaven if two snipers work *gasp* together. As Robin Walker points out in a subsequent post - "the Huntsman doesn't stun. It pins dead/dying players."

The Huntsman [TF blog]

Australia's favourite gaming son Robin Walker, the main man on Valve's Team Fortress 2 team and one of the fathers of Team Fortress *period* has penned a thought-provoking update on the Team Fortress site centreing on the upcoming sniper update.

In it explains the team's thinking about the sniper - delving into psychology about why many punters hate the class:

Dying to someone you weren't engaged with, especially when you were already engaged with someone else, was aggravating. Even worse was dying to someone who you couldn't have engaged with, even if you chose to. In that case, you're very unlikely to believe you could have done anything differently to survive.

Which leads to a hunt about where the team may be taking the class in its update:

In an effort to reduce some of the aggravation that other players feel towards the Sniper, we chose the goal of designing an unlockable that encouraged the Sniper to get a little closer to his target.

Ruh roh sniperfriends. Better forget about that super ultra mega zoom you've been dreaming about. Then again who are we to query the judgment of a man with Walker's DM4 skills? Exactly - nobody.

You better hold onto your head, mate [Team Fortress]