This full eximplifies why I don’t bother to even try to write hilarious internet shit anymore.

I was pretty good at it like 5+ years ago but these days it’s easier and more productive to just link to someone who has said the same thing only in a better manner.

So here’s a link. It contains movie spoilers for Transformers: Revenge fo the Fallen…

Here are a couple of highlights to entice you….

And why couldn’t an Autobot translate these symbols?
Because Bumblebee is mute and the Racist Twins are poor black robots from the slums of Cybertron who never learned how to read. It’s a sad commentary on Cybertronian society. Like The Wire, actually.

A lot was made of how Shia the Beef’s hand injury was written into the film. How was this done?
Well, sometimes Shia had a huge bandage on his hand, and sometimes he didn’t.

NOTE: I was originally going to make one long review with a spoiler filled section of bitching following this segment. Unfortunately due to the somewhat random and incoherent nature of the plot, the spoiler filled section became very random and incoherent. In the interest of making some level of observations, I’m going to go with the non spoiler filled section here and sort out the rest later for a second post.

Ok, Revenge of the Fallen. Transformers 2. In case you missed it, my Transformers 1 review can be found here.

This movie is certainly an action flick. Lots of running and shooting and explosions. Still, it’s based on a kid’s property and is made to push toys so there isn’t much blood or gore. Ok, not much blood or HUMAN gore. Several of the robot death scenes are actually kind of gory, particularly the final one. If you’re making your robots fluid and organic, it makes their deaths a bit more organic than say, the Power Rangers get shot and sparks fly.

Also, as I mentioned,t his is a movie based on a kids property so there is of course lots of swearing. I don’t think there were any F-Bombs but there were several “Shits” and a lot of “Asses”. Speaking of Asses. The Transformers Universe is also populated solely by women who are all “The Hotz”. Sam’s college dorm room apparently is on the all hot girls floor because other than his roommate I don’t recall seeing any other males on the floor. Though in a later scene Sam screams like a little girl and then proceeds to get called a girl by Megan “The Fox” Fox. Considering all fo the suggested Gay/Bi jokes/overtones concerning Sam’s roommate, it’s likely that they are in fact not in a Coed dorm but simply assumed to be girls and placed appropriately.

Anyway.

This is supposed to be the short non spoiler part. The movie is large and violent and slightly confusing. It has several irritating plot holes. It’s made “for kids” but is not particularly appropriate for them. At the same time it’s slightly embarrassing to watch for anyone who is older than say, 25. Basically, the ideal target for this flick is High School Kids and Frat boys, though there was a surprisingly large number of chicks in the 4 sold out theaters, many of which were NOT “drug along by their boyfriends”. If you loved the first film, you’ll probably like this. The plot continues the first movie’s plot reasonably well, which is a plus. This movie will own the box office even though it’s slightly crummy. I imagine with repeated viewing I’ll grow to hate it as much as I hate it’s predecessor.

If you were hoping for better characterization for the bots you’re going to be massively disappointed. The cons are even MORE confusing in this film as they die and come back to life and all seem to be in 3 or 4 places AT ONCE. Also we see the unexplained return of Blackout (who supposedly is now named Grindor*) and in at least once scene Bonecrusher drives by. If you don’t remember who Bonecrusher and Blackout are then that’s no surprise since Bonecrusher had maybe 60 seconds of screen time and Blackout maybe 5 minutes in the first film.

* According to the toy but never named in the movie

There are plenty of new bots and several returning old bots. The new Autobots include Arcee, Skids, Mudflap, and Sideswipe. Someone told me after the fact that a bot I mistook for Ironhide at the very end of the movie was Jolt though I don’t remember him showing up ANYWHERE else. Skids and Mudflap get a reasonable amount of character, assuming by reasonably you mean “They are black… ish…” though they look very “rednecky”. Arcee and company never say anything and mostly just zip around shooting things. I think Sideways gets one line in the entire film with is one less than Jazz got in the first film.

The Cons, as mentioned get the worse end of the stick. Sideways isn’t named ever and has less screen time than Bonerusher got in the first film (50% of his screen time is shown int he movie’s trailer, the other 50% in the Preview clip we got involving Sideswipe). The Constructicons seem to be everywhere all at once including merged and unmerged. They way over use the whole “falling from space” gimmick which makes it seem like there are even more of them.

Even Bumblebee, who was the costar of the first film does almost nothing here. He drives Sam around, he drives Sam and friends around, he drives Sam’s parents around. Basically he drives people from place to place a lot and stands around in the background. Then there is Optimus Prime, who is supposed to be the leader of the Autobots but spends next to zero time around them. Basically he’s been watching a ton fo Rambo between this and the first movie, he pretty much always fights his battles solo.

The real starring bot of this film is probably Starscream. Starscream gets a lot of fleshing out and Megatron somewhat along side him. Sure, neither are quite exact replicas of their older counterparts but they don’t need to be. I accept that this movie is it’s own deal, I don’t expect everything to be “like it was”. What I do expect is that I should give a crap about these people. Hell even if they blow off the cons I’d love it if the Autobots were more than just a band of Red Shirts.

To wrap this up. This film has me very torn. Is it a “good movie”? It depends on your definition of good. Does good mean a perfect Transformers homage and experience? Then no, this movie sucks. Does good mean intriguing plot and deep characters? Then, once again, no, this movie sucks. Does good mean an action packed popcorn flick that had lots of explosions and shooting? Then yeah, this movie is excellent. Just be sure to screen it before letting your kids watch. If you were offended by things like the Masturbation talk abd pissing scene of the first film then don’t bother with this as it contains that and more.

I have a bit of an issue developing so I just wanted to make a quick clarifying post.

If I say “TF2″ I’m refering to “Team Fortress 2″.

If I want to talk about “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen” I’ll use the acronym “RotF” for “Revenge of the Fallen”. Not “TF2 for “Transformers 2″. I may however refer to the first movie as “TF1″. though more likely it’ll be “The first movie”.

So in summary… TF2 =

and RotF =

I found one of these around Christmas but didn’t buy it. I promised if I found it again I would.

This is part of the Littlest Pet Shop line, mostly aimed at girls. This dog comes with the accessories of a soiled (yellow) paper and a small pile of poo.

Also a Pooper Scooper.

He also sports a My little Pony style emblem cementing his commitment to pooping.

Holy shit, this is quite possibly the most awesome thing EVER.

EVER!!

I was going to do these guys in order as they appear in the character selection menu. Then I realized that the second class, Soldier, doesn’t have any unlocks yet, and I want to cover those, AND I generally don’t like/play soldier enough to give an accurate portrayal.

So I’m moving on the Pyro, which is my favorite class. Some pointless trivia on this note. It has been speculated and hinted repeatedly, even by Valve themselves, that the Pyro is in fact a girl. This works into my idea of naturally choosing a favorite since in games like fighting games I tent o pick “the girl” as my favorite character, especially if it’s the ONLY girl. Also the {yro certainly is the “hottest” class.

The Pyro has a lot of good strengths and a lot of bad weaknesses. There isn’t much in the middle about them. Pyro is “The Martyr Class”. You can generally easily rank up a lot fo kills but your close weapon is also going to get you killed a lot. Almost as much as the Scout gets killed. Your primary job is to spread mayhem and confusion by jumping in and flaming everyone up. If you’e lucky the opposing team will waste an Uber trying to kill you instead of saving it for the sentry they wanted to kill.

The primary weapon is the flame thrower. It comes in two varieties, the regular Flamethrower and the Backburner unlockable flame thrower. Both are fairly good and which to use depends on your preference of play style. If you like to face off against people on the front line the Flamethrower is probably the better bet. If you like to ambush people and more often burn people from behind, certainly go for the Backburner. The Backburner adds 100% critical hits when burning someone from behind. The trade off is that you loose your concussion blast ability (more in a bit on this).

Like all classes the Pyro does more damage the closer you are to the target, an the fire does a lot of really quick damage. To top it off even if you die, the enemy will continue to burn (unless it’s another Pyro, Pyros are fireproof). This is great for weaker classes. If you’re spraying a large group of the opposing team with fire if you see a scout, spy, or engineer, you don’t need to spray them until they die, just light them up for a second or so then move on to the next enemy. Let the remaining flame do the rest of the work. Keep in mind, the Medic can put out our fire so it’s a good idea to flame up Medics first. Also flame up medics until they die since they have a natural healing ability than tends to keep them alive. Burning Heavies and Soldiers to death is a good idea as well as their high HP tends to keep them from burning to death.

The Pyro is also extremely effective at taking down engineering buildings as well, especially if you can get a spy to sap them first. People always want to Uber Heavies and Demos to take down sentries but I find the Pyro is the most effective method. You can take out a whole nest at once and the engineer that’s trying to repair them. The key here is to get your medic to run in first against a sentry. The sentry produces a lot of knockback that will make your Uber Pyro useless. Let the medic go first to absorb the knockback while you swing in and burn things up.

However the Pyro is highly effective for things besides randomly burning things. The Pyro is the best class for “spy checking”. This can be a boring job but it can be extremely important when on Defense. Basically, plant yourself in an Engineering next and spray the whole area at random. Cloaked or disguised enemy spies will ligh right up saving your friends from a potentially devastating sap attack.

Something else yo keep in mind, don’t forget about your concussion attack! The secondary fire on the Flamethrower will produce a puffing burst of air. Don’t spam this TOO much since it uses a decent amount of ammo each puff but it can be extremely effective in the right situation. Here are some of those situations:

If a soldier is spamming the area with rockets. Run right out and get his attention. If timed right, you can deflect his rockets right back in his face. Soldiers don’t always expect this either since most Pyros are not very good at deflecting rockets or they forget that they can do it at all. I played on a map that was essentially a long corridor once, full of soldiers. With effective concussion bursts I easily pushed my way to the other end where I could light up a ton of surprised players.

A demo man has placed stickies/grenades all around. You can push sticky bombs away with the concussion blast, clearing the way for your team mates to push through without getting hit by the trap. The Demoman may not be around to notice his stickies have moved and will detonate them too early to be effective. You can also deflect regular grenades. There is a key difference here. Deflected regular grenades will change color and becomes “friendly grenades”. These will no longer hurt team mates, HOWEVER, like the emo man’s own grenades, they WILL hurt you. So don’t deflect a bunch of grenades back then charge in only to be destroyed by them.

You can also use the concussion to knock around enemies. This can be effective if there is a drop off or cliff nearby and an enemy that you can’t easily kill such as a Heavy is about to kill you. Concussion him right over the edge. It also causes confusion for the enemy. An even better plan. At the start of many rounds, especially payload maps, enemies will have Ubers ready to rumble or Ubers will rush in to take out Engineering nests. As a Pyro, the most helpful thing you can do is charge in and push the Ubered enemies around. This will confuse them and keep them from destroying their targets. If you push enough you might even seperate the Medic an his Uber friend dropping the Uber effect.

Moving on a bit to the other weapons.

The starting secondary weapon is a shotgun. This is pretty much like all of the shotguns you’ve ever used in any game. Effective at close to medium range, slowish reload, decent fire speed. This shotgun can be replaced with the unlockable Flaregun. The Flaregun takes practice to use it effectively but it can be extremely useful at long to medium range. On the official TF2 stats, the Flare gun is second for “Damage/distance”. It beats out even the Sniper Rifle. And Snipers are it’s best target. Chuck out out at a sniper, as he lights up, he likely won’t die but he’ll run off for some healing or miss his shot. Also it’s hilarious to “out snipe” the sniper with a non sniping weapon. This is unfortunately a terrible weapon for close combat. Fortunately, you’re already using the most effective close combat weapon as your primary weapon.

The Melee weapon of the Pyro is the Fire Axe. There isn’t too much exciting about this weapon other than I believe it does slightly more damage than other Melee weapons though ti has slower rate of fire. I don’t have numbers to back this up however. The Fire Axe can be replaced by the Axtinguisher. This weapon does massive damage to anyone on fire but does less damage otherwise. Honestly, the Pyro has a much more effective close range weapon already at his disposal, the Axe is hardly worth using. The Axtinguisher is also generally useless sinc it does less normal damage and if you’re lighting someone up int he fast paced heat of battle, you’re not going to care about switching weapons when they could just burn to death.

I’m starting to run a little long so I’ll wrap this up here. The Pyro is most effective against Spies, Scouts, Snipers (under surprise attack), and Soldiers (with concussion blast). The Pyro’s primary enemies are water (puts out fires, Flamethrow doesn’t work), Snipers (long range beats short), Heavies (BURN ALREADY WILL YA??!), and other Pyros (fireproof).

I’m biased but Ramen’s Rank is: Extremely Effective.

We’ve seen the Achievement’s so far from valve only by name and icon. Here’ a list of what I think they could be.

May I Cut In:

Looks to me like it’ll be “Backstab 2 Medics in a 30 Second time frame”. Likely it may be “while they are healing”.
&nbsp
On Her Majesty’s Secret Surface:

Not sure about this one. Capture a point uncontested? Be the first to start capturing a point?
&nbsp
Point Breaker:

I’d say “Backstab 15 people who are capturing a point”. Or more accurately “Prevent 15 Point captures”.
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Sap Auteur:

This is very obviously “Sap 1000 pieces of equipment”.
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Sapsucker:

I’d say “Sap an engineer’s building then backstab the Engioneer”. Possibly “Backstab an Engineer who just removed a sap”
&nbsp

Skullpluggery:

I’m not sure on this one. Is that a piece of cheese? Whatever it is, do it ten times.
&nbsp

Slash and Burn:

Backstab a Pyro and/while disguised as a Pyro?
&nbsp

Sleeper Agent:

Feign death then backstab the person who ‘killed you’”.
&nbsp
Spies Like Us:

Disguise yourself as an enemy Spy then kill an enemy Spy?
&nbsp
Spymaster:

Like the sap one. This one is definitely “Get 1000 Backstabs”.
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The Man from P.U.N.C.T.U.R.E.:

I have no clue. Is that Spy drinking a Bonk?
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The Man with the Broken Guns:

Sap and Backstab 3 Guns and Engineers.
&nbsp

The Melbourne Supremacy:

Hmmm… “Backstab someone while on the center of a control point then capture it?”
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Triplecrossed:

“Backstab with two other spies”? “Backstab a disguised spy while disguised yourself”?
&nbsp

Wetwork:

“Stab someone to death in the rain”.
&nbsp

Who’s Your Daddy?:

“Stab a Scout holding his bat”.
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You Only Shiv Thrice:

“Backstab 3 people in ten seconds.”
&nbsp

A Cut Above:

“Stab a Spy who is armed with the revolver”
&nbsp

Agent Provocateur:

“Backstab 10 people”
&nbsp

Burn Notice:

“Be on fire for 30 seconds without dying”.
&nbsp

Come in From the Cold:

“Backstab a heavy who is trying to punch you/using the KGB”
&nbsp

Constructus Interruptus:

“Kill an Engineer who is building a building”.
&nbsp

Counter Espionage:

“Backstab a disguised enemy spy”
&nbsp

Deep Undercover:

“Remain disguised for X Minutes/an entire round” maybe?
&nbsp

Die Another Way:

I’m not sure on this one either. Something to with the fake death for sure.
&nbsp

Diplomacy:

“Backstab 50 Medics”
&nbsp

Dr. Nooooo:

“Backstab a Medic who is ready to deploy and Uber Charge”

For Your Eyes Only:

Not sure on this one. Stand right in front of a player you are disguised as?
&nbsp

FYI I am a Spy:

“Decloak/disguise” before killing someone”?
&nbsp

High Value Target:

“Backstab 3+ people on one control point”.
&nbsp

Identity Theft:

I think I used this but “Kill someone then disguise yourself s them”.
&nbsp

Insurance Fraud:

“Backstab someone who is overcharged”
&nbsp

Is It Safe?:

“Capture 50 control points”? Possibly within 1 second of availability.
&nbsp

Joint Operation:

Something involving 2 spies in 3 seconds. Maybe these guys suffer from premature ejaculation?
&nbsp
Anyway, that’s my speculation. We’re supposed to get this thing in a couple of days so we’ll see how well I do.

Looks like we’re getting the fast one pulled on the next Team Fortress 2 update.  In addition to the awesome Sniper weapons, we get the Spy update as well!

Here’s a link.

Something interesting to note in the fake advertisement.  It shows several articles of clothing.  Could the “Camera Beard” be one of the psy’s upcomming hats?

Also there is some sort of detector cart.  Could the Engineer be getting a new buildable item in the form of a Spy detector?

I was speculating on what would make a good Engineer upgrade.  Two things came to mind.  Some sort of “infared” camera that would allow the engineer to see spies (possibly by viewing it through the dispensor), or a sentry gun that simply shot at everything that isn’t the engineer who built it (ie friends and enemies (and spies)).  Alternately some sort fo gun that maybe did less damage or reacted more slowly that could see spies.

Basically, Engineers need something that can see spies.  Especially with these new items.

Valve posted something very interesting on the official TF2 Blog today.  Something that would fit very well with a Sniper update.

There you have it.  Valve said it wanted something to replace the Sniper Rifle that forced a player to get a little closer tot he action.  How about a Bow and Arrows!  Sounds like a pretty awesome idea personally.  It could do killer damage but require a closer shot.  Maybe there’s some way to control how much push is behind it so you could arch it over hills and whatnot.

They don’t of course, admit anything.  At least it’s not April 1st where they suggested one of the new Sniper weapons was a Piss Jar.

I am a god damn idiot.  That’s what I get for blogging before finishing my RSS feeds.

PS, it’s still awesome.