ubercharged.net

Yahtzee (of Zero Punctuation fame) tripped over to the offices of Valve Software for a bit of an Orange Box love in. Apparently Valve were so impressed by his recent Orange Box review (or at least glad they didn’t get flamed too bad) that they had him and a few other angry video game commentary people along as well. Notably Jerry “Tycho” Holkins from Penny Arcade.

The interesting bit he let slip is this nugget regarding the future “Meet The Team” videos for Team Fortress 2:

I witnessed the Cabal System in action today when a roomful of rowdy animators asked me to take a look at the prototype for the newest “Meet the Team” Team Fortress short, about which I’ve probably already said too much. After I was forced to admit that I had completely misunderstood the entire thing because I’m kind of thick, the team spent the next three or four hours loudly arguing possible ways that props and character movements could be subtly changed to make it easier for thickies like myself to “get.” Watching it all unfold makes it easier to understand why there’s always such a long wait time between the releases of Valve games and products, but I guess history has proved that this makes for a higher-quality output than the more conventional routine of whipping the code monkeys with leather straps to make a strict publishing deadline.

Not all that insightful I guess, but its good to know they are still coming. Its just Valve’s usual “its done when its done” approach to releasing stuff. There were rumors doing the rounds a little while back that said the sniper was the next one to get the video loving treatment. We’ll see soon hopefully.