By Alec Meer on June 17th, 2008 at 7:39 pm.
Meet the Sniper!
Let’s not talk about the accent, okay? Let’s just talk about the fact it’s very, very funny, and does an impeccable job of making one of the classes we so love to hate (CAMPING BASTARDS) endearingly human. Even the most cold-blooded of killers has daddy issues.
Update, after a dozen happy watches of the thing. Things to look out for:
- Keep an eye on the lower left of the screen during the coffee scene
- Does the bobblehead hint that we’ll be seeing the VIP-escorting Hunted map from TFC return? Ooh…
- Is that a new gun the Pyro’s carrying? – See below.
The Mysterious New Pyro Weapon:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.
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Yay! Its real!
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ahahahah AMAZING. Please, please make a Team Fortress 2 sitcom or movie already!
(I love the bobble head of the VIP from Team Fortress Classic’s “Hunted” map.)
PS: Are those jars of urine at the bottom of the title screen? Emphasizing the “camper” element?
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Ha! Back on top form. I <3 Valve
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Beautiful =)
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RichPowers, you will make Mr Erik Wolpaw very happy. It’s the joke he was worried wouldn’t get seen.
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Best one yet.
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Anyone notice the gun the pyro’s carrying? Nothing I’ve ever seen before…
:D
Maybe a flare gun?
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I liked the jars of pee. lol.
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Look at the way he says “standards” out the side of his mouth. The facial animation in these is really incredible.
Anyone notice the pyro carrying a new weapon?
Edit: Too slow!
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I concur with those saying that this is the best yet, superlative work.
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Pyro’s thing looks kind of like a fire extinguisher funnel.
Edit: yes, yes, it’s a flaregun!
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Tell me we get all of those wonderful models to use as props! I’d love to put jars of urine in my maps to signify prime sniping positions.
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That is absolutely brilliant. Best one yet by far.
I especially love the faux hand-cam footage up on the tower! :D
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@Corion: I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that thought that.
Also, for anyone that wants a close up of the new weapon… http://www.cubeupload.com/files/b947ecpyro.jpg
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By God Mechtroid, you’re right! http://thejunkyard.co.uk/images/pyrogun.jpg
It looks like it fires….BUBBLES!
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“Professionals don’t have feelings, they have standards.” Wonderful.
Also, I felt like the ‘jars of pee’ gag was well executed. It lingered on that static frame for just long enough with only two elements changing every half second or so. I probably wouldn’t have caught it if the shot was a few seconds shorter, but as it is, it was perfect.
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It appears that the pyro is carrtying some sort of flame launching blunderbuss. Also, I will admit to missing the jars of urine (yoo-rine for the aussies) the first time through, but caught them on the second pass. I don’t think I found this one as funny as other people did, but I still love it dearly.
Edit: definitely not a blunderbus. It’s a flare gun or a flammable liquid gun, which appears to have an ignitable rocket on top.
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How long until “#1 SNIPER” mugs show up in the Valve store?
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I’d buy that.
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Yes, yes! Probably the best one yet – you can see they’re getting more and more complex as time goes on.
Haven’t laughed this much since… well, since Meet the Scout really.
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Oh my god the rumors are true.
Michael Caine did have a one night stand with Dame Edna Everage!
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Had a bit of confusion with the title, until I saw the movie :P
I personally know of very few crazed gunman dads.
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Pfff, it’s clearly some sort of airhorn, pyros sneak up on people (“l2p noob, it’s an ambush class”) and sound it making them JUMP (“pyros aren’t meant to kill, they’re for confusion and delay”) and then run away giggling. Valve finally give people the pyro the nothing-wrong-with-being-gibbed-every-damn-time-by-soldiers apologists have wanted.
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Just realised – it’s the neck of the broken bottle which gets stuck in the Demo’s eye-socket.
Eww!
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Enhance!
Enhance!
Enhance!
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Easily my favourite one of these yet, and almost enitrely not because I tend to play as a sniper. Brilliant stuff.
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According to shacknews we’ll get the details on the pyro weapons and achievements tomorrow: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53182
Also, those jars of “questionable” content should be one of the sniper unlockable weapons :D. Blinding grenade or something. Gross but effective!
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What’s the third quality good professionals have? The ability to kill everyone they meet or miss? Also, in the end, does he say “Dad? Dad!? Argh, put mum on the phone” or something else?
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God the music is so nice. Me wants.
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Naurgul, that’s indeed what he says.
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Considering my rapid hatred of snipers in game, it’s a mark of Valve’s growing expertise at these animations that I actually ended up quite liking him. Plus, new music!
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Awesome, excellent and awesome again. Roll on the Pyro news, not to mention her ‘Meet the’ video!
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The transcript is here: http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Meet_the_Sniper
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Fantastic. Utterly hilarious and well-shot. *BADUM-TISH*
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Catch the caution sign in the first frames of the video? It’s not for falling rocks or deer…
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Thanks, Fumarole. So, it’s certain that he says “meet”, neither “miss” nor “need”? Anyway, the sniper video was really nicely done. I think it’s my favourite so far.
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@Jaik
nice spot mate, that’s priceless :)
ps, thanks GameTrailers, we wouldn’t shoot you through the head.
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The most well drawn character so far, an optimistic, long distance caravan driving hitman seeking the approval of his parents. Who doesn’t mind weeing in a jar.
Also for unlocks what about theme tunes for the characters, imagine the sniper music playing as it zooms in for the death cam. Or a special pyro theme when you’re set on fire by someone with that unlocked.
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Nice, found it gently amusing until I watching it a second time and noticed the slowly accumulating jars of urine at which point I had a nice guffaw.
Also, ta for the Pyro freeze-frames. I thought his weapon looked a bit odd but couldn’t be bothered to check for myself.
@ Johnathon: It seems to me he drives a camper van. Also that billboard in the background for the final shot reads “FOAD camping fun all year round”.
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Suck health after burning him weapon?
Anyone?
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Maybe a flare gun which works like the Pyro’s rocket launcher from TFC? Seems a bit…boring, by Valve’s TF2 standards, however.
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Unless I misunderstand you, that’s the axe.
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Brilliant.
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@Hammer: No, the axe causes a crit when the target is on fire. What he meant was probably to use up a person’s being on fire in order to get a small heal.
@CannedLizard: I really hope not, that’s really unimaginative.
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If only the actual game were as good.
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That was awesome.
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The video is great, but the voice wasn’t the same from the game: it was a voice of one (all of them) of the citizen in city 17 from hl2 and it made me ears hurt. Except this it was awesome. Loved the setting, the impaled spy and the blinded demoman. Very cool.
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Video is very funny. As for the weapon, I’m going to say flare launcher that sets people on fire. Basically an incindiary grenade launcher. I’m probably totally wrong about this but there’s my two cents.
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I hope they add the new music to the game.
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@ Majorb
Like the flare guns in the Timesplitters games, then?
Fantastic vid, which gave exactly what was needed with the other characters – depth. I hope the rest continue in this strain.
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Well it is a blunderbus looking thing, so it might just be a wide angle shrapnel launching death machine, but I dunno how much I like the idea of trading out my shotgun with a decent spread for something like that.
Also poor Demo now he has no eyes… and is dead.
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@Return: I hope you’re right, and it’s not a ballistic grenade firing gun. If it’s that, I’ll be disappointed as hell.
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Haha someone from my community noticed the same gun tidbit.
Definitely looks like a flare gun! Scroll down a few posts to see an actual flare gun pic. I’m guessing/hoping it’s a napalm-ish gun to help control areas and increase the effective distance of the pyro.
http://www.focusedgaming.com/team-fortress-2/1837-pyro-update-pic.html
As for the custom maps to be released with the update, my money’s on Redstone and either Steel or pl_dynamite.
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I still liked the Engineer better, but this one was funny.
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I am so glad to see them focusing more on the character interview style rather than action. It’s what made everyone sit up and take notice of the original heavy movie.
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+1 to whoever it was suggested expanding these segments.
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cant believe he doesn’t have a Texan accent. Soldier still > *
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Freakin Hilarious!!! best class movie of the lot and my favourite class (yes I’m a camping bastard) :)
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Superb, can’t wait for the pyro stuff either.
So how do we rank them then? I think that could be the best so far
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Rank?
Soldier
Sniper
Heavy
Scout
Engineer
Demo
But such is the quality, it really isn’t easy to rank them, but i reckon the soldier tops things off for just being the perfect mix of insane and blackly comic.
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‘One is a proffession, the other is a mental illness.’
Love it, that line has got all sorts of layers going on.
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Heh, sniper drives a campervan. lolol
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The “One’s a profession” bit is splendid. Good work, them.
KG
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A question for you sharp-eyed folks: in the bit where he’s brushing his teeth with the Polaroids on the wall, who’s in the top picture? It’s a bit dim, and I can’t quite make it out.
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I think it’s an Engineer.
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Bestthing.
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Is this why the Demoman has an eyepatch? Does he have one on before the glass goes in his eye?
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@Noc: I agree with Monchberter, top pic is an engy for sure.
Great vid this… also, not sure why Mr. Wolpaw would think that something would be missed in the vid… doesn’t he know that we all watch these things about 10 times and then come to sites like this to discuss them even more? No chance in hell that something would be missed! ;)
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Ben Hazell: The ironic thing about the demoman bit is that the glass goes in his GOOD eye, meaning that he’s now blind (well, for about 1 second before blowing himself up)…. poor demoman. :(
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Does the bottle in the eye now explain the Demo’s eye-patch?
Edit: Ben Hazell beat me to it :(
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Anyone found the webpage detailing the Pyro update? The news article said when the Meet the Sniper video would be released “along with a web site dedicated to the Pyro update.”
I haven’t been able to find this yet. :\
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@Kast
The website isn’t being revealed until tomorrow unfortunately, according to Shacknews.
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Hmm, unlikely as it is, but if they were to get a proper australian to re-do the voice, Kel from Kath and Kim would be a wonderful choice. There’s even a passing physical resemblance.
Then again, I think the Heavy looks almost exactly life Jason Statham (on vast quantities of steroids) so what do I know?
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Ben Hazell: The ironic thing about the demoman bit is that the glass goes in his GOOD eye, meaning that he’s now blind (well, for about 1 second before blowing himself up)…. poor demoman. :(
Ironic? Really?
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My new favorite besides the Meet the Engineer trailer.
Love the music!
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Just saw this on Digg. 1:20 will be of note to all you music fans.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EHc0jgOGTlE
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That was fantastic (watches again).
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That was cool. One of the best of the lot. I would dearly love to know where that accent is supposed to be from though.
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great vid, can anyone make out what is leaning up against the wall when the sniper is standing respectfully over the fallen spy? dosent look like his primary or secondary weapon
forget it, its just his primary, couldnt see it in in low def
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This video is *funny* and makes me a *happy camper.* And when the Pyro update gets released, we can all go have a *spicy games.*
Don’t know why Eric thought we wouldn’t *see* the urine jar joke.
Also, I clicked on Smee’s link. And now I feel *silly.*
(… Goddamn it’s hard keeping that up.)
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Dorian: I *get* that reference, and it makes us *happy* *campers*.
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The demodonimo effect was great.
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Jars with yellow liquid… you can find them twice.
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Best one yet, by a long shot. But they should really get a proper Australian to do the voiceover, it’s an insult to anyone who knows what an Australian sounds like (i.e. almost all Brits -because they will no doubt have seen an Australian soap- and all Aussies and Kiwis, and probably a fair few South Africans).
P.S. Am I the only one who wants to have sex to this music? It is epic!
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Maybe, as part of his character he pretends to be Australian, to appear cooler when he’s actually from a Wisconsin suburb.
But that would be crazy (or professional).
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The accent seems to veer from a rubbish aussie accent, to a crap cockney impression with occasional americanisems thrown in.
Great vid though :)
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But they should really get a proper Australian to do the voiceover, it’s an insult to anyone who knows what an Australian sounds like
Bit weird, considering there’s a perfectly good Australian accent in the game already – Robin Cook in the Developer Commentary.
Bits were Ok – the first bit after the title and “I think his mate saw me” weren’t bad. Just when he started talking about “if there are 2 people left in the world…” he turned into Michael Caine.
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It’s still better than the attempts at Irish accents in Clive Barker’s Undying. Jesus.
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On the subject of accents, did anybody else find Psycho in Crysis to be surprisingly tolerable?
When he first spoke and he was English I was expecting the usual. You know, sentences like: “Bloody chuffing bollocks, mate! This is a load of bloody bollocks!” Pleasingly, he actually sounded like the person who wrote his lines had met a real English human being.
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The touch of David Attenborough in the middle is fantastic!
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Seen that yet?
http://www.steampowered.com/pyro/?pw=presspreview
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Wow, that compressed air push is going to make a big difference to how the game is played I think… and the flare gun sounds particularly fun.
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All together now:
[South African] Pie-rho-tech-nik [/South African]
Should be a fun weekend indeed.
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Good to see Dick van Dyke is still getting work. Great vid though.
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So, since RPS’s Valve-love hasn’t extended to a separate thread for the Pyro unlocks and achievements:
1) The change to the “default” flamethrower just has me thinking of the AirFist from Quake mod fame. God, that was fun… and having it as a Pyro just cements him(?) as my favorite class.
2) The Flare-gun is clearly a “less horrible” version of the Incendiary Rocket from TF/TFC – it seems to require quite high accuracy, so I suspect that it doesn’t do any splash ignition at all. Nicely balanced – I’ll have that, thanks.
3) The Backburner is simply the “other Pyro buff” that everyone seemed to be asking for on the Steam forums. Hurrah!
4) The achievements seem much better this time – 75% of them look unambiguously fun, and the other 25% (hopefully) will take account of previous gains in these attempts. (I’m looking at you, 1 million fire damage counter…)
That said, OMGWTFBBQ is either impossible (since I thought it was impossible to do damage with the Hadoken taunt), or is Cunningly Phrased, so that you just have to do the taunt timed so it looks like the enemy dies from it. Cunning! I like it.
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Oh, Glenn Robbins as the Sniper! Beautiful!
Yeah, functional Cockney, but no resemblance to Australian. At any rate, lovely video. Bring us animation’s most bloodthirsty sitcom!
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They could have added damage to the Hadoken, too.
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Good shot, Sniper: you aimed for Australia, you hit a Cockney amateur theatre production of Crocodile Dundee playing at the Manchester town hall.
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I think his accent works, as at least it’s just as silly as the rest of the accents and adds to the tongue-in-cheek style.
Better awful accents that are funny than accurate accents that are serious or flat.
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just so you know, they HAVE added damage to the Hadoken.
It’ll be easiest against snipers, if you can get up behind them.
I promise not to grind this time.
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Superb, truely a work of genius.
Top marks to the guys and gals at Valve.
I never felt any connection to the sniper before now, however his human side just makes the character.
Brill
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I think part of making the Sniper likeable is no shots whatsoever of him and that bloody machine gun.
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That ‘mystery gun’ is a flare gun, which is the unlockable secondry weapon for the Pyro. It sets enemies on fire at a range, but takes a lot of skill to use effectively.
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Haven’t read all the comments, but has anyone else noticed the top-notch quality of the music this time? Particularly nice drumming
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