The Hivemind keeps muttering to itself “let’s not give each of the TF2 sniper/spy updates its own post, but instead do a round-up of the lot once it’s all been revealed.” No other game gets this kind of treatment from us, after all. Annoyingly, Valve seem to have read our cynical minds, and have ensured that each and every info-drip is too significant or rampantly hilarious to ignore.
Like today’s Jarate reveal, turning a former April Fool’s gag into foul-smelling reality. Perhaps the Sniper being able to throw a tub of wee that temporarily increases the amount of damage his enemies take isn’t all that big a deal in the grand scheme of gaming, bar the initial hilarity/disgust of the concept. But the accompanying comic – oh, now that’s something that deserves a dozen posts all of its own.
Here’s a teeny, compressed version, but you really should go look at the super-sized version on the TF blog for maxi-fun.
Veteran comic readers will quickly spot it’s a frame-for-frame homage to the old Charles Atlas muscle-building ads – inadvertently hilarious at the time, but gutbustingly so now it’s about jars of piss. “Boy! Those Jarate pills tripled the size of my kidneys! And thanks to my Saxton Hale pain tonic, I can barely even feel my organs shutting down!”
We forget, these days, that hyper-zeitgeisty, 21st century Valve were once only the guys behind beardy old Half-Life. It’s been an incredible reinvention, really, and I’m excited for the prospect of their eventually truly inserting their impeccable humour into the core of a videogame. TF2 is pretty funny in and of itself, but most of the best gags happen outside of and around it. Portal and L4D are part way there in some ways, but I can’t help but wonder if a full-on comedy opus is on the distant horizon.
Anyway: Jarate. I wonder which element of it will prove most successful – that 35% damage increase, temporarily breaking Spys’ stealth, dousing enflamed allies, or simply the horrifying humiliation of drenching someone in urine before killing them? The open crassness of Jarate is likely to be divisive, but hey, what’s a little toilet humour between friends?
More details here, including a list of Sniper unlocks.
I imagine we haven’t seen the last of Saxton Hale, either. Someone else for you conspiracy theorists who read far too much into the cameo by the Scout’s mother to run off and make crazy about, perhaps?
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@lilgamefreak: Is it actually stated somewhere that that is the theme of the game? I can see how it could fit into that, but personally I’ve never picked up on TF2 being about anything other than cartoon guys shooting each other in ridiculously over-the-top locations that make no sense.
Makes no sense? You mean two giant bases facing each other across a shalllow moat with no way out and no defense built into the buildings themselves (Even common doors) doesn’t make any sense ?
“Here’s a quote for y’all:
“An old Quake 1 mod, Painkeep, had a health item that was a can of baked beans. It gave you a substantial health boost, but it frequently gave away your position with audible cues, and would give you jump boosts…sometimes useful, sometimes annoying. You can guess the mechanics here.
Do you Jarate fans think adding that item would improve TF2? Do you want more of this? Honestly, where do you draw the line? How much is too much?
I’d like to know. “”
The difference is that jarate is funny. That baked beans thing is stupid. I’m not sure how anyone can look at the jarate ads, read the sheer amount of funny stuff in them, and then conclude that the sole reason anyone finds this thing amusing is the fact that it’s throwing piss. If Valve just added an item called “piss jar” that did the exact same thing and just said “Sniper collects his piss in jars and figured out how to throw it! Piss is funny!” I very strongly doubt many jarate fans would find it remotely interesting. Taken within the context of the very funny jarate ads, though, the way those ads tie into the other material out there on the TF2 setting, and given that it’s only one item and not a whole bunch of them turning the entire game into Piss Fortress 2, a lot of us find it pretty funny. If it were just a jar of piss, devoid of context, then I’d find it as stupid as the baked beans in Painkeep. But it’s not.
I’m really just looking at it from an artsy-smartsy perspective. To me, it feels like inserting the empire state building into the background of the Mona Lisa, from a visual standpoint, no matter how well Da Vinci paints it, it still wouldn’t fit.
@Serondal: I’m not complaining about logistics, I’m saying it doesn’t fit stylistically. The bases are there because of society’s blind embrace of technology, the result of a toe to toe fight left out of control. Suddenly, you have a man trading his ultra-modern sniper rifle for a bow and arrow? His lean, mean kukri for a tattered, hand-crafted shield? His submachinegun that shoots bullets for jars of his own urine? It doesn’t make thematic sense.
Here’s a way too put it. Look at this picture: http://liti4.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/tf2_big.jpg
Which class looks out of place in it? I can almost guarantee you that you think that all the classes seem like they belong because of the way they are characterized.
Now imagine that the sniper in that pic does not have a sniper rifle raised to his face but rather a bow and arrow. Who doesn’t belong? The Sniper? Why? Because everyone else is holding fairly modern weaponry while the sniper is wielding a bow and arrow. It doesn’t fit into the established style and comes across as jarring.
@invisiblejesus:
If they had made ads about the baked beans and realeased them as a heavy unluck, would it have been funny?
The comic and the blogpost surrounding the jar of piss aren’t bad, but at its core it is still toilet humor. In the game, it’s not going too be any more funny than teabagging.
I’m all for juvenile humor, loved DN3D and Postal 2 blah blah, and until this moment I’ve though that Valve could do no wrong on that count (all the other unlocks were clever), but Jarate is a bridge too far. It’s just not funny, not witty, and has the general feeling of a joke gone too far, past the point of good humor. Geeky, strained laughter after everyone else is quiet.
Some kind of shark appears to be being jumped over. As a commenter above said, it’s like something a 2 year old or a 4chan user would think up. I hope it’s such a poor weapon in-game that it doesn’t just become a urine-throwing contest.
For the record, baked beans is funnier.
@Dorsch: If they’d made it as funny as jarate, sure. I’m not sure how you’d do that with a can of baked beans, but then again I’d never have thought of most of the stuff in those jarate ads. It’s toilet humor, sure. But it’s really good toilet humor. It’s a far cry from “huh huh, piss is funny, huh huh”. And frankly, when I run into this in game I’m not going to magically forget the ads. I’ll be more likely to be making wisecracks about “jarate chop!” or “I HAVE BEEN SHOWN WHO IS THE BOSS” and having fun with it.
CG says:
“Postal 2 … not funny, not witty, and has the general feeling of a joke gone too far, past the point of good humor … like something a 2 year old or a 4chan user would think up.”
Seriously though, it’s pretty obvious that as with everything in the world, but especially with crude humour, this is entirely subjective: it’s simply funny to some and not funny (and/or offensive etc.) to others. There’s really not much point in trying to make pronouncements on why it flat-out is or isn’t hilarious, or what is wrong with those on the other side of the argument.
It’s quantum humour: simultaneously funny and not funny, collapsing into one state or the other when observed.
Erm bows are pretty high tech now days. http://www.bowhuntingbasics.com/images/Parts_Bow-Compound.gif
So the game about killing Hitler is fine but throwing piss takes it to far.
Dorsch says:
“I wanted to make clear that people who are offended or annoyed have a right to complain in a comments thread.”
And the people who think its funny or just dont care dont have a right to complain in a comment thread about people who dont think its funny?
Yeah, you’re right, MD, your post sums it up. The first 100 comments made it sound like you had to be crazy to not find this funny, so I wanted to make clear that people who are offended or annoyed have a right to complain in a comments thread.
Considering how juvenile and puerile online gaming is in general, the ability to throw Jars of Urine at people is not only appropriate but also satisfying. Even more so that it’s a fully functional combination debuff/status effect remover–fun for friends and enemies alike!
A BowSniper with Jarate just might make good backup on the frontline. I’ll finally have a reason to not hide behind some crates/a hill/the bulk of a ledge.
Dorsch says:
“I wanted to make clear that people who are offended or annoyed have a right to complain in a comments thread.”
I certainly agree with this. Too often in forums and comments threads, people who like the thing that is being discussed seem to think that this makes them somehow superior, and that anyone who disagrees should be written off as a whiner, or a person who takes things too seriously/has no sense of humour, etc. etc.
I’d rather a thousand reasonably-expressed complaints than one post telling those with a negative opinion to “cry some more”, or anything else along those lines.
Keep in mind this was added becaues the fanbase asked for it. There was a joke made on April 1st, and people wanted it. I personally think it’s smirk-worthy, but not laughing-my-ass-off funny.
It’s not the end of the world guys.
Also – the bow fits. The pyro can use a flaregun instead of a huge shotgun. A flare. Gun.
So yes, it works fine for me.
Angry internet men get angry over everything. Leave them be. Personally, I find this hilarious.
ITS OUT! RESTART STEAM!
wooooo downloading time
Just noticed that in the patch notes the new weapons are described as “new x replacement, the y” (”new sniper rifle replacement, The Huntsman”), with no mention of unlockables. Is this normal, or does it signal a change in the method of doling out the new weapons? Someone told me they might be going with random pickups rather than unlocks, has that been confirmed? (I’m secretly hopeful that they are just giving us the weapons straight off, but I doubt it.)
confirmed that they changed it, dont know how to get them yet.
Some sloooooow downloading, here. :(
Yes, they have de-coupled unlocks from achievements!! I can play TF2 again!!
I’m so happy. The jar of pee is just the (yellow) icing on the cake.
Games broken, can’t connect to any servers or do anything.
@MD: Yes sir/madam, I am genuinely baffled by this. Could you please explain this to me?
My analogies were meant to highlight that some people are threatening to stop playing TF2 because of a tiny part of that game. I was actually pulling the old “make a daft analogy which hopefully entertainingly reinforces the point made above it” routine.
When I first heard about some people’s rather extreme reaction to this, I did do the “these people are idiots” thing. You can read my previous posts on it. But then I got to reading the rest of the comments, and I actually thought about the whole thing. Which led to me realising I didn’t understand why people were taking it so personally, so I thought I’d ask. I gave a couple of examples to show what I thought was going on (them analogies you mentioned), and after reading the latest batch of comments, I’m even more confused.
This is purely to anyone who is seriously considering not playing TF2 any more – is virtual piss really that scary / offensive? Can you please explain why? I crave understanding.
Imagine the heavy had a sandwich in that picture. Totally fits.
Interesting to watch the debate develop on this.
For the record, the Jarate thing just isn’t funny to me. It seems to stem from the community which is why Valve have done it – for the fans – so it should be treated as an in-joke more than a measure of Valve finally losing the plot, but for those of us on the outside the central concept is simply devoid of any real humour. A jar of urine? Really? That’s the best they can come up with? It reminds me of the kind of thing you’d find in Viz, a rude, sweary comic school-age boys used to lap up back in the day, which pretty much says it all.
The cartoon is great, and as I’ve said already I think Saxton Hale is a brilliant homage to those old comic ads, but I just don’t find the piss thing funny. At all.
@Wulf – I object strongly to both the content and tone of your amazingly self-righteous rant against the supposed psychological malfunctions you apparently see all around you. Quite apart from being completely unable to accept a conflicting point of view without decrying it as insanity you also seem perfectly comfortable making unfounded accusations against others without a shred of proof (Hang around Digg much?). To answer your specific charge against me: yes, I do childish things. But what’s your point, exactly? Playing a computer game is a childish thing. Reading a comic is a childish thing. Watching cartoons is a childish thing to do. I have done all of these in abundance in recent times. But have I ever thrown urine on anyone? Or laughed whenever I’ve seen it done or depicted? No. Not once in my entire life, child or adult (Whether you choose to believe that assertion or not is entirely up to you).
I believe the central focus of the art direction is more around caricatures, not the bigger picture that was suggested about “arms race out of control”. though I can see why they’d read that, the weapons at least are meant to be more caricature-focused, and always have been.
Hmm. Totally arbitrary collectible objects? Like funny hats, say?