But we haven't had PacMan: Deer Hunter yet!!!!

if you say its terrorists, you can do anything now.

if you feigned with an animation, it would be obvious: it wouldn't look like ragdolling does, and the end product wouldn't look or act like a ragdoll.

blending physics and animation basically means going a full physics route, only applied to extremely complex jointed and muscled objects like humanoids. It's extremely taxing on resources even in the simplest forms. I don't doubt we'll see it before too long increasingly, but for now, these limitations are really shaping what can and cannot be done with characters.

Yeah, ragdolls are a real limitation on making things look good at this point, ironically (since they were supposed to be hot stuff for realism). The problem is that once you ragdoll something, you are done animating it. You can't guarantee that it's going to be in the right position for an animation to look good, make sense, or avoid major major clipping problems. So characters can't die and recover. You're stuck with two worlds: an animated world, and a world of dynamically simulated physics, and they don't mesh very well. There are solutions, but they are pretty drastic at this point.

According to TF's Walker, all the animations in the teaser are in the game in some way or another, except the spy animation, which was stuck in because they don't have a decent disguise effect finished yet.

The medic is a little bizarre though. As someone pointed out on the shack, the guy's not any sort of combat medic: he's like, a real doctor. With an office somewhere and year old magazines and a dumpy secretary. Seems sort of out of place. He looks more like he's going to pull out a tongue depressor than a shotgun.

The trolls are coming, the trolls are coming! I'm a viral marketer now! Next thing you know, I'll be a terrorist marketer!

This is far more like TF originally was than what TF2:Brotherhood of Arms (or whatever it was) was supposed to be. It's clear that they scrapped that project entirely (which is really no big new news: we've all known it was vaporware for years), and there's no sense in crying over it now that that game direction has been done to death. At this point, returning to what made TF so fun is a welcome direction.

It was all rendered in the Source engine. The only questionable things about it are the DoF and motion blur effects. The maps, the models, the animations, etc.: all are "the game" though yeah, not actual gameplay taking place. The Scout running is a good example of how things will look (probably minus the motion blur and maybe the DoF)

Then join the army and go to Iraq. Have fun!

"This just in. Valve toadie exaggerates my critical comments of Valve's games. And, that's something that I actually have seen all before and that has gotten old fast. "

OH THE PATHOS!!! YOU POOR, POOR MAN!

I can't wait until tommorow to hear how disappointed and unimpressed Riley is with Team Fortress 2.

I think you are confusing the 360 announcement with the PC stuff. The 360 version will include Ep2,1, and indeed every single other Valve Source game ever.

Holy moly: this jusst in Riley Pizt is unimpressed and scronful of something Valve did! He's seen it all before, and no doubt this would get old fast!

Yes. Though we don't know for what price yet.

"none of the organic textures and curved surfaces seen in Prey, Quake3 or even the Unreal engine. Now I know this is more of a tech demo but it's still a bit under-whelming."

Personally, I'm getting sort of tired of the "look, you're playing inside a giant alian vagina!" gimick and I don't find it particularly exciting either technology wise or style-wise. The HL2 has its own style that's quite slick and nice. So what?

"A machinegun is a generic weapon, much like knives, plasma guns and rocket launchers. Portals, however, a lot less generic. "

And yet, they've been around since Unreal 1. Did Prey rip it off from them? It's not technology, its how you use it, and Valve has been very adept at none only creating flashy features, but actually employing them into well-thought out gameplay.

I don't think it's a quake-like engine. Looks almost DOOMlike. It's not going to win anyawards for best graphics, but it demonstrates the gameplay elements quite nicely. It really is pretty trippy once you realize all the cool stuff you can do with the concept. Try putting two portals on the floor, jumping into one, and switch to third-person mode: the oscillation action is pretty mind-bending.

"And yet, it looks almost EXACTLY the same."

How many ways are there to render make a hole in the wall with empty space? It doesn't look exactly the same: Preys portals open like aperatures, while this has a sort of "burning a holein reality" effect. I don't know how anyone could make them ore different other than being like Narbacular Drop, in which they were rectangular with a deamon face and a princess with no knees. Somehow, I don't think you'd be any happier if that was the case though.

Look, the idea that they copied Prey is just insane. No one knew that Prey still existed as non-vaporware until recently. This game began development more than a year ago. You really think they developed this entire game for the trailer within a week or so after seeing Prey? That's ridiculous.

This game is based on a game developed in 2004/2005. Valve hired the developers to produce a professional sequel, and this is the result. So, no, it wasn't developed in response to Prey. No one even knew Prey still existed until recently. It was as much vaporware as TF2 has been.

What will it take you appease you, oh great troll lord?