While we're waiting for the real Spy updates and unlockables (and not fakes which momentarily fooled even Valve) OMFGNinja.com has gone and created an amazingly deep three-part advanced tutorial on how to play the Spy. It is mesmerizing, and showcases how any character in this game, with enough skill and planning, can become downright unstoppable. The leaping backstabs in part one, above, are jaw-dropping. The other two videos are at OMFGNinja, so follow the link and give them some credit. Youtube resolution sucks, but you get the idea of what the character class can do.

Advanced Spy Tutorial [OMFGNinja]

Swear, I don't have a sentry gun fetish. Although it would be cool to meet a girl who did (I don't judge). Last week we churned up a video of a guy who developed a paintball sentry, and now reader Mohammed I. passes along a less functional, but no less impressive version: A Lego Sentry. Props to the builder, and especially for the game-screen render around it. Seriously, new desktop pic. It's a work of art and should stand for all time. Until some bastard-arse Spy whips up a Lego sapper.

Team Fortress 2 Sentry [Lair of the Legomancer, via Shift Gamer, thanks reader Mohammed]

Reader Paul from Australia sends in this pic (and two others) of his homebrewed homage to Pyro from Team Fortress 2. Naturally, because this is how my mind works, I thought "well if Pyro is a female character, this dude is running around in girls' clothes". I kid! I keeeed! The mask is right on, but the suit's not the same texture as Pyro's rubberised get-up, which in addition to being expensive would also look like fetish gear. What. What?!

No really, I think I have a strange form of Tourette's, that causes me to blurt out wildly inappropriate, if not profane, things. Fahey and Leigh can attest to that. So can my girlfriend from my senior year of high school. We saw "Ghost" on a date and, while she was crying during the scene where Patrick Swayze possesses the mystic's body so he can hold his wife one last time, I leaned in close to whisper, "You know, what's really going on here, is Demi Moore is actually dancing with and kissing Whoopi Goldberg". And I wondered why I was a teenage virgin.

Wow, that was a digression. Hit the jump for the images.

Paul also advises that it's available for sale if you want to buy it. You can e-mail him, just be sure to remove the ATs and DOTs.

No, he didn't assemble it by whacking a large wrench against a pile of parts either. But this guy is a serious engineer, cooking up an auto-fire paintball sentry gun. And although this isn't necessarily gameplay footage, you can watch as some poor test subject wearing a BMX helmet gets pounded in several tests. So I'm gonna say its germane because, shit, it's Sunday, and sentries are a treasured friend/loathsome foe in Team Fortress 2, Perfect Dark, and other games. And this is PC gaming, if getting shot to shit by a PC is a game.

Note that this weapon is not being fired by remote control. It's recognising moving objects and firing on them automatically. The distraction test is a pretty good measure of its abilities.

Of course, having the laptop that operates it right next to it probably would not do well in a real firefight. Maybe it'd be a good burglar-blaster, but then, forget your keys, step in the door, and you're taking a paintbath in the living room.

Latest Video [paintballsentry.com]

The last Team Fortress 2 themed PC case mod we featured, one built to look like the Engineer's sentry gun, was as ludicrous as it was impressive. Hardware modder extraordinaire Ton "TiTON" Khodee has done it again, slipping the guts of a highly capable PC into a case that apes the Engie's dispenser. It's adorable.

Sure, having this kind of stuff sitting around your house might frighten the majority of visitors, but with the mounds of internet glory that await its creator, being shunned by your peers is a small price to pay. Bit-Tech has an extensive walk-through on the dispenser's creation, something we definitely recommend giving some eyeball time.

Team Fortress 2 Dispenser Mod [Bit-Tech]

And so the rumours of a possible Scout class upgrade coming up next dissolve in a hail of mini-gun bullets as the newly-created Official Team Fortress 2 Blog discusses upcoming changes to the Heavy, every Medic's best friend. In designer Robin Walker's highly informative post he explores the process behind updating a Team Fortress 2 class in great detail, starting with the overall goal of making the Heavy more viable as a standalone, non-Medicated class.

From there he explores the process of achieving that goal, including constraints (will the changes overpower the Heavy/Medic team?), entertainment value (will the new tools be interesting?), and weighing the changes against the basic skillset of a successful Heavy. It's an intriguing look into the process behind making Team Fortress 2 a better game, and a great read overall.

A Heavy Problem [TF2 Official Blog - Thanks Overcow!]

Over on Valve's official TF2 blog are the fronts and backs to two trading cards built for promotional uses but never used. Valve promises more updates as time goes on, so all you get now are Engineer and Demoman. They're filled with fun facts. Engie's bio says he has "11 hard science PhDs". Jesus. I can only think of, like, four off the top of my head. And Demoman lost his parents thanks to "a terrible plan to kill the Loch Ness Monster".

Doesn't Scout carry a bat? Seems he'd be obvious for the first batch. Hi res cards after the jump, or you can go get 'em from TeamFortress.com directly.

Spot on and speaks for itself. I really can't disagree with a one of these. Plus it's nice to see Heavy as something other than the butt of a joke. He has feelings, too.

Full size version is at the link.

TF2 - D&D Alignment Chart [Halolz]

Anthropology isn't my thing, but I like the idea of a "game anthropologist"; the column at GameSetWatch with that exact title is young yet, but had an interesting look at Team Fortress 2 this week. What exactly makes the environment seem so much more mature than other FPS? The older user base? The official taunts and animations that render inelegant cursing obsolete? Because team playing really is built into the game? Mike Walbridge isn't exactly sure, but has some ideas:

"The server I found myself on was an odd, unsettling place", writes Alec Meer, exploring Team Fortress 2's "Achievement Servers" for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. "The tiny, custom map placed the red and blue spawn points right next to each other, removed the wait period between respawns, dropped a single capture point in the middle and placed intelligence briefcases at either end. A small pool of water was placed awkwardly in a corner, and health packs scattered in bizarre columns. No-one could ever win this map - it was set up to repeat forever".