Valve hands a disgusting new weapon to Team Fortress 2 snipers.
In an age where a game launch can involve a website and promises of a game sometime, it has been refreshing to watch Valve get marketing right. It’s truly outdone itself with the surprise double-whammy sniper and spy update for Team Fortress 2. What started out as a normal enough, week-long build-up to a patch ended up turning into the biggest patch yet.
Despite how the weekend’s leak of the spy video ended with the entire staff of Valve being fired, the update is set to launch tomorrow. And the build-up has ended in a spectacular fashion, thanks to an update by the eponymous Australian CEO of Mann Industries, Saxton Hale (it’s an anagram, like Axl Rose). In the update, it is revealed that the final sniper upgrade is the famed Jarate, subject of this year’s Team Fortress 2 April Fools’s joke.
For the uninitiated, Jarate is an ancient Australian martial art. It involves a jar of urine and a throwing action. Perhaps the most disgusting first-person shooter weapon this side of the Postal series, Jarate is a multi-purpose tool in Team Fortress 2.
Jarate is a thrown jar that splashes upon impact. When splashed on enemies, they take 35% more damage for a period of time. Jumping in water will wash off Jarate. Jarate is also able to short out Spies’s cloaking devices. When used on teammates, Jarate will extinguish any fire effects.
A more poignant description of the lasting, haunting effects of being hit with a jar of urine can be found on the update page. There is also a comic strip portraying the origins of Jarate, and a list of achievements. Australians will be proud to see our cultural heritage represented in an achievement honouring Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel, My Brilliant Career. The combined sniper/spy update hits Steam on Thursday, US time, barring any other last minute surprises from Valve.
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