Actual details for the free to play bits can be found at the Team Fortress 2 website FAQ, but a quick rundown: A free TF2 account is any that hasn't purchased something in the Mann Co. Store (hats, unlocks, etc), but you can pick up a multitude fo starter packs for .99 cents, but beware; the steam wallet has a minimum of $5 when you transfer cash in there. People who had a copy of TF2 before the free to play get a free hat called the Proof of Purchase. Speaking of hats; they do nothing for you in game, but people complain because OMG MY GAAAAME. Get over it you big babies.

Good news Everyone! Mac gamers are no longer getting the shaft when it comes to gaming on their Apple of choice. Steam is releasing their digital distribution software for Macs; pretty much the only gaming platform the Mac has seen in years (or maybe ever). Steam for Mac will bring all of the Steamworks tools:copy protection, anti-cheat support, and key-based authentication to Steam community, Steam Cloud, and microtransactions. Will it be enough to convince publishers to convert their games to the Mac OS X platorm?

On the other hand, Valve has a lineup of nearly three dozen games launching with their Steam for Mac software. Valve also plans to release on "subsequent Wednesdays, additional collections of Mac titles will become available, each designed to highlight specific functionalities of Steam on the Mac." The first collection of games will highlight their "Steam Play", meaning games that allow Windows and Mac OS gamers to play together, in harmony. Maybe not in harmony, since most Macs only come with a single button mouse; FURIOUS CLICKING. Good luck with that in Portal Mac gamers.

All of the three dozen games in the Steam for Mac beta are currently available on Windows. Some of the more notable games include LucasArts titles, addicting PopCap games and Telltale's episodic games like Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island. Also listed for the Mac gaming pleasure is Valve's popular Team Fortress 2, even though it wasn't mentioned in their press release. Missing from the Steam for Mac lineup is Valve's very own Half Life and Left 4 Dead series, and other Mac-compatible games listed on Steam.

Source Engine performance on a Mac wasn't quite as good as on Windows in tests using the exact same hardware-thanks to Boot Camp-but comes close nonetheless. Not all Macs are created equal and those with the integrated intel graphics chips are in for a very painful surprise if they try to run any of the games. If you have a Mac mini or plastic MacBook made before the tranistion to the GeForce 9400M, run, don't walk, away from trying to play any Source based games. Otherwise, if you have any desktop/notebook from past 2008? good to go!

While I have no problem with Mac gamers finally getting REAL games (You guys almost had Halo.. it would have made me buy a mac to play it!). It boggles my mind that anybody would buy a Mac for soley gaming; a Mac simply doesn't have the price to performance ratio to make it work. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you want to play video games on a computer, build a sub-$500 gaming rig and be done with it. Now, if you already have a new Mac, what the hell, go enjoy the Steam for Mac client and come play some TF2!

Edit: Here is a list of games currently available for Mac:
Atlantis Sky Patrol
Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
Bob Came in Pieces
Bookworm Deluxe
Braid
Brainpipe
Chocolatier: Decadence by Design
Chuzzle Deluxe
City of Heroes: Architect Edition
Civilization IV: The Complete Edition
Cooking Dash
Diaper Dash
The Dig
Diner Dash: Hometown Hero
DinerTown Detective Agency
DinerTown Tycoon
Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child
Escape Rosecliff Island
Fairway Solitaire
Fitness Dash
Football Manager 10
Galcon Fusion
Gemini Lost
Guns of Icarus
Hotel Dash Suite Success
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
KrissX
Loom
Luxor
Luxor 3
Luxor: Mahjong
Machinarium
Mahjong Roadshow
Max and the Magic Marker
My Tribe
The Nightshift Code
Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye
Parking Dash
Peggle Deluxe
Peggle Nights
Portal
Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery
Quantz
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Tales of Monkey Island Season 1
Toki Tori
Torchlight
Trijinx: A Kristine Kross Mystery
Unwell Mel
Valarie Porter and the Scarlett Scandal
Wandering Willows
Wedding Dash 2: Rings Around the World
World of Goo
Zenerchi
Zuma Deluxe

It seems that Valve has changed the way you earn the new Team Fortress 2 unlocks. It used to be that after earning certain achievements, you would get that shiny new TF2 Unlock. Well, that way of getting unlocks was vulnerable to "cheesing" by the Steam Unlocker and people going to the achievement servers.

So Valve decided to change things so that the new TF2 unlock process would be entirely random. This way would drop the new unlocks and the old ones as well. Plus you wouldn't have to play as whatever class that had the new udates; you can play ANY class and randomly "find" new unlocks.

It was a great idea on paper, but it seems something was wrong on their end. So drop rates for the new TF2 unlocks are absurdly low/messed up. It was supposed to prioritize the new ones over old, but after a good ten hours of playing this weekend, I (and many others) have ended up with few new TF2 unlocks and a TON of old ones. YAY, I have seven sandviches; I was getting mighty hungry.

Valve's Blog has this to say about the drop frequency of the new Team Fortress 2 Unlocks:

When we were tuning this system we first looked at the average amount of time that players spend playing TF2 daily. From there, we set the goal of most players having around 20 items in their inventory after a couple of weeks of play. If you're someone who plays a lot of TF2, you're going to get items a lot faster than that. In the first few hours after the release yesterday, we had some issues that prevented the system from working properly, so that timeframe was not indicative of the system as it's designed.

So what if you don't want to wait that long to get your fancy new unlocks in Team Fortress 2? You could either join an achievement_idle server, make your own! Just make sure to grab the map first and then idle when you are away from your computer and try to get the new unlocks. This isn't the ideal method, but I am tired of getting dupes and nothing new. Let's hope Valve fixes the drop rate on the new TF2 unlocks.

Just run a local server. Create a file called script.cfg (or something) in your cfg folder, and then open the console and type "exec script.cfg".

hostname "AGamingMoose is hosting a game locally"
sv_pure 1
sv_lan 0
sv_password "password"
maxplayers 24
changelevel achievement_idle
mp_teams_unbalance_limit 0
mp_autoteambalance 0
mp_idledealmethod 0
mp_idlemaxtime 0
mp_disable_respawn_times 1
sv_voiceenable 0

While you wait, check out the Meet the Spy video which was "leaked" early. I'm looking to see the new pistol for the spy and the jarate for the sniper. Everybody will be playing both of those classes... so time to bring out the Pyro and BURN THEM ALL.

The update also brings new unlocks for the heavy. So far it is the K.G.B (or Killing Gloves of Boxing) and Natascha (level 5 minigun). I was hoping for a completely different gun for the heavy, but Natascha will have it's uses (slows down the enemy for an instant, but does 25% less damage than Sasha). The KGB gloves are going to be a must have. Any time a Heavy kills an enemy with the K.G.B he receives five seconds of guaranteed critical hits. This crit-boost can be used to punch and kill further enemies, extending the boost time.

This update also brings a new PL map, Badwater Basin. Unlike pl_goldrush, which is three stages, Badwater Basin will be one stage and will offer the Blu team a better chance of completing the stage. When valve released their stats about which side wins more on a particular map, it seemed that the red team (defenders) usually (about 70% of the time) were successful in defending goldrush.

For more info on the heavy update, here is a link to Valve's site.

It is going to be awesome to play this update, because I love being a heavy (and love playing medic). Hopefully it wont be like the pyro update (where half the team would be pyros and nothing would get done).

As soon as that update goes live, I will update my TF2 server and hopefully get some play time in! You can find the info for my Team Fortress 2 server right here.

Edit: I bring to you! The SANDVICH

Mainly it is used for the local game center; they were always complaining that it was very difficult to find a server for them to all play on. The server itself sits on a 50/50 mb fiber line (in South Dakota none the less).

So go ahead and come play!