It’s been Christmas for every class: new toys, too many people trying to play with them, and lots of stupid arguments! With everybody upgraded - and more items on the way - it’s time for the first annual Lowping Worst Unlock Awards! The Awards look like Golden Wrenches, because if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that people on TF2 servers whine about golden items more than King Midas after using a urinal.

A palette swap hasn’t caused so much pain since Mortal Kombat

You’d look smug too if you’d just become immune to your primary predator

Never has an unlock better suited the skills of the class: targeting one vital component and destroying it! The Sniper gets to “sacrifice” his mid-range weapon to concentrate on sniping, which is like an NRA member “sacrificing” his PETA membership to focus on his gun collection.

The heart of good game design is that the player should always know what to do, and the answer should never be nothing: A spy standing on the 2Fort enemy observation deck shouldn’t be left staring at three Sniper spines, standing in a row like an organic knife-rack, knowing that doing what his class is for won’t work and will get him killed.

Killing spies is one of the greatest pleasures of TF2, and avoiding that is the spy’s greatest skill. The Dead Ringer is the opposite of both pleasure and skill: becoming completely invisible and immune to 90% of incoming damage is more superpower than equipment, allowing spies to survive fully-charged sniper headshots, backstabs, sustained minigun fire, and there is nothing - nothing - anyone but a Pyro can do about it. If that sounds like a balanced item, well done on the bizarre education which taught you every word in the English language except ‘balanced’!

Anything which makes this annoying instead of satisfying is removing joy from the world

Your “Immune to everything but fire” time limit, aka the “Game Balance Memorial Watch”

It’s a spectacular flaw, like playing hide and seek with hand-grenades - even when you do the right thing and find them it’s nothing but pain.

We all know and love Combat Medics, and for this sentence “love” is to the emotion what a “Combat Medic” is to a real medic - the exact opposite, horribly annoying, and so much hate you’re stabbing things with knives.

The Übersaw is the ultimate in negative reinforcement. The best way to get ubercharge is back off, stay alive, and keep healing people. Aka “BE A MEDIC.” Anything which enables “run around with a knife in an environment full of rocket launchers” instead is dumber than a second spy on defense.

We already know games are better than horror movies: they involve you, they provide genuine surprises, and instead of shouting “Don’t go down the dark corridor alone asshole!” you get to be the asshole.  Which is apparently better.  Where Left 4 Dead simulates “Ragtag survivors versus hordes of undead,” cunningly converting the fact there’s always an idiot on your team into a cinematically-accurate fact, The Hidden is “Heavily armed SWAT team taking down a single mutant ohGOD HOW IS HE KILLING US ALL HGHRHRRLLLLL.”

The titular “Hidden” is a half-invisible hybrid of Hunter, Predator, Gravity Gun, knife-wielding lunatic and just for fun he’s got grenades.  It’s fantastic.

It doesn’t always work out for them

The First thing you learn in IRIS is to look up

Can you see that faint blue trace on the right? Because they can’t.

Last year Microsoft made exciting noises about the ultimate PC vs Xbox battle.  This sounded great, and not just because it would give the idiotic Live For Windows platform a reason to exist (”So I have to run another layer of Microsoft over my Microsoft operating system so that my system can operate this Microsoft game?“)  The software had more layers a stack of metaphysical pancakes, but the chance to play Xbox-owning friends would have made it worthwhile.  But then the whole project was quietly killed.

Because the PC players loudly murdered the console gamers.

This is actually the first time anyone’s played conkers since videogames were invented

The Xbox has an excellent controller for arcade games, a good controller for third person movement, a decent controller for racing, a terrible controller for fighting games and a downright atrocious skill-amputator for First Person Shooters.  Everyone knows this, especially the programmers, which is why so many Xbox games come with lock-on.  Shooting with a thumbstick is like performing heart surgery on a unicycle - you can certainly learn to get good at this ridiculous skill, if you don’t mind a lot of deaths, but there’s absolutely no advantage.

Even mediocre PC players were able to crush the console masters, in the same way a decent college team could destroy the Saints if you amputated the experts’ hands.  Sure, some of the more spectacularly sporty Saints could learn to catch the ball between their stumps or maybe hold it in their mouth, but you just can’t compete with someone who’s able to spin 180 instantly instead of over the course of three seconds.

An Xbox player turns like a tired tank and all their games have changed to account for that: the average Gear of War can absorb more incoming fire than an artillery testing range to give him time to at least see his attacker.  Even expert players - pouncing from cover and flanking like pros - turn into a spastic shotgun-flailing competition when enemies get within three meters of each other.  The thumbstick does its best to compensate (allowing adjustable sensitivity and scaling the response as you bend the stick) but it’s like programming a supercomputer to translate dog barks back into English so they can work customer service - no matter how much you tweak the software, it won’t work because that’s not what it does.

There are mountain ranges which can take less damage.  And act better.  And honestly?   Better looking.

A mouse doesn’t turn like a construction crane - you can instantly aim at any point on the screen, enabling far faster responses, actual accuracy (a concept rendered almost unnecessary by Halo’s shields and Battle Rifles), and murderously fast games like Counter Strike and the original Modern Warfare.

Unfortunately, the Xbox is winning.  You can see the coding for consoles creeping through into cross-platform releases.  Horrifically underrated score-attack gun-racer The Club features mouse response more sensitive than a screaming Jerry Springer guest with covered in salt instead of skin, and an “instant turn” button.  That’s not for cool kills: it’s because turning with a thumbstick doesn’t just give enemies time to shoot you in the spine, but to romance it into running away with them.  And Mass Effect 2, where you have to turn the mouse response down to “novocaine” levels to stop spinning like a tazmanian devil on a gyroscope.

Despite its own controls this game was a ludicrous amount of fun

That these adaptations are inflicted on mouse-users is horrifying.  It’s like carving the wings off a Golden Eagle to better fit a kit to its back.

Even our ancient records remember this problem.  In the mists of time, Doom and Quake masters remember the ancient idiots of the “keyboard players,” lumbering targets doomed providing free points to anyone who bothered to fire at them.

So PC vs Xbox isn’t going to happen again - this embarrassing experiment in annihilation escaped into the wild only once.  Luckily it was Shadowrun, so no-one played it.

Let us never speak of this again.

The problem with most steampunk is how it’s laboriously constructed, rather fragile, doesn’t actually do anything and the makers get really annoyed when you blow it up.  But Default Games are far better than other nerds, building an entire Unreal Tournament world with the express intention of blowing boilers to pieces.

Steam Racers is a free mod which teleports the whole world of UT3 to Opposite Land.  Unreal characters are the manliest looking characters in gaming, even the women.  Especially the women, who can most kindly be described as “lumpy men” and least kindly as “mobile shiny beef piles”.

The face of Unreal femininity and/or the horrors of hormone therapy.

They’re ancestors of the Gears of War characters, who look half-gorilla as it is, except UT3 characters think even cover is for pansies.

You mean you hid behind things? So where’s your frilly little dress, fruitcake?

But the world of Steam Racers is simply spiffing.  Well-dressed gents battling it out in a sportsmanlike - if still extremely explosive - manner with the idea that the best man may win.  Where “best” is conveniently defined as “He who beats his rivals to the finish line, or into exploded pieces, taste permitting.”

This may be the best death screen ever

The designers understand the true joy of nerve-wracking racing, where everyone should be able to blow up your vehicle - especially you!  The core mechanic is boiler temperature, with unlimited weaponry and boosters constantly heating your engine towards explosion.  Temperature can be dropped by slacking off or aiming for one a cooling tower, creating exciting all-or-nothing charges at the enemy with accurate steering the difference sweet victory and ignominious, if still pretty sweet, steam explosion.

(Fans of blowing yourself to pieces to go faster should also check out D.I.P.R.I.P., a Mad Max-style HL2 mod with even more weapons but a regrettable absence of heated-water-power.)

I appear to be on fire!  My options are now “Hit that cooling waterfall” or “Explode.”

You have to emerge on foot to pick up mines, take charge of emplaced turrets, repair your vehicle with the Impact Hammer or just find a new (non-detonated) steam engine.

Wood-effect paneling, comfy seat, gramophone music, and twin machine guns.  Comfort!

Four modes emphasize the different styles of play, with the usual “Anything goes”, “Racing” and “Combat”, but the most interesting is “Baron Of The Tank” - a Terminator-style mode where there’s one fully upgraded Scotch Boiler (the Steam Racing equivalent of “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough) and all the other players must take it down with unarmed vehicles, hand weapons, and as stiff upper lip.

The Monowheel - you either want to drive one of these or don’t get it

The mod is free to download and can easily be applied to any UT3 server.  Alas, there are very few public servers, but it’s a perfect alternative for any established Unreal Tournament clan who want to lighten things up for a session.

Pip pip!

Updates to Team Fortress 2 are like visiting the dentist with a toothache - soon things will be so much better, but right this second they suck and hurt. I’m especially affected by the Engineer update, which arms my favorite class with even more awesomeness but making it utterly impossible to play for at least a fortnight. Because it isn’t TF2 anymore, it’s

Every update triggered a tidal wave of the title class - from the Scottish hordes to the Super Scout Squads, but all the others established an ecology. When the Medic Update dropped, Spies had a simply splendid time

The doctor will see you now AND SHOVE A KNIFE IN YOUR BACK!

but by the Heavy update those same Spies were hunted by Pyros

A food chain

Each update established an entire food chain, and while there were still far too many of one class to even say anything rhyming with “balanced play,” it was still fun - it was almost a Mutation (like Left 4 Dead 2), and at least everyone learned about the new weapons at the same time.

But the Engineer update isn’t like that. It’s like a locker room full of straight men all trying to get laid - the more of them there are, the less they can get what they want even if the chance appears. Most of the Engineer’s arsenal is locked behind actual defensive achievements - and you can’t earn those when the opposing team is also doing more engineering than Scotty, LaForge and Torres put together.

Worse, there was about as much chance of establishing an ecology as there is on the surface of the Sun. Engineers stack like LEGO blocks, and against an army of them there’s nothing a Spy or Demo can do - sapping a point with five Engies is like throwing a snowball at a Pyro convention.

The only hope is to assemble an entire team of Medic/Heavy-or-Demo combos and attacking at the same time, and on a public server there’s as much chance of that as of getting the complete works of Shakespeare out of three monkeys with a crayon. It’s just not fun, which is why private servers - or simply stopping playing for a while - are the only options.

Two teams of Engies are about as entertaining as an Eyeball Gouging Competition where you’re the battlefield. Attacking Engies are ordinarily a Highlander factor - there can only be one, and even then only if he’s very good - but now we’re seeing armies of BLU building irrelevant, outdated equipment in the hope of being rewarded. Especially 2Fort - if you’d said it could become even more deadlocked last week you’d have been laughed at, but now it’s a staler mate than a tie on a bread-based chess board.

No, YOU come over HERE!

The words are ashes in our mouths, but this may be the first time in history achievement servers are justified. Sure, they may be antijoy factories turning games into unpaid labor, but at least it’ll transport all these neverwannabe Engies to the hell they deserve.

And I can get back to kicking ass with a Wrench.

The latest advertisement for the hottest game hits gametrailers, you hear about it on one of the dozen identical regurgitation sites on your feed list, load it up, click “Of course in HD you idiot machine” and immediately start drooling over something you can’t quite have instead of the dozen things you do.  I’m guilty a dozen times over, and only recently have I asked “What on Earth am I doing?”  Also: “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Gaming cosplay articles are where substandard gaming bloggers show how much they wish they worked on Maxim (For Men), or Poorly Constructed Sexual Metaphors By People Who’ve Never Been Involved In The Process (For Virgins). For every awesomely engineered Big Daddy there are ten thousand shots of Cammy’s ass described in terms which would make a horny chef blush, and every single one seems to think they’re the first to think of saying how they’d like to “Cannon Drill” it.

That’s why we’re looking at five fan-made efforts with nary a sex organ in sight. Which means we’re not only alone among cosplay collections, but may be unique among websites.

1. Amazing TF2

Ryan Crasmussen and Grep Peltz utterly utterly destroy Hollywood in a single shot, and despite holding a rocket launcher that refers to a camera. Movies can’t make game characters look good despite access to millions of dollars and Milla Jovovich (who can make orange plastic dungarees look amazing). Ryan and Grep managed it in their spare time.

You didn’t/won’t look this good on your wedding day.

The most important is the incredible photography work of Alex Tkatcheva: unlike everyone else on the internet, it’s nice to see some people understand there’s a reason professionals don’t use blurmatic cameraphones to share sights with the world..

This may be the first time in history anyone has happily exclaimed “Look at those grenades!”

2. Really Left 4 Dead

If these guys looked any realer I’d start headshotting hoodies on sight

Seattelite cinephiles, as well as sounding like they watch movies in space, are part of the mix making zombie production Night Zero. It’s as photorealistic as a comic can be because it’s actually real photos, shot on location (and more professionally than you’ve ever done anything) before being touched up for final release. The sign of a real creators, however, is how they don’t hide from other incredible products in the same field - they engage with them.

She’s now the obsessive fantasy of at least one person. Welcome to the internet.

They turned their talents to Left 4 Dead, recreating the ultimate zombie killing game in gritty detail and releasing the shots just to prove how good they are. That’s how you make it online, and now far more people know about Night Zero - and think it’s cooler - than if they’d whined about doing it first or “better”.

I’ve never put this much effort into Left 4 Dead and killing zombies is my job.

3. Counter-Strike

This may be the greatest cosplay of all time.

Sure, anyone can collect the necessary clothes, spend ninety-nine cents on the fakest gun since you drew one on Etch-a-Sketch*, and hunch around a convention like “Keyboard-based Spine Deformation” and “Dodging bullets” were the same thing, but this man has the true spirit. He genuinely looks like he wants to kill you. That’s a simmering cauldron of repression, rage, and hastily assembled equipment intended for just one function. He couldn’t me more of a Counter-Strike terrorist if his elbows were pointed.

You must suppress every junior high urge to not give him back his orange-tagged backpack.

*Escher-style angled clip projecting out to one side extra!

4. The Heavy

At conventions TF2 cosplay isn’t just popular, it’s practically a nationality (just count the number of scouts vs the number of Ghanans at any event). Something about the slick cartoon style just lends itself to awesome group shots, but none have ever beaten this:

And just this once, we’ll admit to staring open mouthed at that beautiful girl: Sascha. If you were looking at anything but the minigun, there’s something wrong with you. Props are where most TF2 attempts fall flat (RED or BLU clothes aren’t that hard to find), but one is so un-flat it’s a fizzy Mt Everest. The reast of the Heavy costume is also excellent, is appallingly good, but if she’d turned up in a business suit and a judge’s wig Natascha alone would still have made it work.

BONUS: From the same photoset by frzdragon, more backstabbing than Judas Iscariot in a Tom Clancy novel.

5. GoldenEye

Transcending mere costumes is College Humor, who truly capture the spirit of GoldenEye - one of the most important games in FPS history. The N64’s incredible Bond game kicked the entire concept of shooting people in the ass (the manliest sentence you’ll read today) and showed that controllers could be tolerated in a good enough game long before Halo. They don’t just dress the part, they don’t just play the characters, they truly capture everything about the game in two minutes.

There are two types of gamers in the world: those who know Valve are the best, and those who haven’t played Portal (also known as “fools”). Obviously we’re enjoying Team Fortress 2, excited about the upgraded Counter-Strike, and looking forward to Episode 3 (and its inevitable inclusion of a Portal gun), but which other games should be given to Valve?

5. Final Fantasy

Square Enix have defined what it means to be a JRPG, selling almost a hundred million units, but that definition is seriously skewed. They’ve perfected the apparently important fields of androgyny, pointless minigames, and playing dress-up with electronic Barbies, but they’re worse writers than Stephanie Meyer after headbutting Dan Brown. Which is odd, because:

- If you want us to Play a Role in a Game, ideally you would make the characters engaging/not retarded

- Every Final Fantasy game contains more text than a special edition of War and Peace with an insurance warranty.

The only place a row of dots have in videogaming is Pac-Man’s maze.

Just imagine: a Final Fantasy game where the text was entertaining and relevant, where the cut-scenes were as good as “Meet The Spy“, and where equipping a hat could actually made your character better at things!

+2 to resist fire, -1 to mmhhmm-hmm

4. Starcraft: Ghost

If you haven’t heard of Ghost, you aren’t Korean or someone who really cares about FPSes.

Claiming to like cool games but not knowing about this armor is a blatant contradiction.

It was to be a third-person shooter set in the StarCraft universe, which has absorbed more man-hours and energy than most of the real actual universe. It’s also more delayed than “Christ 2: The Return.” First announced in 2002, it’s been through around more development companies and release dates than most videogame journalists, and is currently listed as “cancelled” by anyone even pretending to pay attention to reality.

So give it to Valve! They’re rather good at this whole shooter thing, they’re great at giving female characters actual character instead of skintight lycra, and with them the eight-year delay will look normal!

Ghost is currently suffering a fate worse than death: a book-of-the-not-even-game

3. Kid Icarus

We don’t care who makes it now as long as somebody does.  And since Nintendo seem to be really really busy with, er, both of the other massively popular franchises they still actually develop, why not let Valve have a crack?

Give him a double-jump, tell him to kill vegetables and we’re golden.

2. Modern Warfare

Did you know that Valve release multi-million selling award-winning games, and then

- People can actually play those games online, and it works?

- Valve don’t publicly cheat and fire people responsible for making the games?

- The rest of their staff don’t then jump ship like freed slaves?

- Valve’s games only feature the standard number of online cheating scumbags, not a scumbag wrath as unto Moses unleashing an electronic plague of hackers on some kind of online gaming Pharaoh?

- They release new levels for free, instead of charging $15 for levels (including levels you already paid for in previous games)?

Because Activision don’t! And they (used to employ the people who) make amazing games like Modern Warfare!

1. Every EA Sports Game

The X-chromosome seems to screw up computer games by sheer proximity, and we’re not talking about mutant Magnetos electrocuting the hardware. One’s fine, but two together destroy characterization, removes focus on gameplay, and seems to evaporate all clothing beyond the g-string grade. A while back we saw the five worst attempts at forcing girls into games, and it’s evidence enough to convince an alien court to vaporize every testicle on the planet.

This week we’re looking at the opposite: excellent additions which understand that maybe it’s possible for females to wear things which cover their midriffs, or even function like real clothes instead of sparkly wrapping for a T&A buffet!

1. The TF2 Medic

Frau Doctor is fantastic, a model which really recognises the unique style of TF2’s eternally-in-demand übermensch.

The Doctor will see you now. And she doesn’t like it.

The only problem is that since she’s doesn’t seem to be displaying any sex organs in plain sight, many modelers might have difficulty recognising her as a female. “It has a higher-pitched voice but nothing jiggles!” they wail, before going back to drawing nude Cheetarahs. It’s worth noting that such scribbles have a tendency to suck…

“I couldn’t fit the other set of stripper models in the screen shots” - actual description of a custom Specialists skin

…while this fully clothed character was created as part of a Masters thesis. Just in case the inverse intelligence/want-to-shoot-at-exposed-breasts relationship wasn’t clear enough.

2. Unreal Samus Aran

You want a strong female character? How about an armored warrior holding a giant gun WITH ANOTHER GIANT GUN?

Her right hand is holding more weapon than the Hulk scratching himself

A custom skin for Unreal Tournament 3, and possibly the coolest thing in it. As well as standard levels of Retro-Joy, the distinctive color scheme is a seriously welcome relief from the spectrum of “Brown, Grey, Blood Red and Bits of Black” dominating almost every modern shooter. And while she can’t convert into her morph ball here, neither has she been “upgraded” by people who grew up fantasizing over her first games into a skintight lycra showgirl. Unlike actual Nintendo games, unfortunately.

3. CS Female Urban

Another excellent example of clothing restraint is Counter-Strike’s female urban counter-terrorist, thought that could just as easily be technical limitations. Running on the original Half Life engine, any attempt to render breasts would have given her two extra bladed weapons, as well as the ability to cut parallel lines in glass by pressing against it.

We’re one white fill effect and an i away from an Apple advertisement.

4. Joanna Dark

If you’re unclear on why the Carrington Institute would enter their agents in an Unreal Tournament, it was part of a brave attempt to update UT with a Perfect Dark mod. Which would easily have been one of the best things ever. It was abandoned, but the skins were saved and are available for download.

In their defense, none of them look happy about this.

Unfortunately it’s more an anatomy lesson in Epic’s inability to draw character models thinner than an oil barrel. Samus survived above because she wears a full suit of armor, but poor Joanna ends up looking like a human/giraffe hybrid who got stuck on a taffy-puller before battle commenced. But it’s still one of the best mods ever, because honestly, anything involving Joanna Dark that doesn’t end in “zero” is one of the best things ever.

5. Have a little Faith, pal!

Possibly the best cross-dressing crossover in videogaming history, the TF2 scout gets a fashion update from gaming’s greatest freerunner.

Man, if you thought sad people complained about her chest size before (and they did)

We admit it’s a tiny bit horrifying but it’s half-way to something spectacular: someone sorting out a full Faith conversion for the Scout model. Unfortunately we might be waiting a while, as most modelers are still too busy regressing the last ten years of character development by putting the Pyro in a bikini.

Wrongness on more levels than Dante’s Inferno

An even better, if less playable, rendition of the runner is in Half Life - where we finally explain exactly how a headcrab zombie can be so fast. After all, the resonance cascade opened up portals across reality - all we would need is one in New Eden. And for a headcrab to hang around a red drainpipe for a while.

Sniper rifles start a lot of arguments online (the exact opposite of their real world function).  The ultimate expression of what guns are meant to do - kill someone else from so far away that the word “fair” would need a satellite to see it - they’re a worse balance problem than a one-legged camel.  If they’re realistic everyone hides in corners screeching at each other to stop camping, if they’re weak there’s no problem.  Or point.

Ah’ll nevah rule the universe with you, ya overpowahed wankah!

We’re rating five sniper rifles on Effectiveness and Fun, just one more of the millions of things that are okay in videogames but would be terrifying in real life.

5.  Unreal Tournament

Sniper rifles on UT3 servers are fun, but the problem is obvious:

Three engine blocks and a drinking straw.

They fit about as well as a square peg in a duck’s hole.  UT3 player models look like American footballers wrapped in sacks of sausage meat (Epic Games went on to make the beef-tanks of Gears of War) and in the massive meaty paws of these Hulk-a-likes, the sniper rifle looks like the world’s most lethal toothpick.  And if anyone gets close it’s about as effective.  Even when you’re successfully sniping, you feel that the game’s calling you a pussy.

This guy’s using the transmission from a Dodge Viper as a weapon.  He thinks a sniper rifle is a tool for gynaecologists.

Effectiveness: It’s like bringing a javelin to a touch football match - it’ll definitely murder people but it’s not really playing the game properly (and when the others get close they are going to kill you.)

Fun: As much fun as playing Double Dragon in a Harem - great game, but you’re not exactly in the spirit of things.

4.  Left 4 Dead

The closest thing to sports sniping on the list, with hordes of milling undead offering excellent headshotting opportunities at all times.  It’s just a pity that you’ll be simultaneously boom-smoker-hunt-charge-jockeyed if you take more than two, with your so-called “team-mates” half a level away complaining about the idiot actually standing still on a Left 4 Dead server.

Left 4 Dead 2 upped the anti with a rapid firing military model, but it still can’t cut the mustard when the horde descends.

Effectiveness: Is it a shotgun?  Can it beep or set things on fire?  If you answered “no” to both of these, don’t bother picking it up in Left 4 Dead.

Fun: We did just mention the shotgun.  If you find a weapon more fun than the shotgun, well done on using the guitar during the Midnight Riders finale.  If you find a weapon more fun than that, well done on having such an excellent dream.

One of the best multiplayer shooters ever made (including its own terminally hacked sequel), CoD4 servers couldn’t do a better job of sniping without killing JFK.  They’re only one option among many, you can customize perks to enhance your “death from afar” vibe (though this does often mean choosing Claymores, the Dark Side of online explosives), and you’ve even got a shot if they get close.  Up to seven if you’re quick with the pistol. And, the mark of a truly good sniper game, if you forget to check your back you’ll find fourteen knives in it.

It even gives you a Ghillie suit.  PS That mound by the car can kill people.

Effectiveness: Perfect.  The Special Forces call doorways “coffins” and if you can find a safe spot to snipe one you’ll enjoy why.  The natural breathing shake and limited hold-breath window balance the lethality with skill.

Fun: Full “it would really worry anyone who overheard you talking about how much fun it was to drop people with the twitch of a trigger” joy.  You really do have to search for targets in the detailed environments, and you only have a split-second to snipe them, and you will enjoy every single one with psychologist-terrifying intensity.

2.  Team Fortress 2

It’s challenging work.

It’s hard to stress the sniping aspect of your game more than creating a guy called “Sniper,” handing him a sniper rifle, then telling him to snipe things for a snipe snipe.  It helps that TF2 servers are better balanced than twin Zen masters floating over either end of a seesaw - facestab-whiners aside, Valve is a team of amazingly award-winning professionals and they’ve spent the last three years working on Team Fortress.  The result is that it’s better tuned than the London Philharmonic.

Effectiveness: Exponentially decaying.  A single sharp sniper is essential for a team of eight or more, dropping Heavies and forcing Medics to deploy their übercharges early.  Unfortunately you’ll have a minimum of three and at least two will suck harder than a gay black hole.  Your team will have all the offensive weight of a half-full pillow, and enemy Spies will stroll across to enjoy a backstabbing party.

Fun: Maximum.  The Ozzie Assassin is excellently balanced, with cunning coding preventing rapid fire or noscope shots - you need to scope to charge up your hit, so you can kill anything at a distance (just like a sniper should), but  all the while your back is a big “Stabby-knife-goes-HERE” sign.

1.  Counter-Strike

Of course it’s the AWP.  Doctor Doom could fire a scoped superstring projector which detonates eleven Earths in parallel dimensions, and the Arctic Warfare Police rifle will still have killed more people. With less chance of them seeing it coming.  Unfortunately, the best weapon in the world won’t work with an idiot user, leading to a few CS server problems.

Effectiveness: The AWP is more effective than actually shooting people through the head, because you can do it more than once, you can enjoy their reaction, you don’t have to bother with wind, drop, or - for experts - actually bothering to aim through the scope.

Fun: The AWP is an absolutely effective sniper rifle in a multiplayer game, making it about as much fun as doing dental work on an unanaesthetised elephant.  In Counter-Strike an AWP noscoper is able to kill everyone instantly, and the only counter is to be him or better than him.  Which is no fun at all.