Team Fortress - Classic? (Half-Life Team Fortress Classic (PC))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Half-Life Team Fortress Classic (PC)
Date:	27/08/00 (180 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: teamwork, playable on a 56k modem

Disadvantages: starting to look dated

I bought Half-Life when it was first released, and played it to death until I finally finished it. A few months later, I bought myself a modem, and settled down to a life of being on the internet. Having spent a few days surfing, sending useless e-mails etc. I came across a magazine article about on-line gaming. This, I thought, looks interesting.

Scanning my meagre games collection for something I could play online I came across Half-Life. I dusted off the CD, downloaded and installed the latest patches, and logged onto the internet. (Incidentally - you can get loads of games patches off cover mounted CD's of PC gaming magazines like PC Zone or PC Gamer)

I didn't even try the Half-Life death match - I was too interested in this teamwork MOD that came bundled free with the (I think) 1.0.0.5 patch (and subsequent revisions) and is now up to version 1.5, which will be the last release until Valve release Team Fortress 2.

Well, from the first moment I played, I was hooked. TFC is a game where people join one of 2 teams, each person chooses a class (soldier, engineer, sniper, HW (heavy weapons) guy, pyro, demoman, medic, spy or scout) all with their own skills and characteristics, in order to complete some goal - usually a capture the flag variant, although other objectives might be to protect a VIP, with one player playing as the VIP.

Each class has its' own characteristics and weaponry, and most people pick one class and stick with, increasing their experience and skill. Personally, I pick a class depending what the lag is like on that particular day - high lag = HW guy, low lag = sniper.

Soldier: A standard class. Max. Heath = 100, Max. Armour = 200, Speed = slow.
Weapons include Rocket launcher, Single, and double, barrelled shotguns and a crowbar for bashing people when you've run out of ammo. Grenades include ordinary hand grenades, and nail grenades which spew nails when exploded.

Sniper:
One for people with low lag. Max. Health = 90, Max. Armour = 50, Speed = medium.
Weapons include sniper rifle (complete with zoom mode), a nail gun and crowbar. The sniper only has hand grenades.

Scout: Max. Health = 75, Max. Armour = 50, Speed = very fast.
Weapons include the single-barrelled shotgun, nail gun and crowbar. Grenades include caltrop canisters (i.e. it drops "spikes" which injure people if they run over them) and concussion grenades. Special abilities of the Scout are: ability to remove spies' disguises, and ability to disarm Demo men's detpacks.

Demolitions (Demo) Man: Max. Health = 90, Max. Armour = 120, Speed = medium.
Weapons include a grenade/ pipe bomb launcher, single-barrelled shotgun and the crowbar. Grenades carried are: hand grenades and MIRV grenades (explode to produce smaller, powerful bombs which detonate a few seconds later with devastating effect). Special abilities are ability to set large explosive devices (detpacks) for clearing obstructions.

Engineer: Probably my favourite class. Max. Health = 80, Max. Armour = 50, Speed = medium.
Weapons include rail gun pistol, double-barrelled shotgun and spanner. He carries hand grenades and EMP grenades (which detonate any ammo that's nearby - whether lying around or being carried). Special abilities include: being able to build sentry guns (cool!) or ammo dispensers and the ability to repair teammates' armour.

Medic: Max. Health = 90, Max. Armour = 100, Speed = fast.
The medic carries a large nail gun, single and double-barrelled shotguns and can use his med pack as a weapon (see below). Grenades carried are hand grenades and concussion grenades. Special abilities include the means to heal teammates, as well as being able to infect the enemy with a virus (which can be passed from infected person to another person without the medic being there...) and the auto generation of health.

Spy: Max. Health = 90
, Max. Armour = 100, Speed = medium.
The spy carries a tranquilliser pistol, double-barrelled shotgun, nail gun and a knife. Grenades come in the form of hand grenades as usual, and hallucination grenades which cause all people caught in the blast radius to experience temporary hallucinations in the form of seeing explosions and hearing sounds which aren't there. Special abilities of the spy are the ability to disguise as any member of the enemy team, the ability to feign death (play dead), remove enemy spy disguises and lastly to backstab for an instant kill.

Heavy Weapons Guy: One bad ass guy! Max. Health = 100, Max. Armour = 300, Speed = very slow.
Weapons include the assault cannon, single and double-barrelled shotguns and the crowbar. HW Guy carries both hand grenades and MIRV grenades. N0o real special abilities as such except explosions don't throw him around like other classes.

The final class is the Pyro: Max. Health = 100, Max. Armour = 150, Speed = medium.
Mr. Pyro carries the flamethrower, incendiary cannon, single-barrelled shotgun and crowbar. Grenades include hand grenades and napalm grenades. The only special ability of the pyro, unsurprisingly, is that he's flame resistant.

You can chat to everyone, or just members of your team (to co-ordinate your attacks or defence). Most of the people you meet online playing TFC are a fairly friendly bunch. Obviously, every now and again, you have to put up with some lamer, but this is rare.

With any luck, you'll find yourself in a game where you get a lot of different classes playing together, although my experience would suggest that everyone wants to be a sniper because they are "cool". The fact that each class has it's own plusses and minuses means that there should be an option available no matter what state your lag is in, and the choice means that should you become bored with one class, another will provide a challenge, or at lea
st a change.

With the 1.0.1.0 patch release, Valve tightened up the net code with supposed better results (I say supposed, because I haven't noticed any real change - my ping is still around the 190- 220 mark which it always has been) but the pace of the game is not as fast as the more recent death match games i.e. Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 and so is still quite playable on a 56k modem.

There are other MODs for Half-Life out there (Counterstrike, Science & Industry etc.) but I still think that TFC is the best, because I prefer the game format, and generally because the people playing it seem a lot friendlier than those that play Counterstrike for example (not that I'm saying all CS players are gits or anything).

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