Three Parter Part 2: Team Fortress Classic

Now some of might say, and some HAVE, that Team Fortress Classic is basically Team Fortress 2 except with a few bugs and filled with steaming pills of petrified shit. I would like to take those people and take them to the nearest restaurant, sit them down, let them order their food and then just before the food arrives throw a big pot filled with boiling water into their face then slam them onto the cooker that boiled the water. Team Fortress Classic is as good as Team Fortress 2, the only reason people don't like it is that it's different.

The graphics, I admit, aren't the usual high-definition brown-and-gray, or bloom large enough to blind an astronaut on the far side of the moon, it's the Half-Life engine and you better like it because the gameplay never slows due to processor demands. If you've played Team Fortress 2, this is almost entirely different. The main difference are the grenades, there were custom grenades for almost all of the different classes. For example, the Spy has hallucinogenic grenades which make the victim see and hear various attacks being thrown at or near them, such as grenades exploding or shotgun blasts. The Demoman has a cluster grenade which explodes into about 5 smaller bombs, and other grenades like that.

Some classes have their own abilities too, the Spy can feign death to avoid suspicion if enemies run around a corner, the Scout has Caltrops which are very handy if you're on the run as you almost always are. They slow anyone who walks on them to a crawl for a long period of time. Also, the Demoman has a Det-Pack, or as I sometimes call it the "Fuck-You Bomb", set it to about 10 seconds and peg it and everyone within a 10 mile radius will be plastered to the wall in various coloured bits.

The gameplay is fast, much faster than Team Fortress 2. Slower than Deathmatch Classic but faster than Day of Defeat. Everyone gets a piece of the action, especially the medics for some reason. The Medic, instead of having the medigun, the syringe gun and the bonesaw he has a medipack which works the same as the medigun except you have to be right beside the wounded person, also it spreads AIDS to enemies which can only be cured by another medic, a single-barrelled shotgun, a double-barrelled shotgun, a super-nailgun, 3 concussion grenades and 4 frag grenades. This is probably a sign to show that almost everyone is equipped to fight anyone except their polar-opposite.

This may seem good at first, and for the most part it is, except some of it is un-necessary. Also, for the Heavy Weapons Guy, his shotguns use the same ammo as the chain gun so If you used a lot of chain gun ammo and you need to run n' gun you'll be shitting yourself scared when you only have 8 shots left and you have the flag in the middle of their base and your Medic has run off to Rambo somewhere else. Also, the Medic-heavy combo doesn't work as much since the medic has to almost stand in the way of the Heavy to heal him and in more than one occasion other people needs the Medic more and also the Medic is useful for spreading AIDS to the eternal Snipers on the battlements.

The Snipers tactics are very different in Team Fortress Classic due to the fact that the sniper rifle is also a machine gun. Another case of unbalanced weapons is the Pyro's flame rocket launcher and the Spies double-barrelled shotgun and nailgun!

For the insubstantiality of it all, the game has a lot in it and is very fun with a server full of people to help in the unbridled mayhem that is Rambo-ing with a Medic in Red Base's flag room with nothing but a Scout to back you up.

Oh and the same rule applies, dirt cheap and requires almost nothing to run so if you or anyone you know is a cheap bastard and won't get this game for all it's glory bring them to the nearest restaurant and use your imagination.