Team Fortress Classic

"Girls are made of Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, TFC is made of bad a$$ things."

Aside from Counter Strike and Day of Defeat, Team Fortress Classic is the most recognized MOD for Half-Life. It is also the earliest. As one of the most played online games Half-Life has developed an online community like no other, and, because of that has changed the online (and offline) gaming genre in many ways, most for the better.

Team Fortress Classic is an awesome mod for an awesome game. The basic premise is that you, a soldier (although that is a class you are in one form or another a soldier, unless on hunted but more on that later) who must kill / capture / assassinate on one of the Mod's many levels. Such popular levels are 2fort, Well, Hunted and numerous others. Basically there are a number of classes to choose from. Demoman, who is an explosives expert, A heavy gunner, with a big 'ol gun, a sniper, deadly, accurate, silent. These are only 3 of the classes, I haven't even mentioned Soldier, Medic, Engineer, or Scout. Okay well now I have.

Basically all these classes give the mod tons of replay value, and some of the certain levels like Hunted, where one team must protect the 'VIP' or the hunted, and the other is a team of snipers who must...ASSASSINATE...(couldn't you just feel the drama?) him. 2fort is a level where two teams square off against each other in an effort to storm the others fort, capture the other teams flag, and then bring it back to their rescue point. This level is chock full of heavy gunners, soldiers, medics, and snipers, just to name a few. Although this and hunted probably make up 50% (remember, 75% of statistics are made up ;) ) of the TFC gaming this level does have some serious flaws. First of all sniping is unbalanced, when you are running across the bridge and your skull is turned into a soup bowl 5 times a row it's SLIGHTLY annoying. Secondly, the heavy gunners, albeit slow, with even a little support from the rocket-bearing soldiers can easily take down battalions of the enemy on the bridge. Third, the medic is the most annoying character in the game, with it's ability to infect you with poisonous diseases, and then to drain your health. On the crowded balconies of two fort this is the worst place to be when a medic get's up their. I feel like crying when I get infected.

Overall my only gripes with the mod are that it sometimes has a few bugs, and relatively choppy frame rates under high stress (a lot of explosions and character models, however today's high profile comp's should handle it relatively easily) and the ease of sniping. As a sniper you charge up your gun, which gives you a red dot, or a laser sighting that you pin on a guy and just blast him, however the ease and power of it is such that many people choose to snipe over the other classes, and games can become very unbalanced.

Overall I would say that this game deserves a 9.5 out of 10, not a 9, however you can't do decimals on the rating scale. So here is my final numbers:

Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 8
Sound: 8
Value: 10 (heck it's free, and you can play it practically for forever)
Tilt: 10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/02, Updated 06/08/02