|
Gameplay
eam Fortress Classic has several different methods of team play, which are defined by the selected map:
- Capture the Flag--typical CTF, with two teams, two flags, two bases. You capture the enemy flag and try to return it to a specific point in your own team's base (not neccessarily the flag room, which I learned the hard way ;-)
- Capture the Area-Similar to one of Starsiege: Tribe's game types, you grab one of your team's flags from your base and take it to one of 5 "command points", and then defend the area from the enemy team. When a team has their flag at all five command points, they score and the command points reset to neutral.
- Hunted--This is a fun variation of team play. There's one player selected as the "hunted", or the President (he's the short, bald, festively plump guy with nothing but a crowbard for defense). The President's goal is to get from his spawn point to a truck on the other side of the map. There's a team of "bodyguards" who's role is to defend the President and ensure his safe passage to the getaway vehicle. These players are of the soldier class, and are equipped with rocket launchers. The opposing team are the "assassins", and they're goal in life is to blow the Prez to bits, at any cost. Assassins are of the sniper class, and are limited to the standard sniper weapons.
- The Rock--A variation on CTF where you must capture the enemy keycard from their base and return it to a gas chamber control room of sorts and active the release of poisonous gase, which of course kills all unprotected players.
There are other gamplay variations which I was unable to review during to pre-public press release version of the game.
Graphics
he Half-Life engine is a solid advancement over the Quake II engine, with higher quality textures and more advanced player model animation. Team Fortress clearly takes advantage of these features in some areas, but others fall short. Don't expect breath-taking level design, a few of these maps are ports from the original Team Fortress, designed for the now-dated Quake engine. Others, such as The Hunted, are simply ports of Half-Life maps. Various tweaking and minor changes have been worked in for the ports of the original Team Fortress maps, and most TF players I've run across are happy with results.
Player models and some effects, on the other hand aren't up to par with Half-Life and other current/upcoming FPS titles. Most of the player models are fairly simple, and unimpressive. The facial texture on the sniper is rather poor and the heavy weapons guy seems strangely shaped like a Doom grunt. The textures used for the flames when a pyro has lit somebody up are very pixelated and again remind me of something from Doom.
On the other hand, most weapon models and some of the player models seem very well done. The turrets are nifty, and the rocket launcher and its effects are particularly well-done. The variety of weapons found in the game is refreshing. While each player has a limited number to pick from, there are a number of them overall.
Some weapons though, such as the rocket launcher, aren't what you'd expect... while they may be more realistic, the splash damage is minimal, and requires a high degree of accuracy to be effect--something that can be hard when playing on a slow connection. I think other games' on-line success have suffered from the increased need for accuracy, such as Sin. Realism doesn't always equate to "fun" in an on-line FPS.
Summary
eam Fortress Classic is a worthy download for any Half-Life owner, and a solid port of the original Team Fortress for Quake. Whether or not it will enjoy the success of the original title is yet to be seen--some people will love it, some won't. Either way, it is a great update to one of the most popular and successful team-based online game.
Team Fortress Classic is also the first "mod" for Half-Life, and the development tools for creating user modifications have also just been released. Half-Life sports a great engine,
and we should see some amazing community-made add-ons in the near future.
Scoring:
Graphics Engine:7.5
Animation/Modelling:6
Performance:8
Audio:10
Interface:9
Overall:8.1
Review Specs: Intel Pentium II 300Mhz, 192MB RAM, Creative Labs 12MB Voodoo 2 SLI, Creative Labs PCI64.
For more information:
Official Site: Sierra's Official TFC Site
Back to Beginning
More Screenshots
Got a comment about this review? Let everyone know in the Feedback Forum.
Click here to return to the list of articles/reviews.
|
|
