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| Source // Wikipedia |
Mods becoming ridiculously popular with players is a great thing, right? Taking a game everyone knows and loves and tweaking it in some way to make it better can lead to all manner of results - some not worthy of knowing about, but others creating entire games of their own.
That alone would be something to be proud about, but to then have a mod remade by Valve Corporation in order to promote their software development kit... you've probably got something rather special in your hands.
Team Fortress Classic is a remake of Team Fortress, a mod for Quake that brought more multiplayer mayhem to the mod-playing masses. What's so good about it then?
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| Source // Steam |
Frustrations
I haven't got a bloody clue, because the stand-alone release of Team Fortress Classic that I've got seems to not work as intended. Or maybe it works too well as intended, in that it feels like an incomplete mod that doesn't work.
I managed to load into a map, picked up some weapons and fire them. With no sound effects. With no muzzle flash. With barely a hint of animation in general. The grenades and explosives worked, but nothing else did.
And there were no bots.
And no game mode, either, actually.
As first impressions go, it was appalling, which rhymes with the current status of my copy of Team Fortress Classic: Uninstalling.
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| Source // Steam |
It could be an easy fix, I suppose, but I was not in the mood to try. There are fewer players than there are polygons in the character models these days, and were I to get into a match with them, I would imagine my experience would be even worse, losing again and again at the hands of those who know the ins and outs of the character classes and their effect on the battlefield.
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| Source // Steam |
Fun Times
Because that's where Team Fortress Classic stands out amongst other multiplayer games of its age. It's not just shooting at your opponents more accurately than they shoot at you. It's not just about teamwork to complete an objective. It's about picking a class that works for the environment you're about to spawn into and using the right strategies to get the most out of their abilities, all while playing in a team full of other classes doing other things.
This is a staple of modern shooters, and while some do it better than others, the ideas of classes that change the gameplay one way or another allow people to pick their favourites and hone their particular skillset.
Not being able to play, I watched a few videos to see what the state of play was back in the day, and it's like nothing else. Great players will exploit the game as much as they can get away with in order to get a competitive edge, but if you don't have a team of bunny hopping elites covering the map in mere seconds, having Scouts, Demomen, Medics and Engineers make the game that much more dynamic, thinky and team-based.
Final Word
When playing at a difficulty level where class choice matters more than skill, rather than skill more than class choice, Team Fortress Classic could well be one of the first names on the 'what to play' list. You don't have to be the greatest shooter - you can support your team in other ways by doing other things.
It's practically the definition of teamwork, until the point where you min-max and exploit the whole game to its breaking point, where it ends up just looking a bit silly.
Team Fortress took multiplayer and modified it into something much more focused on what it means to be a team. The clue about its focus is in the name, for goodness sake. Its impact was so great that it got remade and rereleased and expanded upon and I don't think I need to mention that Team Fortress 2 exists, do I?
Now, I've had an awful time trying to play it, and I'm unlikely to try to play it again, but let's say I had a change of heart and tried my damnedest to actually play an important entry to video game history. Would I?
I suspect it is past its prime these days, showing its age and putting players off, but it's hard to argue that it should be avoided. I'd love to be able to find which class I'm best suited to, and I've loved doing so in countless multiplayer games since. I'd most likely absolutely hate playing with random strangers who didn't understand what was going on, but to be fair, for a good few hours that'd be me too.
You can't, and shouldn't, ignore what Team Fortress has done for gaming, but you could probably safely ignore actually playing it. Just think of it as Half-Life with strangers. That'll do.
Fun Facts
Team Fortress 2 was in development before Team Fortress Classic was, but was delayed so often that an entire remake of the original mod, in the form of Team Fortress Classic, came out long before the sequel would.
Team Fortress Classic, developed by Valve, first released in 1999.
Version played: PC, 2003
Version watched: PC, 2003 (PyroJoe, SIN LOL, vincentdaylight)