The Orange Box has arrived.
Of course the biggest thing for me (and probably a lot of my high school friends) is the release of the long-long-long-long awaited TeamFortress 2.
I’ve already clocked up 10 hours of gameplay and have reinstalled mIRC to rejoin #oztf 
. Quite surprising that some of the regulars remember my nickname. I wonder if I’ll have the time to join a clan and play some matches.
Read on for a few observations about TF2 and how it’s different from TF:
- Biggest change is the removal of gren1 and gren2s from the game. This balances the classes somewhat (to the better I guess) but this really gimps some of the weaker classes (sniper/scout/engineer) because all they have is their gun to defend themselves. While scouts have the new scattergun and the engineer has a shotgun that’s quite reasonable in short range, the sniper is stuck with a pussy nailgun. What this means is, when you miss a shot as a sniper and your enemy sees you, you don’t have much of a chance surviving.
- Medic class has been totally revamped, and so he comes as a true support class (like a priest in WoW) – unlike a priest however, the medic’s DPS is quite weak (the supernailgun from Quake1 is now some pussy syringe launcher). However, medics when paired with soldiers and HWGuys are a force to be reckoned with – and are able to break just about any defence.
- CP maps are now the norm – rather than the exception. I like the 5-point CP maps a lot – especially cp_well. I especially like the attack/defence map setup where one team is dedicated to attack 3 CPs while one team is dedicated to defend them. TC_Hydro I don’t like that much – most of the time it just seems like a DM match in the caves.
- Sentries are now much harder to kill because of the lack of grens. The only viable ways to kill a sentry now is:
- Snipe it (rare as a sniper would hardly get anywhere near the enemy base without getting fried).
- Rocket it (also quite difficult because it takes quite a bit of time via strafing in and out of the sentry’s line of sight. During this time more likely than not an enemy demoman/soldier comes your way and disrupts your sentry-killing by killing you instead)
- Sap it with a spy (most common).
- Because of teleporters, there’s a tendency for clever engineers to build sentries inside the enemy base (I’ve also played a game where sentries from my team were being set up in the enemy flag room). Having teleporters enable the engineers to resupply very quickly, and allows the sentry to play both the role of attack (by supporting scouts who run into the flag room) and also defence (by stopping enemies from capping their flag) at the same time. While I made at least 3 scout runs as a result of this defensive/offensive setup – I didn’t find it fun at all. The concept of base defence gets thrown out the window when we have engineers setting up shop in enemy’s bases and all the non-engineers spend their time beating down those enemy sentries in their base rather than helping out their own engineer.
Enough for now. Now because of this stupid game I’m thinking of upgrading my computer again.
