Team Fortress Classic Download (1999 Arcade action Game)

Team Fortress Classic begins with Teamwork and ends with Victory. No other game has captured the essence of this trait such as this game.

The overall roots of Team Fortress began on the legendary Quake gameplay engine back on August 24th 1996. It had little to its name as players only had the option of choosing from 5 different classes and no specially designed map for its bland combat. Voila! Team Fortress 1.0! A few months later at the end of 1996 in December, Team Fortress 2.0 was released to the Quake World community as an add-on. Desire and interests in the game sky-rocketed as in a few short months over 40% of the Quake Community were running dedicated servers for the new add-on. Then a year later in 1997, a group in Australia founded TF Software, which was developed to ensure updates and future releases of Team Fortress. Soon after, in 1998, a game hit the market that ultimately changed Team Fortress's future. That game was Half-Life. The game endured a huge success which is still evident in today's market. Months later in 1999, a new update for Half-Life brought the inclusion of a familiar face to gamers, a newly redesigned add-on integrated with the Half-Life engine called Team Fortress Classic. The familiar add-on soon became one of the most popular mods for Half-Life, and still claims that status today, as it resides next to its two brothers Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.

As its name suggests, the main trait and fundamental of Team Fortress Classic is Teamwork. The Multiplayer-Only game forces players to work with their team to fulfill each objective and mission goal. While other Half-Life mods sometimes require players to work together to accomplish certain objectives, Team Fortress Classic incorporates teamwork a little differently. It first gives you the freedom to pick between 9 Classes with their own unique strengths and characteristics. It then divides players into two different sides, Red versus Blue. While the whole ordeal might seem like a racial conflict, the class differences make completing objectives fun and fresh in different scenarios. For instance, while some may feel the best way to capture a team's flag is to bust through the front gates with Soldiers and Heavy Weapons men, some may prefer to take the secret approach and have a engineer and demolitions man take the underground route, and blow a hole right through the enemies backyard. TFC is full of possibilities. Team Fortress Classic isn't as much based on "How many frags you can accumulate" but rather on the art and freedom of exploring the maps for secrets, untouchable Sentry Gun placements, sniping positions, and even glitches.

Before going over into the Graphics and Gameplay department, players should know that TFC is not titled as "realistic," and should never be. From the fact of Rocket Jumping, taking about twelve shotgun blasts to die, and bunny hopping, most will know that TFC is unrealistic from the start. But this is the core component which makes TFC such a blast to play.

Gameplay

Built on the stellar Half-Life engine, the game features one of the best stable gameplay experiences of this kind of madness. Controls are easy to get use to, and the whole system of the way the mod is played can be figured out in a matter of seconds:

You pick a team -> You pick a character class -> You enter combat.

Like most other Half-Life mods, TFC includes different game scenarios that are very much different but also loosely the same:

Capture the Flag - The most popular scenario in most servers. Players will have to somehow sneak or blast their way into the enemies' base and steal the enemies' flag and bring it back to their own base to capture it. The most popular map for this scenario is 2Fort.

Attack and Defend - One team defends against the other's team's attack. The way this usually goes about, is that the attacking team will have to carry their own flag to different points on the map to advance themselves forward. A good example of this can be found in the map Dustbowl.

Hunted - Both a player favorite and annoyance. This scenario is made up of 3 Teams: The Hunted, Bodyguards, and the Assassins. The Hunted tries to make it across the map to a safe zone with the help of his bodyguards, as the Assassins try to eliminate him. If an assassin succeeds in killing the Hunted, the round resets and the Hunted must try again.

Graphics

Today's standard for graphics has been set relatively high with new releases like Far Cry, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. And while TFC was created close to 6 years ago, graphics are still nothing to laugh at... too much. Textures and objects in TFC are smoother and more color vibrant than most other Half-Life mods, as objects were made to be more as obstacles rather than spectacles. Explosions look well developed for their time, machine gun fire looks believable to some degree, and it's always fun to see a rocket with its blinding trail shoot from your rocket launcher travel half way across the map, only to hit the enemy square in the face. Nonetheless, character models are easily distinguishable, maps are large and fun to explore, and weapons seem fitting for the look of each character. Users can find with modern videocards they can set the resolution up to 1600 x 1200 at the highest settings on Opengl and still get max FPS.

Sound

With the amount of carnage, destruction, and confusion (Aptly known as SPAM) that is in TFC, many would think that in real life the players would be deaf. There's rarely a time in TFC where you're in total silence... or even close to it. The atmosphere is usually always littered with grenade explosions, machine gun fire, and the pulse of flamethrowers. While this may seem as more a drawback to some, in my opinion, it adds a greater atmosphere to the game; Maps really do seem more like a battlefield. The only drawback I can point out is that the shotgun (Both the single and duel barrel) sounds very hollow and thin. Not a voluminous and rich blast like it's portrayed in many other games.

Conclusion

TFC has for so long blessed the Half-Life community with fun, energetic, and senseless combat, that can be seen from the many the smiles and laughter it draws from players. It's a mod where all seriousness can be forgotten, and players can just enjoy a casual game and not become too frustrated or angry. While many "experienced" players around the Half-Life community will call and label Team Fortress Classic as a "newbie" mod, it's usually the same people who don't work well with others, and fail to comprehend the meaning of teamwork. Team Fortress Classic will always be the most memorable modification for me, because of its warm and welcoming community. They welcomed me into a brand new type of gaming experience, as TFC was my first and beginning roots in the Half-Life community and universe.

People who downloaded Team Fortress Classic have also downloaded:
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Section 8, Wolfenstein, Silver, Section 8: Prejudice, Wanton Destruction