Team Fortress 2 Maps: Likes and Dislikes!

The thing for todays update is this. After playing TF2 for a month, spending most of my time on the default VALVE maps (Only a few custom maps that are not an eyesore/badly released/custom gimmicks are worth mentioning at the moment) it is time for me to spill my guts (not really, My keyboard is crap as it is these days) and tell the interweb what I like, dislike and wish to see on these battlefields of comical gruesome genocide.





Name: cti_2fort

My Likes: Ah, 2fort. One of my personal favourites and one of the only official Capture The Flag type maps VALVE has seen fit to bestow apon the TF2 community. Based on the classic Quake Era of Team Fortress with a new interior and exterior look that fits the style of TF2 like a glove as a deranged Pet Detective once said and despite the clean sterile look in the picture, soaked with the blood of many who defy me. Why do I love 2fort? On a good server with a decent team, it is a map that can make a game last longer than the usual 20-15 minutes. This is however, also a bad bad thing I'll cover below too. The old school game mode and time extension are not the only plusses. I love how VALVE decided to give us several ways in getting into the enemy base as a lovely fuck you to all those annoying campers out there.

Seeing as I mainly a Pyro Class player, 2fort is my favourite map to defend the base in simply because of the fact there is so many routes to ambush, hide and backtrack. Think you and your Heavy buddy is going to push through because our Engineers are stacking turrets somewhere outside our base? Wrong buddy. Not if I set you alight via dropping from the grate from the sniper deck interior space.

My Dislikes: The stalemate, Oh god the stalemate! Nothing is more annoying playing a game of 2fort where you have a team full of idiots on both sides. People seem to sometimes think that TF2 is HL2 Death Match. It isn't. Your kill/death ratio does not count. It is not on the scoreboard, so it doesn't count. Quit camping, and either be a Scout or Spy and blow up all those stacked freaking turrets now. Stalemates in all TF2 maps are bad, but a 2fort Stalemate can lead to hours of repitition which leads to boredom.

I also despise the fact the open decks of the fort appeal to the whiny kiddy bitch sniper every gamer has in hit. When you see more than 2 Snipers on the deck, or more against a single player panic, go Spy, stab and end the insanity.

Personally, I think 2fort should have another route added in and VALVE should make a slightly larger version for servers that go over 24. Also, more things to blow up plz :(. And living, gibbable chickens.

Name: cp_well

My Likes: Well might be my favourite control point map by look alone. A train yard that sort of reminds me of the good bit of the Blue Shift Half Like expansion between two factories. The battle for the middle control point is also amusingly epic, as you must not be also aware of being out flanked by enemy team members but you must awesome beware of the two trains of death. Nothing is more amusing (Or annoying) than falling prey to these vicious beasts because through the miricle of coding VALVE have made them appear when you least need them to.

The design of the map is also a haven for those Demoman and Soldier chappies who love to jump to higher places. You can easily get into the building for the middle point of the map to gain the advantage at the possible cost of scorched toenails or missing the odd ankle. This map is also chock a block full of places when an eagle eyed Engineer can set up his or her turret. My Sentry kill cherry was lost on this map, just outside to the left of the middle spawn. A Pyro met my level one turret. Sigh.

It also has some watery bits where Spies and Scouts can sneak through. The reason for the name in the first place. It also have huge fricking missles outside the HQ spawn rooms. Awesome.

My Dislikes:

This map is a pain in the ass if you want to be sniper. Seriously. The Battlements are oddly designed, as if they were thrown in at the last minute. Also, the chutes that lead to the moat have an irritating one way only feature. Once you go out, you stay out. A shame if you leap in after some Pyro BBQ's you. Also, like 2fort this map suffers sentry camping. Sentry camping is where several Engineers place turrets right on the door stop of the enemy HQ. Which is sort of, you know, unfair.

It wouldn't suck if the Battlements for snipers were not such a death trap. Aside from that, Well is pretty much an okay well balanced map. It could also do with a few more middle points, but that could go under an extension sort of thing.

Name: cp_granary

Another control point map, which takes place at a Granary Silo. Which is pretty unique place to fight a violent epic battle. It also full of Cargo Containers, another VALVE art fetish from the days of Half Life. Those Cargo Containers are easy to access with the right kind of jump. Like well, it shares the same sort of design. Neutral point in the middle, Red and Blue base at the far top and bottom. In fact, I admit when I first started playing this map and well I kept mixing the two up. It is a common mistake.

This map is gold for Soldiers and Heavies, as death is impossible to escape from the wide sweeping corridoors. The Snipers also have a few choice places to snipe from. Also, it wouldn't be a map set in the Half Life universe without vents to crawl around, which makes Spy infiltration a lot easier. The middle neutral control point of the map is the perfect battleground for the epic Scout Rush. Plenty of cover to hide behind and jump on.

Dislikes: None. Seriously. Granary is the perfect map for a quick TF2 fix, It looks good and adheres to classic map design. No class is gimped on this map. All it needs is the odd pile of grain you can trample into the bloody corpses of your slain foes for the lol.

Name: cp_dustbowl

My Likes: Another Quake era map redone for the fans, Dustbowl is a map of tension and bloody conquest in dusty late gold rush eras mines. The map is devided into several different areas which can be unlocked if the Red teams advances against the Blu team by capturing the single point. Blu team can win by simply keeping the Red team back as the clock counts down. Like Gravel Pit, teams should be stacked by the classes of the offensive or defensive varieties with Blu and Red.

Visually, the map is excellent. It however, could do with a little bit more bloom. Dustbowl is THE map for close combat. If you want to kill a guy with a melee weapon, this is your map. The best section, in my opinion for the map is the second one with the mine and the little outpost outside it. Players here can easily perfect their skills as Demomen as Medic, as either class is a must for both sides during the game.

Each little section also has an alternate route for attack, which like always is quite handy.

My Dislikes: The first section. The control point is simply too close to the spawn point. Seriously. A short walk away. In other words, a good offence can simply sweep away what little defence is assembled because of the BLU team is trying to camp the main spawn point entry way. This doesn't work, becuase they forget the side entry point and the small canyon entry point. Moving that point back a little would make the map last longer on certain rounds.

Name: cp_gravelpit

My Likes: This is one of the new boys, a different type of control point compared to the simple go to a point and stand there. Gravel Pit, a map set in a quarry somewhere Midwest America needs you to take a certain point first. To unlock one of the other points, or both. In other words, this map promotes pure offence or pure defence. In other words, hardcore Heavies, Demomen, Pyro, Soldiers and Medic will love this map. Sniper, Engineers or Spies will not.

Point A, B and C are completely unique. All the CP are in structures, from easy to defend (Point B, which is usually the bloodiest of the map) to the hardest to defend (Despite being on a tower, a simple Pyro can easily ruin every defenders day ontop of Point C). A series of tunnels and the odd warehouse leads to all areas of the map which hosts the points which leads to some interesting ways of getting there (Go the riskier bloody route, or attempt a sneak attack with a spy?)

Gravel Pit is also one of those maps scattered with handy bits of cover of both sides, because, you WILL need it. Especially if you are the attacker. Demomans grenades love bouncing off stuff, including the odd rock and landing at their own masters feet.

My Dislikes:

Turrets should not be allowed to be built ontop of point B's freaking roof. That is annoyingly unfair, since it makes cover worthless. I don't mind death from above from the rockets of some Soldier or a Snipers bullet, but a Level 3 turret just makes the grinding assault annoyingly worthless. Also Valve, do something about Point C. At least make the platform on the top a little bigger.

Name: tc_hydro

My Likes:

Hydro is a biiiiig map. Really big map. Several different maps combined with one. It also has another VALVE art staple. A Dam, A Dam that suspiciously looks like the one in Half Life. You know the one. Territorial Control is an interesting sort of gameplay mode. Red and Blu team own half the map and are given a random section to right in at the start of the game. This happens until most of the map is taken. To do this, you must take the singe control point on the enemies team while guarding yours. This map is one of the most unique in my opinion, and Hydro maps when both teams have decent skill can take the longest or next to 2fort, most likey to end in sudden death themed Stalemates.

I can't quite pin down the area I like of this map. It is the one with the dish ontop and the CP inside, where you can attack the enemy CP from the slope or go into the bedrock of the canyon. I suspect a lot of VALVE artists had Half Life waves of nostalgia. I wouldn't be surprised if Red and Blue were fighting over construction rights of Black Mesa it very self.

Demomen players will espcially lover the interior control point node areas of the map.

My Dislikes:

With a really poor team, Hydro is not fun. But that is pretty much true in most maps. I have no other dislikes for Hydro really. This map must have got the most attention during design because it has areas for everything. Heights and cover for Soldiers and Heavies with ze Medic, narrow rock corridoors for the Pyro, nice little bits of cover for Snipers and Sentries to hide and plenty of alternate routes for Spies to cloak and sneak though.

The only bit of improvement I suggest is adding a new area, where we're fight ontop of the very Dam it self.

In the future, when Badlands and Goldrush are released, I'll do an extension for this article and bring up a few of the best custom maps for TF2 as well.

The DO's and DO NOT Rules of Assassination

Dear all ICT Agents, due to some rather disturbing and not at all amusing incidents that certain several agents have committed (47 is not the only guilty party, Agent 69) we shall hear by publish the list of incidents that have been committed and criticise them extremely. Many Bothans died to give us this information. If some of you remember, we hired you to kill them.

It is advised after the incident of Agent 22, humming Weird Al's 'I think I am a clone now around 47 is suicidal. ICT does not cover for losses of life of this kind.

Corpse Disposal:

DO:

Tuck discreetly out of sight from prying eyes that may alert the authorities or your contact.

DO NOT:

Play with them and place them in a series of poses indicating sexual conduct. Just because they were mostly bad people doesn't mean their carcasses are giant rag dolls for your amusement. This includes you, 47!

Be ware the discovery of a corpse in most instances will be a bad bad thing. Rarely will your Targets goons shrug and go back to picking their noses and will instead flee, increase security procautions or actually start looking for you.

The following areas are bad for corpse disposal: In plain open sight, sprawled infront of a window, left laid infront of a door and infront of your target and his security.

Is it really mature for paid grown Assassins to do this?


Disguise and Infiltration:





DO:

Adapt a disguise of somebody close to or unsuspected by your clients target by any means possibly necessary.





DO NOT:

As much as people hate Christmas these days as well as Children, killing the local shop Father Christmas and taking his clothes does not at all help you with your mission and make you unsuspected to acts of murder. All it does it make you stick out like a sore thumb and give children and survivors horribly festivity themed nightmares. Keeping your weapon hidden also is a big help, Santa rarely packs heat these days.

Please remember, if you are going to dress like this remember the missing details. Like the beard, lack of gun and scent of death.

Also note, dressing up as somebody who is a different race will not cut it these days. Criminal Syndicates are not as racially diverse as we think, despite the times.



Please also note, that Metal Detectors do detect metal, but carring massive fucking bombs also arouses general suspicion. In the future, consider a convinient window with a semi-filled Dumpster underneath.



Equipment:



Do:

Bring the best but lightest and most quiet your money can buy. Also, specialist equipment, compass and kevlar is a must.



Do Not:

Buy the fucking Minigun. You are a HITMAN, not the Terminator.



Please remember, despite the fact the ICT allows a certain freedom when equiping yourself for a mission that in Assassination, being sublte is the greatest weapon. That and having the sense to not choose the largest, heaviest and loudest cannon on your gift list. It simply makes the job harder when you are trying to blend in with a massive Minigun on your person. The thing in my trousers excuse does not work.



Also make note that being cheap also does not cut it. Not every gun you will find on the dead corpse of your targets oddly large group of body guards will be loaded with an entire clip. Rare cases show that to cover the cost of such security, targets skimp on actual ammunition with the guns.



Kevlar is also a must if you are prone to amateur blunders. Please remember, that buying the helmet for emergencies is actually a good idea especially if your big pink bald slaphead with the barcode on the back is the easiest target to hit ever. Also, consider bringing a box of plasters to cover that thing up 47. It is amazing it has not been noticed yet.



Also, inform the ICT that you have been given our older models of portable buggy laptop computers as our early maps are horribly horribly useless. Getting lost is never a good idea when taking part in a hit.



Escape:



Do:

Slip out quietly, with target eliminated, most equipment bought or hired on your person with the suit without any unessiscary deaths.



Do Not:

Blast out of your former targets location, armed with the loudest most inaccurare assault rifle caked in blood wearing your boxes and screaming like an idiot without your equipment while wasting hundreds of SWAT teams and innocent people.



The ICT is and likes to be a mostly secret organisation due to the fact of todays modern ethics, however it sometimes is really hard to keep secret when we're constantly bribing for some of your Rambo-esqe mistakes. This is not the movies, Agents. Causing such emotional and physical damage makes ripples. Some ripples so damn expensive, we will eventually have to dump you all and just go into the Pastry business because Assassination is so damn tricky.



Nobody hires a crude noisy Assassin that draws attention to his or her self. They might as well do the bloody job yourselves. Remember, getting paid is more important than your body count in the next days newspaper.

The List

A quick entry today folks, I searched the vast recesses of my memory and hammered out a crude list of games I've played and owned with the PC since 1998.

Boxed and STEAM games:
Theme Park.
Cannon Fodder.
Theme Hospital.
The Simpsons Cartoon Studio.
Discworld.
Gangsters 2.
Star Wars: Force Commander.
Commandos 2.
The Sims.
The Sims 2.
Cossacks: European Wars.
Cossacks: The Art of War.
Battlefield 1942 and Road To Rome.
Shogun Total War.
Mystery of The Druids.
Medievil Total War.
Jedi Knight Academy.
Rise of Nations.
Half Life 2.
Call of Duty.
Black and White.
Black and White 2.
Command and Conquer Red Alert.
Command and Conquer Red Alert 2.
Star Wars Galaxies.
Star Wars Galaxies Jump to Lightspeed.
Star Wars: Republic Commando.
Rome: Total War.
City of Heroes.
City of Villains.
Counter Strike Source.
HL2 DM.
Sid Meirs Pirates!
Warcraft III.
Warcraft III Frozen Throne.
Half Life Source.
Opposing Force.
Blue Shift.
Half 2 Episode 1.
Half Life 2 Episode 2.
Portal.
Team Fortress 2.
Cossacks 2.
Civilization I, II and IV.
Civilization IV War Lords.
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War.
SiN.
SiN Episode Emergence.
Final Fantasy 7.
The Ship.
Soldner.
Garrys Mod 10.
Il-2 Sturmovok.
American Conquest.
Red Orchestra.
Day of Defeat Source.
Beyond Good and Evil.
Morrowind.
KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2.
Red Alert A Path Beyond.
Evil Genius.
Republic The Revolution.
Max Payne.
Max Payne 2.
Star Wars: Empire At War.
Star Wars: Empire At War Forces of Corruption.
The Movies.
Homeworld 2.
Halo.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
Battlefield Vietnam.
Baldurs Gate.
Planetside.
World War 2 Online.
FarCry.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
Broken Sword 1 and 2.
Peggle.


Mods:
Forgotten Hope.
Fortress Forever.
Dystopia.
Battlegrounds 2.
Zombie Master.
Movie Battles.
Terrae Expugnae.
Pirate Ship Wars 10.
Steiners Mod.
SourceFORTS.
Amra Civ IV Mod.
Max Payne 2 Cinematic.
Galactic Conquest.
Zombie Panic SOURCE.

Other:
Runescape.
Discworld MUD.

Yikes, that is a lot of games. A lot of good memories. Not counting my console games, because I barely remember half of them. I rented games when I could from the local DVD/Video Rental place in the past. Now to read a book and have a apple I think.

My love/hate relationship with Empire At War

I love Star Wars, it aside from books and gaming was one of the first things I geeked out on as a kid during the time they were digitally remastering the Original Trilogy in the cinemas. I sort of blame my father for taking me to see A New Hope for my 8th birthday a long time ago.

And I've supported my own love for the movies by buying a few games made by the once proud now sadly mediorce LucasArts. To be fair, I blame LA a lot for the decline of quality Star Wars games for becoming caught up in the marketing whoreage and hype of the silly bloody prequal movies. Between 2000 and 2005, an army of shoddily done games based on Jedi or the Clone Wars swept out from the HQ of LA and slapped limply against many different console formats and the PC. Many of us loyal fans saw these titles, wept and remembered fondly of X-Wing Versus TIE Fighter, Rogue Squadron or Jedi Knight II.

Knights Of The Old Republic and the slightly buggy sequal have been the ONLY hits in these last couple of years.

One of the biggest Star Wars Gaming mistakes was Star Wars Galaxies, as you have already heard from me. Another brillaint but slightly blundered title is Empire At War, a RTS set during the original trilogy of the Galactic Civil War era of Star Wars. Now, Empire At War doesn't suck. It can be quite entertaining, but there are certain bits made of fail that SHOULD have been fine tuned a little more by the game developers, or scrapped and remade immediatly. Sadly, EaW was part of the last minute marketing for Revenge of The Sith along side the dismal Battlefront 2 and ROTS game. Bugger.

Read on and discover the nitpicks:

Space doesn't work that way!:

Empire at Wars main selling point was suppose to be the epic space battles between the two factions, and for sure these battles can be visually impressive as possible. In the game, named ships can impressively barrage and with detail cause massive chunks of debris to be blown off each other. However, space is oddly strange. Why? BECAUSE SPACE IS GODDAMN LAND BATTLES WITH SPACE SKINS. For some silly, insane and cheap reason LA decided that space didn't need fancy physics like the options for ships to move up or down or have space look and feel like space. Extra annoyingly, they put a frigging grid underneath to remind us we're playing a reskinned land battle with different units. Also, space sometimes can visually be impressive but every battle it is just you, a few tiny Asteroid fields and some odd crappy Nebula randomy littered around. Ugh. Fail. Also, tactics are yawningly simple. Attack the shield generator/hanger hard points then dominate with numbers.

Lack Luster Land Battles:

Land Battles in EaW can sometimes be a pain in the ass. If you are the attacking or defending forces. To win/lose a Land Battle you really just need to have superior numbers attacking or defending. Just get/save the shield Generator, then swamp all the defence points with your units. If you or the enemy have a hero, they must be the first thing over whelmed. Fighting against the Native Units is also equally annoying at times for both sides, since Native Militia are about as useful as an ice cream in the Sahara Desert. The maps too are sometimes too small or the same for some planets. At least, visual wise they don't suck that much.

Awkward Unit Animations:

Land Battle Units seem to walk and act painfully sloooooow, even when they die and about that, using the same death animation where they fall down slowly at the same time is really cheap LA. Couldn't even afford to knock up some crude ragdoll physics at least for the Infantry? for shame. All I can say is, a times thank god there is a button that speeds combat up. Units visually, are alright thankfully unless you have an awful graphics card.

Balance with the factions:

Ah, Balance. A curse on all Star Wars games. The Rebel Alliance traditionally is suppose to be the under equipped old tech using much smaller underdog of the SW Universes but because gaming has to be fair for both sides these days, certain liberties with canon sadly have to be made. That means new units and tech pulled out from nowhere, instead of being edapted from the EU or other movies. Amusingly enough, they do this for the Expansion with the Criminal Tyber Zahn faction but in vanilla EaW prepare to see a few new things like the Tartan Patrol Cruiser, Space Rocket Launchers and that fucking unholy Rebel Artillery unit. At least in space, the Rebels and Empire have the proper advantages. While the Empires Star Destroyers can deal a bitching amount of damage, the Alliance have heavy shielding and fighters not made out of cardboard.

Slow AI:

The AI, unless you are playing on Hard is insanely slow and easy going. They rarely mount a attack on your forces on the reason that they usually pool all their ships into a single fleet and more or less jump randomly from planet to planet. In space or land defence, they can easily be overwhelmed in numbers. The AI cannot be blamed though, since in space or land tactical choices are pretty limited to spamming with numbers or abilities.


So why do I install and play these games? For the feel. Despite game wise, they can be poor at times EaW has the atmosphere that appeals to all Star Wars fans. The music, the symbolic clips from the films, the battlefield on the planets looks and the fact you get to control Darth Vader or the Emperor on a one man slaughter fest. Damn LA for being cheap and simply appealing to the fanboys in us all.

At least, EaW was a very good modding community that unlocks hidden content, improves units stats or animations or simply reinvents the game in total to something a hundred times better than the original vanilla games. Mods like Steiners Mod, or Phoenix Rising for example. So in the final word, EaW is okay, but get it when you know a series of good mods have been released. It would be so worth it to play EaW with a Mod than the sadly slow and dull vanilla version.