Team Fortress 2 Initial Impressions - Part IV

Part I
Part II
Part III

I want to take a moment to clear something up about Team Fortress 2. There is no I in team. Games are won or lost by the actions of the team. Teams that don't want to defend control points, lose. Teams that want to play defensive classes while on offense, get trapped. Teams that constantly steal ammo packs during setup, thus delaying the upgrade of sentry guns, get run over by early rushes. Teams that play together and support each other, win.

These team mechanics can be both aggravating and rewarding. Even the best solo players can have a screaming fit if their team is not working together. Nothing they can do themselves can make up for a half-dozen or more other players doing nothing. A good player could have an instant kill switch for anything on their screen, but without a team watching their back they will make little difference in the end.

However, a good player can instantly lift a sub par team that is at least trying to work together. A couple good players can almost make a team themselves with the proper classes and strategy. I can't wait to see how more organized clans and teams start doing in tournament level play.

Over all the other aspects of TF2, this is the aspect that sells the game. TF2 would be "just another game" if the developers had submitted to repeated pressure to make each class more "solo friendly". The biggest war was won when the developers stated strongly that grenades for every class were not going to be part of TF2. Grenades would have turned each and every class into a potential powerhouse, capable of soloing any situation. Without the grenades, classes now have to work together to form a team. There are other examples, but the grenades issue was the most apparent in beta and in comparisons to Team Fortress Classic.

Teamwork sells the game.

Final Thoughts

It's Over

Halloween has come and gone. For the most part, I stayed away from any in-game related Halloween madness. I was particularly burned out on World of Warcraft, so I never paid the headless horseman a visit (however, we did watch Sleepy Hollow tonight). I'm still in newbie mode in Dark Ages of Camelot, so nothing special there.

And here at the homestead, the witches, princesses, Jedi, mummies, Sponge Bobs, Supermans, Batmans, Spidermans, giant raisins, robots, and mutants are all gone. The candy dish is empty. Tomorrow, I'll pack up the skull candles, spiderwebs, and gravestones.

The good news? Halloween is only a year away!

Chuck Norris vs. The Dragon Raid

New in Linux: Graphic Card Drivers

AMD has decided to start supporting their ATI line of graphics cards with Linux-based drivers.

Video card giant AMD announced the release of new Linux drivers for its popular line of video cards today. The new drivers, Linux Catalyst 7.10, provide updates and features for desktop effects and gaming.

The new drivers provide support for AIGLX and ATI GPUs, enabling performance improvements for OpenGL games including the Quake and Doom lines. The improvements also offer support for enhanced graphic effects for supported distributions.

This is one moderate step in the right direction for Linux gaming. Graphic card support is the sore spot and hurdle that Linux gaming needs to clear. Hopefully, other companies will follow suit and give Linux users even more hardware options.

Lord of the Rings Online: Game of the Year?

Apparently Lord of the Rings Online has been voted Game of the Year.

(Drum roll). The PC Game of the Year 2007 - sponsored by PC Gamer, has been awarded to Turbine's Tolkien-powered MMO The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.

And the hobbits rejoiced.

Lord of the Rings Online beat off WoW, Football Manager 2007, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to grab the gong. We've have a feeling this is going to generate some interesting and no doubt highly enlightening discussion in the comments below...

Funny thing is, LotRO didn't win the Online Game of the Year award. World of Warcraft won that award. I guess we can all figure out what category the LotRO fanboys voted in. In my opinion, the people that voted for WoW, did so in the correct category, instead of trying to cheese it to a win in an overall category. So, LotRO scrapes out a trophy to throw up on the wall next to their four million characters created plaque. I wonder who is getting fired over this one?