“Team Fortress Classic”

Valve Software

For the first time in about two years, I’m addicted to an Internet multiplayer game.

“Team Fortress Classic (TFC),” is a multiplayer ONLY game; there are no single player missions in the game at all. “TFC” is also a mod, which means it is a program that alters the original game to give new weapons, characters and maps. Also, you must have “Half-Life” in order to play “TFC.”

The original “Team Fortress” was a mod for “Quake I.” Since “Team Fortress'” birth, its creators were hired by Valve to update their concept to make it work with “Half-Life.”

And they did a good job.

“TFC” is basically a set of five missions that are all team-related in some way.

In the standard “Capture the Flag” missions, there are two teams that each have a base.

The goal is to break into the other team’s base, steal the flag and return it to your own base without getting killed or letting the other team get your flag.

Where “TFC” starts to deviate is with a few of the other missions.

“Hunted” is probably the most interesting of the missions. There are three teams; team one is the person who is hunted, team two is all the bodyguards and team three is the assassins.

The object is for the bodyguards to get the hunted from one end of a twisting map to the other end without getting him killed. If the hunted gets killed or exits the map, the whole thing starts over again.

The most interesting difference “TFC” offers compared to multiplayer games such as “Quake II,” “Half-Life” or “Unreal” is that there are nine different classes of players. Each has special abilities that the other classes don’t.

The heavy weapons guy is the slowest character but has more health, armor and firepower than any other classes. The scout is exactly the opposite — light on weapons, health and armor but extremely fast.

Some of the classes have specialties; the medic can heal other players on your team, the spy can change his team color and appearance in order to sneak into the opponent’s base, and the engineer has the ability to build a sentry gun.

The graphical quality, sound and overall quality of “TFC” is of the same quality as “Half-Life.”

5 stars out of five

— Craig A. Bonnes