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Possibly the best thing that id software ever did for the game industry was make their game extensible. Without that, their games would not have been as wildly popular as they are. id made their games accessible to DIY'ers by openly encouraging the user community and releasing specifications and source code to make it easier.

The first modification for an id game (mod) that I noticed was the now legendary Aliens TC for Doom. The mod made you a colonial marine straight out of the "Aliens" movie. Graphics, sound and new maps pitted you against the Aliens, both large and small. From there, things got better. Well, not always. Few mods were of commercial quality, and some promising ones simply disappeared off the face of the Internet as people either lost interest, or were sued for copyright infringement. (Such is the case of another Aliens mod for Quake that was out for oh, 6 hours or so before being pulled when 20th Century Fox issued a cease and desist order.) Some mods like Capture the Flag were so embraced by the user community that they were picked up by commercial developers for sale as a packaged product. (CTF was picked up by id and later distributed for free as an add-on for Q2.)

Another wildly popular mod was Teamfortress. It added a number of elements, such as new weapons and classes. Players could choose from a number of different classes to battle. They could be anything from the flame-thrower wielding Pyro to the stealthy spy, who imitated the other team until he was close enough to cast aside disguise and deal the death blow. The sniper class was the subject of many debates, as he could kill in a single shot when a skilled player used him. You can still browse innumerable Teamfortress servers that are running on the now venerable Quake 1 engine, even with the 3rd game in the series due anytime now in the form of Quake 3 test.

But why did Teamfortress never migrate to a new engine? Seems that the people responsible for it wanted to wait for the best game...to wait for Half-Life. And it was worth the wait. Initially rumored or reported to be shipped with Half-Life, it was conspicuously absent from my Half-Life box. Then it was to be a new commercial product. It seemed that corporate greed had reared its ugly head. Why give out for free what you can sell for cash? Then, another twist. Teamfortress Classic would come out for free as an add-on for Half-Life, and Teamfortress 2 would ship as a separate standalone retail product. It seems to be the best of both worlds! Is it?

Having played TFC for a few days now, I can honestly say it's shaping up that way. I'd been following TFC's release on and off for a few weeks when it was announced that a press demo would be available. I instantly emailed Ben, our editor, and whined something furiously for a copy. [grumble...-Ed.] On my way into work the next morning, the reply came back via IRC that I could download the press demo and try it out that night. It was a painful day at work, wondering just how TFC would pan out that evening. It got worse when I did a quick scan of Half-Life WebPages and found some mention and screen shots posted by those who hadn't, uh, "made it into work" that day or were students. When I got home, I installed the small package and fired it up.

But it didn't work! I gnashed my teeth and wailed inconsolably. Then I noticed I had changed the protocol setting in my Half-Life shortcut so I could view a demo a few weeks back. D'oh! Flipping quickly through the provided html manual, I noted the maps are a variety of new creations and classic Teamfortress maps. A few seconds later it was celebrity Teamfortress as I hopped onto one of 8 or so servers that had sprung up for the release. And what a game it was.

I was quickly dumped into a game of "The Hunted" where one team attempts to protect a guy in a suit (who looked a lot like Nixon to me) from another team of Assassins. A few bugs were evident, but it was fun, a lot more fun than I can remember having in any of the first person multiplayer games I've played, and I've played `em all. The level we played on was a variation on a level seen in the game, where you face the second Osprey helicopter behind a bombed out building. Nothing is more stressful than watching your charge dart across a large open field towards the objective while the red dots of the sniper's rifles home in on him. A couple strange bugs manifested after some play, but nothing that could stop the show. I managed to get some play in as both sniper and protector, but never as the diplomat/president/head of Sierra or whoever he is. There's a handy auto team feature that keeps things even. The map is great - lots of convoluted passages and some excellent ambush points keep the defenders on their toes. The best sniping points of course leave you open to a rain of rocket fire from the defense. (I even managed to give Joe Siegler, Apogee webmaster, a third eye before his rocket separated my head from my shoulders.) A nice touch is that if you are killed as a defender, when you respawn the game will tell you where the hunted character is by using the same voice that made announcements in the single player game. You can quickly tell where you need to be and head there pronto before the hunted gets capped. If you aren't big into protecting Tricky Dick, you can always try holding your ground.

An interesting game of taking territory and holding it is another part of TFC, and is probably the most fun. The map is Canalzone 2 and it has 5 distinct areas, each with a small pad. You have to lug (and I mean lug) a flag to each pad to claim that area as your territory. Hold all five at once, and your team is rewarded with points. Problem is, the other team is trying to do the same. Add to it the fact that the flag carrier moves at a crawl, and you not only have to defend areas you've taken, but the snail who has to carry the flag to new areas. Try as I might, I was never able to sneak into the enemy base to drop a charge and blow their base for the big points.

After a quick session of that, I hoped onto another server running Two Fortresses - the 2fort map. I took a slow moving but heavily armored Heavy Weapons guy and popped into the game. I scored a quick kill when an enemy engineer decided to see if his wrench was a match for my minigun. Apparently not. The nice thing about this addition is that everything looks so professional. The minigun model for the HW guy looks great and lays down a nice wall of lead that will gib anything dumb enough to get in the way. The same goes for the grenade launcher of the Demolitions Man who can lay down run of the mill grenades or pipe bombs that can be set off whenever he wants via his special ability. (Excellent for laying down a field of bombs in front of the enemy fort and setting them off when they decide to go out for a walk.) I watched as engineers built small gun turrets. Then bigger gun turrets. Then really, really big gun turrets. Really, really big gun turrets kind of suck when you walk into the flag room and one is waiting for you.

The last mod is based on a movie of a few summers back, "The Rock". The idea here is to make it into the enemy base (jail) and get the keycard from the warden's office. From there it's off to the gas chamber to set off the nerve toxin that will flood and kill anyone in the enemy base. The effect is somewhat similar to the air raid effect in the Half-Life deathmatch map. You'll be given some warning, then things go a little green, then you die. This map was a blast to play, as you could get into a tunnel system under the enemy base with a demolition man and open up a new entry into the enemy base, making it somewhat more difficult to defend.

What strikes me the most about Teamfortress is that it demands co-operation and teamwork. Especially so in the Canalzone 2 map. While we were playing on one server, Fragmaster kept taking zones every minute it seemed, but the rest of the team just wasn't defending them, or couldn't. We got crushed because we all did our own thing. (I was uh, playing a class I don't usually play, I swear!) On a 2fort map, we destroyed the other team when three of us played full time defense laying down sniper fire and pipebombs outside the enemy fort. All the while, fast moving scouts and soldiers were capturing the enemy flag with almost mechanical timing and efficiency.