Q1:TF Like a fine wine, not that I'd know

Played a little more Team Fortress online. No, the *real* version, using the Fruitz-of-Dojo (careful; partial nudity. No, seriously.) update for the Mac. Had a really hard time tracking down maps, and finally gave in and dl'd them straight from the servers.

2fort5 and variants are still quite enjoyable. There was a 2fort5beta or some such that had grates over the moat entryways that I assume were triggered somewhere else. If there was some way to make it a team deal to get out, where someone had to pull a trigger near your flag, or some such, yet had a switch outside for people coming in, it's an advance. Otherwise, it's the sort of, "I've played this map and you haven't; enjoy the frags," I generally dislike, as it was otherwise the same map.

Well6 has not gotten all that much better. I usually do well on that map (lots of *BLAM* at close range there; I'm also really only good with the two-barrel shotgun in Action Quake, waiting around corners), but am not horribly impressed.

Game dynamics can't be beat. The class that's most impressive is the Spy, I believe. In large games, it's amazing how easily a spy can slip past players, even if the spy is not holding the right gun for the class they're pretending to be, a clear give-away. TF is just [barely] good enough that you don't have to have traditional fps skills to contribute, and that's something I really haven't seen in other fps online games, medic possibly a partial exception (but boring to play. And I'm a resto druid in another life).

Quake even still looks pretty good. I should try out the new, updated models and textures for the game. At TF speed, much faster than my overly cautious single-player play, all you really notice is that the missile launcher and buildings are a little blocky, both of which could be fixed. The explosions are still pretty nice (bullets a little blocky), movement fluid, and game quite enjoyable.

And to think it's essentially all free. A few models and textures are recycled from Quake, but replace those and it's a brand new game. I imagine they're in the Quake demo. ;^) Play it, fool.