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Hunted. Escort the big guy.
I never played much of this map, but I'm sure this will change now that we have The Hunted for TFC. I have enjoyed some of the most intense fire fights and battles ever playing this one. Don't expect the same Hunted as we had in TeamFortress, as the name is where the similarity ends.
Actually, the game play is the same too, it is just that the map itself is totally different. Most of you know the scenario, escort the President to a safe area, and you gain points. You will probably quickly realize that this map is a Half-life level from the single player game. Without going back and finding the particular level, I can't say if it is exactly the same, but I believe it is. You will recognize it as the first level where you encountered a tank I believe. There were a lot of grunts to fight as well.
The President spawns on a lift in a room at the beginning of a tunnel. He activates the lift and the game is afoot! He also re spawns there after being assassinated and after a successful escape. The respawn room is guarded by a mini turret that lowers from the ceiling when an enemy approaches. Basically he has to get out of the tunnel area and make his way to a garage like structure where a car awaits to whisk him off to safety. The car is behind a door which can be activated by climbing the ladders on either side of the garage, entering the little room and flipping the control switch. Then the President enters the garage and flips another switch and bingo! The crowd cheers!
Of course it's not all that easy. There are numerous places from where the snipers can take pot shots at him and his escorts. There are a lot of windows in buildings to snipe from, ledges and crates to hide behind. Never the less, the soldiers who escort the Pres can be a formidable foe. Also joining the bodyguard team is a medic to heal the president and guards. Those then are the three classes, sniper as assassins, and the soldier and medic as guards. The President spawns with a crow bar only.
When the soldier or medic gets killed, they respawn in the tunnel leading out from where the president re spawns. The snipers respawn right out side the storage area you have to pass through to get outside. Go out up the ramp out side and turn 180 degrees and that building you see is where the snipers respawn. In the upstairs part. You can't open the doors to their re spawns and they have alternate roots of exit as well.
There is a sewer system In The Hunted, sectioned off by gate like doors that drop from the ceiling. They are normally down, but raise as the garage door is opened to allow passage. You will recognize the looks of the sewer from the single player game. I would also like to add the sounds in the sewer are very cool. Actually the sounds in the entire map rock. The sound of the sniper rifle changes when you fire depending on where you fire it from, be it from a window or out in the open.
I feel The Hunted combines the Team aspect well with the Death match feel. It is head to head, start to finish. Good guys, bad guys and the President. You will have a blast doing what you enjoy more than anything if you are a soldier, that is bashing the snipers! wOOf! Gotta love it!
-The Hal
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The Rock. Do I smell gas?
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This TFC map seems to be a combination of Rock one and Rock two. It has features from both that create a hybrid of sorts. You will also find a few new features and redesigned areas. The game play and general layout however remain the same.
One thing missing from The Rock that was put in 2fort5 and The Well is the mini turrets in the respawn rooms. They aren't really needed as much as it seems to me respawn camping is much less of a problem in The Rock.
As you head to the hall to the library and Wardens office, you will see signs on the wall telling you which way to go to get to those areas, a nice touch for those learning the map. The floor level is only one step up to the hall to wardens office and the library instead of the four or five steps in previous versions. The windows in the hall to Wardens office are covered and you can no longer see out them. The Wardens office no longer has a closet to hide the key, instead, it sits on an open drawer of a file cabinet.
The library no longer has the tables and book shelves. It is now full of File cabinets. There is a sunk in area in the center of the room and some high windows with bars on them in one wall.
Most of the ramps that lead up to the Guard area in the prison yard have been replaced with ladders and the hallways seem better lit. The lighting from the spotlights is nice, it seems more focused and shines on specific areas better depending on what one comes on as you run through the yard.
Taking a look at the other side of your base, we have the Shower room, the jail cells and, the Gas chamber of course. The shower room is pretty much the same. It has the grate in the shower area that you can climb down to travel out to your own exercise yard via the hole blown open by a demo man. That is a feature from Rock2. As you look through the jail cell areas, you will notice that there are now two levels of cells stacked with a walkway around them. Some nice new areas to defend from here!
The gas chamber is similar to the one in Rock one. It has only one entry. The Generator that controls the force field for the extra door as in rock two is not present. That makes sense as the door is not their either!
The lobby like room where you leave your base to jump in the water is fashioned after Rock two. The sniper areas have the low sills with limited protection. The entire sniper area is straight across looking at it from the outside and does not project out from the base as in Rock one.
Heading into the water, you will notice that visibility decreases with distance. This gives the water a murky look that is quite realistic. As you swim across, you can then see further ahead of you relative to the distance you travel. You can't look down and see the tunnel that leads to their exercise yard. You have to start swimming down in order to see it. The effect is great!
I think you will all be happy with The Rock conversion. The textures used blend well and lend to the prison atmosphere. A good job all around I would say!
-The Hal
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Canal Zone2. Capture the area.
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After playing a lot of TF1 Canal Zone, its TFC counter part Canal Zone 2 is not exactly the map you would expect it to be. Some of the defining features of CZ is that besides the inner base, the one part of the map you control all the time, the outside design is not 1 base, copied and re-textured to make another. Once you step foot outside your main base door, from that point to the enemies front door, its non-stop non replicated architecture. Canal zone 1 this is not.
For reasons unknown, the designer of CZ2 went this odd direction. Some parts of the map mirror each other in similar ways CZ1 did. The main bases are the same, as are the warehouses near the main base. The map extends shortly out to each side with some dug in water ways. But you can tell, standing at command point 3, the center of the map, no matter which way you face there's always identical architecture directly behind you. Right left, forward and back, its looking at the same thing, different colors.
The number of command points here are fewer as in general, this version is smaller than the first one. Five command points here versus eight in the previous. Following that, there are only 3 flags in your command center, reducing the amount of people you want out capping points at any 1 time. Also there is no flag drop-off point in the command center as with CZ1, you have to use the drop the flag bind to return it to your base if you decide you don't want it anymore.
Having said that the game playing style is radically different, for better or for worse, it still has a decent amount of strategy to work with. One class that may feel left out is the Sniper. There are very few sniper points in this version because CZ2 is not very big vertically, no where near as tall as CZ was. Standing at the center of the map, you can jump on top of the trailers, jump and hit you're head on the sky brush.
I really don't think people took into consideration that the HL player is bigger than the Quake player model, and they didn't adjust the map sizes accordingly, which is a shame. Having several height levels to work with as well as an intricate ledge system leading around a lot of the original map made knowing every inch of it a great asset, and a lot of that is lost with this version. Maybe we can look forward to a Canal Zone 3 for TF2.
Having said all that, Canal Zone for TFC stands well on its own merits. It will be much easier for the newer player to learn and play on. It will probably be a quicker paced game with even more action than before. We think the overall design is slick and while it is quite different than the original, it should continue to be one of the best alternatives to straight capture the flag style playing.
-The Hal and Dock
 Next up... Classes. Medic, Engineer, and The Spy
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Make your escape from the Capture the flag maps with these 3 very unique maps, each with different goals and game play.
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