I haven’t played a lot of First Person Shooters over the years, but upon the recommendation of a man many at Bullshido know as “Boyd”, I picked up the Orange Box and got sucked into Team Fortress 2.
Let’s just say there was a bit of a learning curve and I got smoked relentlessly until I figured things out. And after having gotten 35 kills in one round I now feel qualified to post a few secrets. But because I dutifully hate GameFAQs like every other self-respecting gamer, I’m not writing this in the style of one of their player guides or with any intent that it should be compared to them.
How to ruin people’s day using Advanced Engineering.
I’m going to focus on the two most popular maps, 2Fort and Dustbowl, because seriously – the other ones kind of suck.
2Fort
2Fort’s map is a “Capture the Flag” type game where you have to sneak/force/cheat your way into the enemy’s intelligence room in the basement of their fort, and return with a briefcase of “intelligence”. If you’re reading this, that’s probably about as detailed an explanation as I should write because you already know this being that you’ve played the game. If you haven’t, then why would you read this? Seriously, go do some pushups or something.
In order to keep myself from writing a freaking novel about a damn video game I’ll bullet point this sucker.
Out of the gates: When starting a new game the first thing you need to do after running out of your spawn point is get a sentry up inside the doorway to the right of your spawn but slightly inside the room and back about a “foot” or two. This should be worth a kill or two from eager Scouts trying to earlybird into your Intel room and it covers both the back stairs and through your battlements using double jump. Upgrade it as fast as possible by running back into your Resupply room. Immediately afterwards, drop a teleport entrance in the piles of hay; you’ll need this later. You can elect to set up shop here, as it’s a good spot for protecting your base and helping out your team. Or, you could just not give a crap about your teammates and move on to rack up your own kill count.
Offensive Engineer Tactics: Depending on how vigilant, nooberific, or aggressive the other team is, you can often build your sentry guns inside the enemy base. Hell, I’ve even managed to get a whole “nest” (more about that later) built in their Intel room to pour extra salt in the enemy wounds. You do this by leapfrogging your sentry gun progressively further into their base.
Start out by building a sentry gun right up against the front wall of their base, far enough back from the door that you can’t shoot at it, but far enough up that you can stand behind it. You’ll have to have a bit of luck to get it fully built before it’s noticed, but if you can manage this you’ll have a great little kill-counter-racker-upper (totally not a word).
From here, build a teleport exit in the room straight across from their main spawn/Resupply room. It’s the one with the hole in the floor. Your entrance should already be built, so just run back to your base (luck again) and get a full load of metal. Teleport back over and set up a dispenser along the wall of that room on the side they can’t shoot at. Make sure you leave enough space to stand in front of it without poking out into the doorway. Now, build your sentry gun and upgrade it as fast as you can. Now, you’re a one-man spawn-camping machine and your team has the run of their base short of the Intel room. I got 35 kills doing this. Just kneel down and whack your sentry when they try to destroy it; your dispenser (behind you) will keep you alive and stocked with metal. When done right, it looks something like this:
I’ve already spent more time writing this than I intended so I’ll put something up about Dustbowl later.