Team Fortress Arcade

When we talk about TF2 fan games, most of us will think of Gang Garrison 2, or maybe Fortress Forever. Some of us might even mention the TF2 Dating Sim, and … we’re not talking about that one. However, there is another little gem released in 2011 that I found out from watching FUNKe’s video. Out of curiosity, I downloaded it and had a look at it.

Team Fortress Arcade is a fan game by Eric Ruth, and just like what the title said, is a remake of TF2, arcade-style. It supports local multiplayer for up to 4 people on PC. And just like normal TF2, you have nine classes to choose from.

You play as BLU mercenaries fighting RED robots, and at the end of the first nine stages you fight one super-powered RED merc as a boss. For the last stage, you fight … a giant robot Cave Johnson. No, I have no idea why. The basic controls are movement in the four directions, jump and fire. However, when you fire a shot while jumping, your character performs his alternate fire. This holds true for all except Spy, whose alternate attacks works a bit differently.

The portrayal of characters in here are rather faithful to their TF2 counterparts. Scout moves the fastest among all the mercs, and he can double jump. His primary fire is his Scattergun, and his alternate fire is his Pistol which he fires 45 degrees down towards where he’s facing. Meanwhile, Soldier is armed with the rocket launcher, and his alternate fire shoots a rocket right below him. I had a lot of fun using this to divebomb enemies, since at least in the early stages, the ground-based enemies can’t shoot anywhere but right in front of them. If you time it right you can also use the explosion from your alternate fire to rocket jump.

Pyro wields his trusty Flame Thrower, which is a massive pain to use since it is a close-range weapon. Interestingly, his alternate fire is  his Flare Gun. All the other classes only use their stock weapons. Both his weapons deal afterburn, which is better than in TF2 since none of the common enemies can extinguish themselves.

Demoman jumps into battle with his Grenade Launcher, blowing up every robot in his way. His grenades travels about two-fifths of the screen before exploding if they didn’t hit an enemy. His alternate fire is his Stickybomb Launcher, which he detonates by jumping again. He drops two bombs every time he performs his alternate fire. Like the Soldier, Demoman can use his alternate fire to Sticky Jump.

Heavy is armed with a Minigun, and he moves slower while firing. His alternate fire is his Shotgun shooting 45 degrees down where he’s facing, which is a tad bit disappointing since I’m expecting him to have the Sandvich instead. Engineer’s primary fire is his Sentry Gun, which he builds right in front of him with his Wrench facing the direction he’s looking at. It starts off as a Level 1 Sentry, but Engie can upgrade it up to Level 3 by swinging at it with his Wrench. He can build more than one at a time, but they despawn after about two seconds. His alternate fire is the same as Heavy.

Medic is armed with the Medi Gun, and at first I was confused why it was doing absolutely nothing to enemies. Then I realized it is a Medi Gun that is used to heal teammates, not a plasma cannon. After slapping myself for not realizing it sooner, I tested it out, and sure enough, it does heal. No overheals though. His alternate fire is the Syringe Gun. He can also control how high he jumps, which depends on how long you hold down the jump button. By the way, this Medic also has regenerating health as well.

Sniper’s alternate fire is his SMG. His primary fire is his Sniper Rifle. It started off firing shots that are weaker than a Fan O’War hit on a crit-immune Heavy. But if you hold down the fire button before releasing it, he’ll charge up the shot. A fully-charged shot will destroy all enemies in the line of fire, much like the Machina.

Spy is an interesting one. His normal and alternate fire is just him firing his Revolver. But when he gets into very close range, he uses his Knife for melee attacks instead, which is a one-hit kill on all common enemies. If you play single-player, all the enemies will be facing you all the time, which means you can facestab your way through the stage. And if you hold down your attack button, Spy can turn invisible.

When the Spy is Cloaked, he can just walk about without a care in the world. However, if he’s hit by a light attack, he’ll turn translucent, similar to how Spy turns into a team-coloured translucent hue when he bumps into an enemy in TF2. At that moment, the enemy robots can see him and attack him. A heavy attack (a heavy attack will knock you down to the ground for a moment, a light attack will just push you back slightly), however, will cancel your Cloak outright. Otherwise, you can remain Cloaked pretty much forever. You can decloak by pressing the attack button again.

If I have one complain, it’ll be the key configurations, for which there is no way to rebind except for using some outside software. Take a look at this:

The only way this can be somewhat comfortable is if Player 2 sits on Player 1’s lap, while Player 3 pokes his head and arms from under Player 2’s arm. Meanwhile, Player 4 will just awkwardly hover around the side with the number pad. It’s like trying to play Twister but everyone’s huddled in front of a computer. This is the largest and perhaps the only bone I have to pick with the game.

Other than that, this is a nice time killer to keep around. So yeah, why not give it a try?