Montana Fragfest

Well I’ll be honest, I never really got into Battlefield 1942 or Desert Combat, but MAN did I love Battlefield 2. It was my World of Warcraft. I’ve never had more friends playing a single game at a single time, and I loved it. I was often the squad leader, and we would ROLL other teams. When I heard about Battlefield 1943 being release my excitement was tempered because of Battlefield Heroes, but let’s hop into the game and see how it goes.

The Good

The game is fun. It has all the classic elements of Battlefield combat: land, sea, and air vehicles mashed in with a large ground-based capture the flag maps. Another huge plus is that the game is only $15. I think that this is a great step in the right direction. I hope it sends a message to game publishers that you can publish a game that might not look the best or be game of the year but if it’s fun and cheap people will buy it.

They are also doing a challenge where the community unlocks new content by getting a large number of global kills. At 43,000,000 kills the respective system (Xbox360 or PS3) unlocked the Coral Bay map (which is an air-combat only map). This REALLY incentivized people to get on as much as possible and keep the fight going 24/7. Editors Note: Both systems have unlocked Coral Bay, although the Xbox 360 was the first to do so.

The Bad

This game is slow. While I enjoy playing it, I never get really passionate about it like I do COD4 or TF2. You have no sense of teamwork, or team goals, which is a problem in a game centered around team and squad based objectives. You basically run around capping points, trying to kill the enemy. When the game is over you are never really surprised about who won, because you have no clue what is going on elsewhere in the match.

The game in general seems very non-immersive. When I shoot my gun or run around I don’t FEEL like a soldier on a battlefield. I almost feel like I’m playing a rail shooter in an arcade.

When I hopped back into COD4 after playing this game for a couple reasons, I realized why COD4 is SO GOOD. When you run the camera moves around like I’m running, when I shoot my gun the camera makes me feel like I’m actually shooting a rifle, Battlefield 1943 just doesn’t do that.

The Down-Low

This game is fun and cheap, plain and simple. As you can tell, it wasn’t the best game I’ve ever played by any stretch of the imagination but it keeps me entertained and got me to pry open my wallet instead of GameFly’ing it like I do most games.

We here at Montana Fragfest really like Team Fortress 2, that is why we are starting a couple of weekly events on our server!

Manic Monday

Work is hard. We all hate it, so wind down on the first day of the week by electronically killing people. It is every Monday starting at 9pm MST. Let us help you help yourself.

Beer Fortress 2

We like beer here at Montana Fragfest, that is why every Thursday at 8pm MST we created an excuse to drink beer and play video games. Tell your girlfriend to buzz off, TF2 is your mistress that night.

I’ve always liked Valve, especially the Team Fortress 2 team. They have done an excellent job of keeping things stylized, funny, and super fun. The latest sniper/spy update though was the teams first REAL dive into low brow humor that I don’t think fits them.

Seriously? A jar of piss?

Here at Montana Fragfest I’ve been known to have a “potty mouth” and “say things that are inappropriate” but that is a tone and a style that I set for myself. The recent update has had Valve really dive into a style and tone for TF2 that has never been there before. This game has always had cartoony violence, silly characters, and odd weapons but “Jarate” (a jar of urine that you throw) is below them. Jokes in the “Meet The Spy” video such a spy getting it on with the scout’s mom and “now he’s here to f*ck US” just don’t fit the attitude that has been established in this game thus far. Even the scene where the blue spy’s head gets blown off seems out of place.

Grow Up

One reason I’ve always loved Team Fortress 2 is the subtle humor. The team was always very clever about doing things, and these recent oddities just seem like a lazy 12 year old’s attempt at humor. I ask the Team Fortress group to tone it down. Get back to being clever! It’s what made me like you so much in the first place.

While most of us were expecting to see the fourth installment of the Sniper Update today, Vavle pulled a dirty move and announced that we were actually getting The Spy Update this cycle.

The Dead Ringer Spy Watch

The have brought back the feign death ability from Team Fortress Classic with the Dead Ringer Spy watch. What this watch does is feign death when you are hit with a body shot, leaving a fake dead body on the ground and cloaking you for 8 seconds.

While it’s great to see the feign death ability come back, I just don’t see a large amount of practicailty of it.

The Cloak and Dagger Spy Watch

Not really clear if this is an unlockable or just a replacement of the regular spy watch, but it allows the a cloaked spy to stop and recharge their cloak. As long as they stand still their cloak will recharge.

This will make quite the change for spys, allowing them to basically remain permanatly cloaked throuhout an enemies’ base.

Valve release part 3 of the Sniper update and the new weapon is: The Razorback. What does the Razorback do you ask? It shocks the hell out of spys who stab you with it on (also in the process heating up their knives for a bit making then unable to stab). It’s downsides? Slows you down, destroys itself when shocking a spy, and I’m assuming will take the place of either your kukri or your submachine gun.

I think it’s useful, but not useful enough to give up a gun or melee weapon. What are your guys’ thoughts?