Have You Played... Team Fortress Classic?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

I did and I didn't like it. To me, Team Fortress Classic was unfairly dumped in a bin called "a team-based multiplayer shooter like Counter-Strike only messy and guff."

As I say, I know that's an unfair comparison, but I stand by thinking the game messy. I never ever joined a Team Fortress Classic server and had a good experience. It was always chaotic; it was always full of conc-jumping wunderkids; I always seemed to pick a class that felt useless; its maps always seemed to result in stalemates around single, narrow chokepoints. I never had fun.

Or, well, that's not true. There was one thing I liked about the game: feign death. The ability to at any point press a button and pretend to be a corpse. Most players would be wise to the trick and would shoot you as you lay prone on the ground, but occasionally you'd experience the wonderful thrill of watching a player walk by you unknowingly. I think I only managed to use that scenario to my advantage a few times, but it was worth it each time. A preview of what the Spy brought as a matter of course to Team Fortress 2.

Before you take to the comments to lambast me: I can appreciate that Team Fortress Classic had a lot going for it. I think maybe if I'd been in a clan then I'd have liked it. Sing its praises in the comments if you feel like it.