*Snickt* "AARRRGGHHH~~~!!"

Ah, another one with blood on my suit. Thank goodness I bought these anti-stain jackets. Rather handy I should say. Some have cursed my name when they see me. Others have sought to emulate me. Still others drop everything to grab the nearest flamethrower when they hear my name.

You see, I played far too much [i]Team Fortress 2'/i] when it came out, eventually crafting a reputation as a more-than-passing spy who could dabble as a scout or sniper as needed. But how did I get sucked into this cartoony world of violence and curse words? How did it evolve into a group of friends who I still play with, to this day, despite us having moved on?

Valve's Team Fortress 2's antics are legend in the PC FPS market. Having gone on strong for nigh near four years now, it's quite fascinating to see how it is still being played competitively, as well as how few other shooters have come close to its pedigree.

For me, I'd been looking forward to the title for over a decade. That's right, I was one of those few who had been following its development ever since it was first announced back in the late 1990's - At the time as a realistic shooter based on the Half-Life 1 engine, no less.

Humble beginnings
When it finally arrived, I was hooked. I remember the first night I played it. I could not stop laughing at the after-death kill-cams, the pleasing simplicity of each class and the tightly balanced maps. It was clearly worth the decade wait to play such an absolutely amazing title.

It was also the first title that I actively used a microphone to play, and I quickly found a group of like-minded individuals who enjoyed the team-based aspects of the game. As we played, I experimented with the various classes and found I gravitated to the scout's speedy get-in, hit-em-in-the-face style. But yet, something felt lacking.

That was, until I found the Spy class.

The Spy, for those unfamiliar with the game, is a pansy. He has 125 health, sharing the least amount of health with the Scout. His default loadout (The game has since given birth to a dizzying array of extra weapons and options that can completely change how you play the same class) was a simple six-round revolver, a butterfly knife, an electro-sapper, a disguise kit and his cloaking watch.

In the hands of a new player, it was a woefully underpowered and easily dispatched distraction. You could find hidden spies by bumping into them or just setting the air on fire, hoping to catch one on fire (Spy suits are notoriously flammable despite the Spy's smoking habit)

His strengths lay in his ability to disguise as the enemy team, walking unopposed past automated sentries set up by Engineer classes and quickly disabling them, as well as his knife. A backstab was an instant-kill.

The first few times this happened, my only thoughts were "Oh, neat!" or, when it happened to me "Oh, damnit." And then it struck me. I could talk in these servers. I could type. I could also hide very, very, well.

The basis of the Spy's true powers began to creep into my head.

The Mental Prep

I began to look up information on the Spy and how he was to be played. For one thing, back when the game first launched, it took an inordinate amount of time to backstab a player. It was entirely possible for the player to turn around by accident, which turned the instant-kill into a mere tickle (The knife was the worst melee weapon in the game damage wise) How was I to overcome this?

Videos and practice showed me. If you flicked out the knife [/i]just so[i] before reaching the back of an enemy, one would obtain a normal attack animation while still scoring a backstab kill. If you chained your stab and quick-switch button fast enough, it was possible to stab an Engineer and still sap his weapons before they turned on you and blew you up.

As I practiced, I gained attention. Soon enough, half the enemy team would be on the lookout for "that damned Spy" wandering the battlefield... somewhere. I could be in your base, waiting for the next innocent person to walk out of spawn only to feel the cold kiss of my knife. Or I could be near the front lines, quietly ready to slip the knife into the Medic keeping his team alive.

And then, the mind games began.

I would begin to type in all-chat the antics of the enemy team. "The engineer is building behind the wall" perhaps, or "Ooh, I see you switched to Pyro to find me..." The effects were immediate. Paranoid from having a person who looked just like them around, they would begin to play defensively. They would shoot their own teammates, just in case. They would run around in the back of their base, flaming corners randomly looking for me. More often than not, they would be greeted with a macro'ed message of my haunting laughter echoing around them, infuriating them further.

Realization
Before I knew it, I had sunk over 1500 hours into the game, almost 1000 of it playing as a Spy.

By the end of my time with Team Fortress 2, I could play enough mind games and tricks that few would face me head-on without a good plan of their own. Team Fortress 2 spy lingo, such as the Stair-stab, the Stab-and-Sap, the Circle-Knife, Quick-Knife, the Fakeout and more were everyday feelings for me.

By the end, I could laughingly lead an enemy to his doom or scurrying in a false direction where he had assumed I'd gone.

With the advent of various unlocks, my arsenal expanded. The Cloak-and-Dagger, which doesn't drain cloak energy so long as you stay still, made my mind games all the better. The Ambassador, an extremely accurate revolver, became my way of headshotting troublesome players with difficult to assault bases.

And yet, all good things had to come to an end.

You see, I was bored. There's only so many times you can fool an enemy before they begin to learn from you - especially when your server populations are relatively small. So many ways to fool an enemy before they do the wise thing of checking *everywhere* instead. So many ways to play the same maps over and over before you begin to bore of them.

I don't regret the time I spent in the game. For one thing, it's opened my eyes to the power of utilizing mind games on enemies in other games I've played. I don't need to rely on troll power to rile up Defiants in Rift's PvP. I don't need to see you first in Modern Warfare 3.

Because, you see, I am already behind you. Laughing as I pull the trigger.