PC gaming for me was always a sisyphean ordeal of confusion and pain. I bought the awesome Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers for my birthday once and had a hellish time getting it to work. Finally, 6 days after the worst birthday ever, we got it to run. Then I managed to get all the way to day 6 before it constantly errored at that point. It took 5 years for me to get a CD of it and beat the damn thing.

So I became a console man.

Then TF2 was released. I spent 6 hours on a 2fort server yesterday (soul3150, feel free to say hello), that's the longest I've spent on a video game since the time I rented a PS1, Resident Evil and no memory card, forcing me to try and beat it without stopping or saving (got to the mutant plant boss).

I also hated online FPS cause I sucked at them. My brother is a bastard at Counterstrike so I thought I'd try it. I got whipped soundly and went back to playing games alone. Then I played TF2.





Here is my ode to TF2...

To the wonderful stage of 2fort, your simple balance allows for all classes to funtion in their intended roles whilst allowing for innovative use of characters. Your construction mirrors the yin and the yang, and as I scout run for that intel, I am overcome with a zen like awe at the simple magesty of the universe, knowing that all things are as one in their balance through constant change.

To the Scout. Your speed and determination in capturing intel
is a constant inspiration. You die constantly, serving as point fodder for the attack classes, but do you give up? Nay. You respawn and rush out there, scattergun in hand, ready to try again. Boink.

To the Spy. You are the deadly shadow that causes tension and mistrust in the opposing team. You are the sinister movement we catch in the corner of our vision, and then all we know is the sweet release of death at the end of your butterfly knife . And you, much like myself, enjoy taking heavies from behind.

To the Medic. Where would we be without you? A healer who can forget his hippocratic oath long enough to hack at someone with a bone saw or dose them up with needles. Needles filled with an intricate poison that you have mastercrafted in your laboratory after experimenting on POW's to a degree that would make Unit 731 proud.

To the Heavy. You are the knuckles, the shock and awe, get that chaingun rolling and all hell is visited on the opposition. Chainguns are inherently cool, Arnold Schwarzenegger says so and Edward Furlong agrees with him.

To the Engineer. You are the defense, our backup, our rock. Your sentries guard us,

your dipensers resupply us, enough of you can stop anything. You are our wall. You are also a great way to spend 20 minutes doing nothing but sit in the intel room staring at the fucking wall while everyone else has fun.

To the Pyro. Though we may not hear you too clearly through the mask, your dulcet voice carries your cheers well when you incinerate a Scout too quick for a gun, or a cloaked spy. You are also a Street Fighter fan and you mimic Ryu's Hadoken as a taunt, which is cool.

To the Soldier. You are the digger of the group. You are the perfect stoic infrantryman, the square jawed picture of tough. How tough? You can take a rocket to the feet, something that is typically fatal, but not to you, you take this fatal injury and use it to reach new heights. Sometimes you explode.

To the Demoman. You are the man of a thousand uses. Need an area defended, slap some sticky grenades about the place. Need a sentry removed, lob in some pipe bombs. Being able to work equally well on defence or offence makes you a vital addition to the team.
And you teach us that it's not racist to have a character that is a drunken black guy running around hitting people with liquor bottles if he is Scottish.

To the Sniper. My countryman, my brother in arms. Australia has been in every major war on Earth since the Boer and why stop now. We have been a Selusa Secundus, breeding awesome soldiers for all the rest of you, so even though we are in NO WAY INVOLVED, we'll die for it. And the sniper shows this dedication in TF2, standing with his dead aim, vulnerable to everything, but get in his sights and you are, as we say here, "fucked in the bum".

To TF2, for being so damn playable I spent the better part of 45 minutes writing a mad love rant about you. You deserve it.