There’s two minutes left on the clock of a thirty-minute meat-grinder of a map; you’ve pushed the flag all the way up, only to be stopped by Red’s last line of defense. The flag, thankfully, isn’t in the pit or on the bridge. It’s back in the best area it can be: the jump zone. The timer ticks down to thirty… something has to be done now. “PUSH!” someone cries; the heavies and soldiers push around the corner to face the defenders. The demo lays pipes on the flag, and as the medic touches the flag and jumps, the pipes explode, sending the medic flying at the red pylons signifying the capture point. A large explosion and a bell signal that your team has just prevailed. Congratulations, you have just won a dustbowl match in Team Fortress Classic.

To those of you that have played TF2 this seems somewhat familiar; for those who have never played a Team Fortress game, the objective of an attack-defend map is for one team to bring a flag to a location controlled by the enemy. Maps are divided into stages, and players may choose from any of nine classes to form a team.  Classes run the gambit of typical FPS character jobs, from the slow chaingun-wielding heavy-weapons guy to the light and nimble scout.

The classic model, while similar to TF2’s model, is very different. There is no point to stand on or time to capture. Rather, there is only one flag and one point per stage; if the flag-carrier touches the point, blue scores. Additionally, all respawn timers are zero, there are no uber-charges, medics can’t heal at a distance, and there are grenades. This puts a heavier emphasis on individual rather than team skill, and most captures are made doing trick jumps using concussion grenades, rockets, or pipes (Stickies).  Players can also boost each other with explosives, provided friendly fire is turned off.

While some might call the game a large spamfest or a meat grinder, it had a certain charm that only older games with dodgy physics engines had: the sheer joy of being able to break something and then have it become a part of normal game play (something a lot of more modern games are lacking). The jumping especially lent itself to some amazing spectacles, and pulling off the crazier ones required not only a high degree of skill, but also coordination on the part of the team to clear the appropriate area and make sure that it would be a success.

The following video showcases some of the craziest jumps I’ve ever seen – take note too that none of this is staged; every jump capture is made in actual league match play. (I’m actually in a few shots on cornfield, the heavy at 2:40 & 3:20)

Watch more Google Video videos on AOL Video

My favorite TFC memories stem from some of the shots shown in that video. We were playing in the title match of the STA-ADL, against 3v.  They rolled us, doing a jump on cap 4 where the scout is blown through the det-packable wall and caps very easily.  We managed to roll them back, but the real moment came when they had their second attack try – once you pull off something crazy,  it tends to not work a second time.

They tried again to launch a scout through.  However, before a detpack blows, there’s an audible whine you can hear.  When I heard that noise, I turned and began firing at where I thought the scout was going to fly. The detpack fired, and the scout died mid air. The flag fell into the river, where it remained for the rest of the match, clinching it for us. We may have lost the title a week later, but stopping epic jumps was what made defense extremely fun to play.

From the demoralization of the cap 2 spam pit on dustbowl, where spamming the right way could have a demo rack up over 200 kills and keep the enemy team from advancing for the entirety of the thirty minute match, to the crazy heights of the capture points on Palermo, the classic model of Team Fortress offered an extremely high degree of fun for those dedicated enough to reach the peak of the long learning curve; Classic was an easy game to jump into, but very difficult to master. And while the game has mostly faded away, the memories will always remain.