HIGHLANDER

An alternative TF2 match format ... (and a kilt is optional )

Many people (like me) enjoy their game of TF2 in a relaxed and fun way. There is no extreme pressure to win the round, capture the flag or to push the little cart. Some people also find enjoyment and challenge in a proper organised TF2 match, either in an official competition or a friendly match. In either case, I wanted to discuss an interesting match format that I first came across a few months ago. The format is known as “The Highlander”.

So what is a Highlander then? This originally prompted me to scratch my head (and maybe other body parts) until somebody reminded me of that terrible film with the same name (starring Christopher Lambert and his dodgy Scottish accent). I was then of course directed to remember the very cheesy line “there can be only one!” – and the match format began to make sense!

Even though the idea isn’t very new itself, a limit of one of each class sounded very interesting to me. I wondered if it would be any good and if people would be p*ssed off at not playing their favourite class. A friendly match was soon organised and we kicked off with a 9 vs.9 line-up. Each team had only one of each class and we kicked off what I thought was one of the most dynamic and well matched fights that I have seen in TF2. The map was Goldrush, and the usually difficult first stage came and went with a good tough battle. This (to be clear) wasn’t what I considered to be the normal Goldrush grind of running into a sea of sentry guns, sticky bombs and sniper dots. The map was actually very fluid and the team’s tactics seemed to work very well with one of each class in the frame.

When attacking I noticed that the team was more cohesive and we relied on each other a bit more than I’d seen in other friendly matches. The defending enemy team looked after their engineer very well knowing that once he’d been taken out there was no second engineer to bail them out quickly. There was no wall of demo man spam preventing access to key areas and I note the more skilful tactics needed to deny ground or to capture it. The lack of “negative” tactics like sitting back behind huge sentry gun nests or group sniping (always a favourite tactic on some servers) did free up the team to try different routes or points of attack. You’d have thought that a match team would always have a plan but I liked the opportunity to think on my feet in this match. Teams couldn’t cover every angle with snipers or engineers so it lent a very fluid feel to the game. That’s not to say that you couldn’t lock down areas of the map, it just meant that better co-ordination was needed than I usually saw with teams consisting of the same classes. The proof was some very tough and desperate attacks at the various choke points on the map. Breakthroughs did happen when key enemy classes were taken down at specific times (i.e. maybe a heavy or a demo were killed or the medic burned to death before using his ubercharge). This felt very rewarding with victory feeling well earned. The losing team also didn’t feel that robbed, knowing that the fight was quite even and a real challenge for all. On this occasion, the teams were very even and I’m sure that this helped make the match what it was.

I also know that the purists out there (the professionals too) know that a proper match team with different class limits can be highly effective, challenging and fun. What I am saying is that for the more casual gamer the Highlander format can give a good competitive challenge whilst removing some of the drudgery normally seen in spam fest / engineer heavy maps and tactics. There may be more than one way to have a match, but for me “there can be only one” Highlander. I’ll be giving it another go at the first opportunity.