Enemy Territory
One of the best things about mods, if not the best thing, is that they are free -- sometimes even rivaling the quality of a product that might cost you 50 bucks. Add to that the idea of making mods that run on a game that is free to begin with, and you've got yourself a pretty sweet scenario for a ton of games that won't ever dent your wallet.
This week's second mod of choice is called True Combat: Elite, a fairly new realistic shooter modification for Enemy Territory. With a few similarities to other games in the genre (i.e. that of bomb sites), TC:E also brings some newer concepts into the overall scheme of things. For example, you may be shocked to notice the obvious disappearance of your crosshair. I'm afraid our trusty plus sign has been, well, subtracted.
This style of aiming is known as "iron sights," where in order to gain as much accuracy with a weapon as possible, you have to focus your sight down the barrel of the gun. While not an entirely new concept, as this has been seen before in games like Call of Duty and Red Orchestra, I can say that thanks to TC:E I finally enjoy this method of shooting my friends.
Side note and a quick tip: the blue triangles are your friends! I mention this because every map contains custom player models. It's a little confusing at first, but I found the custom models add to each map's theme. As long as you aren't trigger happy, you'll adjust fairly quickly and your teammates will remain sane.
Lying down on the job? Plant the bomb!
One of the most interesting features of this mod is what's been dubbed the Armament Availability system (AA). This was designed to handle how weapons are distributed on a per-round basis. What they've done is devise a system that, based on how well you did in the prior round, will determine what weapons are available for you to choose at the start of the next round. It might sound a bit confusing at first, but it actually works quite well. And don't worry -- you can still swap for any gun found on the ground.
While the AA system is still pretty early in development, I hope to see it outlive any controversy the community may have. I give them two big thumbs up for having the guts to try something different.
Before bringing this to a close, I'd like to mention a goal that Team Terminator and Groove 6 Studios ( the teams behind TC:E) have set for their mod. "Our goal at the moment is to have at least 500 players actively playing on TC:E servers 24 hours a day, every day of the week." Had this been said after the original test release, I probably wouldn't have thought it possible. But now, after seeing such improvement with this latest release, and in such a short amount of time, I can honestly say that their goal seems not only possible, but small in comparison to how much potential this modification truly has.
