Firearms for source is an interesting project, as there are two teams who are developing the game. One team is creating Firearms 2, the other is creating Firearms:source. The Firearms 2 team is made up of many high profile players from the original game, plus the lead coder from version 2.7 on, Mazor. Mazor did an exceptional job cleaning up the net code and improving the game during his time on the Firearms team, I expect great things from him in Firearms 2. The Firearms source team is lead by Issa (an original mapper/coder from Firearms) and is filled with other longstanding members of the Firearms community.
As I stated in
my previous blog the projects originated from the original Firearms modification for Half-Life. They are essentially aiming to create the same game, so for the purpose of this blog, I'll cover them as if they were one.
Firearms is a fast paced modern infantry combat game. Players can choose to be part of the Red or the Blue team and from there they have 30 credit points to spend on armor, guns and other equipment. Armor ranges from light to heavy, weapons range from sniper rifles to pistols (with assault rifles being the favorite, particularily the Famas) and equipment ranges from grenades to trip mines to bandages. Firearms is comprised of a decreasing reinforcement system. Most maps begin with each team starting with 255 reinforcements based upon deaths and team accomplishments (such as full captures on push maps), reinforcements decrease.
A unique feature of the game is its wide range of the types of maps. The most common type of maps is "ps_", which is short for push. Push maps are maps where you must capture points, consecutively. Another popular type of map is "sd_" which is short for search & destroy. The objective of these maps is to destroy an object such as a truck or ammunition boxes. The final popular map type is "tc_", there is no way to "cap out" in tc maps, they are simply control points, which help speed the decrease of the opposing teams' reinforcements. The most interesting part about the map system in Firearms is that these map types can be combined. The hands down favorite clan map for Firearms was sdtc_balcome, a map which had a control point in the middle, with objectives to destroy near each teams' base. This feature allows mappers to develop with a great deal of creativity.
I am legitimately excited for a release of Firearms for the source engine. It's a shame that these two teams couldn't combine to release one complete game (much more quickly as well).I figure that the team who can get a full release out first will likely gain a true community. Here's
a gampelay video from the Firearms:source team.
