It Came from the Forums! Pyro Pack Review

This review was written by Caleb (Ripskin in the forums). I’m posting it as is because he worked pretty hard on editing it. Enjoy.

Quite recently the pyro pack for Team Fortress 2 came out; and I didn’t even know it. The pyro has always been my favorite of the nine. I’m rather pleased with the achievements given.

The achievements prove to be challenging, but nowhere near as hard, or even odd as the medic’s. For example, how are you going to save someone about to die from a fall, without staging it? I guess some people can, but it’s just a matter of chance. I digress, the pyro achievements, right.

When I first found out about the pack’s release, I was on the beginning of a two-day migraine. So I turned my monitors brightness to 10%, sealed the window so no light would come in, turned off my speakers and began.

I tried to do these in regular maps, which proved ineffective, but I wanted that flare gun. So I went and asked my good friend Cheap to help, which he awesomely said he would. It only took 20 minutes to get around 12 achievements just staging all of them with the good Mr. Awesome. Finally I said screw it, and went to an achievement box. From there I got all but four done in an hour. I then played regular games for the kills to not feel like I was cheating that much.

For some of you that don’t know what an achievement box is, it’s a map that gives you all the conditions needed to get any achievements for the pyro/medic. Usually people help others, in exchange for help of their own achievements.

So the achievements were really simple; and that’s just fine, simpler the better. The weapons they unlocked? Made of pure concentrated awesome. The flare gun (what I like to call the ‘Poof-F-U gun’) is a long range flame thrower, except more fun to shoot. I say it’s more fun, because what beats seeing some sort of enemy run away after seeing a pyro, then getting set on fire anyways with this toy flare gun from 50 feet away? It’s also pretty funny to shoot it straight into a croud, just to see whoever you hit crying for a medic.

The next weapon is the back burner, which is just a beautiful gun featuring the head of some sort of amphibian at the end, which just makes it even cooler. The ‘back’ part of the burner isn’t near as effective as the +50 hp it gives. I mean, sure the insta-crit is great, but you find yourself trying to hit their back more then trying to set everyone on fire.

Lastly, the Axtinguisher, which is a beautiful and bloody axe with barbed wire wrapped around it, and it honestly doesn’t do much for me. Yeah, it’s gorey and beautiful; but you have a flamethrower, why are you going to run at them with an axe? I guess for the 100% crit against burning people which is just as pointless as trying to hit dudes in the back instead of setting everyone on fire. Also whenever I look at the axe, I get this hollow feeling in my teeth, reminds me of the braces I had to wear like five years of my life..

All in all the pyro pack is a great addition to the game, and I can’t wait for the next one. Supposedly, it’s the engineers turn. In all honesty I hope it’s the demo, because that’s my second favorite, and of course what I’m using almost all the time right now because pyros are almost useless against pyros, which is half any team you’ll fight right at the moment. But hopefully the flashiness of the new achievements will wear off soon.