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The Specialists

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The Specialists is a multiplayer mod for the popular first-person shooter computer game Half-Life. It is currently at version 3.0, unknown date.

The game was created by Filippo "Morfeo" De Luca & Lorenzo "John_Matrix" Pasini. The Specialists 1.0 was first publicly released on October 2002, and is as of April 2004 at version 2.1. The Specialists 3.0 is currently under development, although no release date has been mentioned.

Contents

Gameplay

"The Specialists, or TS, is a multiplayer action movie mod/total conversion for Valve's best selling first person shooter Half-Life." -From the official FAQ.

The Specialists is intended to resemble a generic action movie, and is often compared to the film Face/Off though several of the default models and some of the gameplay elements appear to be references to The Matrix. It contains over 29 weapons and many powerups. The object of the Deathmatch game mode is to get as many frags as you possibly can. Other options include The One Mode, where one player with enhanced abilities takes on all others until he is killed, therefore making his killer The One.

The Specialists employs some innovative features that make it a unique entry in the world of first-person shooters. The most notable is the ability to manipulate time to pass in slow motion in a multiplayer environment. Before The Specialists, "bullet-time gameplay", made famous by games such as Max Payne, was a plaything of single-player titles. The game also makes heavy use of stunts , and many stunt combinations can multiply the score awarded for killing opponents. Apart from shooting, the player can also perform melee attacks using a simple kung fu system. Although it is far from the first shooter to include stunting and kung fu (a notable spiritual predecessor The Opera), The Specialists combines the techniques of what came before it with its slow motion game play to produce a highly popular gaming experience.

Player Models

Movement & Stunts

The various stunts that can be performed are all dependent on the gauge to the left of players crosshair. He/She will notice that when he/she moves the mouse up and down, the dot in the gauge will move up and down as well, depending on where he/she looks. The position of this dot when he/she perform a move dictates the kind of stunt he/she can do. Because the gauge is split into 3 categories, those are called high, medium and low moves.

Main Stunts

Flips: These are performed by tapping the jump key twice in quick succession. They will cause the player jump forward or sideways(depending on the direction of movement) and perform a flip in mid air. If this is performed when standing still player will do a standing backflip that will cause damage to other players if the other player is near enough. The standing backflip is only available if the player has 60 or more equipment weight slots free.

Dives: A dive is performed by pressing the stunt key. Pressing the key once will launch the player forwards, sideways or backwards, depending on which way you are moving. The player will then land on the ground and stay prone until either jump or the stunt button is pressed again, at which point the player will rise to their feet. If the stunt button is held down when the player hits the ground after a dive, a forward roll will be performed and the player will rise straight to their feet, allowing much more freedom of movement. Rolls: Rolls are mainly used as an evasive maneuver, they can be performed by Double Tapping the duck key, when player do this he/she will roll in the direction he/she is currently moving. As previously mentioned, after a dive a roll may also be performed by holding the stunt key as the player hits the floor. Rolls can be performed regardless of free slots.

Climbing: Player can climb up most walls for a short distance and even move along them. To do this player has to stand next to a wall and double tap jump key and he/she will pull himself/herself a short distance up the wall, holding down jump will cause him/her to do this again. If the player has 60 or more slots free, this move can be performed three times in succession. If the player has less slots free, the maximum number of climbs is two. To climb an object successfully the player must be looking at the object with his/her crosshair. If the object is lower in your field of view than the crosshair then the player will perform a flip instead of climbing

Other Moves

Bullet Dodge: When stationary, in either Slow Motion or Slow Pause, tapping the stunt key will make the player perform a bullet dodging move. A very useful move, however, he/she cannot fire while performing it and after doing so you will be on lying prone on the floor.

Wallflip: It is possible to perform wallflips simply by running into a wall and pressing the stunt key, players character will run up the wall and flip backwards off it, as well as looking very stylish, this can be a useful escape move.

Weight and Slots

Weight is a very important part of The Specialists. As it determines a large part of how you can play the game. Those who enjoy carrying vast amounts of firepower around with them will be very limited in the number of stunts that they can perform and the speed at which they can move. Whereas players armed with only knives or a pistol will been able to move very quickly and perform more stunts.

When you have no weapons you have 81 free slots (This has been changed to 100 in version 3.0). From this weight and down to 60 slots, you can perform all available moves. When you have weaponry that reduces you to under 60 slots, you can only perform moves in the medium and low category only. If you have less than 40 slots available, only low moves can be performed. If you want to know the kind of stunts that are available to you with your current configuration, just glance at the stunt gauge for the answer. You will notice that it will be either all white, or portions of it will be shaded red, to indicate in which area stunts are unavailable.

Killing Spree Statuses

The Specialists keeps track of players' killing sprees, which is how many kills a player achieves in their current life. Every 3 kills, and then again at 10 kills, the status changes and is announced at the top of the screen in-game, as well as in the scoreboard. When a player dies, their status resets to normal. The 4 statuses of killing sprees are as follows: Interestingly, all 4 of the status names are also names of action movies, John Woo's Hong Kong 1989 movie The Killer, 1993's Demolition Man, 1994's The Specialist, and 2004's Unstoppable (It should be noted that the final movie was released after the inclusion of the killing spree status in The Specialists).

Powerups

The Specialists contains a variety of powerups. These can be separated into passive and active powerups.

Passive powerups

Passive powerups do not require activation: they last until the character is killed, and maintain their effect for the entire time.

Kung Fu: This powerup doubles the amount of damage that any kung fu attack deals, thus making one attack (the back kick) a one hit kill. This powerup is given to you when you reach the status of Specialist.

Super jump: The Super jump ability allows the character to make massive leaps. Useful for maps containing large buildings and outdoor scenes (ts_fall, ts_lobby, etc.). The longer you hold jump while superjumping, the higher you go. Sometimes you will receive falling damage if you jump too high. This powerup is also given to you when you reach the status of Specialist.

Health: The Health powerup boosts your health up to 150 points, allowing you to take a lot more punishment before dropping. Once collected, your health will drop by 1 point per second until it returns to 100 or you get damaged to 100 or under it.

Grenade: Grenade powerup provides you with one frag grenade. Primary fire causes you to lob the grenade up and over obstacles, whilst secondary fire causes you to roll the grenade across the ground. It has a 5 second delay, before it explodes. This powerup is only available in Deathmatch games, and will also take up 15 slots in your inventory.

Kevlar: Kevlar gives the player increased protection against damage from bullets, but it doesn't give any extra protection against melee or other forms of attacks.

Active powerups

Active powerups must be activated to have an effect. Active powerups last for three or five seconds depending on which powerup is used. Active powerups can be particularly devastating when used with an appropriate weapon. One may only carry one active powerup at a time.

Infinite Ammunition (Max. 3 Seconds): While this powerup is active, the amount of ammunition remaining in the player's gun does not decrease, regardless of how many shots are fired. One cannot fire with an empty weapon, however. In version 3.0, this powerup will be replaced by the "Double Ammo" powerup. This powerup gives the player's currently held gun a magazine of bullets carrying double the bullets that the magazine normally carries. It will have this effect even if there are zero bullets left in the gun. Unlike the other powerups, Double Ammo can be used in conjuction with any of the other powerups.

Slow Motion (Max. 5 Seconds): This powerup allows one to enter 'bullet time' in a manner similar to that of Max Payne computer games and The Matrix movies. Time appears to slow down in the game, with all players slowed down to the same low speed.

Slow Pause (Max. 3 Seconds): Similar to Slow Motion, but far more effective. Under the effect of this, enemy characters come to a near total halt, while you can move almost as fast as if it weren't slow-motion. Bullets travel even slower than in Slow Motion, while thrown knives hang in mid air.

Double Fire-Rate (Max. 5 Seconds): When this powerup is active, all ammunition in the player's gun is fired at double the normal rate of fire. If a player is wielding a semi-automatic weapon (such as the GLOCK 20, Five-Seven, or the like), it is converted into an automatic weapon for the duration of the powerup. If a player is wielding a melee weapon, such as a katana, that weapon is swung around twice as fast, and knives can be thrown one after the other by holding the secondary fire button.

Weapons

The game contains over 29 weapons separated into 5 types: Pistols, Shotguns, Submachine guns, Rifles, and Special Purpose. Each is modeled realistically. Several of the pistols(and one submachine gun) can be wielded akimbo. Nearly all weapons can be fitted with silencers, flashlights, scopes, or lasersights. Every weapon takes up a specific number of slots, and this affects the player speed. This gives the player a disadvantage if they decide to wield several heavy weapons, as they will be significantly slower.

Pistols

In the next version (3.0), a new single-shot hunting pistol called the Thompson Contender will be added, as well as a single Beretta 92F handgun.

Submachine guns (SMGs)

Prior to version 2.1, an Ingram MAC-10 was in place of the UMP, but was removed for balancing reasons. In the next version (3.0), the Steyr TMP will be replaced by the Skorpion.

Shotguns

Rifles

Special purpose

Ammunition

The vast assortment of weapons featured in The Specialists use different kinds of ammunition. When a player runs low on ammunition, they can obtain more from fragged players' ammo vests.

Different kinds of ammunition featured in The Specialists:

Weapon Imbalances

One of the most common complaints with the mod is the imbalances caused by several weapons:

Maps and Locales

The Specialists features a variety of maps and arenas to engage combat in.

Official Deathmatch Maps

Official Teamplay Maps

Role-playing

An alternative, user-created mode of play involves role-playing in the game. There is an extreme variety of things that constitute role-play in TS. The most predominant form of role-playing involves server plugins (not supported by the TS development team or Valve Software) that add an economy system, much like an RPG. Usually, servers that run these plugins don't allow players to spawn with weapons, but they must recieve income (jobs are given by server administrators). Additionally, the plugins may include hunger, which usually kills the player when they attain 100% hunger. However, many servers remove the hunger script as it may crash their servers, disrupting any current role-play situations. However, the first economy-driven plugins for TSRP servers began appearing in mid-to-late 2004. Before that time, role-play servers usually ran no plugins, or a simple TalkArea plugin which adds two forms of chat: limited-area chat for in-character speaking, and server-wide chat for out-of-character speak. Several role-playing servers are still run without economy plugins, creating a "classic RP" environment, and those servers are usually frequented by more experienced role-players or those who do not favor plugin-driven role-play. Another alternative method of role-playing is "Zombie" role-play, where a server spawns with unarmed, AI-driven bots with "zombie" models and the players' objective is to kill zombies.

Future Direction

As of 25/01/06, they are currently internally testing the newest TS 3.0 RC and they are working to get the game ready to be released to the public. They have said many times that they do not plan on making a version for Half-Life 2, which upset many fans. Reasons for this include lack of time and money.

Some of the new features in 3.0 will include:

Selected parts of the official FAQ

Taken from the official site. 

The Specialists Official FAQ.
Q. What is The Specialists?

A. The Specialists, or TS, is a multiplayer action movie mod/total conversion for Valve's best selling first person shooter Half-Life.

Q. Is TS a Matrix Mod?

A. No, although since the Matrix is an action movie, portions of the mod are influenced by the Wachowski brothers hit film.

Q. Who makes TS?

A. TS was conceived by the minds of Filippo "Morfeo" De Luca and Lorenzo "John_Matrix" Pasini. It has since been worked on by a large number of talented mappers, modelers, and the like from around the world. Read more about the history of TS in the official manual.

Q. Will there be a Specialists Source mod in the future?

A. No, it would be too much to make a source version of the game that would live up to the original. Plus, the original creators are both busy with real life and work. TS should survive for quite some time though.

See also

External links

 

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