Fistful Of Frags

When You Install a new mod, join an internet game, and you find people already playing it, you're onto an unusual thing. Sure, the people playing Fistful Of Frags were primarily idiot teenagers, spamming the voice channel with dreary narrations of their every shot but that made it more satisfying to kill the adolescent cushion humpers.

Fistful of Frags is a Western mod, in which the Desperado and the Vigilante are fighting to find the money that's been left around the level. Pick it up, and a timer starts - if you're still holding the money when it expires, then your team scores the amount. Obviously, the other team will be trying to kill you, both to stop you getting the money and to boost their notoriety. Notoriety is what you use to buy weapons. Money only counts towards winning the round.

To start, everyone is able to afford a main weapon and a couple of accessories (a hat, for example), but once you've been playing a while, you'll be notorious enough to afford a bigger load out, and the super-expensive explosive bow.

The five maps are well designed, well-crafted and large. And although the Peligro level has elements that feel like one of Half-Life's partially-baked platforming elements, they actually work in a multiplayer game. Teamplay is intelligently encouraged with a notoriety bonus for protecting the guy who's claiming the money.

If we have any complaints, it's that the sluggishness of the reload combined with the slow pace of the characters (and a very short sprint allowance) makes the short-ranged weapons feel a little underpowered. Fistful of Frags is far more satisfying to play medium to long range, and once you get the lay of the maps, there's solid play to be had.

Advice for a more pleasant game: play before the US wakes up, because Europeans don't force you to kill your teammates by constantly using words like 'bitch' and 'fag'.