Team Fortress 2: Soldier Beats Demoman

It was a long and bloody battle, but the Soldier has finally emerged victorious over the Demoman in the latest Team Fortress 2 war.

The throw-down started on December 9, when the Soldier and the Demoman went head-to-head in a battle for bragging rights and a unique inventory weapon that would be awarded to the winning class. It was a close thing when all was said and done but the helmeted hard-ass came out on top, with a finally tally of 6,406,065 Demomen killed versus 6,372,979 dead Soldiers.

Both classes picked up some interesting new equipment: The Demoman received two new melee weapons, the Eyelander claymore and the Chargin' Targe shield, as well as a new, defensively-oriented sticky-bomb launcher called the Scottish Resistance, while the Soldier went home with a last-ditch skull-splitter of his own called the Equalizer, a "morale boosting" Buff Banner and the Direct Hit, a rocket launcher that trades splash damage for dramatically-increased rocket speed and impact damage. Two new maps, CP_Gorge and CTF_Doublecross, were also released as part of the update.

But the pièce de résistance is the fourth and final item, awarded to the Soldier for his hard-fought victory over the Black Scottish Cyclops: The Gunboats, a unique pair of boots that reduce rocket jump damage by a "huge amount." Slap these babies on and forget about stairs forever!

So congratulations, Soldiers, on your masterful triumph! And don't feel too bad about coming up short, Demomen: Maybe next time you can try your luck with the Medics. (For the record, when my grand-kids ask me what I did during the war, I'll tell them that I suck as both a Soldier and a Demoman, so I spent the week happily sniping the hell out of both of them.)