Team Fortress 2

Quote :

Aren't you glad Team Fortress 2 didn't wind up looking like this? Valve has created quite a game with the long-awaited Team Fortress sequel, bearing many similarities to its predecessor, though incorporating enough changes to make it feel fresh. The most obvious aspect, which you may have noticed from any of the screens and video posted, is the visual style. Even after getting sucked into probably too many hours of play in the beta over the past few weeks, we're still amazed at the art design, both in how it looks and how it animates.

But let's not get too carried away with the graphics. It's a game, after all, and the most important factor is how it plays and if it's entertaining. It's interesting to see both Team Fortress 2, which has been in development on and off for some seven years now, and Splash Damage's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which has seen its own share of setbacks and delays, finally come out right around the same time. Their nearly simultaneous retail release presents and interesting situation for you, the consumer, as to how to spend your cash. You may fondly remember your days in Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, dropping air strikes on hapless attackers and eagerly charging into bunkers to spout forth deadly plumes of flamethrower fuel. Yet you can't forget your days with Team Fortress Classic, or even further back with the original Team Fortress Quake mod, with its now painfully dated character models but compelling team-focused online play



There's really no right answer in this case as to which game is ultimately better. It's merely personal preference. Quake Wars is assuredly the more complicated game. For those uninitiated in the ways of Enemy Territory, the scope, dynamic objectives, speed at which the tide of battle can turn and the number of things you need to quickly consider when that happens, and user interface can be rather daunting. After learning the ins and outs it's clearly an excellent product, but it lacks that immediate, irresistible appeal so prominent in Valve's Team Fortress 2. And accessibility may very well be the deciding factor in determining which product users prefer. Regardless, it's an excellent time to be a gamer, since as tough as it may be to pick one or the other, making either choice rewards you with a well designed and highly entertaining title.

Like in Team Fortress Classic (TFC), Team Fortress 2 has nine character classes: Spy, Pyro, Soldier, Heavy, Medic, Sniper, Demoman, Scout and Engineer. Each class' abilities on the battlefield have been streamlined, which, along with the graphics, is what makes Team Fortress 2 so much more accessible than TFC. No longer do you have Engineers running around with railguns and EMP grenades. Medics can't "infect" the other team, Spies don't have tranquilizer darts, and none of the classes have hand grenades.

In TF2, each class has roughly three main ways of attacking - a primary weapon (the Heavy's minigun, Pyro's flamethrower, Engineer's sentry gun, etc.) and secondary (various classes have shotguns, others pistols, while the Demoman has a highly effective mine thrower) and melee weapons (the Scout's bat, the Medic's bonesaw, and so on). Though classes now possess fewer means of attacking, the resulting gameplay feels much more focused. Each class has a very clearly defined role and the means to ensure they perform successfully. The only limiting factor is, of course, how effectively your team meshes together.



If your Engineers aren't guarding their structures, Spies can wipe them out in seconds with a few sapper charges. If your team is full of Heavies and Soldiers but lacks Medics, you're not going to get very far. If you're playing a capture point map without any Scouts on your team, you might as well just leave the server or start berating your squadmates until a few switch classes. The Medic, though, seems to be the hinge on which all gameplay balance swivels. For TF2 they've been given a health hose, which blasts out a restorative stream at friendlies within range and "sticks" to them as long as you keep the fire button depressed. As you heal injured teammates, or "overheal" to 150 percent health, an ubercharge meter builds in the bottom right of the screen. Unleashing this renders both target and Medic invulnerable for a few seconds, which is sometimes the only way to break through chokepoints populated with Heavies, Medics, and multiple tier three sentry guns.

Even though Medics may be the most vital to a team's success, the other classes remain useful. Scouts, who are now rather deadly, are far and away the fastest, and their ability to double-jump and change direction in mid-air makes then all the more difficult to hit. Spies, in addition to being able to one-hit kill backstab the enemy, cause general chaos among enemy ranks. If your opponents know a spy is running around, they'll waste time and lose focus by shooting at their own teammates to try and reveal a disguised culprit.

Pyros tend to be the most effective spy detectors, and can be frequently seen doing fiery pirouettes in 2Fort matches all over the beta servers, as a spy incognito will betray his cover by bursting into flames upon contact with the burning spray.In a September 26 Steam update, friendly fire was removed from TF2, which was definitely a good move. Friendly fire ruins much of the game considering the close-quarters maps combined with the wide area of effect attacks of Heavies, Pyros, Demomen, and Soldiers. Without FF, teammates are free to shoot each other, since if they bleed health, they're a spy.

-end of page 1-

Thats the first page of the 3 page review by ign done in October of 2007, and this game still has a tremendous following even after these years, and now, its free to play on steam!!

I'm downloading it at the time of this post, if anyone wants to play with me, i'm not sure if i'll play it a lot now, but when my new laptop comes in, it'll be another story.

I had this since time on my steam account, gonna re-download everything again.
Add me on steam: DMARKz

its like duke nukem / unreal tournament
played it in the orange box for 360.
really prefer unreal tournament more but if its free its worth it
lots of crazy and wierd shit goes on in this game