Team Fortress 2 Review by Longarms
As the multi-player pillar of the gaming juggernaut that is the orange box. Team fortress 2 provides class based gameplay and a band new art style to the crowed online First person shooter Space. So does it hold up the orange box to an unreachable hight or does it crumble under the pressure of its pedigree and Expectations for the box. Continue on dear reader to find out.
Look out mister sniper
Team fortress 2 is the aptly named sequel to Team fortress. Team fortress originated as a total conversion mod for Id softwares Quake in 1996. Latter the brains behind the mod joined up with Valve. They would soon begin work on making Team fortress 2 but after several delays and scaping the work they had done and starting from scratch, Team fortress 2 would not arrive into gamers hands until 11 years after its original release.
after 11 years the Heavy is ready to get back into the fight
Team fortress 2 is a class based shooter which means you can pick one of the 9 classes to play as. Each class has there own abilities, strengths, weaknesses, play styles and strategies. There is the rocket launching Soldier, Fast paced Scout, fiery Pryo, slow but deadly Heavy weapons guy, explosive demo-man, sentry gun building Engineer, helpful and healing Medic, cunning and sneaky Spy and the long ranged sniper.
Classes from left to right: Pyro, Engineer, Sniper, Spy, Heavy, Demoman, Medic, Scout, Soldier
What makes Team fortress 2 a blast to play is the differences in each class and the particular roles they have to pay on the battle field. You might want to be the fast but week scout for quickly capturing the enemies’ flag or control points. Or perhaps you want to try your hand at some subterfuge as a Spy and stab an enemy in the back. What ever your preferred play style and pace of game play there is a class or multiple classes to suit you.
Medic and Heavy, a powerful combo
What will really strike you as you play Team fortress 2 is the amount of balance and over all polish that TF2 has. Also team play is paramount to your success. If you don’t play the role of your class and you don’t co-ordinate with your team you will lose to a team that is organised and co-ordinated no matter how skilled you are. With only 6 maps TF2 might seem limited. But the quality of the map design is virtually perfect. With a few maps like hydro and dustbowl split up in to smaller sub-maps that change after every round.
The Engineer likes to laugh at the prey of his sentry guns
Graphically Team fortress 2 is like nothing you have ever seen, with a cartoony and illustrative art style that sets it apart from other online shooters, it one of it greatest strengths. This game looks nothing short of amazing in motion with incredible detail in the animation of each class. Also the facial animation in valves source engine once again shines through here with the classes always being appropriately expressive and emotive depending on the situation at hand.
An example of valves incredible animation and humour
While the trend in other multiplayer shooters it to add more complexity Team Fortress 2 has done the complete opposite. By simplifying and streamlining each class and the over all experience Valve have created a game with great depth for the avid player but ease enough for an inexperienced player to come in, still have fun and help out their team. This is where Valves radical art direction comes to full fruition. As it doesn’t look like a daunting hardcore experience it is infinitely more accessible that virtually any other online FPS on the market
The Scout is great at bonking people in the head with his trusty bat
Team fortress 2 is a worthy successor to the original in every way. It removes the things that hamper the experience for newer players and improves on every aspect that is left in. With beautiful art, mirror shine polished gameplay and maps, while also being noob friendly. Team fortress 2 is a worthy addition to the Orange box and one of the greatest multiplayer games to be released this year.
Gameplay 9.5/10
Sound 9/10
Life span 10/10
Overall 9/10