TF2: One of the best multiplayer experiences you'll ever have.

Author's Rating:

Pros: - Interesting visuals - 9 great classes to play with -

Cons: - Lack of maps and game modes -

The Bottom Line: 
Team Fortress 2 will change your way of viewing online FPSs!

Author's Review
We’ve waited a good, long time for Team Fortress 2. Since then, many other class based multiplayer games have taken center stage, like Call of Duty 4, the Battlefield series, and most other war shooters. So, is the original idea still the best after all of these years? Or has Team Fortress simply been gone too long?

Team Fortress 2 would have to be the most graphically significant game in recent memory, as everything looks like something straight out of the movie, "The Incredibles". Everything looks very "cartoonish", and that fits the game's personality just fine. Fire and Water textures are the 2 biggest beneficiaries of this unique graphical style. One of the 9 classes you can choose from in the game is the "Pyro", which, surprisingly enough, runs around with a flame-thrower engulfing other players in fire. If you are set a blaze, you have to seek water if you don't wish to have a painful death. In my opinion, no other fire texture to date looks quite as good as what's to be found in Team Fortress 2. This game proves that graphics don't have to be photo-realistic to look great.

Keeping with the cartoony feel, the sound effects seem like they could have also been a part of "The Incredibles". Every character has the ability to do taunts during the game. It seems the voice acting is pretty well done, considering the game for which it is written. It’s cheesy, but then again, the whole game is cheesy and that is perfect for it.

Team Fortress 2 is strictly an online FPS, so there is no story at all.

We've seen this before in games like Warhawk, so we know it can work, but still it would have been nice to have a tutorial or something added on. However, even though there isn't a story, the game still has a great personality to it. Each of the 9 classes has a taunt move that they can do, and it just adds to the fun loving nature of the game. A great example of the personality in the game is the "Meet the _____ (Heavy, Sniper, Scout etc..)" trailers. They are hilarious, and provide a little bit of the back-story behind most of the classes. If you're looking into Team Fortress 2, I strongly recommend watching these videos, as you'll have a greater understanding of what the game is all about after you have.

It would have been hard for Valve to come up with a story for Team Fortress 2, as there are 9 classes and it’s an FPS, so all but one of the classes would have been left out. The game is very heavily focused on these classes. There’s the Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Medic, Sniper, and Spy, and all of these classes are good for certain situations depending on what your team needs to accomplish at the moment. If your team needs to take an offensive role by capturing a control point, or taking the enemies inelegance (flag), then you might want a few Soldiers on the front lines to do some damage with their rocket launchers. To prevent the enemy from taking a control point or your intelligence, you’ll need players taking a defensive approach, like by being the engineer, who can set up turrets that attack enemies that get too close to your intelligence. What I’m trying to get at is that you’ll need to have good class balance between your team in order to be successful. Personal favorites will appear based on your style of play, and it’s fun once you’ve mastered a class. The thing that every reviewer has been griping about is the lack of maps and game options. There are only 6 maps, and the environments do get repetitive, but it’s vital to know every nook and cranny of the map you are playing on, in order to get better position on your enemy. The game modes are a bit more frustrating, however. Each map was designed specifically for a game mode, so you have to play capture the flag on the same map, every single time you play it. This can get very annoying, and there is no real cure to the annoyance. You’ll just have to grin and bear it. A new map pack or two would have quelled this annoyance temporarily, but no map pack has been released yet. Another disappointing thing about Team Fortress 2 is the lack of offline play. It would have been nice to see something included, for those of us who still enjoy split-screen play, but it’s hard to stay mad about this issue, as all of the maps were clearly designed for big team games. The way I see it, Team Fortress 2 is the 3rd best online multiplayer game that money can buy. Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 still surpass this, but it sure is a welcome retreat from the seriousness of most other online FPS games today.

Part of the reason that Team Fortress 2 is so great is the online gaming community. Everyone actually has a plan when going into battle – and works as a team in order to stay alive, whether that be holding a control point, or capturing a flag. It’s not like other team games; you need strategy if you want to win. In Halo (for lack of a better example), the team modes essentially come down to individual players running around by themselves – this is not the case in TF2.

One thing that isn’t so great about Team Fortress 2 is the lack of grenades. In every single other online game, grenades are heavily prevalent and used. Not sure why Valve decided they needed to change the very successful formula behind Call of Duty and Halo, but none the less, they did.

The controls are fine in TF2, terrific even. You can tweak them quite a bit, but for the most part, they work like a charm. No need to go into what the specific buttons are used for, because you can always change them as much, or as little, as you want.

Team Fortress is still the epitome of class-based multiplayer. If you want interesting visuals, great online communities to play with, and to have the most fun with any online FPS possible, check into Team Fortress 2.

Recommendation- Buy it. Don't hesitate, this is a terrific game.