Team Fortress 2 (Video game) Review

Team Fortress 2 (Released 10 October 2007)

Team fortress 2 is a multiplayer first person shooter that features 9 playable classes; the pyro, scout, medic, engineer, spy, sniper, heavy, soldier and demolitions man. The classes are very unique in their playstyles, with only a few multi-class weapons such as shotgun variants; panic attack and the reserve shooter.

Tutorials

There exists tutorials for 4 of the 9 classes but they are very basic, teaching only the bare basics. Getting better at team fortress 2 can only happen through online play and reading player written guides. Fortunately since the game is ten years old, there is no shortage of guides.

Audience

Team fortress 2 caters to both competitive and casual players. Although competitive matchmaking only recently relative to the game's existence was introduced there has a been highly competitive team fortress 2 scene over the years. While big name youtubers such as Jerma and Muselk have quit in favor of playing Overwatch, there still remains an active playerbase after all these years.

Unlike many FPS, team fortress 2 is far closer to an arena based shooter like Tribes than the Battlefield and the Call of Duty series sporting highly vibrant colors and micro transactions based cosmetics.

It does not try to evoke a gritty, gray or dull atmosphere despite the very violent and bloody deaths of the mercenaries. It does not try to be comedic, but you just can't take the deaths seriously despite the screams of pain.

Gameplay

The Classes

Players choose one of 9 classes

• Sniper - The arch typical FPS sniper that does 150 damage on a scoped headshot and 450 when fully charged.
• Spy - Rogue that can disguise as enemy teammates, turn invisible, instant kill from behind with a melee attack and sap Engineer buildings
• Pyro - Pyromaniac that sets players ablaze and can deflect grenades and sticky bombs from demolition men and rockets from soldiers
• Soldier - Fires damage splashing rockets and is capable of flying through the air with rocket jumps
• Engineer - Builds Sentry guns to defend areas, dispensers to resupply himself and teammates, and teleporters to move teammates around the map quickly
• Demolitions Man - Fires sticky bombs that explode upon detonation and grenades that deal 100 damage upon direct impact and bounce around
• Medic - Heals teammates but not himself
• Heavy - Highly durable heavy weapons expert that fires a chain gun
• Scout - Fast moving character that does high damage with his scatter gun up close and can double jump

The Objectives

Objectives from a maximum of 12 vs 12 players ranged from pushing a cart to an objective, capturing the flag (intelligence) from an enemy base and bringing it to yours, and holding control points til your team's timer runs out.

Mann vs Machine Mode features a cooperative map in which players defeat an army of AI robots and community have a variety of modes such as Saxon Hale; in which one player is chosen as a boss creature that must defeat everyone else in the server.

Cosmetics

Team Fortress 2 is free-to-play and supports itself through micro transactions. The game has a loot box system which is granted through casually playing the game and has a 1% chance of containing an unusual cosmetic. Unusual cosmetics give the player character a wide variety of effects.

To open these lootboxes you need to buy keys which cost 2.49 USD. Very expensive, but people buy them and there is a 1% chance of the cosmetic having an unusual effect. The chance of it being worth thousands of dollars is smaller, yet people may choose to gamble.

The Verdict

A great game that supports both competitive and casual players. Though competitors such as Overwatch have risen to take away its player base, the fact that people still play 10 years after release is a testament to its success. If you don't mind cosmetic items and violent pixar characters, this is the game for you.