Team Fortress 2 - Video Game Review

Team Fortress 2 is an online first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. The game was released in October 2007 as part of Steam's Orange Box deal. It is available on PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3. Team Fortress 2 is the sequel of the extremely dated, yet still innovative, Team Fortress, which was popularized by several evolved forms of the game, most notably the 1999 Half-life mod Team Fortress Classic (TFC).

Gameplay

The objective in Team Fortress 2 depends on which type of map you are playing. There are five different official types of maps (note there are more available that are user-created):

Payload - players are either on the attacking or defending side. The attacking side's objective is to push a cart along a railroad to the point within a designated amount of time.

Control point - on these maps (probably the most common) two opposing teams battle to capture all points as quickly as possible. Sometimes one team will be on offense, and sometimes both teams are on offense - it all depends on the map.

King of the hill - this mode is much like that of control point maps, but with one control point and a longer capture time.

Capture the flag or intelligence - teams compete to capture the briefcase and return it to their respective base.

Arena - this is a team deathmatch mode. Teams compete against each other to eliminate the entire opposing team. In this mode you do not respawn until your whole team eliminates the other team or gets eliminated.

There are nine playable classes: pyro, spy, demoman, soldier, scout, medic, sniper, heavy, and engineer. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it all comes down to preference when choosing your character.

Team Fortress 2 is highly competitive and addicting. This makes it a great game for any type of person, whether you are the casual gamer or the hardcore competitive self-proclaimed professional gamer. It has a growing community and Valve has made it their mission to update this game on a regular basis by adding new items and updating various elements and this is what keeps the old players coming back for more.

Graphics/Sound

The graphics are somewhat cartoon-like yet very detailed, and don't worry, there is still lots of blood and explosions for you action junkies. If you have a computer capable of running this game at maximum settings, you will be pleasantly surprised by the graphics.

As for the sound, each class has their own personality. During gameplay, the different players can be heard yelling things at the opposing team and motivating their allies. For example, the scout sounds like a fast talker baseball fan from Boston. The sounds are not cheesy whatsoever and actually add another fun aspect to the game.

Conclusion

This is a game that anyone 17 and over (ESRB: M) can get into and have a great time with. Valve has implemented a system where you randomly unlock new items for each class, so this adds a little incentive to play. Thousands of public servers are readily available for you to hop into and start shooting.

Also, Team Fortress 2 is often on sale which makes it an even better value. These days it's hard to find a game in which the developers don't completely discard after release. With this game, you don't have to worry about that. Every couple of weeks there is a new update which either adds new contents or balances the game out even more.

Overall, Team Fortress 2 is one of the best first-person shooters to be released this decade, and I predict the community growing even bigger in years to come.