Team Fortress 2 offers team-based approach to shooters

By: Cody Hood

The Heavy runs in, his Medic behind him. “Now Doctor!” the Heavy shouts, resulting in a sudden ray of light overtaking him, leaving his body a glossy crimson. The Heavy lets loose with his minigun, the Medic standing behind him and providing that life-giving beam of energy. Sentries and soldiers fall to the curtain of lead as the unstoppable duo proceed to the point, hearing the administrator give praise for their victory while they stand proudly atop the point. The rest of their team arrives to clean up the remaining enemies.

“Team Fortress 2” is a free game developed by Valve Corporation made on Oct. 9, 2007. It’s a first-person shooter that is heavily based around teamwork, a nice change of pace pace from the commonly lone-wolf attitude of Call of Duty.

The game is based around the use of nine classes in order to complete objectives together, using a class to cover another’s weaknesses in order to make a strong, effective team.

The game’s artstyle is very lighthearted. It looks slightly like a cartoon. The explosions of the characters even look cartoonish, pointing out what body parts could be seen from the character’s body. There’s a new addition to the game called Pyrovision, though, making the cartoony blood and gore change to little gears and balloon animals flying out of a character’s body.

The gameplay is very unique, each class having his own role to fill in a team, some more than others. There are agile runners, soldiers with heavy-duty rocket launchers and spies with knives infiltrating the enemy team. Some classes can cover the weakness of another, making that one class extremely effective at his jobs.

The gameplay is also quite enjoyable, each class having his own voice that is unique, ranging from a cocky Bostonian to a crazed German doctor. They all have their fun quirks and sayings, and it adds more fun for each player overall.

A cosmetic system does exist within “Team Fortress 2,” although people who want to buy these cosmetics will have to spend real money in order to get a premium account, and then he/she will have to play the trading market in order to get what he or she desires. It doesn’t benefit how a player will perform, but it’s the same as real-life fashion.

A negative of the game is the skill levels of each player. At this point of time in “Team Fortress 2’s” history, it’s been out for so long that starting to play can be quite a heavy challenge, as there are people who are extremely skilled that join servers just with the idea of winning easily in order to build their self-confidence. It can be quite a hinderance to a new player, and a motivation destroyer.

Another negative to new players is the high skill ceiling of some of the classes. One example is the spy that requires countless hours of training to be decent at. Most of the time, it comes down to the enemy’s skill level as well, so playing the spy shouldn’t be as daunting as it can seem at first.

Overall, the game is incredibly solid. It has flaws, but the flaws can be easily overcome with just some player experience and determination. Some classes are easier for new players to learn, while some others can be much more difficult to play. It’s a good game, but as such a long-time veteran of the game, I can feel it starting to wear it’s magic off on me. New players can be easily mystified by the game’s silly qualities and somewhat challenging gameplay, and it definitely won’t hurt to put it into your Steam library, as it’s free to play. The game would get a 89/100 from me.

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