Team Fortress 2 Impressions
by drrandle
Fortress of Awesometude Alright, I know I'm late to the party on this one. TF2 has been out for several months now. Here's the deal: I have The Orange Box on my 360, but I refuse to pay for a gold membership just yet. So not only did I not feel like shelling out another 20 bucks to play a game I already own elsewhere on my PC, but up until a few months ago I didn't even have a computer that cou...
Fortress of Awesometude
Alright, I know I'm late to the party on this one. TF2 has been out for several months now. Here's the deal: I have The Orange Box on my 360, but I refuse to pay for a gold membership just yet. So not only did I not feel like shelling out another 20 bucks to play a game I already own elsewhere on my PC, but up until a few months ago I didn't even have a computer that could run it. Plus I have a built-in aversion to PC games.I'm over it, happy to say. I picked the game up and happily spent far too much time playing it yesterday. (I apologize for not sharing my thoughts sooner but I had to work much later than I expected.) That should say something for the quality of this game right off the bat: I sure did not want to put it down. It's more or less everything you want, control wise, from an FPS: fast, frenzied, and fun. What TF2 does right is an incredibly balanced class system (it's not perfect, but who is?). Each class really feels completely different from the other. It really helps you feel like you're contributing more than just a straight up death-count when you're the engineer and you set up great defenses, or you're the Medic who can keep your teammates from being fragged. On some other notes, the game is quite intuitive and the maps are very easy to navigate. Even somebody who has a terrible time getting lost, such as I, was able to get my bearings and learn the layouts almost immediately. A sign of Valve's trademark brilliant designs.
Speaking of brilliant design, let's talk about the art style of TF2. The core design is amazing to look at, but when you start taking details apart and analyzing them you really have to respect Valve's process. Each character looks unique: incredibly unique. No matter how fast and frantic things get, you can still always identify the characters immediately. So now, not only is each class it's own character, as the "Meet the" videos have proven, but their immediately identifiable, which helps the players stratagize on the battlefield. It's not just a mindless run and gun, because your class can't just gun down every class, so you need to be able to know exactly what you're fighting and quick. My hats off to Valve for their excellent work both visually and intellectually. This game looks brilliant, in more ways than one.
Have you had a run at TF2? What are your thoughts, I'd love to know. Also, feel free to look me up, my steam account is DrRandle.
Instrumental
GrayLightning - Donkey Kong Country Machina Anesthesia (from OC Remix)