GAMINGtruth

Team Fortress 2

Half-Life 2 on the original Xbox , while an awesome effort for the time, was missing a crucial element that’s almost standard: Multiplayer. HL2 is an awesome experience, but nothing gives a game replay value like multiplayer gameplay.

This area is where The Orange Box comes away in spades. Team Fortress 2 is slightly different from other multiplayer shooters in the fact that each map contains only one game type. The fairly standard game types are Capture the Flag, Control Point and Territories, but Team Fortress 2 gets it’s depth from the player classes.

There are nine classes to choose from, and each has a unique suite of weapons, skills, and weaknesses:

• Scouts run faster than the other classes, grab capture points faster than the others, but have the least amount of health.
• Soliders carry rocket launchers and can use said launcher to do “super jumps” to high places.
• Pyro controls the flamethrower - not much else you can say to top that.
• Demoman has spiked grenades that stick to multiple surfaces and regular grenades.
• Heavy has a mini-gun that doles out massive damage, and can fist fight opponents as well as a larger health bar.
• Engineers can build sentry guns, dispensers that give ammo and health, as well as teleporter entrances and exits.
• Medics have the ability to heal as well as a skill called “Ãœbercharge” that temporarily renders the healed target and the medic invincible.
• Snipers get sniper rifles. Nuff’ said.
• Spies have the ability to disguise themselves as members of the other team and can place a device called a “Sapper” that saps Engineers’ buildings of electricity while still in disguise. They also have a backstab move.

As you can see, each class has a different strength or weakness, but the true fun comes when teammates utilize their chosen class as well as possible. As a medic, charging behind a heavy and healing him until you get Ãœbercharged, then watching said heavy wreak havoc is a sight to behold. Penny Arcade wasn’t joking when they referenced the deadliness of the “Heavy/Medic” combo.

All of this awesomeness encased in graphics reminiscent of The Incredibles - which is quite the feat. The animations involved with nearly everything just scream of quality, and helps immersion by a large amount. I especially like the animation for upgrading from the standard sentry to the evolved models as an Engineer. The quality here is top-notch, then again you can’t expect any different from anything Half-Life oriented.

Team Fortress 2’s quality of level design and gameplay - even though the game types are tied to maps - have taken away a significant amount of my gaming time that would otherwise belong solely to Halo 3.

It’s that good.

Next up, a look into Portal.

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