Team Fortress 2 Final Thoughts

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Jeff Freeman requested that I wrap up my thoughts on Team Fortress 2. So, here are my final thoughts.

Over the course of seven years of first person gaming, I have not found a game as inviting and friendly as Team Fortress 2. From the art direction, to the class-based system, TF2 has a very low barrier for entry. At the same time it maintains a competitive edge for skilled gamers offering a variety of ways to succeed.

The maps, weapons, and game modes are all well done and complete. Nothing feels like it was left unfinished, which unfortunately is not the case with many games that launch these days. That gives TF2 a feeling of being complete, which makes it a pleasure to play.

Aside from some debates on things such as critical hits, the community around TF2 has received the game well. It is a clear winner in the "teamwork FPS" category and is a shining example of what can be done when developers take the time to make a new game instead of an updated game.

Sure, TF2 is not Team Fortress: Source, and there is a ton of differences compared to Team Fortress Classic, but it delivers a solid experience that should do the Team Fortress name proud.

Players looking for a game that is easy to learn and rewards team players, need look no further than Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2 Initial Impressions - Part IV

Part I
Part II
Part III

I want to take a moment to clear something up about Team Fortress 2. There is no I in team. Games are won or lost by the actions of the team. Teams that don't want to defend control points, lose. Teams that want to play defensive classes while on offense, get trapped. Teams that constantly steal ammo packs during setup, thus delaying the upgrade of sentry guns, get run over by early rushes. Teams that play together and support each other, win.

These team mechanics can be both aggravating and rewarding. Even the best solo players can have a screaming fit if their team is not working together. Nothing they can do themselves can make up for a half-dozen or more other players doing nothing. A good player could have an instant kill switch for anything on their screen, but without a team watching their back they will make little difference in the end.

However, a good player can instantly lift a sub par team that is at least trying to work together. A couple good players can almost make a team themselves with the proper classes and strategy. I can't wait to see how more organized clans and teams start doing in tournament level play.

Over all the other aspects of TF2, this is the aspect that sells the game. TF2 would be "just another game" if the developers had submitted to repeated pressure to make each class more "solo friendly". The biggest war was won when the developers stated strongly that grenades for every class were not going to be part of TF2. Grenades would have turned each and every class into a potential powerhouse, capable of soloing any situation. Without the grenades, classes now have to work together to form a team. There are other examples, but the grenades issue was the most apparent in beta and in comparisons to Team Fortress Classic.

Teamwork sells the game.

Final Thoughts

Team Fortress 2 Initial Impressions - Part III

Part I
Part II

It is ironic to me that Team Fortress came from a primarily "non-team" oriented period of game development. Plus, it came in the form of a non-commercial mod. Now, Team Fortress 2 comes in with a storm of other professionally developed team-based shooters such as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. It really shows how the FPS market has changed. Team-based games are far more accessible, as previously shown in my impressions, and that accessibility leads to a great game.

One of the key factors in accessibility is feedback to a player. Any game needs to be able to clearly and efficiently inform a player of what is, has, and will be occuring. After playing the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars demo for a while, I had to bring it's accessibility into question. In ET:QW, it was never very obvious what needed to be done or how players were supposed to go about doing it. Not so in TF2.

Every goal is clearly identified in TF2, and while it may take some players a few tries to learn the maps, it is never tough to understand what the goal is. This is all layered into as few game modes as possible, with as few paths to victory as needed. To put it bluntly; TF2 is simple to understand.

My biggest complaint with ET:QW was the state of confusion I was always in and it is fairly apparent which team-based shooter I am currently playing. TF2 and ET:QW both do many things right, but where TF2 really sells itself is in its communication to the player.

When a player dies in TF2, the feedback is immediate. A quick and clear death camera zooms in and displays the player who took them out. The player instantly receives feedback, that hey, a Sniper can shoot them when they run out into the open. Or that going toe to toe with a Heavy, healed by a Medic, may not be and advisable move in the future.

Another form of feedback in TF2 plays right into the graphical style of the various classes. It is very easy, at first glance, to identify what class a player is and take the appropriate actions. A common example; "Hey that's a Heavy, I better find some cover." It is no different than playing Super Mario Bros and deciding a course of action when confronted by a simple Turtle or an incarnation of Bowser himself. Due to the significant difference in appearance, the reaction is immediate.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Team Fortress 2 Initial Impressions - Part II

Part I

I left off my initial impressions of Team Fortress 2 stating how there is a class for every type of gamer. However, good players are good players, and can succeed with almost any class. It comes down to learning what advantages a class has and then leveraging them against the weaknesses of an opponent. Overall, twitch skill is important, but isn't going to make a single player unstoppable.

The reason twitch skill will never be top dog in TF2 is for the simple reason that certain classes just won't beat other classes on the grounds of gun play alone. A fast-moving scout is not going to outrun or out gun a properly placed engineer turret. No matter how slow the engineer's reflexes are, the turret takes over the shooting, and that allows a strategic thinker to thrive as an engineer. There are plenty of other examples, but I'll let everyone discover them on their own while playing.

The maps in TF2 are wonderfully imagined and share the same feel as the characters. Like the graphical style, the maps tend to poke fun at the FPS genre in whole. There are massive neon signs with huge arrows pointing towards the next control point. Huge stop signs mark doors that are inaccessible during the current round. A large floating red or blue marker clearly defines a control points status.

So far, the maps have felt very balanced. I have never gone into a game dreading the map I was playing on. Some players in the community are disappointed with the number of maps, but if all the maps remain balanced it is a win in my book. I would much prefer a smaller number of balanced, fun maps.

Certain strategies work well on some maps, like an all-out Scout rush on cp_granary, but for every strategy there is a counter. Being on the receiving end of a scout rush can be maddening, as the match is often over before players begin fighting, but that is where team play comes in. If your team doesn't want to work together, then coordinated tactics like a scout rush will win the day.

Unfortunately, a scout rush is a lot easier to coordinate than a defense against it, which can cause problems for players just looking for fun on a public server. So, the developers do need to take care that some tactics don't become too effective or too easily employed. Just to note, a good engineer or pyro can be a nightmare for a scout rush. Well, that is, until the rest of the scout's team shows up.

Part III
Part IV
Final Thoughts

Team Fortress 2 Initial Impressions

I normally try to post my initial impressions of a game as soon as I am done playing it for the first few times. I am pretty good about getting into a play, post, play, post rhythm.

However, for Team Fortress 2 I have been fairly silent with my initial impressions. Why? Because it is such a great game that I don't want to waste a single second blogging instead of playing! I do have a few minutes now, so without further ado, my first impressions of Team Fortress 2.

The first thing any player will note about TF2 is the graphical styling. It is stylized and cartoonish in nature, but that is what makes it so great. In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun (a curiously refreshing gaming opinion site), Valve developer Charlie Brown stated:

Funny stuff just happens. So when we started, we knew what kind of weapons we wanted, we knew the physics, we knew we had really fast movements speeds and not all our weapons were realistic, and so it was pretty easy to see during testing that these funny moments happened way more frequently than they did in our other games. That was one of the reasons we chose this art style in the first place. We said, let’s just embrace the exaggerated funny things that happen. We used that to our advantage.

With over the top graphical stylings, comes over to top gameplay. Gameplay is definitely where TF2 shines. At the base, it is a class based shooter that attempts to meld several unique play styles into a team setting. Every class has a job to perform and in most cases, when that job isn't performed, the team knows it.

The best part of the class system is that there is a class for every level of gamer. Players do not need to be twitch gaming superstars to have fun or be competitive in TF2. I have friends from every corner of the gaming universe playing this game and they all are finding a class that fits them.

Not being able to shoot straight makes a player find other avenues for success and in TF2 that often leads to a better team player. This is a refreshing change of pace from the pinpoint click fests found in other FPS games. The point I want to emphasis is that TF2 is not a shooter for shooters, it is a shooter for everyone.

Part II
Part III
Part IV
Final Thoughts

The Orange Box

The Orange Box, from Valve, deserves all the 10/10 reviews that Halo 3 paid to get. IGN only gave it a 9.5/10.

Team Fortress 2 Tomorrow

Valve has confirmed that the Orange Box will be available tomorrow in stores and that pre-purchasers through Steam will have the game unlocked "shortly after midnight" Pacific Time on October 10.

The most interesting part of this package for me is Team Fortress 2 (TF2). The game is already receiving rave reviews. The pre-order beta was so successful that it flat-out crashed Steam, Valve's digital distribution and community software. The gaming news industry may still be ogling over Halo 3, but Team Fortress 2 is where the real multiplayer FPS action will be found this year.

FPS games are just better on the PC. Period. No discussion needed. If you want proof, plug the best Xbox Halo players into a PC through a Microsoft Xbox Controller and watch an average PC gamer, with keyboard and mouse, wipe the floor with them. Computers gave birth to the FPS, and console gamers damn well better remember to respect their elders.

Anyways, I will hopefully be playing tomorrow with my pre-order. If you will be getting the game, lets hook up and frag out.