Team Fortress 2 is the paragon of online gaming
This is the only word I can think of that describes how Team Fortress 2 handles online gaming. Team Fortress 2 takes the best parts of online FPS, blends it into a unique package and makes a game which is fun, addictive and challenging. It's a blast to play with your friends and alone and the game never forces you to do anything. You can either be a lone wolf as an engineer or scout or choose to work with someone else as a team by being a heavy, medic, or sniper. Team Fortress is a gift that keeps on giving as well because there are monthly updates often specializing in one class which adds new weapons, achievements, and maps.
From a technical standpoint, Team Fortress 2 is a marvel. It simply looks amazing and has some of the best visual design seen. The cell shaded graphics are perfect and look great. The lighting and motion blur is done to the perfect degree and it's an aesthetically pleasing game to look at. I love the style of graphics and it's something you don't see often in games these days. It also sounds great and the dialogue is funny. Each character has a different voice and you can taunt with them and do other cool things. Often they say pretty funny things which makes the game a lot more fun. The weapons all sound good and the game has some pretty good music.
Gameplay is the strong point of Team Fortress 2. Though the presentation would make it appear easy to grasp there is a lot of depth. Each class plays totally different from eachother and depending on the map, mode, and whether you are attacking or defending your choice of class will be effected. There are three basic class types, assault, defense, and support. Some classes have to work together to succeed for instance Heavy and a medic while some can go alone like the scout and engineer. The team based gameplay is a lot of fun but it's also great to play by yourself. The game never punishes you for playing how you want and this is great as it gives the player a lot of freedom.
The game itself has three four modes at this present time. You can play payload, an escort mission in which one team escorts and the other defends. This is a fun mode which is quite challenging. There is also capture mode where the other team has to capture points and one must defend. This is also great, teamplay comes into play here and I've never found a server where people don't work as a team. There is also arena. Surprisingly the weakest of the bunch, it's alright if you like team deathmatch but very few play it. The last mode is capture the flag which is one of the best modes. Teamwork comes into play here and every class can be used by either side. All the modes are great in the end and help make this game an amazing online experience.
The cherry on top of this great sundae (Bad metaphor, I know) is the fact that Valve constantly updates this game with new class specific add ons. Often you get new achievements, weapons, and maps which helps make the games value go up. This keeps the game fresh and fun. Another thing about the game which keeps the value going is the achievement system, for all your achievement hunters it is a lot of fun and these are challenging achievements. They're all fun to get though and just playing the game normally will get you them. Valve puts a lot of thought into these achievements and new ones come out often which is awesome.
In the end Team Fortress 2 is a game you must play, it's a lot of fun and if you're a fan of online gaming you owe it to yourself to try it. This is an online experience like no other this generation and it's one you won't forget in the long haul. It also has a great and mature community with some of the best people I've met in all my time spent gaming online.
The Good: Great modes, excellent visual design, great sound, funny, awesome music, constant updates, long lasting value
The Bad: The arena mode is sort of weak
The Bottom line: Get it now