A decent, albeit unrewarding multiplayer game that has hours of online fun to offer - if you can stand its annoyances.
Much like its other, online multiplayer brethren that run on Valve's "Source" engine, Team Fortress 2 revolves around two opposing teams that work against each other to achieve a common goal. In this case, the two teams are called: Team BLU and Team RED. As their names suggest, the teams differ in no other way than their titles and colours. Initially, the game shipped with three game modes: Capture the Flag, Control Point and Territorial Control. Over the years, numerous updates have been released for the game - offering free maps and new game modes to all players - totalling up to six current online game modes available to play.
Some of the other game modes are: Payload, where Team BLU pushes a cart through the map and utilizes checkpoints to their advantage, while Team RED has to stop them from achieving their goal until the timer runs out; Payload Race, where both teams RED and BLU have to push a cart each through the map and the first team to make it to the end wins; and King of the Hill, where one team has to keep dominance over a single control point at the centre of the map, until the time limit is finished. None of the modes are very original, but they serve their purpose well. Also, while the maps don't provide enough variety to my liking, they're just enough to keep things fresh and can provide a lot of fun (or frustrating) mayhem, depending upon who you are playing with.
Team Fortress 2 allows the player to choose from nine character classes, each offering a different style of play, equipment and abilities. Some classes even move faster than others. There are three types of classes, consisting of three playable classes each: the offensive (Scout, Soldier and Pyro), the defensive (Demoman, Heavy and Engineer) and support (Medic, Sniper and Spy) classes. All classes are unbalanced and most effective when working together with others. However, some combinations (such as a Heavy being übercharged; constantly healed and boosted by a Medic) are almost invincible and although this is probably close to what the developers were aiming for, it's just too unbalanced at times.
Thankfully, this is when the classes like the Spy and Engineer come into play. The Spy can become invisible for periods of time or disguise himself as a member of the opposing team to sneak behind enemy lines and "backstab" skilled players. Of course, once that's done, the disguise/invisibility wears off and the Spy is easily killed in a few shots due to his small amount of health. On the other hand, the Engineer can build dispensers which deploy ammunition to his allies and construct sentry guns which can be even more effective than Heavies (when fully upgraded). Unfortunately, the Sniper is mostly useless unless given support from his team mates at most times because there aren't that many good sniping spots (which will disappoint fans of games like the Battlefield series).
In a nutshell, the class-based combat system of TF2 is well-designed and it's a great attempt at keeping the experience balanced, however since there are no restrictions and many players will often act as if they're completely oblivious to this system and what each class requires to be the most effective, the whole experience is more often than not unbalanced. Each class does offer fairly unique gameplay to that of the others, so that is definitely one of the game's strong points but due to the behaviour of the players and no restrictions in place to prevent it, this system can become easily unfair.
Team Fortress 2 employs an unusual visual art style that may not appeal to all players. For a game that was originally released in 2007 as part of the Orange Box package (and later individually in 2008), the graphics are certainly impressive. But the cartoonish style that makes the characters look silly and "squeaky clean" visuals are not for everyone. I personally think the game deserves merit for its artistic design, even if it's not my cup of tea and on the technical side; everything is great apart from a few shockingly low-resolution textures. The music in the main menu is varied and interesting to say the least, which is another one of the game's pros as it will change from time to time and play something different.
Apart from a problem with balancing gameplay/opposition, an art style that won't appeal to that many audiences and lack of originality - one of Team Fortress 2's main cons are the numerous issues it encounters when connecting to servers and the few glitches it has. When I first got this game, I played around four online game modes. The next day I launched TF2 and tried to connect to anything, it either crashed or I had to wait ages for the available servers to load and whilst doing so, listen to the now-awful music which underwent serious lag. Also, since everything I did in the menu was around five times slower than normal, the only way to exit the game was through task manager. Thankfully, the crashes stopped and instead began to appear whenever I quit the game (which obviously isn't much of an issue) and the second problem became less common.
Then there's the Mann Co. Store, my most hated of the game's working features. As you play more with each class and engage in more game modes, you will unlock new weapons and equipment. What is completely outrageous is that some of the stuff you get must be paid for in the store. Not to mention that the only way to customize your character is through buying individual clothing items from the Mann Co. Store. This has got to be one of the worst and least subtle ways I've ever seen a corporation try to milk money from its customers. The prices of individual items vary from £0.49 ($0.99) to £7.99 ($12.99), while the prices of bundles range from £0.49 ($0.99) to as much as £59.99 ($99.99). All I have to say about this is… no… just, no.
Pros:
+ Each class offers a unique style of gameplay to the others
+ Team-based mechanics work well and are inventive
+ Plenty of official maps to play on, plus user-made mods
+ Game modes offer opportunities for some explosive fun
+ The two opposing teams are always distinct from each other
+ Team Fortress 2 is free, and it's worth the 9GB download time
+ Will appeal to fans of team-based combat
+ Nice music playing in the main menu at all times
+ Technologically impressive graphics for a 2007 release
Cons:
- No restrictions set in place to keep the experience more balanced
- Team-based mechanics sometimes work too well
- Not enough variety between different official maps
- Lack of originality in game modes and almost everything else
- Mann Co. Store is just a shocking way to rob the foolish of the masses
- Cartoonish art style that appeals to limited audiences
- Connection issues, sometimes long loading times and audio glitches
- Not enough *free* ways to customize each of the nine classes
- Some of the weapons lack that feeling of powerful impact
In the end, Team Fortress 2 is a fairly limited package. If you're looking for a singleplayer option or don't have access to the internet on your gaming rig, then all you will find to satisfy your needs is an offline practice mode. Overall, this game is a good - at times very fun, at others frustrating - experience that doesn't feel very rewarding but throws quite a few enjoyable hours of gameplay at you. It is plagued by connection issues (though thankfully not as bad as that of games like Dead Nation), menu audio glitches, a community with a lot of players who seem to forget it's a team-based game and a store that tries to rob you in shocking ways. However, what is most important is that it can be highly entertaining most of the time and it has become free-to-play in June of 2011, so with that in mind; Team Fortress is worth the 9.0 GB download.