Odds are if you are an even moderate online gamer you've heard of Team Fortress 2. A game that has not only earned several awards but is also one of the rare instances of a "Love it or Hate it" game that does actually win awards. You see, there is no moderate Team Fortress fan. You're hardcore, or you're not a fan, as simple as that.
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| An illustration of one of the most famous snippets of voice acting from the game |
But what is it? What is it that makes Team Fortress such an addicting game? Is it the cartoonish graphics? The online playability? The dark and often parodying humor? Or it is something else? Join me as we delve into Team Fortress 2 on the first ever Fragadacterlops!
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| The logo and cast of Team Fortress 2, from left to right: Pyro, Engineer, Spy, Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Soldier, Demoman, Medic |
First of all, what is Team Fortress 2? It's a competitive first person shooter where two teams compete against each other to complete objectives. Generally one team will be on offense while the other is on defense, but some times the game mode requires both teams to both attack and defend or be a simple no-respawn death match. The players have the choice between nine unique player classes divided into three categories: Defense, Offense, and Support. This brings me to my first possibility for why Team Fortress 2 is so popular: The characters. You see, every class in the game isn't just a separate load out, Valve has taken the time to make every class it's own character with a personality, back story, and set of running jokes. For example the Spy's catch phrase is, while widely debated, generally considered to be "YES! And now he's here to FUCK US!" As per the "Meet the Spy" video made by Valve. On top of the sense of individuality that each class has as characters each plays significantly different from another. No one in their right mind would play a Demoman the same way you'd play another defense class like a Heavy. The amount of diversity is certainly a great point in favor of Team Fortress 2.
Next we'll touch on the online play. After all, a game can have brilliant characters, but if you can't play it, or it's boring, what's the point right? Team Fortress 2 is a game like Counterstrike in which you connect to the Team Fortress 2 servers which in turn give you a list of games currently in play, you choose one, then connect to it. So long as your computer can handle the graphics and your internet connection isn't terrible, this game will run perfectly. I've never once had trouble with connection or lag, unless of course my internet went down during a game, but that's my ISP's fault. The community is large and extremely active, churning out new maps at a very quick pace. However, that does bring up one problem with the game's community. It had a lot of elitist ass-holes, as most games do, but easily 25% of the game's community is this way. They are either the super elitists who believe that everyone else is the reason you lost the last match, or they are the people that think that Achievements gauge your skill and thus use illegal Achievement Farming servers to earn all that they can. This doesn't detract from the game too much, provided you don't mind muting a few people during gameplay.
Overall, Team Fortress 2 is a simply astounding game. I have never played an FPS more continually fun than it. I play this game easily ten hours a week, and coming from me, the RPG fanatic, that's saying a lot. Team Fortress 2 gets a 9/10 on my Real Scale. Remember, on the Real Scale a 5/10 is average, making TF2s 9/10 an excellent game. I'd suggest that anyone who is looking for a unique online FPS experience pick it up for PC... because the console version sucks.
Cheers,
HappyPariah
By the way, if anyone would like to add me on STEAM, my account name is Apolan
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