QUICK JUMP
Video Game Offers Pleasant Surprises
by Tom Cross
If you think that online shooters are just for your annoying college friends or for abusive and immature internet gamers who insist on insulting you every five seconds, Team Fortress 2, released Oct. 10, will come as a welcome surprise – a bright spot in a host of hyper-realistic, overly gritty competitors.
Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to the much-loved Team Fortress Classic, a user modification for the original Half Life. For those new to the gaming world, a modification occurs when people take an original game and change the code, creating a new game out of an old one with new textures and gameplay. Team Fortress Classic itself was an upgrade of the old Team Fortress, a mod for the original classic Quake (the present iteration, Team Fortress 2, is a mod of Valve’s current Source engine, used in its hit game, Half Life 2).
The much anticipated TF2 has been in development at Valve Studios for the past six years. The advent of Valve’s online digital distribution system, Steam, which allows players to download the games directly to their computers, has increased expectations.
Presently, TF2 is being released as part of the Orange Box, a game bundle that includes TF2, Half Life 2, and its two expansions, and a new game called Portal, all of which are available on Xbox 360 and PC (and eventually the Playstation 3). Considering that this package costs only $60, but all of its components would retail separately for around $130, customers seem to be getting a rather good deal. The question, however, is: does TF2 hold up well enough on its own, regardless of what it ships with?
First off, TF2 is not the easiest of multiplayer shooter games to get into. It may look like a violent cartoon, but it requires more thought and has a much steeper learning curve than games like Halo 3 or Gears of War. This difficulty is a result of its class-based gameplay. Every player can pick from a total of nine classes, ranging from Heavy Weapons Guys to Medics to Spies. As a result, there are many different styles of play; once players get the hang of each class, the game becomes an exciting confection of different play styles.
As you encounter the different game types across six maps (areas through which one must battle), you might start to wish there were more maps to play on. Hopefully, Valve will soon address this problem by re-imagining other old maps and game types from the original mod.
While the multiplayer combat can become extremely hectic, the structure of the game forces the players to work cooperatively in teams, and no skirmish happens the same way twice. An unbalanced team has little chance of winning: TF2 rewards almost all styles of play, and as a result, there is never a dull moment.
The only real problems that this design elicits involve people who have just made the jump from simpler, faster games (like the aforementioned Halo 3). There is nothing more frustrating than being on a team with a bunch of players who only want to run around and incompetently shoot stuff with rocket launchers. It makes the game boring for everybody, but luckily there are enough smart people out there that this isn’t a problem most of the time.
The phenomenal art direction makes TF2 a visually beautiful and entertaining game to watch. All of the environments and characters are drawn using cartoon-style graphics, and each level looks like some kind of industrial Looney Toons battleground. Each class has a distinct look too, and all of them have bizarrely amusing animations that fit the over-the-top atmosphere.
Team Fortress 2 is simply a joy to play. It rewards a sense of ingenuity and well-thought-out strategies as opposed to simply stressing lightning-fast reflexes. It creates a world and characters that are incredibly immersive and amusing, especially for a multiplayer first-person shooter.