Platform: PC

Developer: Valve Corporation

Publisher: Valve Corporation

Release Date: October 9th, 2007

Genre: First-person Shooter

Rating: 7 out of 10

Team Fortress 2 is a cartoon-style, team-based, free-to-play FPS developed by Valve, the company that made every PC gamer’s dream come true with the invention of Steam and Steam sales. It is the sequel to the Quake mod Team Fortress. Originally, when Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007, it was only available in The Orange box, which was a collection of Valve’s games released on Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Later in 2008, Team Fortress 2 was released as a standalone game for Windows, OS X, and Linux. In 2011, the popular Team Fortress 2 became even more popular when Valve made the game free-to-play.

Team Fortress 2 is not your traditional first-person shooter, which is part of the reason I enjoy it so much. In TF2, there are two teams, “Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED),” and “Builders League United (BLU).” Each team has 9 classes, “Medic,” “Scout,” “Pyr0,” “Spy,” “Sniper,” “Heavy,” “Engineer,” “Demoman,” and “Soldier.” Each of these said classes has it’s own weaponry, it’s own unlockable achievements and clothing, and surprisingly, it’s own personality. In multiplayer-based games, you barely see the characters having personality, let alone a humorous personality like the Team Fortress 2 characters do. Whether it be the Scout’s fast-talking, cocky, baseball fan personality, the Soldier’s stereotypical patriotic American soldier personality, the Pyro’s mental instability and unknown origin or gender, the Demoman’s drunken Scotsman personality, the Heavy’s Stereotypical Russian personality, the Engineer’s relaxed and intelligent personality, the Medic’s German doctor personality with no care for his oath to do no harm, the Sniper’s cheerful Australian personality, or the Spy’s French deadpan personality, each character is lovable and unique in it’s own way.  There are a few other characters that are not playable but can be seen or heard throughout the game, like “the Administrator.”

Team Fortress 2 has many different multiplayer competitive game modes that you can play. In two of these game modes, the focus is on a cart called a “Payload cart.” The first of these two is “Payload.”  In this game mode, BLU wins by escorting the payload cart to the enemy base. In order to do this, you must stand near the cart to make it move down the track. RED wins by preventing the payload cart from reaching their base, and they do this by killing the BLU team near the cart to stop it from moving or by getting close to it themselves in order to stop it. While the second one, “Payload Race,” is still focused on the payload cart, this time both teams have one. The team that gets their cart to the finish line first is the winning team, thus why it is referred to as a race.

The next three competitive game modes in Team Fortress 2 are based on control points that you must capture. The first one is literally named “Control Points.” In “Control Points” both teams must capture all of the control points to be the victors. Unlike “Control Points,” in “Attack / Defense” only BLU is trying to capture all the control points while RED has to make sure they fail in doing so. The final game mode based on control points is called “King of the Hill.” In this game mode, the objective is to capture the control point and defend it until your team’s timer runs out. However, if the other team capturers the control point, your team’s timer will pause until you recapture the point, and the other team’s counter will start to count down.

The final two competitive game modes are based on an intelligence briefcase. In the “Capture the Flag” game mode, the goal is to win points by stealing the enemy’s intelligence briefcase and return it to your base, while also protecting your own intelligence briefcase. Much like “Capture The Flag,” “Special Delivery” is about both teams going after a an intelligence briefcase. The difference is, there is only one briefcase the teams must fight over to deliver to their own base. If someone gets the suitcase and dies before getting to their base, the other team must guard it until it returns to the drop site before being able to retrieve it. I do not have a preference when it comes to competitive game modes, so I generally press random and let the game choose a game mode for me.

Team Fortress 2 also has a c0-op game mode, called “Mann Vs. Machine” or “MVM” for short. In “MVM,” you and the other players must defend your base from hoards of robots. These hoards of robots will be carrying a bomb, and if you let them get the bomb to the base, you will lose. One thing that is exclusive to this game mode only, is character upgrades. There are many different upgrades available per class that you buy with currency you get from destroying robots and surviving waves. These updates do not carry over into the next game, they only apply to one game. There are many different robots, including a robotic version of each of the original 9 classes. While many people I know love this game mode and prefer it, I personally prefer the competitive play, but again that is simply my personal preference.

Team Fortress 2 has many maps, weapons, and clothing, and they are always adding more, even some that the community makes and votes for using the Steam workshop function. When the game was released, it included 6 official maps. Since the release, Valve has added 44 extra maps, 9 “arena” maps, 8 “King of the Hill” maps, and various other map types. Unlike many free-to-play games, Team Fortress 2 is NOT pay-to-win, which is by far my favorite quality of the game. You are able to buy weapons and clothing, however you can obtain the items without buying them as well, and all items are fair in the sense that if it makes you stronger in one area, it’ll weaken you in another.

Here’s why the game did not receive a bigger rating from me; The “Mann co. store” and the community.  While you can unlock all the weapons you can buy, you can not unlock all the clothing. While this doesn’t effect gameplay and is completely optional, the prices are insane. I recently went to the highest prices, and you can buy a shirt for $18. Yes, you can buy an in-game shirt that gives you no benefit for $18. Valve is known by a good amount of people for their generous Steam sales, which brings games as low as 1$ sometimes, yet this same company is trying to sell an in-game item that does nothing for you except make your character look nicer for $18? The fact that they even are trying this sickens me. The second reason is the community. The community does have a mature audience, but many of them are little kids who are quite annoying. It reminds me sort of like the Xbox 360 Call of Duty community, but not as bad.  

Despite the before-mentioned rather minor flaws, the game is very fun, especially for free. The game rewards you for playing with in-game items, and challenges you with fun and hard-to-get achievements. I would highly recommend this game, it is worth the download. What are your thoughts on Team Fortress 2? Would you recommend this to a friend? Did my review help you decide whether or not to download this game? Add your own opinions in the comments!

Written by Nerd Bacon