1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (60 votes, average: 3.53 / 5)
Loading...

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2, TF2 for short, is a quirky cartoony 3D MMO shooter developed and published by Valve. Team Fortress 2 is based on the popular Team Fortress mods for Quake and Half Life. TF2 features nine unique classes, and has excellent balance, well-designed maps, and chaotically fun gameplay.

Publisher: Valve
Playerbase: High
Type: MMO
Release Date: Oct 9, 2007 (NA/EU)
Pros: +Excellent balance. +Great map designs. +Beautiful art style. +Tons of player-made content (Steam Workshop).
Cons: None. Team Fortress 2 is awesome.

x

Overview

Team Fortress 2 Overview

Put on your hats, strap on your rocket launchers, and prepare to fight it out in Team Fortress 2, a fast-paced, action-packed, and comical team-based first person shooter from the makers of Half-Life 2. Take your pick from nine comical classes, each with their own unique personalities and tactical uses, including a one-eyed, heavy-drinking Scotsman, a mentally unstable pyromaniac, and a host of other wacky characters. Take part in eight different game modes, including classic modes such as Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, and Deathmatch, along with unique scenarios like Medieval and Payload.

Team Fortress 2 Key Features:

  • Hilarious and Wacky Characters – very creative characters with awesome lines that keep the game entertaining and lighthearted.
  • Awesome Maps – run around on well-designed maps that truly enhance the gameplay of this MMO shooter. Has open spaces, plenty of cover, and brilliant zones of battle.
  • Masterful Gameplay – not only is the game balanced extremely well, but the gameplay itself is tastefully done with familiar shooter controls and a good variety of classes.
  • Achievements – an achievement system keeps the replay value high, as players will want to strive to unlock and meet the challenges.
  • Great Tutorial System – players will ease right into the game with the help of a great tutorial system, where they will experience each class and the gameplay bits at a time.

Team Fortress 2 Screenshots

Team Fortress 2 Featured Video

Team Fortress 2 - Free to Play Trailer

Classes

Team Fortress 2 Classes

Offense:

  • Scout – a fast, agile character equipped with a scattergun, a pistol, and an aluminum baseball bat. Scouts can double jump as well as capture points and push payloads twice as fast as other classes. They have the lowest health.
  • Soldier – a durable but slow class packing a rocket launcher, shotgun, and a folding shovel. Soldiers can use the rocket launcher to rocket jump to higher positions.
  • Pyro – a crazy pyromaniac dressed in a fire retardant suit and armed with a flamethrower, shotgun, and a fire axe. Pyros can also use compressed air to knock away enemies or extinguish burning teammates.

Defense:

  • Demoman – a heavy-drinking Scotsman armed with a sticky bomb launcher, grenades, and a glass bottle. The Demoman sets traps and provides indirect fire using explosives.
  • Heavy – the slowest class but can deal massive amounts of damage. Armed with a gattling gun, a shotgun, and his fists. They also have the highest health of all the classes.
  • Engineer – builds structures to support his team. Engineers can build sentry guns, health and ammo dispensers, and teleporters. Their default weapon is the shotgun, pistol, and wrench. Apart from clobbering enemy players, the wrench can also be used to repair, upgrade, and speed up the construction of structures.

Support:

  • Medic – a vital part of any team, the medic heals teammates using his “Medi Gun.” Medi Guns also build up “UberCharge” which, when activated, grants the medic and his patient temporary invulnerability. Oh, and he has a crazy awesome German accent.
  • Sniper – uses his laser-sighted sniper rifle to take out enemies from afar with a well-placed shot. Snipers are also equipped with a submachine gun and a kukri. Snipers are a situational class and aren’t used as often as other classes.
  • Spy – spies use stealth, deception, and their array of cover tools to help out the team. Spies are equipped with a cloaking device, an electronic sapper used to sabotage enemy equipment, and a device that allows them to disguise themselves as the enemy. They are also armed with a revolver and a butterfly knife that can be used to instantly kill an enemy with a stab to the back or the sides. Like the sniper, spies are only used if the situation calls for it.

Full Review

Team Fortress 2 Review

By Marc Marasigan

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) developed and published by Valve Corporation, the makers of widely popular games like Counter-Strike and Half-Life. Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to the 1996 Quake mod and 1999 Team Fortress Classic. The game was officially released both as a standalone product via Steam, and as part of the game bundle, 'The Orange Box.'

Like the earlier versions of Team Fortress, Team Fortress 2 has two team, RED and BLU, battling it out to complete objectives based on the game mode selected. Each team represents a company, Builders League United (BLU) and Reliable Excavation Demolition (RED). According to the backstory, these companies are owned by two brothers fighting each other for control of their inherited lands using mercenaries from all corners of the globe.

Boot Camp

Team Fortress 2 helps first-time players get acquainted with the lobby using pop-up tool tips that explain what each particular button does. The game offers a comprehensive tutorial which teaches the basics of movement and combat, as well as how to properly use each of the nine classes. New players can opt to go through the tutorial or they can just jump right into the action. The tutorial can be accessed anytime through the “Training” button in the lobby. Players that go through the tutorial start as a Soldiers and progressively unlock other classes by completing each class tutorial. The game also allows players to play against bots, which almost seems as if you’re playing against real people. The AI code is the same one used for the Left 4 Dead series and is pretty damn good. They also respond to in-game commands like “Medic!” or “Go! Go! Go!”

Comical Combat

Team Fortress 2’s gameplay is similar to Quake and Half-Life, where opposing teams of players fight it out in different maps to accomplish objectives depending on the game mode selected. But unlike its predecessors, Team Fortress 2 puts a different spin on an otherwise old genre. Instead of the usual serious and gory combat found in most MMOFPSs, the game offers players a bit of comic relief through characters with unique personalities and amusing one-liners. Players can choose from one of nine different combat classes, each with their own strengths and weakness, including an alcoholic one-eyed Scotsman with a fondness for blowing things up, a German doctor with no regard for the Hippocratic Oath, and a heavy-set Russian with a gattling-gun he fondly calls, “Sasha.” Don’t let the cartoony graphics fool you, though combat is intense, fast-paced, and requires a bit of skill, especially when going up against veterans of the game. Teamwork is a vital part of the game and requires players to not only work together, but to use each class' strengths and weakness to their advantage, depending on the situation. Switching to a heavy class to lay down covering fire for that final push may be more beneficial to the team than getting a bunch of backstab kills with the spy.

Let’s Get It On!

Team Fortress 2 makes use of the matchmaking system typically found in MMOFPS games. The game automatically matches players with others also looking to play. The game offers players a choice of eight unique game modes, each requiring different strategies and different levels of teamwork to win. Players can choose to play classic modes like Capture the Flag or King of the Hill scenarios, or they can choose one of the other unique game modes available like Payload, Payload Race, Control Points, Territorial Control, Special Delivery, or Mann vs. Machine. In Payload, the BLU team tries to push a bomb-laden cart on train tracks all the way to the end of the line while the RED team tries to stop them. Payload Race features the same rules, but instead of one cart, both teams have a cart each. The first team to reach the end or goes the farthest wins the round. Control Points and Territorial Control has the BLU team attempting to capture designated points on the map while the RED team tries to stop them. Special Delivery has both BLU and RED teams competing to deliver a briefcase to a designated location first. The suitcase is dropped when the carrier dies and is returned to the starting position when an enemy player runs over it. Mann vs. Machine requires players to create a party and can only be played with friends. Players work together to defend their base against waves of robots.

Where Team Fortress 2 really shines through is its huge variety of custom maps. Players are given the freedom to design their own maps with their own models, sounds, and more. All of this leads to a game filled with a near infinite amount of content. There are Minecraft-inspired maps to My Little Pony maps with pony character models. With so many custom maps and mods, it's hard to ever get bored with Team Fortress 2.

Hats, Hats, Hats!

Team Fortress 2 features an item drop system that rewards players with random items by simply playing the game. Players are rewarded with random weapons, tools, or cosmetic items every 30 -70 minutes of playtime. This is capped at 10 hours of playtime per week. After reaching the cap, players will no longer receive random item drops. Team Fortress 2 is also known for the number of hats available in the game. Hats are cosmetic items that are worn on the head and can be equipped on one of the three available cosmetic slots. Hats come in many forms from funny stainless pots, buckets, and Viking helmets to super-cool skull berets, Mohawk hairstyles, and a variety of cowboy hats.

Achievements

For players who love a good challenge, Team Fortress 2 features an achievement system that gives it a bonus in replayability. Achievements are divided into general, class, events, maps, and a separate achievement set for the Mann vs. Machine game mode. Achievements can range from simply doing a Conga Line with 10 players or jumping into water while on fire, to more tedious ones like getting 25 headshots, getting five kills in a row without dying, or getting a total of 1000 kills. Players are rewarded with untradeable achievement weapons by completing milestone achievements, which they can unlock by completing a certain amount of achievements in the class set.

Mann Co.

Mann Co. is Team Fortress 2’s item shop and contains weapons, cosmetic items, taunts, bundles, and maps which can be bought with real money using the payment method that players registered with Steam. While the item shop does contain weapons with bonuses that give their users an added advantage in combat, the odds can easily turn in your favor with a bit of skill and a whole lot of teamwork. A few rare hats and costumes are also only available through the item shop. Much like DotA 2, Team Fortress 2 has a thriving player-driven economy powered by Valve's Steam Marketplace. Rare items can be bought and sold for cash between players, with the rarest hats selling for thousands of dollars.

Graphics & Audio

Team Fortress 2 features awesome cartoony graphics that work really well with the game’s comical theme. The caricature-like character models and animations are superbly done, including the hilarious taunts that add a bit more color to the game. The voice-acting in the game is definitely worth mentioning and will have you cracking up at the stereotypes and funny one-liners, even while being burned down by a crazy pyromaniac.

Final Verdict – Excellent

Team Fortress 2 is wonderfully fun and easy to pick up. It's definitely a breath of fresh air from the typical MMO shooters. The fast-paced combat, coupled with the game’s comical theme, will have players laughing and their adrenaline pumping at the same time. Great graphics, hilarious voice acting, and unique characters make this game a complete package. The achievement system also gives players weeks, if not months, of additional playtime. Team Fortress 2 is regarded by many as one of the best PC games of all time and it's hard to disagree. A highly recommended game that both hardcore and casual players will surely enjoy.

Screenshots

Team Fortress 2 Screenshots

Videos

Team Fortress 2 Videos

Playlist: Team Fortress 2

System Requirements

Team Fortress 2 System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: 1.7 GHz Processor or better
Video Card: GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 2600
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 15 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Pentium 4 3 GHz or better
Video Card: GeForce 9600 GT / ATI Radeon 3600
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Disk Space: 15 GB

Mac OS X System Requirements

Operating System: Max OS X Leopard 10.5.8 or newer
CPU: 1.7 GHz or better
RAM: 1 GB+
Hard Disk: 15 GB
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 8 series or better / ATI X1600 or better.

Team Fortress 2 runs well on Intel HD 3000 or newer integrated graphics cards.

Music

Team Fortress 2 Music & Soundtrack


Additional Info

Team Fortress 2 Additional Information

Developer: Valve
Designer(s): John Cook and Robin Walker
Composers: Mike Morasky
Other Platforms: Mac OS X, Linux, Steam OS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3
Game Engine: Source Engine
Closed Beta Date: September 17, 2007

Foreign Release(s):

Team Fortress 2 is published globally through Steam with no IP restrictions

Development History / Background:

Team Fortress 2 was developed by American-based game developer Steam and released as a part of The Orange Box bundle on October 10, 2007. The game is a remake of the popular 1996 mod "Team Fortress" for Quake and the 1999 Half Life 1 mod, "Team Fortress Classic." Development for a standalone Team Fortress game began when Valve hired John Cook and Robin Walker, the duo behind the Team Fortress mod. The game's first images were revealed to the world at E3 1999 and the game looked like a realistic shooter, a farcry from what it is today. A year after E3, Valve announced that the game would be delayed and redesigned with Valve's Source engine. No news came out of Valve regarding Team Fortress 2 up until 2004, when Valve revealed that the game was still in development and more news would arrive at a later date. It wasn't until July 2006 that Team Fortress 2 (as it is known today) was revealed to the world. Valve had re-developed the game 3-4 times before finally deciding on the cartoony quirky visuals that the game sports today. The game launched as a buy-to-play title but dropped its subscription and became free-to-play on June 23, 2011. Team Fortress 2 was Valve's first free-to-play game and gave the company insight on the up and coming business model. Since going free-to-play, Team Fortress 2's popularity has soared and the game consistently appears on Steam's most played games list. Despite its long development cycle, Team Fortress 2 is highly regarded as one of the best PC games of all time.