By Alec Meer on June 18th, 2008 at 5:18 pm.
Team Fortress 2 is easily the game I’ve sunk more hours into than any other during the last year, and happily so. Still, isn’t a little weird that we’ve all spent the last week getting so excited about a cutscene and some stat changes for a half-year-old multiplayer shooter? We are geek, and we are legion.
It’s hardly a rare occurrence for a PC gamer to look at the more rabid 360 owners’ Halo fanboyism and scoff, but man, look how hard us lot have fallen for TF2. There’s no other game we’ve posted more about on RPS, and six months on from its release, there’s no sign of that slowing down. TF2′s an extraordinary game, and the importance of it introducing so much character to its crazed gunmen cannot be overstated. But.. what are we getting out of the videos and updates this long after release?
Well, quite a lot. A sense of belonging to a like-minded community (and one whose gods are very much in on the joke) and an awful lot of entertainment. For existing TF2 players, the Meet videos and the unlocks expertly drag us back in, clearly. I’m currently on something like my fourth intense steeping in TF2, having ebbed and flowed over the months, and being lured back again by every major update.
It’s easy, when giggling at the Meet the Sniper video (comfortably the funniest since Engineer, and arguably the most accomplished of the lot) to forget what it’s really doing is getting across how awesome the game is. The video makes you want to be a sniper – it emphasises his sense of remote invincibility, his patience and calm amidst a hail of gunfire, the relative clumsiness of the other classes by comparison to him, and that there’s a little of the Crocodile Dundee to him. His dad might doubt him, but we think he’s cool as hell. We want to be that guy. I’ll bet there were a few more Snipers than usual on the servers last night.
Still, I had previously been thinking “why are Valve still bothering to make these?” Surely most people who are likely to play TF2 are already playing TF2, making this an appreciated but (so I had at first presumed) non-lucrative pat on the head for fans – fans who’ve already paid for the game and don’t cough up any subscription fee. Is this continued investment worth it for Valve? Yeah, I reckon. Actually, there a lot of people who aren’t yet playing TF2 – Warcraft’s 10m subscribers prove that. EA’s plans for Battlefield Heroes prove that. Is every Digg reader, every Youtube visitor playing TF2? No, not by a long shot, but a shedload of them will stumble across Meet The Sniper’s stunningly Pixarian production values and hopefully be intrigued enough to try the game.
Sniper’s immediate effect may be to drag a load of lapsed players back, but more importantly it’s the advance guard for the upcoming free weekend. Funny video + free demo = game purchase. This many months in, TF2 may be a noticeably more hardcore affair than it used to be, but the game’s careful focus on a level playing field means it remains a relatively open door to a rank newcomer. It’s still a world away from the sudden deaths of COD4, Quake Wars, UT3 et al. While it’s very obviously not yesterday’s news, it’s not a new release anymore – but this could well be a game that’s only just started to make money. It’s a shame it’s a 2Gb-odd download, as that’s an immediate turn off for a curious newcomer.
What’s beyond this slow influx of new people, I don’t know. Valve’s leisurely development pace means it won’t just churn out a sequel next year, and were they to announce paid DLC there’d be uproar. Free updates are the likely future, then. Increasingly, the money we each spent on The Orange Box or TF2 is turning out to quite the bargain. It’s $20 on its own, for crissakes. One of the finest multiplayer shooters ever made, and it’s only a tenner.
Speaking of WoW (er, about seven paragraphs back), I’m acutely aware that TF2 plays the same role in my life as that did a year or two ago. The urge to immediately hit the servers every lunchtime and every 5.30pm is the same, as it the obsession with discovering new detail – those new achievements, the Sniper video… I can remember watching the Burning Crusade intro cinematic over and over when it was released ahead of the game, and poring over advance patchnotes, desperate to try out the new hotness they talked of.
TF2 is the MMO that isn’t an MMO, another riposte to Spector’s suggestion that short games are the future – quite clearly, a lot of gamers do want one, endless game, and this is all the proof we need that bashing goblins really isn’t the be all and end all of that concept. Unlike most other multiplayer FPSes, TF2 is not static – that it’s this gradually changing experience adds a lot of MMO appeal. As well as unlocks for the remaining classes, if we take the bobblehead in the Sniper video as the hint it’s surely meant to be, we’ve probably got VIP escort maps to look forward to at some point. This one could run and run.
Chatting to a friend about how TF2 has neatly taken WoW’s place in my life, he observed that it’s an evolution of how people used to behave about D&D revisions or new races for Warhammer 40K. It’s the same type of gent to a certain extent, and the same sort of mentality – absolute excitement about detail changes to ruleset-based escapism. The difference is that, while the celebrations used to consist of small gatherings at a mate’s house or in the local Games Workshop store, now the internet allows this massive, global pile-on of enthusiasm. With today’s news that apparently the Romans used 20-sided dice, it starts to seem like mankind moves in circles. All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again…
18/06/2008 at 17:31 Meat Circus says:
Royal We?
I had stopped playing it of late, because my backlog of games unplayed has reached critical mass, especially since I got the PS:T widescreen patch to work.
But it’s such an utterly perfect way to waste fifteen minutes/half an hour/an hour.
It such an easy default to drop into and out of for short bouts of mindless ace shootybangbang, that it clocks up all those hours without my even noticing it.
So: TF2 – yay.
18/06/2008 at 17:32 Fat Zombie says:
I doubt, though, that Legionnaires ran about blasting each other with miniguns and flamethrowers either (although you never know).
Still, TF2 = Awesome. And now they’ve released a Flare Gun for it, it’s twice as awesome (flare guns being one of my favourite weapons, as well as RPG launchers). I’m going to have to work for this.
18/06/2008 at 17:34 phuzz says:
TF2 is helping me give up smoking.
Well, sort of, but time spent playing TF2 is time enjoyed, and more importantly, time not spent smoking. It’s a start anyway.
I’ve very carefully not gotten involved with any MMOs, because I know how easily I can get addicted to things, but if my brief dalliance with Eve taught me one thing, it was that I’m not social enough to really play most MMOs. On the other hand, healing some heavy that’s heading in the right direction is just the level of social interaction I can cope with after a day at work.
18/06/2008 at 17:34 Gulag says:
I have long lamented the absence of the VIP maps to anyone who would listen. It was, and is, a brilliant concept, almost like a playground game, that demands teamwork and ingenuity. Can’t wait to see what the umbrella unlocks look like :)
18/06/2008 at 17:35 Nimic says:
Great article. While I’m not as fanatic over TF2 as I was in the time after release, I do have my periods. I’ll probably not play very much right away, but when I get back home where my connection actually supports it, and where my equally geeky cousin also lives, I can definitely see us spending the wee hours of the night on TF2. Again.
18/06/2008 at 17:40 RichPowers says:
For the past eight years it’s been, “Why can’t I get Team Fortress out of my head?” I’ve played Dustbowl — both the classic and new version — at least three times a week since the summer of 2000.
TFC and TF2 offer immediate gratification. No matter which Dustbowl or Gold Rush server I join, there’s guaranteed to be an entertaining battle going on. And it’s worth playing through the first two stages just to enjoy the frenzied battle over the last capture point. (To this day, no other gaming experience is as exciting as a 32-man TFC game on Dustbowl’s final stage.) And unlike WoW and other MMOs, you can switch classes at any moment and have a totally different experience depending on your mood.
Oh ya, TF2 is also silly as hell, especially when the pre-gate spawn room erupts with everyone spamming “That [class] is a spy!”
18/06/2008 at 17:46 The Fanciest Of Pants(Max F) says:
The new content and “Meet the..” films certainly do their part to suck ME back in. Best 50 bucks I ever spent(that I can recall).
And wow… a 2000 year old D20? I love that such a thing exists. :D
18/06/2008 at 17:46 Naurgul says:
Well, it’s certain that Valve doesn’t do all these things (only) out of good will. Team Fortress 2 climbed to the first position of Steam’s top-sellers today again, after MtS and the update details were released, but before the actual update or the free weekend.
Whatever crazy marketing strategy they’re using, it’s working in both drawing in new players and bringing back old ones. Also, it doesn’t cost a dime, so who am I to complain for being hypnotised to play the game again after months of absence?
But I digress. The numbers of players/servers for TF2 is still a world away from COD4, not to mention CS, so in retrospect these crazy marketing strategies may not make much of a difference.
18/06/2008 at 18:14 mujadaddy says:
Really? I guess you’re not a RtCW:ET afficianado, then?
I probably would’ve bought Orange Box for Portal & TF2 except for 3 things:
1. No Friendly Fire – Seriously, this is a big immersion breaker for me. “LOoK, my MagicFire only hurts enemies!”
2. No Grenades – Huh? Headscratcher.
3. Random Criticals – Yikes. Unless all the info I’ve read is wrong, this is … umm… the wrong way to do it.
HOWEVER, with that being said, _another_ Free Weekend has made me decide to d/l the trial. If it’s *as* or *more* enjoyable (doubtful :P) than RtCW:ET (which I still play 1ce-2ce a week, in 2008!), I can see myself migrating to a new FPS ;)
Oh, btw, RPS? Love ya.
18/06/2008 at 18:17 cyrenic says:
The comparison to Halo 3 made me think about how much greater monetary value you get from TF2 right now than Halo 3. You can pick up TF2 for $20, while halo 3 is still $60 most places. You have to pay the XBox Live fee to play Halo 3 online, Steam has comparable features and is free. You have to pay for every release of Halo 3 DLC, new maps and weapons on TF2 are free. I love being a PC Gamer. Not trying to start some platform flame war, Halo 3 has its strong points, just an observation.
18/06/2008 at 18:18 Dustin says:
Hahaha….Battlestar Galactica reference.
18/06/2008 at 18:23 Chris Livingston says:
I’ve been into and stayed into TF2 from the start, but I do hit periods of blah or boredom from time to time and take small breaks. I do really love and appreciate that Valve, having already made their sale to me, continue to add and improve the game and get me to Day 1 Level excitement all over again.
18/06/2008 at 18:23 liquidindian says:
Immersion isn’t a problem – I’m always aware that I’m playing against other people, but am in no way disconnected from the gameplay. You ‘lose yourself’ in a different way to other immersive games. And given how much I hate a skilful demoman, I’m glad of the lack of grenades.
18/06/2008 at 18:31 Fumarole says:
Immersion? Surely you mean realism. That’s kind of a silly thing to look for in a game with rocket jumps and paper-mask-disguised spies.
18/06/2008 at 18:32 Theory says:
Grenades blur the lines between classes, even accounting for their different permutations, and are also the vile, hated spam.
I was delighted when I heard they’d gone: I never liked them, and I never liked using them.
18/06/2008 at 18:37 Mataway says:
What I love about TF2 is no matter what mood I’m in I can pick a class to play that fits it. And if I get the least bit bored, a quick class switch has me playing a whole new game.
18/06/2008 at 18:43 KindredPhantom says:
I agree.
When i waver from TF2 i just check out my TF2 pics sideshow (click my name).
18/06/2008 at 18:48 Stick says:
The video makes you *want* to be a sniper
True. Even me. And I can’t
pixelhuntaim for crap.(I suppose I might go Crazed Gunman when everyone else is burninating. Should be amusing.)
Seems like Narrative and Character sell things way beyond Cool Feature Lists.
Even in non-narrative-based games.
18/06/2008 at 18:55 gromit says:
3. Random Criticals – Yikes. Unless all the info I’ve read is wrong, this is … umm… the wrong way to do it.
Crits work great in TF2. It makes you want to avoid any kind of enemy fire. Otherwise you would know “o.k. I can survive 3 rockets before I die” or something similar. And while they are random it’s not like skilled players aren’t rewarded.
More playing less reading :p
18/06/2008 at 19:04 mujadaddy says:
@gromit: OK, I can accept that. One of my gripes with FPS’s in general is that damage doesn’t “hurt” until that last HP.
“(realism): That’s kind of a silly thing to look for in a game with rocket jumps and paper-mask-disguised spies.”
That’s what I’m saying — I’ve been lead to believe that TF2 is too cartoony. Not that I’m “hardcore” or anything, but when I’m vicariously shooting people, I want penalties for vicariously shooting my friends. :) …and PaperMasks don’t bother me at all — Rocketjumping, however, does.
18/06/2008 at 19:14 cyrenic says:
@mujadaddy
They had to take team damage out of the game because it made spies too powerful if you can’t spy check teammates. If you don’t like your FPS’s cartoony TF2 might not be a good fit for you. However I’d definitely encourage you to play it yourself and see if you like it, no reason not to with the free trial :P.
18/06/2008 at 19:36 Deuteronomy says:
TF2 was a massive disappointment for me. I spent about a hour played before shutting it down and going back to Quake Wars and RO. Yes I realize I’m in the minority but that doesn’t make me any less right. RO in particular is so far above any other online FPS that it’s a victim of it’s own greatness. Quake Wars is good if for nothing else that it runs on Linux.
I dislike TF2 so much that I sometime suspect my fellow gamers of being pod people brainwashed some kind of subliminal messaging from Valve. In a way this ties into the Stalker thread – TF2 is the ultimate example of brightly colored western pap light on the gameplay and heavy on the silly. After trying WoW last night I realize the same comparison holds for it and EVE.
18/06/2008 at 19:40 Nick says:
“Yes I realize I’m in the minority but that doesn’t make me any less right.”
Welcome to personal taste, have a nice stay.
18/06/2008 at 19:44 mujadaddy says:
@cyrenic:
I understand — but that says to me that their Spy implementation is incorrect. Do Spies have their Spy Weapons showing, or do they have cardboard copies of their impersonated class weapons? (In Enemy Territory when you see a Medic with a Sniper Rifle, you know what’s up) If the latter, yikes, no wonder.
Anyhow, as I said, Free Weekend Again makes Mujadaddy happy.
18/06/2008 at 19:49 Sam says:
mujadaddy: Disguised Spies have the primary weapon of their disguise visible – which can be a giveaway if the class they’re disguised as doesn’t use its primary much.
18/06/2008 at 19:50 Lachlan says:
I loved TF2 on release, but my interest dwindled with the arrival of the unlockables. There’s no way I’ll ever play the game enough to even get the most basic of the new weapons, except by very long slow slog, and seeing people run around with stuff I will never have is just depressing.
This makes the Pyro update a bit of a sad moment for me. I’d love to play, I want to try the new stuff…but I’ll never get it. And that makes the game a symbol of annoyance for me, so I don’t play it.
18/06/2008 at 20:04 mujadaddy says:
@Sam: “Yikes, no wonder” :P :)
18/06/2008 at 20:29 Dave says:
@Sam: Yes, but who has time to watch that one guy near the dispenser just to figure out if he’s a spy, while you’re busy dodging rockets and staying out of the way of a sniper and trying to mute that obnoxious twit who keeps playing Rick Astley tunes over voice chat?
As a mediocre FPS player, no friendly fire is one of the reasons I love TF2. Though the server mod that turns friendly fire on during the victory celebration is a hoot. :)
18/06/2008 at 20:35 Sam says:
Dave:
True. And, as a long standing Pyro player, I like to greet people with a puff of cheery flame as a matter of course.
Still, sometimes it can be a little obvious, especially with Snipers…
18/06/2008 at 20:36 The Hammer says:
“I can remember watching the Burning Crusade intro cinematic over and over when it was released ahead of the game”
I had it on my phone, and I suppose I’ll have Wrath playing over and over again on my computer too.
I’ve installed TF2 again today, and fully intend to play a hell of a lot of it with my mates. I’m an example of the kind of guy lured back by the updates and the “Meet the Sniper” video, and Team Fortress’s continued updates make me wish DoD:S received the same treatment.
Whilst I’m not of the church of Team Fortress 2, it’s still one of my favourite online games I’ve played. It’s impossibly well presented, and oozes personality. It’s great.
18/06/2008 at 20:42 John says:
But for reals, isn’t TF2 really immersive? Not realistic, no, but the cartoony setting makes you completely accept the strange things like rocket jumping. In that sense it’s immersive BECAUSE it is cartoony (As I’m sure was Valve’s intention).
Also, am I wrong for disliking when people use voice chat instead of that voice command menu thing? I just think the characters loose so much personality when a demoman talks with a high pitched voice over a bad microphone. I know I wouldn’t last a second in a clan with that attitude, but still, the classes and their personalities are such a big part of the fun in this game.
18/06/2008 at 21:05 Easy says:
I played original Team Fortress on and off for the best part of 2 years and it was a fantastic time in my gaming career. Makes me wish I was 18 again. Mind you, back then there wasn’t much choice in online FPS games. Broadband was unheard of and you were lucky to have a Voodoo graphics card.
Perhaps it’s nostalgia or perhaps it’s me having moved on, but I can’t get into TF2 at all. Between TF, Counter-Strike and Asheron’s Call, I probably spent the whole of 1997-2002 addicted to one game or another. Now I just drift from game to game, without really stopping for long. I’m basically like The Littlest Hobo, only less hairy and without a catchy theme tune.
18/06/2008 at 21:07 Tasogare says:
i played RtCW:ET few years ago and its a great game, when GoldRush for TF2 was released i was hoping for somthing similar to RtCW:ET version, but thous are 2 totaly different maps and 2 totaly different games
(i really have lot of sentiment for RtCW:ET)
but GoldRush for TF2 is now my favorite(i dont play any other map lately)
as for Friendly Fire (i liked ff in RtCW:ET) it wouldn’t work in TF2 everyone would kill etchader :)
if someone thinks that its stupid… maybe … maybe, but its fun :) thers probably no other game that can put a smile on your face when your die
18/06/2008 at 21:27 Alex says:
The immersion is definitely increased by the cartoony style. As the dev team said in the audio commentary for TF2, they found that the exaggerated style fits the gameplay much better, considering that one of the classes has a gun that fires health and one can jump again in mid-air. I think that’s completely true, and this way it’s also a lot funnier.
18/06/2008 at 21:36 Dave says:
@John: I dunno, people spamming “ze heavy is a spy… ze pyro is a spy… ze spy is a double agent… ze dispenser is a spy… ” doesn’t really do much for immersion either. Even if it’s funny. :)
And it’s hard to communicate “red has a forward base in our sewers again” or “their intel’s on their sniper deck” with the chat menu.
18/06/2008 at 21:48 Trousers says:
I apologize if I’m late in saying this, but does anyone else think TF2 was the most important/impacting (sorry, bourbon) release on the PC since WOW?
18/06/2008 at 22:08 Deuteronomy says:
My mind is completely blown by the enthusiasm for TF2. And WoW for that matter. There are so many better (gaming)experiences out there.
18/06/2008 at 22:11 Al3xand3r says:
Well, even though everyone and his mother and unborn children apparently love it oh so very much and think so highly of it and it’s the best thing since sliced bread, it still has a minimal amount of servers with a reasonable amount of players in compared to behemoths of the space like Counter-Strike Source (which in turn has less than the original).
CSS has thousands of servers with players in at the moment, TF2 has less than 900 even though I listed servers that have even 1 player in them.
In any case, popularity alone doesn’t mean importance and impact so I’d give that title to Portal as TF2 offered nothing new. It sure offered quality in what it (re)did but it wasn’t (isn’t) new. And they’re keeping the trend with their achievements addition which is once again taking an older concept and polishing it to match (though to me it looks unpolished and a clearly tacked on feature). For multi player only experiences I’d give that title to… Well, there hasn’t been a really impacting multi player FPS for several years really, it’s all rehashes of much older games. Maybe Left 4 Dead or The Crossing will give us something to be happy about in the near future.
Also, TFC had its high peaks of popularity in its time but it soon fell flat on its ass aside from the hardcore fans so let’s wait and see what happens to TF2 because with its current popularity I’m not too optimistic about its future, achivements added or not.
On the other hand, everyone enjoys these videos thanks to the style and humour, many of them possibly more than the actual game, leading to this “can’t get it out of our heads” impression :P
18/06/2008 at 22:17 Rosti says:
I’d be very surprised if TF2 is the only gaming experience most players have on the go at any time, really. I personally hate online FPSes, what with not having the reflexes, but TF2 actually let me enjoy myself in that environment. For that reason alone, I’ll be anticipating each content patch being so generously given to us.
18/06/2008 at 22:33 Thundara says:
Glad to see that Steam is recognizing games as a Service, not just a Product.
On a note I think the author might have forgotten to mention, Valve has also gotten a lot better at releasing these upgrades of sort. The first big expansion took quite a long time to polish and send out, but the pyro and co. updates have come at us a lot quicker than I expected. (6 months)
I wonder if they’ve stepped up their speed on other projects like Half Life 2 Episode 3?
18/06/2008 at 23:33 Wolfman says:
I must be more geek than the rest of you! I spotted the Red Dwarf reference! We are indeed Legion. :)
-wolfman
18/06/2008 at 23:36 Andy Johnson says:
I was a huge player of CS Source, which I played well in excess of a thousand hours of all in all – I was also leader of the PC Gamer Forum Clan for quite some time. It kept me coming back night after night because of the enormous polish on the maps (except that I maintain that de_dust is CT-biased, but that’s another story) and the great community I was a part of.
More recently, TF2 has really sucked me in. I’ve only been able to play it for about a fortnight now, on account of having highly restricted internet access at uni, but I’ve already fallen in love with the sheer hilarity of even random public games and the huge amount of quality and character Valve have managed to inject into the maps, classes, weapons and general mechanics. Hell, even the menu music is lovely.
If only the Medic achievements were, well… achievable. Still, an awesome game that thoroughly deserves all the praise it gets.
18/06/2008 at 23:53 monchberter says:
@ Deuteronomy.
Horses for courses. Define ‘better’. I think TF2 puts the ‘game’ back into gaming. I fell out with the po-faced-ness of most PC games, let alone FPS’s and TF2 represents a sublimely designed refreshing change to me.
19/06/2008 at 00:24 Radiant says:
What’s RO?
19/06/2008 at 00:33 runningwthszzors says:
@alec
type about:robots
in your address bars…
for all those who upgraded to Firefox 3. (BSG mid-season finale was great)
19/06/2008 at 00:49 Ixtab says:
I used to play a lot of CSS and then went off it and all online FPS for a long period, then TF2 came out, at first I played it and didn’t like it, then people were talking about it a lot so I gave it another go and got hooked. TF2 is easily my favourite multiplayer game because if you get bored it’s easy to just change class so you play differently. Although it is sometimes a problem when there’s already a lot of the class I want to change to so I feel I probably shouldn’t.
I also tried playing the DoDS beta thing the other week and really couldn’t get into it. It took itself far to seriously, and with the grenades every class is a bloody demo man.
Also Thundara, they said that all unlock updates after the medic would be faster because they already had the basic system in place for the medic so it just needed tweaking, where as to get it up for the medic initialy was a lot more work. Also they didn’t build a map to go with this one which is a lot of effort.
19/06/2008 at 00:58 Majorb says:
Yes, what is this mysterious RO?
19/06/2008 at 00:59 Matt says:
runningwthszzors, that is amazing!
Also, I cannot wait until I can push people around as pyro.
19/06/2008 at 01:12 Naurgul says:
RO = Red Orchestra. Look it up. It’s a realistic WW2 FPS. I personally did not like it but people who are into this kind of games seem to do.
19/06/2008 at 01:37 ack says:
@runningwthszzors:
Gotta love those about: pages! Anyone able to spot the references besides Asimov and Army of Darkness? (OT as sh**t, sorry)
19/06/2008 at 01:43 SageGaspar says:
Aside from all the polish and aesthetics and charm and the variety of classes which are just fantastic, part of what makes me love TF2 is how approachable and somewhat skill capped it is. Every FPS I’ve liked so far has followed the same pattern: I diddle around a bit every day for the first couple weeks and have a great deal of fun. Then a bunch on the weekends for a couple months. Then I check back in maybe a half year later and there are a billion little gimmicky tricks people have sat there and mastered that make the game not even fun for the uninitiated. You walk out and die. A 1-2 kill count is a lucky day. In TF2 I know the basic tactics and what each class can do and with proper teamwork we can overcome even the hardest group of twitch-fiends.
Of course some people love mastering little intricacies and unintended tricks but I love the fact that I can play casually and not get walked on by a legion of bunnyhoppers tossing grenades in every direction while headshotting me through a wall. It’s killed so many games for me before.
19/06/2008 at 02:29 TychoCelchuuu says:
I like TF2 and Red Orchestra!
19/06/2008 at 02:56 Down Rodeo says:
As I have mentioned before in these comments I love TF2, it’s just so… amazing really. Every game is different. I keep going back to it. In fact, I will try to get some time on tomorrow despite being really busy. That said I might restrict myself to a download, and play on Friday.
19/06/2008 at 03:57 Andy Simpson says:
“Robots have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” – That’s a reference to Blade Runner.
“Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten.” – Futurama, by way of Bender’s catchphrase “Bite my shiny metal ass!”
TF2 is basically high-grade refined gaming crack. I spent all of today playing medic to get some achievements. I didn’t even want to, really, but I HAD TO, otherwise with the Pyro ones coming out tomorrow I’d be so incredibly behind.
TF2 isn’t really cartoony. Cartoony is completely the wrong word, it makes you think of Wacky Races and Bugs Bunny, I’m not sure there’s even a word for what TF2 is. And it’s hardly simplified and shallow, there’s a whole load of stuff in there, like the fact that there’s an ideal medic fraction on every team. Too many and you lack firepower, and get rolled over. Too few, and you lack punch to carry you through those grenade-soaked gauntlets of death.
It’s like dancing, the ebb and flow of storming through in the wake of a uber, crit chances building up into a whirling crescendo of rocket death, scurrying from place to place as a medic trying to keep people not just alive, but actively superhuman, scattering to the winds as an enemy uber rains down on you, the ballet of a rocket jump, the thud of a sniper bullet through a heavy’s head…
It’s just eyes-wide-open continual mayhem. It’s just beautiful.
19/06/2008 at 07:14 Neuromante says:
@Tasogare
“if someone thinks that its stupid… maybe … maybe, but its fun thers probably no other game that can put a smile on your face when your die”
Hell, I’ve been saying this since the beggining! I think that this it’s the main point of the game: Playing TF2 it’s FUN. There are a fat russian guy, a crazed gunman (sorry, an assasin) with a funny hat and a machete, a german doctor and a texan engineer who can dance over his sentry!
I can’t remember how many times I laugh my ass out after getting killed while I was taunting a fallen enemy (“ooops!” moment)
The game IS NOT REALISTIC,and I think it’s one of his main points. Sincerelly, I was TIRED of those “Your weapon it’s a Colt M4-A1 carabine, it weights 2.3 kilograms and it’s rate of fire it’s 3,2 bullets/second. Oh, and you have to be prone to shoot it with a good aim”.
It’s MUCH more fun for me do a rocket jump while screaming “DEATH FROM ABOVE” in the mic or a Dustbowl-Stage 3 defense, at the other side of the bridge with a dispenser playing as a HWG while the character screams that “RUUN!! RUUN!! IM COMING FOR YOU!!” Seriously,it breaks my “concentration” every time the character shout it :P
Why it has to be real to be fun? A game will never be realist enough. I’ve had much fun playing Insurgency, and I’m playing again the Operation Flashpoint campaing, but, as I said before, TF2 it’s not about realism, it’s about having fun blowing up other people. It’s laughing watching “pieces of you” raining while the guy who just killed you with a sticky bomb taunt you (“Cheers, mate!”). And I laugh, something that I never did with CS, UT or HLDM.
Innmersive? Hell, I haven’t been so inside a game in years.. ¿what’s up when, playing as a sniper somebody shouts “spy!”? You begin to look everywhere, waiting the backstab and shooting to empty spaces.. playing as defensor can have one of the best moments a FPS could give you: Straight into de action, straight to the carnage and straight to respawn, lol
It’s not a game about skill (well, not yet), not a game for “l33t sk1llz” and that shit, it’s a game about having FUN, laugh killing other people, mass destruction and a bunch of characters who you will never go out.
It’s, overall, a game with PERSONALITY.
chan-chan-chan-chan-charararara!
19/06/2008 at 07:37 Petro says:
There will be a lot of pyros next week. Can you imagine what it will be like when the Spy gets his new gadgets?
I would like to see the ability to disguise as a dispenser, and pop out legs and scuttle around when nobody is looking. Or perhaps a small shrub with the same effect.
19/06/2008 at 08:02 Freelancepolice says:
@Deuteronomy
You mention at the top that you aren’t keen on TF2 and say that it’s your opinion (that isn’t wrong etc.) but then tell everyone there’s better gaming experiences out there.
On topic though – TF2 has been holding my attention since it was released. Sure there are times when I’m not always playing it but i’ll always return to it eventually and it always throws up some surprises with it’s lavish support from valve (tweaks, new maps etc.)
19/06/2008 at 08:38 Chinster says:
I played this briefly for the 360 and enjoyed it, but now I have a nice shiny new PC.
Should I pick it up? Are there any major differences between the two?
19/06/2008 at 09:01 Turin Turambar says:
I suppose i am one of the few that weren’t addicted with TF2. I played more or less for two months, with only two weeks of regular playing. But in the end i left the game, matches were too samey, action a bit bland (i found most characters have slow movement or with weak weapons), and strategically not very deep.
It is a very easy game to enter and play without a steep learning curve, there is a even playing field very good, but for me it didn’t have enough legs.
19/06/2008 at 09:25 Petro says:
Chinster
Get the PC version or you will be crying for hours.
Xbox don’t get the new maps and weapons etc. Unless you enjoy playing with a controller the size of your head?
19/06/2008 at 09:55 Alex says:
I thought the 360 version was also kind of buggy and hardly anyone plays it (ITS NOT HALO3 LOL), which can be a bit of a disappointment for a multiplayer game.
19/06/2008 at 11:40 Paul Moloney says:
” dislike TF2 so much that I sometime suspect my fellow gamers of being pod people brainwashed some kind of subliminal messaging from Valve.”
Yes, you’re right, we’re all wrong. Please stick around and help us attain enlightment. Can we throw pickles at you as you sit on your golden throne?
P.
19/06/2008 at 13:08 darthpugwash says:
I played TF2 on and off for a while after the game came out, but since the Medic update it’s taken up most of my gaming time.
It really is an excellent game, but three things make it stand out for me:
1: The personality and fun of the game and the characters
2: The excellent support from Valve and the sense of community around the game
3: Oustanding balance and variety in gameplay (well designed maps help with this)
The variety in particular stops me from getting tired of the game. You can play as a Soldier and have a completely different experience from playing a Spy, or play an Engineer and have a completely different experience all over again, but all wrapped up in one excellently polished game. I played and liked COD4 when it came out, but whether your using an M16 or and AK47 you end up playing roughly the same tactics every time.
19/06/2008 at 14:50 InVinoVeritas says:
Does anyone know of a good server where people who are new to the game won’t get slaughtered? I’ve even tried some of the “noob-friendly” server names and it seems like theres a team that dominates every time. Of course, it could be that I am just THAT BAD at FPS games…
19/06/2008 at 15:25 Quirk says:
You’ll always have the possibility of a team dominating on any server, if they work together. However, insta-spawn 2Forts servers both frequently lead to lengthy stalemates because the map isn’t designed for instant respawns and attract impatient players who’re relatively easy to slaughter.
The best early choice for learning the game and helping your team to victory is of course the Medic. Any Medic is an asset to the team (well, unless half your team is made up of Medics…), and a good Medic can swing the game. One of your priorities is healing other Medics – ubercharges are one of the most valuable resources a team has, and it’s worth making sure Medics live long enough to deliver them.
It requires a little more learning, but the Engineer is also a really vital key to team victory. Much of playing the Engineer to a basic competence level comes down to smart positioning of the sentry gun – make sure there aren’t many spots out of its range people can fire on it from, try not to position it too close to corners, keep fixing it when under attack.
Teams need the support characters, and getting good with them will go a long way to preventing your team getting slaughtered. Meanwhile, you can learn the maps with them, and when you know the maps you’re much better equipped to go head to head with combat classes. Note tricks other people use: if, for instance, you’re getting murdered by Demoman stickies in a particular place, file it away as useful knowledge should you play a Demoman on that map at another point.
19/06/2008 at 15:42 InVinoVeritas says:
Quirk- Good tips, I’ve been going with a medic for most of my playtime so far, since it seems like the easiest class not to screw up if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. I’ll have to start branching out to learn the other classes, and not worry about some 12 year old yelling at the “stupid engineer” over the mic.
19/06/2008 at 16:40 Zek says:
Medic is not a good beginner class IMHO. It’s too important, and not by any means the easiest class to learn. Even people experienced with the game often make crap Medics because they’re too focused on one person instead of spreading the healing around, or because they’re no good at keeping themselves alive(VERY important).
New players should go Soldier IMHO, it’s the closest to a standard FPS experience.
19/06/2008 at 16:46 Flubb says:
I’m not sure about starting as a Soldier. I started as an engineer as it didn’t require front line activity and allowed me to build sg’s and get a feel for the action.
If you want a class to start off with, go pyro, it’s the loneliest class anyway, and pretty much all pyro’s I’ve seen (including myself) have a healthy distate for life.
19/06/2008 at 17:22 Zek says:
The problem is that as a new player you won’t be a useful Engineer. Not knowing to set up teleporters or where to build a sentry makes you of very limited use to the team. Hell, a lot of dedicated Engineers are still pretty useless because they just camp all day and never use their shotgun/pistol, but that’s another matter. Pyro takes experience to play well, and up until now would be frustrating to a new player because they die so much(and after, the air blast might be hard to use well).
Soldiers are the easiest class to adapt to because there isn’t anything too special about them on a basic level, just shoot rockets at bad guys. It’s a skillset that’s familiar to most FPS players, and they’ll be of more use to their team contributing some firepower than they would be messing around with a sentry.
19/06/2008 at 17:53 matte_k says:
@ Flubb- I agree, my distaste for life is matched only by my glee when I see the opposition panicking and running away to try not to get lit up like a brandy soaked christmas pudding. :D Soon I will be able to deflect those cursed crit-rockets…
and if you want a friendly server, may I recommend The O.C., Hampshire Heavies and VoiceOfFate’s Shadow Gallery? (shameless plug completed)
19/06/2008 at 17:54 Paul Moloney says:
“The problem is that as a new player you won’t be a useful Engineer.”
And if you never try, you’ll never learn.
P.
19/06/2008 at 18:00 darthpugwash says:
Soldier is a good basic class to start with. You can’t go far wrong as a Soldier if you are at the front shooting rockets at the other team. Medic is also a good choice, as you can basically just run around healing people.
I wouldn’t recommend Engineer until you have a passing familiarity with the maps, as sentry placement is very important.
Whatever you do don’t go Spy until you have a good feel for the game, and remember that one Sniper is usually more than enough. ;)
19/06/2008 at 18:45 Quirk says:
The thing is – if I’ve got a relatively new and fairly useless player on my team, he’s of more use to me (and by extension the rest of us) if he’s a Medic than if he’s a Soldier. Sure, I’ll die at least once finding out he’s crap, usually by charging into a group of foes confident that that 100% Ubercharge will fire. But, if he helps keep me alive and on the front line, it’s likely to have more effect than if he’s a Soldier walking into the path of sentry guns and getting blown up by Demoman stickies.
Being a good Medic is hard, absolutely. But being more use to your team as a Medic than you are as a Soldier is actually pretty easy.
An Engineer who’s new but has some basic smarts can also be useful from pretty early on with CTF maps – a sentry set up by the intel drops scouts, no matter what route they take to get there, and that’s definitely a service to the team at the start. CP maps are another matter, of course, but playing a handful of games and seeing where other people put sentries can stop you from going too far wrong.
Soldiers are one of the slowest classes. This makes them more frustrating if you’re new, because it takes longer to get back to the front after your inevitable rapid deaths. On the other hand, they’re definitely one of the easiest to do okay with, in part due to those crit rockets, and I’d much rather have them on my team than an incompetent Sniper or Spy, so they’re a good first choice on that front.
19/06/2008 at 19:12 InVinoVeritas says:
matte_k- I’ll check out those servers tonight, thanks! I tried out a few classes on a private game with just me where I could explore around and get a feel for how the weapons work, that seems to be another good way to get to know the characters a little. Of course, jumping from that into a massive firefight is quite a shock.
19/06/2008 at 20:56 Frymaster says:
yeah, at least if you run around in a server by yourself you get a feel for controlling the spy and the engineer, the two most technically fiddly of the classes
19/06/2008 at 21:08 Deuteronomy says:
Paul,
Luckily I like pickles.
19/06/2008 at 21:13 Andrew says:
I played Heavy first time. You’re so big and slow and powerful, it’s a simple class to play and quite easy to be mildly competent at.
19/06/2008 at 21:27 SageGaspar says:
Really just pick any class that sounds like fun and play it. Spy probably has the steepest learning curve and soldier the least. Medic is pretty nuanced. But none of them are so complicated that you won’t get better in a couple hours’ play and eventually the goal is to be able to switch to any of them that would be most effective for your team. To be honest most victories come from a handful of people spying and deploying ubers in key places; there are usually more than a few players at the bottom of the lists just sorta diddling around gibbing each other in the general proximity of the objectives.
19/06/2008 at 22:26 CajoleJuice says:
I definitely feel Soldier is definitely the best class to start with, as judged by the fun my friend had playing TF2 for the first time over my house a couple of weeks ago. And I don’t think Medic is all that tough. Lately I’ve been getting the best score on my team in pubs playing as a Medic, and I haven’t played the game all that long, or all that much. I’ve had the game since launch, but I only recently got a laptop capable of running it well. It was almost unbearable on my old POS.
I’m going to agree with the general consensus and say that I feel the updates every few months are going to keep this game going for a long time. I’m so excited for the Pyro update, and no doubt some people will be sucked in by the free weekend. Valve is awesome. Awesome is Valve.
19/06/2008 at 22:30 Sam says:
Interestingly, I still find it hard to play Soldier – I find the class “clunky” somehow, in a way that makes me terrible with it.
Medic is still my recommended starting class – even following a single Soldier, Pyro or Heavy around healing them is being “useful”, and you get to see how all the other classes play, too.
19/06/2008 at 23:02 Fumarole says:
“Luckily I like pickles.”
But not Real Genius, apparently.
20/06/2008 at 01:44 sigma83 says:
on the other hand someone with real snapshot skills can be a sniper first go and do marvellously. It was my experience that that classes most difficult to get into were demoman, spy, engineer (Because of the requisite pre-knowledge that you need for each map) and scout, because I couldn’t get my head around him tactically. Sniper, soldier, medic, pyro are essentially 1-trick ponies at the beginner level, which is why I played them a lot a guess
Heavy… now there’s a conundrum. He has my highest points per life but my lowest time played. I had some difficulty learning how to play him because I kept getting outmaneuvered but now whenever I do use him I do well.
20/06/2008 at 02:02 CrashT says:
Scout is fairly easy to get the hang of if you’ve been playing something like Unreal Tournament.
In my experience when TF2 came out everybody was playing Engineers of Soldiers.
Personally I love the Medic or Pyro… Sadly because of achievement farmers right now I’m swearing off TF2 for a good week. :(
20/06/2008 at 02:17 sigma83 says:
shouldn’t you be heavy or soldier and racking up kills?
20/06/2008 at 03:17 sigma83 says:
Or engineer?
20/06/2008 at 11:02 Jickel says:
Those little bottles are a nice touch! :D
20/06/2008 at 19:46 Deuteronomy says:
How sad you consider TF2 “Real Genius”.
20/06/2008 at 20:38 Erlam says:
“On the other hand, they’re definitely one of the easiest to do okay with, in part due to those crit rockets…”
It’s funny, when I first played TF2, it was basically my first TF experience since QTF (before Air Quake and all that). So, as with QTF, I picked a Pyro… and was surprised he wasn’t that great. It wasn’t that I had become worse (although I had), it was that the entire gameplay for the class had changed. Take my QTF general playstyle as Pyro (I’ll use 2forts as an example):
->Get into enemy base.
->See turret at top of the staircase, in the main hall.
->Fire 3-4 Incendiary rockets at it, including one at the Neer fixing it.
->Throw a napalm grenade at it.
->Once it was destroyed, run into the room outside the spawn, and drop 1-2 napalm grenades.
And so on. Note, I pretty much never used the flamethrower. It was slow damage, horrible if you turned and fired it, and basically wasn’t enough to kill anyone. Now take how I play Pyro in TF2:
->Try to get over the bridge.
->Soldier crit rockets me.
->Try again, this time making it.
->See turret at top of the main stairwell.
->Wait for a soldier/Demo/Heavy/Sniper to take it out.
->Go up the stairs towards their spawn.
->Burn 1-2 people with my flame thrower, die.
Now, I’m making this more simplistic than it really was, but essentially the Pyro isn’t ‘great’ at ambushing, it’s that you have to ambush, or you’re screwed. Even then, a quick-turning heavy will annihilate you, a soldier can crit rocket you (and hit himself, yet live), a medic can run backwards and heal himself while shooting you, and for some reason not die to your actively-burning-him Flamethrower, etc etc.
Why did I go through that whole tirade after mentioning that quote?
Every. Single. Person. That I introduce to this game, gets the best score early on as a soldier. Why? Crit rockets. They absolutely remove the need for good aim, tactics, and so on. Now I think the soldier is a great class – I love the ability to remove sentries, rocket jump to better locations, defend objectives, etc. I think, however, that the crit rocket becomes a problem because it acts like a crutch. I was so tired of dying to the aforementioned rockets, I changed to a Soldier. We were defending (I forget which map), and I was trying to disrupt them as a pyro. I went from 5 kills, 10 deaths, and 8 assists, to 24 kills, 12 deaths, 10 assists in about 3 minutes. And all I did was find a group of people, and fire rockets while strafing left and right. That was it. Crit rocket, boom three down, crit rocket, boom two down.
I like what they are doing with these class patches (although they really, really need to do two at a time, to prevent teams of 9 of ‘x’ class, 1 medic, 1 heavy teams), but I think there are larger issues at stake. Especially considering the Kritskreigh pretty much takes the most complained about feature, and makes it happen a lot more often.
I honestly am terrified of what the Demoman and Soldier unlockables are. Because I imagine those will not be fun days when they come out.
20/06/2008 at 20:46 Sam says:
Erlam: Best score as a Soldier? *Really*? Soldier is one of my lowest scoring classes…
20/06/2008 at 20:53 Erlam says:
Yes, by far. In fact, although she loves her Pyro to death, my girlfriend has the following on her scoreboard:
Pyro – Played time: 7:02:45. Best score: 12
Soldier – Played time: 0:12:12. Best score: 15
That was yesterday, at least.
On mine, my best scoring class is Engineer (27), followed by Soldier (25), then Sniper (21), then Scout (19), then Pyro (15). My Pyro playtime is 1 hour more than my second highest, and about equal to all other playtimes put together.
One of my friends played TF2 for the first time as a Soldier, and got second place on his team. His words after were “Jesus. Those rockets are… certainly something.”
If you look at the TF2 stats (on the steam website), Soldiers Rockets account for 35% of all damage done. In the game. (These stats were taken before the weekend, so those may have dipped, but that was true as of tuesday.) Think about it, over 1/3rd of all damage done was by one classes one weapon.
Ouch.
20/06/2008 at 23:13 neoanderthal says:
i’ve not yet tried TF2, though watching the little ‘Meet the…” ads makes me want to.
I’m presuming, however there’s no option for LANs or bots?
My lack of appreciation for the bunny-hop-sidestep method of evasion used in ET:QW and other team-based FPS games makes me a bit leery of the necessity of connecting to a public server to play.
dammit.
20/06/2008 at 23:27 Quirk says:
Well, the Soldier’s had a bit of a nerf this patch. They’re no longer resistant to damage from their own rockets, and Pyros now have the ability to chuck rockets back. It takes good timing to do it, but I’ve already had a run where I charged down the sewer tunnel in 2Forts at a far-end Soldier throwing his rockets back at him and charring him to ash at the end. Still easier to play the Soldier than the Pyro, but a good Pyro will give a Soldier something more of a headache now I think.
21/06/2008 at 00:14 Sam says:
You’re clearly all strange… I’ve never scored more than 5 in the hour and a half of Soldiering I have to my name – I scored higher with the Heavy in about 30 minutes on my second go!
21/06/2008 at 00:17 Tasogare says:
I think there is option for LAN, but no bots :P
as for soldiers vs pyros, every class has its strengths and weaknesses, 1 on 1 -soldier wins (maybe dies short after), but 5 soldiers on 1 pyro could still mean few soldiers dead
soldier doesn’t do anything special, but its a class good for every thing
pyro is specjal :) just imagine TF2 without him
22/05/2009 at 08:20 Johndlar says:
TF2?
Dude, people still play TF1, and it’s hella better than TF2, in everything except graphics. Especially CustomTF.