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…
Related Stories:
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.
I like TF2 and Red Orchestra!
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.
“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.
@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!
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.
@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.)
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?
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.
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?
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.
” 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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@ 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)
“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.
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. ;)
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.
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.
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
Paul,
Luckily I like pickles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Luckily I like pickles.”
But not Real Genius, apparently.
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.
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. :(
shouldn’t you be heavy or soldier and racking up kills?
Or engineer?
Those little bottles are a nice touch! :D
How sad you consider TF2 “Real Genius”.
“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.
Erlam: Best score as a Soldier? *Really*? Soldier is one of my lowest scoring classes…
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
TF2?
Dude, people still play TF1, and it’s hella better than TF2, in everything except graphics. Especially CustomTF.