[VG Corner] VG of the Day - Team Fortress 2

"Hey Sarge...., are you sure we're supposed to be here and not knocking on doors saying, "Trick or treat"?

First-Person-Shooter (FPS) Players: have you ever experienced game fatigue with your favorite FPS game? From where I'm from, Counterstrike still rules supreme in terms of LAN and I've seen that the most widely-used map was de_dust, a bomb-planting map. But I digress.

Admit or not, some of us (me included) suffer from FPS fatigue; it can either stem from playing the game for too long, playing the same map all over, or your team gets pounded for more than 5 times in a row (5 is my limit before I call it a day), and rage-quit in disgust.

Or maybe that the game doesn't offer anything new anymore. After the break, let's talk more about it.

"I was just a serving plate..." "I WAS JUST A SERVING PLATE!"

But before Counterstrike there was Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, Marathon (for those who don't know what Marathon is, it's the progenitor of the hit game series Halo), and Half-Life. Doom, particularly Doom 2, was a fan-favorite for LAN games then. But the only multiplayer option was free-for-all and/or king of the hill.

Counterstrike took FPS to another level by adding teams, team objectives, ability to "purchase" weapons, and able to connect over the internet. The game was so successful that up until now, it's the gold standard for LAN and online gaming, being the highlight game in cybergame tournaments.

The ultimate decision to make: let the guy finish pooping or blow the shit out of him.

But as I've said, playing too much of the same game, of the same map, with the same teammates, makes a great game boring in the long run. So as a gamer, what do you do? You tend to look at other titles. Over the recent years, the Call of Duty and Medal of Honor game series are carving their names in the FPS industry. Not to mention some other Free-to-Play games, which I'll just give some examples here:

Gunz: The Duel. Seriously, Devil May Cry and Matrix shit?

K.O.S: Secret Operations. First read it as "Kiss My Ass".

Special Force Online, with the tagline: "Counter Strikes Back".  I'm surprised they haven't been sued yet.

I know there's a lot of FPS titles to choose from, but if you simply want a team and have some good time playing, I'd highly recommend this title below.

More like a dysfunctional family hell-bent on seeing that dinner table blown up to pieces.

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) was initially a Half-Life mod that features team play and such, similar to how Counterstrike was first conceived. Later on, it TF2 began to live as its own game, having distinguished itself from its Half-Life roots, but the game engine (Valve Source) remains the same. There core basic of TF2 is the ongoing conflict between two teams,  Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU). The player can choose from 9 distinct characters, which are grouped into three different roles in the game, namely offense, defense, and support. 

For the offense, the Scout's the fast-talking, baseball die-hard of the game, wielding a scattergun, a pistol and a bat (obviously), he the fastest runner in the team. He can double jump to evade enemy fire, cap enemy control points and pushes payloads twice as fast as any other team member, but at a cost of low health.

The Soldier's your typical "All-American Hero" and military man stereotype, with a gruff attitude and foul mouth to match. Slower than the Scout, but hardier so that he can kill more enemies. Carries a shovel for melee and a shotgun as secondary weapon, and with his rocket launcher, can do the aptly-named rocket-jump maneuver. Finally, there's the Pyro, wearing a full fire-retardant suit and gas mask that muffles his voice (a recurring joke in-game), carries a flame thrower that can either burn his enemies to a crisp or use its compressed air to puff out fire or air-blast opponents away.

For defense, you have the Demoman, a cyclopean, drunken black Scotsman who carries a grenade launcher and sticky bomb launcher for indirect attacks. The Heavy, your stereotype of Russian mercenary, carries a minigun that he treats as though it was a girl (and gives girl's names too). And there's the Engineer, the intelligent Texan cowboy that builds sentry guns, ammo and health dispensers, and teleporters to assist other players, or give an offensive push for them.

Finally, there's the support team. The Medic is a German doctor with no regard to the oath of his profession, using his medi-gun to heal and for a few minutes, make them invulnerable, to support his teammates. The Sniper hails from the outbacks of Australia, and proclaims to be "not a crazed gunman, an assassin". And there's the Spy, the deadpan Frenchman who uses disguises and a cloaking device to outmaneuver his adversaries with ease. With a butterfly knife at hand, he can kill enemies with one backstab.

Team Fortress 2 has several game modes, from the familiar king of the hill, free-for-all and to the unique payload and payload race modes. The characters have their own strengths and weaknesses, and Valve has stressed on game balance, so every now and then they're making improvements in the game, and for every character.

The game is available for the PC, Mac OS X, PS3, and XBox360.

Further information:

[Official Team Fortress 2 webpage]
[Team Fortress 2 Meet the Team video page]
[Wikipedia article on TF2]