Team Fortress Two thrives

Written by Zachary Doll Thursday, 16 October 2008 19:00

“Team Fortress 2,” or TF2 for short, was released one year ago last Friday. It is a multi-player first-person shooter video game that was released on the PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 platforms last November. A lot has happened since then, but the game continues to thrive. TF2 is a class-based first person shooter. This means players pick characters that have different weapon sets, stats, and a pre-disposition towards a specific role. In all, there are nine different classes, separated into three categories, offense, defense and support. Scouts, Soldiers, and Pyros are considered offensive while Demomen, Heavies, and Engineers are defensive. This leaves Medics, Snipers, and Spies as supporting roles.

The developers at Valve spent an immense amount of time developing approachability for new players. According to the developer’s commentary included with the game, they’re primary goal was to convey as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time. This lead the developer’s to use a style reminiscent of “The Incredibles” for character design.

They found that players would notice the size of a character first and make certain assumptions. For example, the Heavy’s broad shoulders and thick neck convey a sense of a strong, slow opponent. This is in contrast to the Scout who is tall and lanky. He leads the player to believe he is light, quick opponent.

Along with size considerations, each class and weapon has a distinct silhouette that, at a moment’s glance, can tell players what class to expect and what they are wielding. This high-contrast outline and soft lighting combine to create a visually appealing game that also conveys an intense amount of information.

In addition to the style, there is an emotion engine that animates a character’s face and selects a saying based on the situation. For example, if you just defended a control point with a well-placed rocket, you character might smile and say something smug. On the other hand, if you are retreating with low health, you might have a panicked look.

These emotions can be seen up close every time you die as the camera zooms to a snapshot of your killer. This also helps flesh out the characters’ personalities.

While the TF2 developers wanted to make it accessible, they also wanted to create fun and balanced gameplay. Every class has strengths and weaknesses. Balance can also be found in the strength of weapons or amount of ammo. Each class has a unique role and gameplay experience. Scouts tend to find the battlefront, Engineers usually need patience; Spies need to sneak behind enemy lines; Pyros need to flank the enemy. This lets the player decide which role they would like to play by picking a class.

TF 2 is team based, as the name implies. Players support the Reliable Excavation and Demolition, RED, or the Builders League United, BLU. The various classes need to work together to achieve a games specific goal. The goal varies based on the level being played. Capture the Flag, Control Point, Territorial Control and Payload are the many game modes available for play. The latter two modes are unique to TF2.

In Territorial Control, a map is divided into six smaller areas. Each team tries to capture the opposing team’s point while defending their own. When a point is captured, that area is won and under control of the winning team. When a team controls all six smaller areas, the match is over and the controlling team wins.

In Payload, the Blu team attempts to push an explosive cart to Red’s base in an effort to demolish the base. Blu players can push the cart while Red players can stop the cart; either is accomplished by standing near it. This game mode was released in a content patch.

TF2 is a fun game, but what is keeping it being played more than a year after it was released? In short, content patches.

In January 2008, Valve announced that they would start releasing “large-scale modification” patches. This translates into new weapons, maps, and achievements. In addition to releasing this content, they are doing it in a novel way. They are letting current owners of TF2 to download the new content as an update to the core system for free. This delivery system is bold and refreshing in our generation of micro-transactions for downloadable content.

While this is a great system, owners of the console version (Xbox 360 and PS3) will not see these patches until much later. There is also uncertainty as to whether Microsoft or Sony will charge users for these content patches.

In addition to content patches, Valve offers a comprehensive online community to meet and play with people from around the world. You can create a group with a few friends and challenge others to matches. TF2 has tight integration with this community system by allowing in-game notifications for community activity (e.g. friends logging on, received chats, etc.). You can also view complete statistics of your gameplay as well as compare them to your friends.

All of these factors combine to a create a game that has an average rating of 92% on metacritic. By comparison, “Halo” has an average of 83% and “Half-Life 2” has a score of 96%.