The Orange Box: Team Fortress 2 (Xbox 360)
Gamers have been waiting a long time for Team Fortress 2. Initially slated for release shortly after Half-Life (1) was completed, the project kept being pushed back, until this year when Valve unveiled the all-new Team Fortress 2.
And it looked awesome - the Pixar-like characters and improved visuals based on the new Source engine really got people excited. Of course, there was still question of how the game played, but now that Team Fortress 2 has been released as part of The Orange Box, Valve’s developers have met and exceeded those long-waited expectations.
The game is basically a two-team objective-based match. Those not familiar with Team Fortress will quickly learn that there are actually several different game types to choose from. Obviously, a common one is the game’s variant on Capture the Flag, in this case, collecting the other team’s intelligence (a briefcase) and returning it to your own base. There’s territory control and offensive/defensive assault modes as well. While there are presently only 6 maps to enjoy, the engine and mechanics of the game are open enough to allow for the possibility of other game types by third-party modifications.
The meat of Team Fortress 2 are the character classes. When you join a game, or anytime during a match, you select your character from nine classes, each with vastly different strengths and weaknesses. The success of one team against another is how well the team balances its class selection towards both the map and the game mode and how the game progresses to adapt to the situation. An assault on your enemy’s base may need your Demoman, your Pyro, and your Scouts, while if you’re defending, you’ll likely want more Engineers, Medics, and a Heavy Gunner.
The classes remain the same as from Team Fortress, but the tweaks in Team Fortress 2 are aimed to push more strategic elements and teamwork over individual gameplay. For one, grenades no longer exist, which at times were both useful for offense and defensive purposes but generally were somewhat spammy; however, so far, their removal isn’t missed.
They’ve also tweaked some of the weaker classes that were rarely played: both Pyro and Demoman are a lot more lethal when played right, the Scout is much more agile with his double jump, but by far the most drastic change is the Medic. No longer running about infecting the other team, the Medic now can beam health to a nearby player and stay with that player as he goes into battle, restoring health all the time. When the Medic has restored a certain amount of health, he can then have both himself and the player currently being charged into an Uber-mode, whereby both are invincible to any attacks for a short time. This move can quickly swing the balance of the game, and has made the Medic class one of the most valuable of any team.
With all the changes, playing Team Fortress 2 is a very fluid process. The game encourages you to try all the classes and work with your team to find better combinations as to outdo the other team. Presently the Heavy Gunner / Medic combination is quite popular, but as people learn that the Gunner is only as strong as the Medic behind him, this combo will become less effective. There’s plenty of possibilities for experimentation, as on some conquest-type maps, the tide of battle can waver back and forth over a couple of bases, and is quickly broken once a team hits on the right set of classes to break the siege. It helps tremendously that kills can be shared and that there’s never a need to be a lone maverick in combat. I never remember any of the Team Fortress games encouraging so much meta-game thinking beyond what your character is doing at that moment. Furthermore, small luck-based elements like critical hits can help to break up long skirmishes that can develop among equally balanced teams.
What’s probably even more impressive in Team Fortress 2 is the feel of the visuals and environment. All the characters look like they’ve been pulled from Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” sporting cartoonish style physics but lovingly beautiful animations. These are no longer just drones on the battlefield, but they have character and personalities, helping to make you care for them despite knowing they will likely meet their death in a just a few short moments. The environments further play on this Pixar feel; classic maps like 2fort and Well are still in the mix, but the complete re-texturing makes them feel completely new again. Even small details, like wooden stand-up cows, signs and ads with a 50-60’s-era feel, and lines and corners that are just askew enough to give the impression of a comic-book existence, all make the details worth spending some time to appreciate.
The presentation of the game is quite well done. Nearly every possible statistic is tracked, including on a per-class basis, and there are several achievements that go along with all of these. The game gives you a “death zoom” shot when you are hit, as to learn who and how you died while you wait for the re-spawn to start. The whole feel of “spy vs spy” with the slightly crazed announcer lady (Ellen McLain, the same voice actress as GlaDOS in Portal) notifying when bases fall or intelligence is captured helps to keep the pace of the game going.
There are a few downsides. Foremost, those on the 360 will likely find the controls, at least for weapon/tool switching to be just a notch too slow compared to mouse/keyboard users. It’s still playable, and matches can be as intense, but it definitely loses something from the PC to the 360. Additionally, some modes allow for a sudden death period when the match ends in a tie. Those that die do not respawn until the match is completed, so this can easily take several minutes to play out if you have equally skilled opponents playing hide and seek after all the others have fallen. Only distributing 6 maps upon release really begs for more, something that 360 users may not be as easily satisfied as their PC counterparts who can expect a multitude of user-generated content of the game.
However, these concerns are rather small; the years that many have been spent waiting for Team Fortress 2 have paid off, and Valve has delivered a solid product in terms of both gameplay and visual eye-candy. This is more than just a graphical improvement on the past; the subtle but important tweaks made to all the classes changes Team Fortress 2 into a game that encourages as much teamwork as possible to succeed and to enjoy the game to the fullest.
Primotech Rating: 
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