Team Fortress 2 started development way back when in 1998 which the initial plan for it to be a realistic team based shooter. For a while the game included a commander which would oversee the battle and could issue command to his fellow teammates but this was axed later in development due to a major design change in 2004 where is went from this:

To this:

The cartoonish comic book style was heavily influenced by early 20th century commercial illustrations; this made it stand out from the other mainstream games at the time.

The game is based around two teams Red and Blu and divided up with 8 classes there are two game modes which are Territory control and capture the flag. The list of maps is as followed:

• 2Fort, a capture the flag map.
• Dustbowl, a turn-based territorial control point map.
• Granary, a control point map.
• Gravel Pit, a turn-based control point map.
• Hydro, a territorial control point map.
• Well, a control point map.

The only problem that I would the fact that there is a small choice of maps. To over come this Valve decided to make the maps huge and chop them up into different segments so each new round would open up a different part of the map.

With a range of classes to choose from you are bound to find a class that you enjoy and love. Valve have done a great job when it comes to balancing the game with the total elimination of grenades it means that new players don’t get so easily frustrated by people who have mastered the fiddly little @£$#!. This also means that with every class being beautifully balanced it can be very easy for a new player to jump straight in and get the best out of the game right from the off.

There’s the soldier which can blow his way through the frontline and take out sentries at great range. The Heavy loves his gun or “Sasha” as he prefers it to be called… Sasha can annihilate anything in his path making it an automatic gibing machine. The Demoman can match the heavy for raw power but is more mobile and faster. His grenade launcher makes him a great choice for destroying engineers which have had time to dig in. The sniper can be deadly in the right hands with his gun fully charged he can take down a heavy in one shot. Fear the dot. The scout is a cocky one with his blistering fast speed and the ability to double jump, he can get right up to you, he can kill you and he will let you know about it afterwards. The Pyro is a devastating character if you have the misfortune to run into him because once he has you at point blank range there is no escaping his fearsome flamethrower. The Spy can slip between the enemies team unnoticed and then take out key players with his butterfly knife. Engineers love their sentries and pride themselves on a well placed aimbot automatic killing machine, they can aid their team mates with dispensers and can teleport them to the frontlines. The final class is the Medic which has the ability to boost people’s health and switch God mode on for a brief period of time which can ironically end in both dying when it runs out.

Valve has done an excellent job with TF2 from the first time I fired it up it made me laugh with enjoyment and it even with its limited amount of maps it still keeps me coming back for more every time. The Orange Box is $49.95 / £23.95 or you can buy it separately for $29.95 / £14.25 straight from Steam, if you only buy one game this year I recommend this for its quirky humour and its instant likeability.

Looks: 10
Sound: 10
Game play: 9.5
Total: 9.8

Tags: team fortress 2, pc, xbox 360, game, reviews