Team Fortress II (High Res Pictures inside)

First of all, I can't believe this hasn't been more talked about on here. It has quickly become one of the most unique online games in a while. And I do not mean by the Pixar graphics. It has just bought back the really fun element to playing games that hasn't been shown in a while. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is a blast to play.

The comedy approach is fantastic, such as the engineer animations where he whacks the machine with the wrench to upgrade the sentry bot or teleporter. Or how the soldiers run like they soiled themselves. It's fun to watch and to play. I spent most of the time as the spy. He's awesome, you can mask yourself as one of the enemy and have one of their names. So I could pose as an enemy soldier, and have the name {uZa}Lonesome Eagle for example, and infiltrate the base and stab someone in the back with a butterfly knife. In addition to that you can also cloak yourself making you invisible to the enemy for a limited time until you shoot or bump into someone. The soldiers are able to rocket jump into the air which is extremely fun to do. The sniper is awesome with his Australian sniper and Machette knife and quotes such as "Say goodbye to your head, wan*er", as is the Heavy and Medic. The Scout is damn fast and is hard to keep up with. Engineers are probably the most valuable classes as you can build teleporters, turrets, sentrys to defend your bases. The Pyro has a very cool 'emote' where when pressed he does a short animation sequence of the Haduken move from Street Fighter. These are not to damage enemies, but purely for 'lols'.

If you have never played Team Fortress Classic (like I haven't) you will still be able to get to grips with this game very quickly. It basically involves two teams, one attacking, one defending. The defending team must well....defend 3 bases (depending on map) labeled A,B and C. The attacking team has to simply take the control points as you do in say Battlefield 2. Although it is a rather simple goal and gameplay design it seems really unique as I said due to the comedy factor and the lush graphics which look excellent. And what's more, it runs fantastic on my system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
2GB Ram
nVidia 8800GTS
Windows Vista Home Premium

Running the game at 1280x1024, all on highest details. Motion Blur on, HDR on, 16x Anistropic Filtering, 16x Anti Aliasing and still fetch over 100 frames a second. The graphics look superb and are very 'pixar'-ish. I haven't experienced one single crash yet (although I read they fixed an issue with it crashing on Vista, but I hear it still does it on XP)

The game is scheduled for full release on October 10'th and is a part of VALVe / STEAMs 'The Orange Box' containing with Team Fortress II, Half Life 2, HL2: Ep1, HL2: Ep2, and Portal. I already have Half Life 2 and Episode 1 so yes I did have to buy it again and before anyone thinks it is a rip off....it really isn't. STEAM has a deal at the moment where you can buy the Orange Box for $44.95 (£25 here Tax Included). So for £25 or $45 you get all of them games. So you already have two of them, big deal. It's still a mega price considering you get 3 brand new games for roughly the price of 1. And considering each game in the pack will retail around $30 anyway I think I got a great deal.
Team Fortress II is open for BETA and has been for the last 2 weeks or so now. And it is by far the most 'compelete' and polished BETA I have played. Sure there are little quirks but it is by no means unplayable.

If you are interested in Half Life 2: Episode 2 I strongly suggest buying the Orange Box for $45 from STEAM while the offer lasts (until Oct 10th) as you save $84 and Team Fortress II alone is worth the money I paid. Simply fantastic and is a refreshing change from all the realistic and serious games out now.

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:19 am Post subject:

Thanks Jack! The Orange Box is on my wish list! Wink

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Respect all, fear none!
Conscia mens recti, famae mendacia ridet.

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:51 am Post subject:

A visual demo of the various classes:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KsTB6N8RuxI
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ozG-YNLNg (Best indepth look at classes and funny too LOL at Rocket Jumping)

The following videos are just 'tech' demos showing off the art style, the facial animations and the general humor it brings. The lip syncing is probably the best I have seen in a game. Smile

(WORTH WATCHING)

Meet the Heavy:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5qJHZCz2I&mode=related&search=

Meet the Engineer:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NJzRGrQ8_Gs&mode=related&search=

Meet the Soldier:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZOeGyd61E&mode=related&search=

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:

Thanks for posting! This looks so funny! Very Happy

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Respect all, fear none!
Conscia mens recti, famae mendacia ridet.

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject:

I'm kinda getting excited about this. It's been a while since I played a game that was purely fun like this.
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Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:23 pm Post subject:

Now that looks fun! The engineer video clip was funny!
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:03 pm Post subject:

wtf... i made a half dozen posts about this game and linked vids of the gameplay and player classes months ago.
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Humanism- Less Filling, Tastes Great.

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:47 am Post subject:

Sorry TenK Embarassed

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:36 am Post subject:

Guessed I missed them...I looked back and someone else made a post too. Oh well it still looks like fun.
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Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:47 pm Post subject:

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:54 am Post subject:

Yeah I'd recommend TF2 to anyone. Actually brings fun back into gaming. And as of early hours this morning (GMT) you can Preload Portal so there is no downloading to be had on release day, you can jump straight in.

Right click your STEAM client, right click on Portal and go VIEW PRELOAD INFORMATION.

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject:

Restart your STEAM client, another update is released. I am really liking VALVe as of late they really do seem to be listening to the feedback which they always praise themself on. Seems like my many Bug Reports haven't gone to waste after all as some of the things in the update fix issues I have reported to them.

Fixes:

Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:40 am Post subject:

New update released:

Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:42 pm Post subject:

Demo any time soon? I've been trying to get the beta off of a Bit Torrent but the damn thing keeps dying on me half way through Sad

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Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:00 am Post subject:

I doubt there will be a demo. Maybe a free weekend like they did with Day of Defeat Source. If I ever get a guest pass I can give away for it, I'll let you try it out though.
Do not get STEAM games from 'torrents' if I were you as you are screwed each way. If you have to add it to an existing account, you will get flagged while playing it and have your account and all games in that account banned. Or if you use a certain program to avoid using STEAM you will only be able to play on servers that too are using the pirate version, which would no doubt be full of cheaters and have loads of viruses and crap. Do you really want to use these little 'tools' to make it work that probably have viruses and trojans in them? I seriously cannot recommend downloading any STEAM game from a torrent because I don't like the idea of only being able to play on 'cracked' servers and you wouldn't be able to recieve updates. And as this is a BETA, you want the updates as often as possible.