Team Fortress 2: Difference between revisions

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'''Team Fortress 2''' has exactly the kind of story elements a multiplayer-only shooter should have: interesting settings, awesome character classes, and an [[Excuse Plot]] that stays [[All There in the Manual]]. The above paragraph, quoted from the official website, is ''literally'' the extent of the official in-game story (although several special events have started to flesh out the characters, with more to undoubtedly come).

The [[Excuse Plot]], in its entirety, is "The other side is the enemy. Shoot their asses off." It really doesn't get any more complicated than that. Each character class has a distinct personality and can be easily recognized just by their silhouette.

 

 

 

Since multiplayer shooter games have a tendency to devolve into slapstick and comedy even when they're ostensibly a realistic military game, the ''Team Fortress 2'' developers decided to cut the middleman and make their game a living cartoon. The environments and music have a sixties spy movie theme to them, and the characters look like they stepped out of a very violent [[Pixar]] movie. Both RED and BLU teams use the same models, with only [[Palette Swap|Palette Swapping]] to show team affiliation. The characters were intentionally designed to be distinctive as possible, from visual appearance to voice acting, even giving each class its own distinctive accent. Thus, it is easy to identify another player's class, current weapon, and team affiliation in short order. Maps are likewise designed for easy navigation, with RED and BLU having different construction philosophies (BLU incorporate concrete and steel; RED with wood, brick and sheet metal) and being textured primarily in their respective colors.

There are six basic gameplay types: '''Control Point''', '''[[Capture the Flag]]''', '''Payload''', '''Arena''', '''King of the Hill''', and '''Medieval Mode'''.

* The '''Control Point''' gametype works on the premise of seizing territory to shift the focus of battle. Both teams compete for control points--large immovable metal pads -- which must be captured by standing on them while no enemies are around. The team who forces their enemies into submission and captures all the points wins. In most control point maps, the points need to be captured in a linear fashion, but some allow a more open-ended approach.

* In TF2's take on '''[[Capture the Flag]]''', the flag is a large briefcase containing "enemy intelligence," which [[Stealth Pun|trails papers]] behind it when an opposing player carries it. Unlike many other games, one can score while their own team's intel is not in the base, and touching dropped friendly intel won't immediately send it home. Instead, it must be defended in place until a timer elapses, during which any opponent can pick it up again.

* In '''[[Escort Mission|Payload]]''', a mine cart with a bomb on it sits on a track. Attacking players (again, virtually always BLU) crowd around the cart to push it along the track towards the enemy's base. The more players present, the faster they can push. The cart must pass through several segments of the map for the attackers to reach the end point. If the attacking players fail to push the cart for 30 seconds, it will slowly move backwards until it is pushed again or reaches the last checkpoint passed. The defenders win if they can manage to hold back the cart for a certain length of time, though unfortunately for them, the attacking team gets a time extension for every checkpoint reached.

In any game mode, a player has a chance to score a [[Critical Hit]] on any given shot. The crit chance rises with the amount of damage dealt recently, to encourage aggressive playstyles, and some weapons have a higher chance. For instance, all the comedic melee weapons have an elevated chance to crit, giving players a legitimate reason to choose them when they are in range. Some weapons replace random crits with the ability to crit or mini-crit when certain critera are fulfilled, but usually only for a short time (for example, the Scout's [http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Soda_Popper soda popper], which charges up a "hype" bar while moving around and scores guaranteed mini-crits for a few seconds after the bar is filled).

 

 

 

From April 2008 to July 2010, Valve provided themed updates for each of the classes. Each update added (along with features such as new maps and gametypes) a class-specific set of achievements and alternate weapons that can be either unlocked through set numbers of these achievements or, as of the Sniper/Spy Update, [[Random Drop|given out at random intervals according to playtime]]. Once the new weapons are unlocked, the player can choose between them and the original weapons in the Loadout menu. The Sniper/Spy Update also introduced Hats, which drop the same way but at a much lower rate. They used to [[And Your Reward Is Clothes|not do anything but look cool]], but with the addition of the Mann Co. Store, five new hats were added that give players bonuses when used in conjunction with other weapons. Luckily, [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]] doesn't work, as the weapons never have extreme damage bonuses and tend to have an equal number of disadvantages to advantages, thus depending on intelligent use to give major advantages (although they can change the roles of classes -- for example, the Huntsman, a bow for the Sniper, allows him to work closer to the front lines), giving balanced, but still rewarding and enjoyable, gameplay.

 

 

As of June 23, 2011, the game is [http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay/ officially] free-to-play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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