Team Fortress 2

Title	Team Fortress 2
Caption	The box art for the standalone PC version of Team Fortress 2 depicts the Heavy class in the foreground with his teammates including the Engineer, Pyro and Sniper in the background.
Developer	Valve Corporation
Publisher	Valve Corporation
Distributor	Electronic Arts (retail)Steam (online)
Designer	John CookRobin Walker
Composer	Mike Morasky
Released	Windows: (download)October 10, 2007PS3:Windows: (retail standalone)Mac OS X: (download)June 10, 2010}}

| genre = First-person shooter | modes = Multiplayer | ratings = |ESRB=M|OFLCA=MA15+|PEGI=16+}} | platforms = Windows,) }}

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to Valve's previous Team Fortress Classic, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows and the Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 version then followed on November 22, 2007. The game was later released as a standalone package for Windows on April 9, 2008. Team Fortress 2 is distributed online through the Steam system, while retail distribution was handled by Electronic Arts. The development of Team Fortress 2 is led by John Cook and Robin Walker, the designers who originally created the Team Fortress modification for Quake in 1996.

The game was announced in 1998, powered by Valve's GoldSrc engine, but has since been through various concepts and designs. In 1999, the game appeared to be deviating from its predecessors by pursuing a more realistic and militaristic style of gameplay, but the design metamorphosed over its nine-year development period. The final rendition sports cartoon style visuals influenced by the art of J. C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell Upon its release, the game received critical acclaim and several awards, being praised for its graphical style, comedic value and for its use of full character personalities in a dedicated multiplayer game.

Gameplay

Like its predecessors, Team Fortress 2 is focused around two opposing teams competing for a principal objective. These teams, Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU), are meant to represent two holding corporations that between them secretly control every government on the planet. Players can choose to play as one of nine classes in these teams, each with his own unique strengths and weaknesses. Although the abilities of a number of classes have changed from earlier Team Fortress incarnations, the basic elements of each class have remained. The game was released with six official maps, although 24 extra maps; 9 arena maps; and two training maps have been included in subsequent updates. In addition, a number of community assembled maps have been released. When players join a level for the first time, an introductory video shows how to complete its objectives. During matches, an eternally dissatisfied woman voiced by Ellen McLain announces various game events over loudspeakers. The player limit is 16 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. On the PC, a vanilla server can hold 24 players, but in 2008 Valve updated Team Fortress 2 to include a server variable that allows up to 32 players. Third party modifications have made it possible to host up to 36 players on one server.

Team Fortress 2 is the first of Valve's multiplayer games to provide detailed statistics for individual players. They include the time spent playing as each class, most points obtained and the most captures or objectives achieved in a single life. Persistent statistics tell the player how he or she is improving in relation to these statistics, such as if a player comes close to his or her record for the damage inflicted in a round. Team Fortress 2 also features numerous "achievements" for carrying out certain tasks, such as scoring a certain number of kills or completing a round within a certain time. New sets of class-specific achievements have been added in updates, which add new abilities and weapons to each class once unlocked by the player. This unlockable system has since been expanded into a random-chance system, where the player can also obtain the items simply by playing the game. Achievements unlocked and statistics from previously played games are displayed on the player's Steam Community or Xbox Live profile page.

Game modes

The objective of the game is defined by the game mode in use.

In capture the flag maps, the objective for both teams is to obtain a briefcase of intelligence from the enemy team's base and return it to their own base while preventing the opposing team from doing the same.

Control point modes are more varied in their objectives, but share the common aim of capturing a particular point on the map. When a team gains control of the point, their timer starts to count down. If the other team captures the point, the former team's count down is stopped, and the latter team's starts. In an update on December 17, 2010, another control point variation, Medieval Mode, was added. In this mode, players are restricted to using melee weapons and bows for combat.

In payload maps, one team has to work to escort a rail cart carrying a bomb along a track through a series of checkpoints, eventually detonating the bomb in the other team's base. The other team has to defend their positions and prevent the cart from reaching the end within a set amount of time. In the payload race variation, both RED and BLU attempt to escort a payload along symmetric (either parallel or opposing) tracks. The payload mode was introduced in April 2008 with the map "Gold Rush"; payload race was released in May 2009 with the map "Pipeline".

Arena is a team deathmatch mode. Arena maps focus on smaller environments and no respawning after the death of a player's character. A team wins in arena by eliminating all of the other side's members in the arena or capturing the map's central control point. Arena was introduced in the August 2008 update.

Classes

There are nine unique player classes in Team Fortress 2, categorized into offense, defense, and support roles.

The three offensive classes are the Scout, the Soldier, and the Pyro. The Scout (voiced by Nathan Vetterlein) is portrayed as a fast-talking baseball fan from Boston, Massachusetts, and is a fast, agile character armed with a scattergun and a pistol. The Scout is capable of performing s; however, the Scout cannot sustain much damage. The scout has a baseball bat for a melee weapon. The Soldier (voiced by Rick May) is more durable, but is consequently slower in his speed. A stereotypical American military man, the Soldier is armed with a rocket launcher, shotgun, and a shovel. The rocket launcher can be used to rocket jump to higher positions. The final offensive class is the Pyro (voiced by Dennis Bateman). Clad in a fire-retardant suit and a voice-muffling gas mask, the Pyro carries a flamethrower that can set other players on fire, as well as being able to produce a blast of compressed air that knocks nearby enemies and projectiles away. The Pyro is also able to set people on fire with his Flare Gun. The pyro also has a fire axe for a close-range weapon.

The Demoman, the Heavy, and the Engineer make up the defensive classes. The Demoman (voiced by Gary Schwartz) is a black, one-eyed Scotsman who drinks heavily. Armed with a grenade launcher and a sticky bomb launcher, the Demoman can use his equipment to provide indirect fire onto enemy positions. The Engineer (voiced by Grant Goodeve) is the last defensive class, portrayed as a relaxed and intellectual "good ol' boy" from Texas. The Engineer is capable of building a number of structures to support his team: a sentry gun to defend key points, a health and ammunition dispenser and a teleporter system. responsible for keeping his teammates alive. The Medic is accordingly armed with a "medigun" to heal teammates, and can make teammates temporarily invulnerable or enhance their firepower after the Medic's Ubercharge is full. The Medic is also equipped with a syringe gun and a bonesaw. equipped with a laser sighted sniper rifle to attack enemies from afar and a submachine gun for close combat.

Development

Upon release, Team Fortress 2 received widespread critical acclaim, with an overall score of 92% on both Metacritic and GameRankings. Many reviewers praised the cartoon graphics approach and the resulting light-hearted gameplay, while several reviewers praised Valve for the map "Hydro" and its attempts to create a game mode with variety in each map. Team Fortress 2 has received several awards individually for its multiplayer gameplay and its graphical style, as well as having received a number of "game of the year" awards as part of The Orange Box.

Although Team Fortress 2 was well received, Team Fortress 2 removal of class-specific grenades, a feature of previous Team Fortress incarnations, was controversial amongst reviewers. IGN expressed some disappointment over this,), problems of players finding their way around maps due to the lack of a minimap, and some mild criticism over the Medic class being too passive and repetitive in its nature. The Medic class has since been re-tooled by Valve, giving it new unlockable weapons and abilities.

References

External links

The Team Fortress 2 page at the official site of The Orange Box

Official Team Fortress Wiki

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