[REVIEW] Team Fortress 2

Released in 2007, nearly 11 years after the original Half Life mod called Team Fortress. TF2 brings much anticipated multiplayer action, and now, its Free-to-Play.

The character movement and the fast paced action of TF2 make this game truly a delight to play. The number of default weapons, in my opinion and perfect. Though you can purchase several new weapons and costumes for you player, they aren't necessary to have a good game and actually win or lose. I've played with both default weapons and items I found while playing (they can also be bought), I lost and won matches with both of them. Personally I think that winning or loosing depends on your ability to play and not the costumes or weapons. Though, there are several items available to buy, from right within the game, such as weapons, hats and crates (which basically contain random items). 

You can also trade or craft items. Items can be found by simply playing the game. Each item does have its own attributes, some increase the speed of the character, others decrease it. Some have less recoil, others have more. More items are added occasionally.

There are two teams in each match, the BLUE and the RED team. Both have have the same types of characters to choose from. There are a total of 9 classes you can play as, each class (character) has its own abilities, advantages and disadvantages, such as the Heavy which is slower but has a larger amount of health and greater fire power. The classes are: 

Scout 

Engineer 

Heavy 

Sniper 

Medic 

Pyro 

Soldier 

Spy 

Demoman 

I won't be going in depth of each character, but some of my favourites were, The Pyro, because he uses a freaking flame thrower, which is extremely easy to use and is quite helpful in dispersing a group of enemies. Secondly I preferd playing as the Spy, he can disguise himself as the other team's player (even uses one of their names), though you wont be able to hurt anyone while in disguise (otherwise you'll lose it). 

TF2's multiplayer is one of the best I've seen. From hundreds of servers and maps to choose from I bet that you'll find one you love. I played on several servers all with friendly players, since Valve has built a abuse reporter in the game. I never got to use i but Im sure that it'd work. Playing with friends online, or on LAN is also quite fun and entertaining since voice chatting is also available, you can easily direct your team to go in guns blazing or quietly sneak in as the demoman is throwing bombs to distract the opponent. Its also secured by Valve Anti Cheat. One thing I noticed while playing the game was that the maps and teams are almost always equally balanced, which is great.

I have made a few maps using Hammer for the original Half Life and CS 1.6, TF2 uses the Source engine and a modified version of the Hmmer editor to make its maps, which comes with the game. Map making is fun and completely optional.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM

CPU: Pentium 4/Athlon XP or better

CPU Speed: 1.7 GHz

RAM: 512 MB

OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista

Video Card: DirectX 8.1 compatible video card (NVIDIA GeForce4+ / ATI Radeon 8500+)

Sound Card: Yes

Free Disk Space: 5 GB

RECOMMENDED

CPU: Pentium 4/Athlon XP or better

CPU Speed: 3 GHz

RAM: 1 GB

OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista

Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible video card (NVIDIA GeForce 7900+ / ATI Radeon X1900+)

Sound Card: Yes

Free Disk Space: 5 GB

OVERALL

GAMEPLAY: 8/10

SOUND: 7/10

MULTIPLAYER: 9/10

HAT SIMULATION: 10/10

OVERALL: 8.5/10