This past week I’ve been getting my head around Team Fortress 2 on Valve’s Steam Platform, and even though this is the Beta it’s pretty much the finished product. Anyone thinking of buying Team Fortress 2 on its own or as part of the ludicrously cheap Orange Box is in for a real treat.

For the uninitiated, Team Fortress is a class based multiplayer centred around team games like capture the flag, control point and territorial control. There are nine characters (classes) to choose from, divided into three categories offence, defence and support. You can play as any character and you can even switch between characters mid play (although this will result in a death and a respawn).

Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses and their own selection of weapons, Heavy weapons guy has the most health, but he moves at a snail’s pace. His weapon of choice is the minigun with additional weapon support from the shotgun and in the unlikely event that you run out of bullets or shells you have your fists too.

Top of the Class

As mentioned before, you have nine characters or classes to choose from. The first three classes make up the offensive category which is comprised of the Scout, Soldier and Pyro. next is the defensive category where you’ll find Demoman, Heavy and Engineer. The final category is Support with the Medic, Sniper and Spy.

All nine classes return from the previous outings only this time their abilities are more pronounced and have less weaponry at their disposal with each class having a primary, secondary and melee weapon. Exceptions to this are the Engineer and the Spy who both have extra options, the former having the ability to build sentry guns, teleporters or dispensers and the later being able to disguise or cloak himself.

Level Select

There are six levels to choose from in TF2, when first entering a level you have the option of viewing a brief movie which informs you of the type of level you are about to visit and what needs to be done to succeed, it is used in place of an instruction manual and in 30 seconds tells you everything you need to know to get you started.

the six levels available are:

• ctf_2Fort
• cp_Dustbowl
• cp_Granary
• cp_GravelPit
• tc_Hydro
• cp_Well

The letters before the name denotes what type of battle you are heading to, CTF meaning capture the flag. To score a point in CTF you first have to retrieve the flag from the enemy’s base and then return it to your own, in this game your team will often split into two smaller groups one to defend your own flag while the other group tries to retrieve the enemy’s flag, with the enemy team doing the same.

CP is control point and the object of this game is for your team to secure all the control points on a map by turning each CP to your team’s colour, this is done by standing in a CP a set length of time. Each team is split into either attacking or defending the control points.

TC or territorial control is very similar to control point but with the difference of it being spread over a much larger map and each team shares three zones of the map and fight to gain control of the whole map.

Vital Stats

An important aspect of any multiplayer is your stats and Team Fortress 2 is over flowing with class specific stats which tells you all sorts of stuff like the most kills you made, most damage caused or how much health you’ve dispensed. You can find out which classes you play the most as, and your best moments through out all classes. On top of this Team Fortress 2 also has a comprehensive achievement list to unlock.

Final Thoughts

Even though this game is currently in beta i don’t see it changing radically, in fact it would be impossible to do so before its proposed release date of 10th October, not that it needs to, the game shines.

The only negativity i can think to add at this point is low number of maps and even though more will follow, it’s worth pointing out Valve did not want to make 20 maps only for people to play on six of them, so it’s not clear how many extra maps Valve will be making. Team Fortress has a huge fan base of modders and level designers so it won’t be long before more maps become available, in the mean time i’m more than happy with what’s on offer.

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