Back in June this year, the gaming world was surprised as Valve announced that Team Fortress 2 would adopt the Free-to-Play model.
Some gamers (mostly those who already brought the game prior to the model change) were more than a little hesitant about this radical change and sudden tsunami-influx of new players into the game; while many others, such as yours truly, REJOICED!!
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| Heavy: What sick man sends MORE babies to fight me?? I know he's laughing as he says that, it's just how he is. |
After playing it ever since it went Free-to-Play, I've subsequently became a Premium member (after making purchases at the Mann. Co Store), I've feel that I've explored and played enough of the game to finally write about it proper.
Ever since its release in 2007, Team Fortress 2 has consistently stayed as one of the top multiplayer shooter games, alongside titles such as Call of Duty, Battlefield and Counter Strike. And after playing just a few months worth of it, I can see why.
This game is HILARIOUS. Everything from:the art style,
the sounds,
the weapons (HOLY MACKEREL LEVEL 42),
the maps (blurb for DeGroot Keep map - How did the manly men of Team Fortress appear at a tenth century battlement? Simple. The Soldier angered a magician.)
and even player deaths are hilarious.
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| Unable to laugh on the account that my head has been separated from my fucking torso. Along with my wank hand. |
Its a different direction that from gritty realism that seems to be in all the modern shooters nowadays: Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Gears of War, Resistance, Battlefield etc etc. This cartoon-y direction is a fresh breath of air, which helps it to stand out from the rest.
In-game, it is very easy to pick out the classes thanks to the loving detail placed on each class. From a single glance, its very easy to get a rough idea of what strategies to implement against the class you're facing against, eg. if you come face to face against a pyro, keep the gap between the both of you as big as possible so that his flamethrowers short range can't touch you.
And boy oh boy, have they put alot of effort into each class, each class has completely different styles of playing. That's NINE years worth of development quality right there for you.
Each class has a different role to play in any game, and a team consists of a well balanced variety will easily win over a team that's just spamming one or two classes en massed. Scouts scouting; Spies spying; Demos demolishing; Snipers sniping; Engineers engineering; Medics medicating; Pyros pyro-ing; Soldiers soldiering; and Heavies HOLYSHITHEPUNCHEDOUTALLMYBLOOD!!!!
So for now, lets have a review of all the classes available, with my own personal weapon loadout.
The Heavy
Arguably the main star of Team Fortress 2, to date, he has appeared in every single Meet The Team videos, and is on most of their promotional material.
Well, he is a ginormous Russian with a minigun almost as big as he is, that certainly makes him memorable.
The Heavy has the most health on the team at 300HP (450HP when overhealed), this high health, coupled with his various miniguns, make him an extremely dangerous target at short to medium range conflicts.
The only problem is that he's typically very slow while carrying his minigun, and when he's spinning it up, he becomes even slower, making him an easy target for Snipers aiming for his shiny head or Spies backstabbing his barnyard sized back. However, his large size and health makes him a great target for a friendly medic as cover, and when uber-ed by the medic, can send an entire team running like cowards.
Strangely enough, I don't actually see that many Heavies in the servers that I play, despite them being one of the deadliest classes around. They tend to be the number one target for a lot of players though, maybe that's why.
This is my custom heavy loadout:
The Scout
The fastest class in the game and with his ability to double jump, he can literally run circles around his enemies. This Boston loudmouth thrash talker's playstyle is actually quite suicidal: he gets in close with his scattergun, fires a shot or two then runs off like mad.
He, along with the engineer, spy and sniper, have the lowest health at 125HP, so he has to rely on hit and run tactics. But since he has incredible mobility and can double jump, this is not a problem. Learning how to play the scout requires quite a bit of effort, I haven't gotten around to playing him without dying every minute.
One of his greatest contributions to the team is that he can accomplish his objectives twice as fast as the other classes (barring Soldiers and Demomen equipped with the Pain Train), whether he is capturing a point or pushing the cart. In Capture the Flag mode, his mobility gives him an advantage at actually being able to run back, and evade the enemies with the Intelligence.
As I said before, playing a scout isn't really that easy, as it's a bit suicidal; where most classes would avoid a lone Heavy in close range shootouts, the Scout actually runs in close with his scattergun, blasts him a few times then runs the fuck out. The scatterguns that the Scouts equip are deceptively powerful, three point blank blasts can kill any class except the Soldier and the Heavy.
This is my custom loadout:
Ahh, the military head hunter/collector lunatic from the American heartland (though the sanity of the rest of the team is pretty much questionable as well). The Soldier is currently one of my favorite classes to play, and is a very versatile class.
He is good for attacking and defending, has the 2nd highest health at 200HP, and his various rocket launchers deal very good AOE damage. Furthermore, he can equip different buff placers in his secondary slot to buff the teammates around him, making him a decent support class.
His signature skill is his ability to rocket jump: Point the rocket launcher at your feet, jump-crouch, fire the rocket and watch as your Soldier flies sky high with flaming boots (OF DOOM!!!) at the cost of some HP. This gives rather good mobility, as his movement speed is the 2nd lowest, he's only slightly faster than the Heavy. And if equipped with the Pain Train, the Soldier can accomplish objectives twice as fast like the Scout!
The Soldier is probably the most popular class from my playing experience thus far, as he's a very straight forward class to play and the learning curve is not very steep. But as the saying goes, "Easy to learn. Hard to master". He should continuous fire his rocket launcher as he arguably the 2nd most threatening class after the Heavy, thus good for crowd control, but he has to make sure most of them hit as his ammo is rather restricted (at best he has 24 rockets at his disposal). He is also the type of class that has to be constantly on the move, or he will be easy prey to the Spy and Sniper thanks to his low move speed. Furthermore, rocket jumping takes some practice to get used to, and failed rocket jumps not only deal unnecessary high self damage, it lowers his already pitiful ammo pile.
This is my custom loadout:
The defining camping and turtling class for the game. This Texan genius engineer is a vital part of any team, his buildings enables teams to get to the frontline quickly, staying there and holding it.
The Engineer has average movespeed, but very low health at 125HP (150HP if equipped with the Gunslinger). Engineers have a unique resource to build their buildings called Metal. Each Engineer can only carry 200 Metal maximum, and be restored by picking up ammunition, weapons, the health locker and his own dispenser at set rates per intervals.
Engineers are capable of holding their own in a fight as long as they have their Sentry guns and Dispensers up, but they always have to keep an eye out for spies who will come along and place sappers on his buildings, disabling them and slowly damaging them. Spies will be their greatest threat, as the Engineer has to choose between getting rid of the sappers and risk getting backstabbed by the spy OR try to kill the spy and risk losing his buildings.
While Engineers are self sufficient, their greatest allies will be their fellow Engineers and the Pyros. Engineers can help fix each others buildings and help to set up the buildings faster, a nest of two Engineers working together is far more dangerous than 2 separate nests far from each other. And one Engineer can work to kill the Spy while the other removes the sappers. The Pyro on the other hand, while near a dispenser, will continuously use his flamethrower, which will set fire to any invisible or disguised spies. Furthermore, the Pyros can use their flamethrower's airblast to blow away rockets, grenades, sticky bombs and even enemies (especially invulnerable ones) to keep the buildings safe.
An Engineer can construct 3 buildings:
This is my custom loadout:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Damn, that was another long ass article. And I only covered FOUR out of the NINE classes!! Bloody hell, writing long articles is starting to be a consistent thing with me isn't it?
Anyways, this has been a pretty long article. I will continue on the remaining 5 classes in my next post.
Until then, laugh along with the Meet the Team videos made by Valve. It'll really put a smile on your face.
In-game, it is very easy to pick out the classes thanks to the loving detail placed on each class. From a single glance, its very easy to get a rough idea of what strategies to implement against the class you're facing against, eg. if you come face to face against a pyro, keep the gap between the both of you as big as possible so that his flamethrowers short range can't touch you.
And boy oh boy, have they put alot of effort into each class, each class has completely different styles of playing. That's NINE years worth of development quality right there for you.
 |
| Can't say the same for other games that had even longer development times |
Each class has a different role to play in any game, and a team consists of a well balanced variety will easily win over a team that's just spamming one or two classes en massed. Scouts scouting; Spies spying; Demos demolishing; Snipers sniping; Engineers engineering; Medics medicating; Pyros pyro-ing; Soldiers soldiering; and Heavies HOLYSHITHEPUNCHEDOUTALLMYBLOOD!!!!
So for now, lets have a review of all the classes available, with my own personal weapon loadout.
The Heavy
Arguably the main star of Team Fortress 2, to date, he has appeared in every single Meet The Team videos, and is on most of their promotional material.
Well, he is a ginormous Russian with a minigun almost as big as he is, that certainly makes him memorable.
The Heavy has the most health on the team at 300HP (450HP when overhealed), this high health, coupled with his various miniguns, make him an extremely dangerous target at short to medium range conflicts.
The only problem is that he's typically very slow while carrying his minigun, and when he's spinning it up, he becomes even slower, making him an easy target for Snipers aiming for his shiny head or Spies backstabbing his barnyard sized back. However, his large size and health makes him a great target for a friendly medic as cover, and when uber-ed by the medic, can send an entire team running like cowards.
Strangely enough, I don't actually see that many Heavies in the servers that I play, despite them being one of the deadliest classes around. They tend to be the number one target for a lot of players though, maybe that's why.
This is my custom heavy loadout:
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| ALL OF YOU ARE DEAD!! |
- Default Minigun - with Strange properties that record the amount of kills, best compromise between all the primary Heavy weapons IMO.
- The Sandvich - mostly to heal the medics actually, if they're healing me; I only use it to heal myself when I don't have a medic healing me.
- Gloves of Running Urgently - when active, grants extra 30% movement speed so that I can get to my destination faster, but lose 6 hp per second, a very minor disadvantage considering the Heavy has so much HP.
- Coupe D'isaster - it's a hairpiece. Grants +100 to hair, -100 to male pattern baldness.
The Scout
The fastest class in the game and with his ability to double jump, he can literally run circles around his enemies. This Boston loudmouth thrash talker's playstyle is actually quite suicidal: he gets in close with his scattergun, fires a shot or two then runs off like mad.
He, along with the engineer, spy and sniper, have the lowest health at 125HP, so he has to rely on hit and run tactics. But since he has incredible mobility and can double jump, this is not a problem. Learning how to play the scout requires quite a bit of effort, I haven't gotten around to playing him without dying every minute.
One of his greatest contributions to the team is that he can accomplish his objectives twice as fast as the other classes (barring Soldiers and Demomen equipped with the Pain Train), whether he is capturing a point or pushing the cart. In Capture the Flag mode, his mobility gives him an advantage at actually being able to run back, and evade the enemies with the Intelligence.
As I said before, playing a scout isn't really that easy, as it's a bit suicidal; where most classes would avoid a lone Heavy in close range shootouts, the Scout actually runs in close with his scattergun, blasts him a few times then runs the fuck out. The scatterguns that the Scouts equip are deceptively powerful, three point blank blasts can kill any class except the Soldier and the Heavy.
This is my custom loadout:
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| What is your major malfunction, brudda?? |
- The Soda Popper - After 13 seconds of running and jumping, it can deal mini-crits for 8 seconds. But only has 2 shells compared to the 8 of the default scattergun, so I have to make sure each blasts count. On the other hand, it reloads very fast.
- BONK! Atomic Punch - Upon drinking it, the Scout becomes immune to damage for 6 seconds, but is unable to attack. Still susceptible to knockback from explosions and gunfire though. Very good for directing sentry gun fire so that your teammates can take out a sentry gun encampment. Contains water, radiation and sugar.
- Sandman - with Strange properties that record the amount of kills, its alternate fire enables you to launch a baseball which will stun and damage your target at medium to long range. Its disadvantage is that you reduces your maximum HP by 15, which is already pretty damn low in the first place. But, two words: TAUNT KILL. BONK!!!
- Mann Co. Cap - Painted gold with a can of paint I found in-game. I think it goes pretty well with his whole look, no?
The Soldier
Ahh, the military head hunter/collector lunatic from the American heartland (though the sanity of the rest of the team is pretty much questionable as well). The Soldier is currently one of my favorite classes to play, and is a very versatile class.
He is good for attacking and defending, has the 2nd highest health at 200HP, and his various rocket launchers deal very good AOE damage. Furthermore, he can equip different buff placers in his secondary slot to buff the teammates around him, making him a decent support class.
His signature skill is his ability to rocket jump: Point the rocket launcher at your feet, jump-crouch, fire the rocket and watch as your Soldier flies sky high with flaming boots (OF DOOM!!!) at the cost of some HP. This gives rather good mobility, as his movement speed is the 2nd lowest, he's only slightly faster than the Heavy. And if equipped with the Pain Train, the Soldier can accomplish objectives twice as fast like the Scout!
The Soldier is probably the most popular class from my playing experience thus far, as he's a very straight forward class to play and the learning curve is not very steep. But as the saying goes, "Easy to learn. Hard to master". He should continuous fire his rocket launcher as he arguably the 2nd most threatening class after the Heavy, thus good for crowd control, but he has to make sure most of them hit as his ammo is rather restricted (at best he has 24 rockets at his disposal). He is also the type of class that has to be constantly on the move, or he will be easy prey to the Spy and Sniper thanks to his low move speed. Furthermore, rocket jumping takes some practice to get used to, and failed rocket jumps not only deal unnecessary high self damage, it lowers his already pitiful ammo pile.
This is my custom loadout:
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| You are all WEAK! You are all BLEEDERS!! |
- Black Box - with Strange properties that record the amount of kills, it heals you for 15HP for each enemy you damage with it, this helps with staying alive and staying in combat longer even with the aid of a medic. Best to fire onto a group of enemies for best results.
- The Buff Banner - After dishing out roughly 600 damage, it will be fully charged and can be released to buff you and your allies in a large radius to inflict mini crits on your enemies. Works especially well in large groups and with invulnerable uber-ed allies nearby. Excellent team offensive-support gear.
- The Equalizer - Damage and move speed increases as life is lower, I don't actually use this for combat though, its quite suicidal. I use it more for running away at low HP.
- Ghastlier Gibus - Recently upgraded from the Ghastly Gibus due to the Very Scary Halloween Special update patch. I like it 'cause it covers his eyes. Yes, I know. I find that he looks better (and less insane) when his eyes are covered. Plus I think it fits with his raving homicidal personality.
The Engineer
The Engineer has average movespeed, but very low health at 125HP (150HP if equipped with the Gunslinger). Engineers have a unique resource to build their buildings called Metal. Each Engineer can only carry 200 Metal maximum, and be restored by picking up ammunition, weapons, the health locker and his own dispenser at set rates per intervals.
Engineers are capable of holding their own in a fight as long as they have their Sentry guns and Dispensers up, but they always have to keep an eye out for spies who will come along and place sappers on his buildings, disabling them and slowly damaging them. Spies will be their greatest threat, as the Engineer has to choose between getting rid of the sappers and risk getting backstabbed by the spy OR try to kill the spy and risk losing his buildings.
While Engineers are self sufficient, their greatest allies will be their fellow Engineers and the Pyros. Engineers can help fix each others buildings and help to set up the buildings faster, a nest of two Engineers working together is far more dangerous than 2 separate nests far from each other. And one Engineer can work to kill the Spy while the other removes the sappers. The Pyro on the other hand, while near a dispenser, will continuously use his flamethrower, which will set fire to any invisible or disguised spies. Furthermore, the Pyros can use their flamethrower's airblast to blow away rockets, grenades, sticky bombs and even enemies (especially invulnerable ones) to keep the buildings safe.
An Engineer can construct 3 buildings:
- A Sentry gun that has 3 levels of deadliness, primarily used for defending, sentry guns can easily take out any class short of a overhealed heavy and invulnerable ones, alternatively, with the Gunslinger, they build Mini-Sentries. <Detailed information on Sentry Guns found here>
- Dispensers which can heal nearby units and replenish ammunition, has three levels, with each level healing and replenishing more than the last level. It's also the primary source of Metal for Engineers. Dispensers are vital for keeping a team healthy and sufficiently armed for prolonged confrontations. <Detailed information on Dispensers found here>
- Teleporters, well, teleport (duh), quickly bringing your teammates to the frontlines upon a full charge, which each level reducing the time it takes for a full charge. This actually consists of two buildings, one entrance and one exit, a one way journey. Upgrading one end upgrades the other, same goes for repairs. <Detailed information on Dispensers found here>
This is my custom loadout:
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| Take it like a man, shorty. |
- Frontier Justice - Can store critical hits for your sentry kills and assists, though the criticals are only accessible upon the destruction of the Sentry guns, and they don't carry over upon death. However, the critical hits can be very devastating, killing most classes in 2-3 hits. But must be extra careful as this shotgun can only carry 3 shells maximum.
- The Wrangler - It's a special tool that lets you have direct control of your sentry gun, you can then manually fire the sentry gun's armaments outside of its normal range. At the same time, the sentry gun gains a forcefield to block 66% of the incoming damage.
- The Jag - This particular wrench lets you build 30% faster as long as you're whacking them with this. The downside is the 25% damage reduction, but then you have your shotgun for them spies, so it's not a big deal for me.
- Mining Light - For the physical representation of constantly streaming bright ideas.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Damn, that was another long ass article. And I only covered FOUR out of the NINE classes!! Bloody hell, writing long articles is starting to be a consistent thing with me isn't it?
Anyways, this has been a pretty long article. I will continue on the remaining 5 classes in my next post.
Until then, laugh along with the Meet the Team videos made by Valve. It'll really put a smile on your face.
- Meet The Heavy
- Meet The Soldier
- Meet The Engineer
- Meet The Demoman
- Meet The Scout
- Meet The Spy
- Meet The Sniper
- Meet The Sandvich
- Meet The Medic
- Meet the Pyro (someday....)
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