PC Gamer re-reviews TF2 - Games

[url]http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/27/team-fortress-2-review/[/url] [release] Team Fortress 2 is the best game I’ve ever played. Over the last three and a half years I’ve clocked up 666 hours on Badwater and Dustbowl. I’ve stabbed, shot, cloaked, crafted, traded and unlocked my way to a backpack full of awesome weapons and hats. Where Team Fortress 2 is now, with its ridiculous weapons, headgear and recipes, is a long way from the lean multiplayer shooter it launched as. And now it’s free. Imagine people on servers freezing at the news: the Red Scout’s fish flopping in his hand, the Blu Soldier raising his frying pan, about to crown a Pyro before stopping and looking around. All this? Free? Really? [I]Clang. [/I] [URL="http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen1.jpg"][IMG]http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen1-590x351.jpg[/IMG][/URL]All these classes are overpowered. It’s difficult to comprehend. Fortyeight maps, nine classes, most of the weapons: Valve are giving them away for nothing. All you need is a Steam account. With that you have a free account for TF2: you get a 50-slot backpack to hold your stuff, access to all the standard items, and limited crafting (no rare items). To upgrade to premium (everyone who bought the game is a premium user), with 300 backpack slots and access to all weapons and full trading, all you need to do is buy one item from the microtransaction store. The cost of the cheapest items (such as the Soldier’s replacement rocket launcher, the Direct Hit) is 29p. That the dearest item, a pack containing all the weapons and apparel of the most recent update, costs £59, is of no consequence. [URL="http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen2.jpg"][IMG]http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen2-590x368.jpg[/IMG][/URL]Valve added a melee-only castle map. Even though Valve make money from sales, they’ve provided a number of ways of getting items for free. You can unlock weapons for every class through achievements. You get weapons given to you through random item drops. If you don’t like what they’ve given you, you can use the crafting system to smelt the weapons into raw material for weapons you do want. Or you can trade. Simply playing the game will give you ample rewards. It’s the best example of F2P I can think of. There’s no splitting of the community, either: new maps and game modes are always free. Whether it’s Capture the Flag, Control Point or Payload, the servers are full of glowing Heavies with pet Medics in tow, Pyros charging into flaming targets with their barbedwires axes raised over their gimp masks, Soldiers and Demomen flying through the air, boots on fire. They host last-minute dives to stop a Payload bomb detonating the server, and rows of dancing Engies. I’ve dropped in on a server where everyone was battling a laser death cat that was spitting bees from its mouth. Even with intense rocket fire and grenade spam from everyone in the game, it still reigned supreme. [URL="http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen3.jpg"][IMG]http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2011/07/TeamFortress2screen3-590x368.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Valve’s continual tinkering has led to classes that can play multiple roles. The Demo-man started off as a grenade-spamming defence class, but with his new boots, shield and sword add-ons, he’s a frontline, headhunting warrior. Possibly with an Afro. The Spy can either be skulking in a corner, cloaked and waiting for the perfect moment to strike, or he can swap watches and run into battle and drop a fake corpse just to mess with the enemy. Anyone signing up to Team Fortress 2 for the first time now will be part of an ever-expanding community, something that Valve have smartly steered but also learned from. It’s a vast experiment in incremental game design, but one that provides comics, movies, and piles of hats. Every update is an event and every player can be part of it. For a game that started out as just a multiplayer shooter, Team Fortress 2 has become something astonishing.[/release] [release] Verdict [B]96[/B] A brilliant, ever-evolving multiplayer shooter. three years on and Team Fortress 2 is better and cheaper than ever.[/release] The [URL="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-14-team-fortress-2-re-review"]second[/URL] site to re-review the game, also giving it a high score.

You can substitute every word of the article with either a sloppy licking sound or a slow moan.

Saw this in my copy of PCG. Disregarded it, felt it was a tad dumb.

Agreed it's still the best FPS ever.

TF2 is one of those exceptional games that is still just as cool as it was on Day 1.

[QUOTE=minilandstan;31976188]TF2 is one of those exceptional games that is still just as cool as it was on Day 1.[/QUOTE] No you're wrong. It's better than Day 1.

I've been playing this game since 2008 and never got bored.

Been playing since release and still play it.

How does Valve do it though? It's like they know what we want. They make it free, they give us free stuff, they balance the game so it's fun. It's what every multiplayer game should be.

I've been playing the game since the pre-order beta. I'm not the most hardcore player though. About 155 hours but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Aside from the optimization problems and general lack of polish it's still an amazing game to play, and is just as fun if not more when I first started playing it back in 08 on the Xbox. I agree with PC Gamer's score. 96 because it's just as fun, but 4 points get taken off because of the cosmetic flaws and optimization problems.

You know what I'm gonna play some more right now.

700 hrs and still having damn good fun.

1300hrs since 2009, and i dont mean to stop... btw, metacritic should be refreshed...

1002 hours since January 09 Still going strong, and better than back when I first got it.

Over 3000 hours, and I keep playing on. I remember buying this game, and loving it to pieces, and also thanks to this game I've also found out what I want to do for a living. It has earned those over 3000 hours of playtime put into it.

2000 hours since Jan '08. Played almost every day for 1-9 hours at a time.

played since release this game makes me so angry and i still play it fuck you valve this is digital cocaine

Cumulatively, over two steam accounts, I've put about 2800 hours into TF2 (none of that from idling, it's all playtime), and that's before my hiatus that started at the end of 2010. No other game has kept me coming back for more for as long or as well as Team Fortress 2 does. Been playing since the pre-order beta and I plan to continue playing until the game is no longer supported or until a full-fledged sequel is released (although I'd periodically return to TF2 for nostalgic purposes like how I sometimes go back to play TFC).

Over[sp]1[/sp]000 HOURS. WHAT, THERE'S NO WAY THAT CAN BE RIGHT.

TF2 took my social life the day i started playing it. Yet, i still haven't got it back. It won't let me do it.

I always wondered how they're able to give the exactly 96 points out of 100.

[QUOTE=Rebbe;31977068]I always wondered how they're able to give the exactly 96 points out of 100.[/QUOTE] because they didn't have 97

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;31976211]No you're wrong. It's better than Day 1.[/QUOTE] Eh a year ago I would have agreed with you but not anymore

Team Fortress 2 is my number one game of all time, I have not spent more time on any other game. Hell I'm playing it right now.

1450+ hours since January 2008. There must be something wrong with me. I won't read the article yet, however. I'm waiting for my magazine to arrive in the post.

[QUOTE=Wowza!;31976111][release]I’ve dropped in on a server where everyone was battling a laser death cat that was spitting bees from its mouth.[/release][/quote] That's hilarious when someone activates that easter egg on achievement_all_v4. Also 288 hours since Christmas of 2009, I need to play more.

1961 hours since October 2007

3065 hours on this damn game. Since Dec 26 2009. Wow.

[release]The Demo-man started off as a grenade-spamming defence class, but with his new boots, shield and sword add-ons, he’s a frontline, headhunting warrior.[/release] They say that like it's a good thing.