Why is my toast burnt?

Ah yes, the pyro update explains it!

As if we needed more reasons to play the Pyro, Valve rolled out the second update to the critically popular Team Fortress 2. The second update include two new maps, as well as the much anticipated achievements and weapons upgrades for everyones favorite pyromaniac.

If you’ve not had a chance to try TF2, you’re not doing anyone a favor. The game is available for free-play this weekend, so grab a copy and jump in the BarbeQueQ.

Team Fortress 2

I have a simple mission.  Jump out the window without getting shot, land without breaking a leg.  After that I need to swim under the enemy bridge and find my way into the sewer system spilling from their base.  Finally, after I’ve made sure the basement is clear of people that want to kill me, I need to setup shop with defenses, a dispenser and, most importantly, a teleporter.  If all goes well I should be done with this in about 30 seconds, and the filthy Blu base will be teeming with my compatriots.

Team Fortress 2 ships as an integral part of the Valve’s Orange Box, and I can safely say that TF2 is worth the price of admission alone.  I would even go so far as to conclude that some of you will never make it past TF2, since I know it gripped me for over two weeks before I finally shook my head about and looked at what else was in the ‘Box.  TF2 is that good, and if you were looking for a team-based shooter to wean you off BF2142 this is your ticket.

Taking everything a FPS gamer loves and ditching the boring in-between stuff, TF2 is multi-player gaming distilled into the purist form possible.  Throwing game types out the door, Valve stuck to the tried and true “capture and hold” game play mechanics that made the original Team Fortress an overnight success.  Players pick a side, pick a class and jump straight into capturing and defending points.  It’s a simple formula that works.

The class-based system seems to be fairly balanced.  Heavy hitting classes are less agile than their lighter brethren, and the special classes such as medics and engineers can easily turn the tide of a tug of war match.  Like many class-based titles, Team Fortress 2 provides players with a number of different playing styles to suit individual taste.  You can sneak around as a spy or zerg-rush as a scout.  Pyros, demos and heavys all pack a serious punch, and snipers can head-shot players from across the map.  Regardless of which class you select, the developers have gone to extra length to make abilities and weapons very intuitive.

Like many of the games based on Valve’s Half Life 2 engine, TF2 scales very well.  I had no problem playing the game on any of the test machines in our lab, and I was extremely pleased by the 200+ FPS I achieved on our SLI test-bed.  With a little anti-aliasing and motion blurs, the cartoonish graphics (think Incredibles) of TF2 come off as a tasty chunk of high-polished eye candy.  

Team Fortress 2’s blend of fast paced, class-based action is a shining slice of the Orange Box, and I would have happily paid full price just to play it.  Couple that with the solid gameplay of HL:E2 and the stellar, if not short, performance by Portal, and you have a collection that belongs in any gamer’s library.  I play UT3 as well, but it hasn’t stopped me from coming back to Team Fortress 2.  If you’ve got a fairly recent PC with a real video card, do yourself a favor and Steam (or buy retail, caveman) a copy of The Orange Box.  I look forward to sappin’ your dispenser!