GregHowley.com

Today is release day for Orange Box, a Steam package that includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. I've been playing the Team Fortress 2 beta for a few weeks now, on and off, and I figure I can give the thing a basic review, since I won't be playing it much now anymore. At least not for a while. Not until I finish Episode 2 and Portal. And maybe Half-Life 2 a third time.

I've always said that I won't play a game that I can't complete. And by that, I refer to online games of most varieties - online shooters and MMOs. But this time, since I'd already purchased Team Fortress 2 when I preordered Orange Box, I figured I'd give it a try. Since then I've discovered that I'm the worst Team Fortress 2 player on Steam. There should be an achievement for that.

At the game's heart are the 9 classes as which you can play. They give the game its variety, its balance, and its character. The first of these classes is the heavy weapons guy, or simply "The Heavy". He's a big, dumb, slow brute with a gun as big as a Volkswagen. He moves slowly, and when he's firing his comically large gun, he moves very slowly. And the gun takes a second or two to spin up before it starts firing. But as a Heavy you can hold down the right mouse button to spin the barrel of your gun in preparation for firing, which once again makes you move very slowly. The gun has a cone area of fire, and works a bit like a shotgun, doing more damage at closer range because more of the bullets hit. But since he's one of only two guys in the game with continuous-fire weapons, and his bigass gun does a ton of damage, you've got to take him seriously.

Next is The Medic. Every party needs a healer, and in a nutshell, that's what this guy does - spits out a continuous stream of healing from his weird healy guy. After enough healing, he can initiate an "Uber-Charge", which is a stint of brief invincibility. Very useful. And when you team up a Medic with a Heavy or Pyro, watch out. Killer team. The medic also has a gun which fires lethal injection syringes, and I've been killed many a time by such attacks. There's also some kind of bonesaw melee weapon which I've been killed by. In fact, I think I've been killed by every weapon in the game. There should be an achievement for that.

The Demoman is a fun class to play, although I certainly would need a lot of practice before getting good with him. He's the only guy in the game with an indirect-fire weapon, and those grenades can be damn deadly. He's also got stickybombs, triggerable with a right-click. Yet somehow, they're not as easy to use in practice as it would seem. I've carefully laid traps, then sat around bored for 10 minutes while nobody came 'round to fall into my trap. Not fun. And while a grenade to the face can certainly be deadly, the Demoman's big limitation seems to be having only four shots before reloading. So you're constantly reloading and getting killed while you reload. Or at least I am.

The Pyro was my favorite class for a while during the beta, largely because he was so unpopular. In the same way that I loved beating people with Dhalsim on Street Fighter, I enjoyed playing the Pyro. I didn't have to aim. I'm bad at aiming. And quite often, after that damn red scout hit me with a shotgun blast to the face, my flame would finish him off 5 seconds after I died. The revenge factor is high. However, during the beta they made the Pyro better - gave him more range and maybe more damage. Now he's more popular and I don't enjoy him as much. So I'm still looking for my Dhalsim.

The Sniper is hands-down my least favorite class. Why? It's all about aim, and aim is my weakest point. The guys who play snipers well are deadly effective, and can pull off a headshot in less than a second. Me? After 10 seconds I'm still drawing a bead. Heck, when I snipe in Far Cry I've got the time. But people in Team Fortress 2 don't stay still. The ones who stay still generally catch a knife in the back. Anyway - snipers suck.

The Engineer, on the other hand, is probably my favorite class. Why? Firstly, once I set up a turret it aims itself. Secondly, when I'm paralyzed by lag my turret isn't. It took me forever to figure out that smacking a turret with my wrench would repair and upgrade it, and that the little meter at the bottom indicated raw materials for building, and that a dispenser will spit out raw materials for me. But now it's so second-nature that I'm ready to bang on my car with a wrench when it breaks down, fully expecting the car to be fixed by the abuse.

When people first play Team Fortress 2, they'll generally start with The Soldier. He's the game's Ken. And that's why I generally avoid him. I'm no good with slow-moving rockets and rocketjumping. And... well... I'm no good with aiming. The soldier's got a rocket launcher and shotgun, and that's his bread and his butter. To me? Boorrring.

I hate The Scout. And I don't mean that I hate playing as a Scout - I've only done that once, in a 3-player game where I could run back and forth nabbing intelligence and never see another player. What I mean is that I hate when a scout runs up, darting back and forth madly, and shoots me in the face with a shotgun or clubs me to death with that damn bat. Doesn't help when my framerate makes it look like he's teleporting. Scouts, despite the low health, move really fast. They're the character the really good players pick and use to kill me. I hate scouts. Nasty little thugs.

Lastly, The Spy. I've got a love/hate thing going with the Spy. When I'm a Spy, I often love it. When the same one backstabs me fifteen times in a row, I hate it. It's amazing how when I sneak into an enemy base and backstab a couple guys, I literally find my heart racing. Those who read my game reviews often will know that I have a love for stealth games, and what better stealth game than backstabbing actual players rather than NPCs? But for some reason, I haven't developed the love for the Spy that I would need in order to play him regularly. I'll tell you though - when players get good with the Spy, he's deadly. The bane of Snipers and Medics, and his sapper ability makes Engineers hate him too. His gun is nearly useless, but his knife is a one-hit kill when you get someone's back.

I tend to play as someone who really doesn't need to aim. A Heavy, with his cone of fire, or a Pyro whose great gouts of flame preclude precision both work well for me. The Engineer also works well, although I can't for my life aim the shotgun well. Maybe I should start playing spies more - backs are big targets.

Overall, the game is balanced really well. When a Heavy/Medic combo comes trucking through, a Sniper with a headshot makes an excellent counter. And the Sniper's counter is a Spy sneaking up behind him when he's too focused on a faraway target. The counter for the Spy is a Pyro, filling huge areas with flame to hit the invisible spy. When a spy's on fire, everyone can see him. A Scout can easily stay out of the Pyro's range and pick him off, and an Engineer can build a Turret that will shred the low-health scout in an instant. But a Demoman can take out that immobile turret from around a corner. See? Lots of counterbalancing going on.

So although I'm horrible at Team Fortress 2, and probably at most multiplayer online games, I can appreciate it. Now, I'm going to go play Half-Life 2 Episode 2.