Cartoonish Chaos...

It’s Red vs. Blue in this week’s free game Team Fortress 2, developed by Valve, and originally released in October of 2007 as part of the Orange Box set. It wasn’t until June of 2011 that Valve announced Team Fortress 2 would be free to play. With about 83,000 players daily, Team Fortress 2 is the second most popular free game on stream. Team Fortress 2 is a comic book style FPS (first person shooter) in which two teams battle it out in a variety of objectives.

Games Games Games!

Team Fortress 2 offers fourteen unique game modes across 86 official maps. Including Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, Payload, Mann vs. Machine, and many more. Capture the Flag is just like what we played as kids, where each team has a flag and the objective is to take the enemy flag and return it to your base. The second game mode is King of the Hill. Much to its namesake, players receive points by controlling a specified point or “hill” on the map. Payload is a unique game mode to Team Fortress 2 in which the blue team must escort a bomb on a cart towards the red team base. Blue team wins if they push it into the red base. However, they have a time limit, and if they fail to meet it than red team wins. Another truly unique game mode is Team Fortress 2’s Mann vs. machine. In this game mode players work together to stop the onslaught waves of robots as they march their way into your base.

Back to Class

Aside from the many different game modes and maps, players also have the option of choosing between nine very unique classes.

The Scout: Faster and more agile than the other classes. Perfect for anyone who wants to run around their enemies and scout out the enemy base and positions.
The Soldier: The average run-of-the-mill character, equipped with a rocket launcher to make short work of enemies.
The Pyro: Much to the name the Pyro is ready to burn anyone and everything in his path.
Demoman: Like explosions? Well this class if for you! Equipped with a grenade launcher, these characters like to make things go boom!
The Heavy: Big and strong, carries a machine gun. While slower than most, he makes up for it in raw power.
Engineer: Nothing special as far as weapons go however the engineer can set up turrets to do his dirty work, as well as teleporters to help the team!
The Medic: Equipped with a ray-gun of healing, the medic is ready to save the day!
The Sniper: Ready to take action from a distance, and if you see him….it’s already too late.
The Spy: Truly unique to Team Fortress 2, the spy sneaks around enemy lines with invisibility or the ability to disguise himself as the enemy.

Each class has its own qualities, and are both the best and worst choice in each scenario, so the only way to find out is to try it yourself!

Community and Transactions

The Team Fortress 2 community is both alive and well, with the many tools given by valve, players can both create maps as well as items for the characters and some of them even are added to the game! As far as spending money goes, players can spend money on items that not only change the way it looks, but also makes a small difference on each character. While transactions do not have a significant impact on the game, it is a big portion, with the most expensive item being about four THOUSAND dollars, some people also make a living by buying and selling cosmetic items!

Overall

If you choose to play all the classes and modes or master just one, you’re sure to spend many hours doing so. Also if you’re a creative type, take a chance, and become a content creator for the community! Whatever you decide to do, you’ll spend hours having fun with this game. So team up with some friends or go solo in this week’s free game Team Fortress 2, available on Steam.