So, if you have played Quake, you should know about Team Fortress. If you played Half-Life, you should know about Team Fortress Classic. Both were amazing teamplay games that ranged from Capture the Flag to Point Control. It was amazing. 9 classes, multiple abilities, different grenades for each. The level of depth was great. It has been about 10 years now and Valve, after getting Team Fortress Classic to run on the Half-Life engine, has made a very awesome and quite perfect sequel.
First thing everyone notices is the look. Well, look at this...
Those are the original 9 classes. You can see them all and point them out very well. I love it. The art style is amazing and the way they presented all of the characters is perfect. You know right off the bat who is the Heavy Weapons Guy or the Medic or the Demoman, etc. They got rid of the bland looking and almost identical looks of the old TFC. I TFC, sure, you always knew that the Heavy Weapons Guy was the dude with the big gun, but a Medic or Soldier could somtimes be hard to spot. Everything is definitive. If you bought the game and watched/listened to the commentary that came with TF2, you know how much effort was put into making the character act and move as well. Here is a recent video called Meet The Demoman that Valve put out. (Eventually they will have all of the classes. I think Meet The Demoman is the best one so far.)That is all in game. All the motions and face expressions can be and are taken advantage of while playing TF2. It is just so awesome to see something like this being done, having the random characters you play as be given so much personality.
On to how it plays. I can sum it up in one word, and this is a pretty big work for anything: perfect. I have never been so satisfied with any multiplayer gaming experience then this one. Every class does what it is suppose to do without going overboard on anything or too weak in something else. This brings up a good, and valid, question: Why have other classes then? Because, as I said, every class does something well, but not everything well and are weak somewhere and have some need that another class fills. Engineer turret have your Scout pinned down so he cannot grab the opponents flag? Bring a Demoman to lob some grenades around the corner since he is the only class who has grenades. Is a Heavy with a Medic romping around outside your base? Get a Spy to sneak behind the Medic, backstab him and the get a Soldier to finish the Heavy. It wall just works!
So, how does this relate to fighting games? Well, I know a lot of time was put into Team Fortress 2. Since it was going to be released along side Half Life 2: Ep. 2 and that was delayed half the time that Duke Nukem Forever has been, a lot of development time was given. But I think if a company can be given the right amount of time to have a fighting game in the works, they can produce something as mind blowing as this. Perfect balance.
Stuff like character personality seems to come easy for most fighting games. Look at Guilty Gear. That has some of the most...uh...flamboyant cast of any game I have ever seen. What I want to see is balance like TF2 one day. Maybe this is just a dream of mine or maybe one day some company will make the perfect fighting game. Who knows. But until then I shall still say "If only fighting games could be as balanced as Team Fortress 2..."
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