Recent reviews by [2T] BlazenFire

Team Fortress 2: A fun multiplayer first person shooter. A unique set of unforgettable characters/classes. And good community of artists, players, content creators for the most part.

Positives:

1. There is a HUGE variety of game mechanics/weapon combinations for each class. All weapon combinations have circumstantial use. Some greatly more effective, or ineffective than others. Or pair extremely well or poorly with one another. The variety is really refeshing not being locked to one specific weapons for each class.

2. Every class has rewards for learning each of the skills each class is good at. These include area denial, pick class, damage, healing, etc. The ability for you to skillfully master each class, and varying your play-style can drastically change how you see the game. This can give you hundreds if not thousands of more hours of playtime. Maining Engineer and then playing soldier changes a lot. Or going scout or spy, etc.

3. Community developed game-modes/events/cosmetics/art: Though rather sparse at times, the freedom to create (almost) anything for this game has let the game grow, in exposure, fun gamemodes, and cosmetics. The artists of all of these deserve a very big thanks. Bugs have been fixed faster than (most) industry standards. Or at least aren't denied or put on the backburner thanks to YouTubers and those that inform newer users.

4. TF2 has built in counters for each class, with (mostly) predictable weaknesses and strengths and unique class looks, so that it is unlikely you'll mistake one class for another. Unless they are a spy of course. (which is the whole point) Many games, I have seen, make it hard to distinguish classes from one another, TF2, makes it easier. Love the characters.

Neutral thoughts:

1. Game feels unbalanced at times: due to team skill vs other team skill, available weapons not "balanced enough", random crits being one of them (but understandably included). With the evershifting age range/relative skills of players of TF2, reworks on weapons, I can pretty confidently say that, it has pretty balanced gameplay in comparison to other games in it's genre.

2. Deaths in game, fair or not? EH, it's debatable, whether it's random crits, massive skill difference, weapon functionality, the excuses, and reasonable requests for changes are endless. Decide what you will, this is part of the game. The game is ever-striving for balance. But it's pretty close to it.

3. The Economy of this game: The prices due to over-inflation of Refined Metal: 18 weapons, currently 50+ Ref for 1 key: $2.49 cents or less on various websites, or even the steam community market. Most Unique-ranked cosmetics and all weapons are dirt cheap at the moment. You can create a regular loadout for so little. It's a buyers market, not a sellers one right now.

Critiques:

1. Default Settings: The adventure of learning the mechanics and functions of game-play in TF2 should NOT include the settings and menus to discover the base gameplay settings. You miss out on way too much if you cannot figure out menus or what they do. Once you figure it out, it's good. Until then, prepare to not do well. So mess around with the settings, just like the gameplay, and you should be alright.

2. Tutorials: Not every class has a TUTORIAL. A basic tutorial.... Really? Ins and Outs of each class is limited to a random info bar in the stats menu. As most/some of the future of the game is determined/created/thought-of by the community, it only made sense that the game's tutorials of each class were made by the community. And there is very little that you learn quickly without watching endless videos or sacrificing yourself every-time you leave the spawn room to discover little things. (The adventure of it though, is fun, but the journey of making class and game-mechanic discoveries is rough.) Deaths don't seem fair at this stage.

3. The Mannco Store: Just like a store in any other F2P games, the Mannco Store has items that are not worth their price. 2 things you'll want from the in-game Mannco Store: Backpack Expanders and/or a Contracker. That's it. While Steam isn't required to inform users of cheaper options, purchases from it usually result in regret. Keys, Mannco Tickets, and cosmetics are better bought elsewhere.

I have spent nearly 2600 hours on Team Fortress 2. Many gamemodes, many classes, much creativity later, new people I've met, I can wholeheartedly say that all of it has been worth my time, with MUCH MORE time to go The good from this game has comfortably outweighed the bad.