Team Fortress 2
By Crazy Man / March 16, 2009
Team Fortress 2 is a classic example of the Xboxification process. Here's the rundown of major changes from TFC:
-Fast paced CTF game was replaced with a slow Team Deathmatch game.
-Class-specific grenades were removed causing more class blurring and a significant loss of depth.
-Advanced movement techniques were removed, significantly reducing the game's depth.
-Several weapons were removed (and replaced with nothing) further reducing the game's depth.
-The balance is worse than TFC at the highest level of play.
-20 second respawn timers make spawn camping a dominant strategy.
-Offensive capabilities were limited so turtling is encouraged.
-Armor was removed.
-Shells, Nails, Rockets and Cells were replaced by universal ammo (picking up a pistol will magically refill your rocket launcher).
-You can no longer throw ammo.
-You can no longer throw the flag once you have it.
-Random Dice Rolls/Critical Hits were added that do three times more damage.
-Also, if you are playing the console versions, good luck doing THIS with a controller.
Real work on the current TF2 didn't begin until late 2005. They were looking to make something that newcomers who had played nothing but shallow games would find fun, not the established fanbase which they basically gave the finger to. They wanted a game that all the console kids would love as an added bonus to the Orange Box, not a competitive shooter. Had TF2 not been released with the Orange Box and on the Xbox, it would have been another huge failure just like DoD:Source.
But I don't find having to grind for unlockable weapons to be fun.
I don't find walking out of the spawn only to instantly die because some random player got a lucky die roll to be fun.
I don't find getting killed by a weapon that does random damage to be fun.
I don't find that in competitive play in 6 vs. 6 games without class limits teams consist of:
Demoman
Demoman
Demoman
Medic
Medic
Medic
vs.
Demoman
Demoman
Demoman
Medic
Medic
Medic
-- after everyone realized how awful the balance in the game was -- to be fun.
It's supposed to be an FPS, not a freakin MMORPG.
Even casual retards like Sean Elliot from 1UP realized how dumbed down the game was. "It's always been a franchise about skill, not luck. Why are there dice rolls?"
It's the same story that would be repeated a few weeks later with Unreal Tournament 3. UT3 was less complex than the franchise's previous installments. The game didn't die because it had too much stuff, it died because it had too little. The competitive community found UT3 to be an unbalanced and shallow turd compared to previous titles so everyone migrated back to UT2004.
Team Fortress was about deep and fast paced competitive CTF play, which is something TF2 fails miserably at. I played TF2 competitively and scrimmed weekly, but the more I played, the more I craved more depth. I wanted something more than unbalanced Team Deathmatch. I wanted to be able to be a huge asset to the team without having to kill anyone, like in previous games. I wanted to be able to practice movement techniques and do speedruns across maps. I wanted to be rewarded for a well timed grenade or flag grab, not for a random critical hit that I had no control over. I wanted to be able to grab a flag, then throw it to a teammate through a window while I sacrifice my life to an enemy sentry gun. I wanted to be able to help an engineer set up EMP traps by placing ammo packs in key locations. I wanted to be a master manipulator and get the enemy team to kill each other because of a poor spy check. Too bad Valve FORCED friendly fire to be off. When I played a Medic, I wanted to do more than hold down Mouse1 and follow my teammates which he was stripped down to.
Strafe button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Throw flag button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Throw ammo button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Throw primary grenade button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Throw secondary grenade button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Binding a specific disguise/buildable to a button? Not enough buttons on a controller.
Five maps at launch? Only one being a CTF map, yet it being horrible while a fanmod can do the same and much more.
In pretty much every single good multiplayer FPS, melee weapons are used for the humiliation of crappy players and for punishing players who don't keep an eye on their ammo. In TFC, melee did around 10 damage per hit. In TF2, they do around 55 per hit. Don't tell me that this isn't because awful thumbstick controls encourage people to screw aim and go for melee fights.
Yeah, we got a "fun" game with cartoony graphics and internet memes, and we got it at the death of the competitive scene of a franchise that has always been about competitive play. "Nice job breaking it, guys."
And as if Heavies weren't barely played already, the upcoming Scout update is going to kill him as he's the main counter to the Scout. You would think that they couldn't possibly have made the balance worse, then they throw this at you.
TF2 is to TFC what Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game for the Sega Saturn is to Super Street Fighter II Turbo. It's a simple cash in that tried to bring in a new audience by catering to the lowest common denominator, while screwing over the franchise's true fans. Games are supposed to take steps forward, not one step forward, then fifty steps back. But hey, it's got awesome graphics and funny voice-overs which are surely the true meat of any quality game.
It's always better for a niche franchise to remain niche, rather than have it raped by developers who have no idea what made their original game so fun in the first place. TFC's competitive scene lasted for over seven years before fading, and it was an obscure mod compared to the widely popular likes of Quake III: Arena and UT. TF2's competitive scene is nearly dead and it hasn't even been a year and a half since the game came out. I rest my case.
Please note that this review was written before the recent Scout update, and therefore doesn't take it into account. For more info on this and future updates, keep an eye on the TF2 forum thread.