TF2 - FTW

After only about 5 years of waiting I finally got to play Team Fortress 2 this morning - and I didn't even have to blow anybody (inside joke).

I played for an hour this morning before I came into work so I can only give you my initial impressions. Bullet form seems like the best venue for this task...

• AWESOME UI. Very easy to get around in.
• Global stats! Now your carnage is tracked across all servers - http://steamcommunity.com/id/SGreth/stats/TF2
• Achievements. While not really a *huge* selling point to me some people love these incentives.
• Great environment. It's a tough look and feel to describe but it fits the game right on.
• I only played "Dustbowl" but the assault mode of play is fun. Engineers have fun camping the shit out of enemy spawn points :)
• Class-based action. If you haven't played an FPS that has different classes then you're really missing out. The difference among the classes is multiplied 100 times in a game like Team Fortress. Good luck being a scout trying to kill an engineer ;)
• In-game voice. Steam/Valve has had this in their games for years. It's almost reaching "standard" in terms of features but it's sweet to have.

As if we didn't need more reasons to love the creative talent at Valve....this isn't really related to TF2 but the new Steam friends interface is bad-ass. While you're in-game you can "shell out" to your IM windows, voice chat with people, see what others are playing, etc. Kudo's to the Valve guys for hooking us PC gamers up with a system that is very "XBL-like" and makes playing with your buddies super easy.


CS Source
Last night a bunch of 2o2p'ers hopped on with StragglerJ and I for some CS. An old buddy of ours who is a die-hard CS'er still runs a server and continues to kick our asses but it was fun to get everyone on there before the TF2 madness begins.


So...in short....if you're a PC gamer: Go pre-order Half-Life 2 Orange Box off of Steam ($45) and get ready to play the *most fun* FPS of the year!

~S'Greth


edit:
p.s. - The HL2 engine looks fucking sweeeeeet on my new rig :) TF2 runs like butter with all settings jacked.