Holy shit.
OK, this just happened recently and I'm sure Valve want this to come as a big surprise so I'll give you all one chance to play it their way. Here's the video the guys clearly put alot of time and love into. If you can't make it to the end (and if not shame on you), then start reading below:
Ok, then. Team Fortress 2 is free to play. I don't know if the bold is clear enough indication of my message to you all but, Team Fortress 2 is free to play!! This means that if you have a PC or Mac that has been made in the last 3 or 4 years, you can most likely play this game. This excites me for many reasons. For one, I really enjoyed this game and, as the title of the article should suggest, I loves me some gratis. What really gets my mind racing is that this could be a chance to make 1st person shooters on my computer a viable option again. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here. A quick primer for the uninitiated...
"You know what? You guys stay up front with the giant bomb. I'll just hang back here."
TF2 is, as the name suggests, a Multiplayer team-based FPS with a character class system that uses Valve's Source Engine. You can choose between nine different classes. Scout, Medic, Heavy, Pyro, Soldier, Sniper, Spy, Engineer and the Demo Man. Each of them have their own special set of weapons and skills. If you've never played this on your computer, you might have played it on the Xbox 360 or PS3. It came with The Orange Box, Valve's collection of the Half-Life 2 titles plus Portal (at $20 which was an insane value for a 360 title with that much gameplay in the box), and of course, Team Fortress 2. If you didn't have access to the PSN or XBL however, the game was totally unplayable. Now not only do we get the game for free now, we get the online achievements that the console version lacked. That means you can now get all of the sweet extras from the PC version.
The power of Jarate is mine at last!
There's alot to love in this game. The colorful art style compliments the humor that the game's developers put into it, and really makes it stand amongst other shooters like Halo or Call of Duty. It also somehow turns the game's violent scenes into something far more hilarious than you get with the average Halo death, Red vs Blue non-withstanding. Playing online with a group of racist pre-teens while hit with a barrage of dreary atmosphere and murder works fine for most console shooters, but Valve's approach, especially now, could be a nice switch from all of that. With a lighter tone and some upbeat music all while keeping the copious amounts of murder intact, TF2 is a game makes you want to shoot your enemy for fun. Not out of rage of being called "Fag" by a kid whose testicles haven't even descended yet, but out of actual, honest to Christ fun.
Theres even confetti... oh, wait.
The requirement to download TF2 is pretty minimal as far as free promotions go. All you have to do is go to the site and download Steam client for your machine and sign up for an account. They have versions for both PC and Mac and both users can play against each other. It took me a minute to get set up and I guess it took the same or less for everybody else too... because the mother fucking server crashed. If that's not a sign that you should get on and try this out, I don't know what is. You could be racist, loud, or just have horrible B.O. It doesn't matter. Steam and Valve are telling us that it's OK now. Come back to shooting your friends on your desktop with a real FPS. Just come in, sign up, and pray the little bastard you're shooting in the face doesn't have built-in mic on his parent's computer.
By: Tim
Unlike some of my online competition, my testicles never descended. They ascended...to greatness!
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