Team Fortress 2

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–PUBLISHER: Valve | DEVELOPER: Valve | GENRE: Shooter –THEME: Cartoon | PLATFORM: Download | STATUS: Final

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The sequel to Team Fortress was categorized as vaporware for many and many years, with Valve keeping communication about the game to a minimum, leaving players wondering about a cancelation. However, when it was announced and later released as part of the acclaimed The Orange Box – where Portal also surprised gamers –, Team Fortress 2 was considered a complete triumph, a game that dared to destroy its previous realistic military look, opting instead for one of the most original visual styles ever seen in a videogame – and later clearly inspired Battlefield Heroes.

Team Fortress 2 earned critical and commercial success and Valve once again proved their mastery and willfulness to take risks where other publishers wouldn’t dare to stray from the usual formula. A cartoon FPS where gameplay and fun are the obvious highlights, it generated memorable characters (the Heavy) in the same way that Portal did (GlaDOS and the companion cube).

On June 2011 Valve decided to offer Team Fortress 2 as a free-to-play game, proving that the genre is getting more and more interesting even for the most respected publishers in the world. Team Fortress 2 is probably one of the games that F2P detractors weren’t expecting to see and its success will now be determined by the kind of support that Valve will offer players. Knowing how well the studio listens to gamers, things are looking good.

As far as quality goes, it’s hard to find something more consensual than Team Fortress 2. It was never properly replicated in looks or gameplay and is still in a league of its own. And as a free-to-play MMO game, more than ever.