Graphically Team Fortress 2 really is a beautiful game. If your only contact with the art is some compressed trailers and low res screenshots then this might come as a surprise, but it is true. The game strays far from its realistic early teasers and instead delivers the player an over-the-top cartoonish style that is something along the lines of WoW meets Thirteen. With the market full of top notch and gorgeous but often similarly styled shooters, the change is welcome. Instead of the gritty and natural world of say an Unreal 3 engine game, players get dropped into a colorful and eccentric battlefield. It looks and flows great at max settings and 1920x1200. The animation work is also excellent.

From a gameplay perspective the game is not radically different from TFC, but certainly has its own characteristics. The medic class is bit more of ... well... a medic this time around. They can still take you down, but they are hardly the offensive threat they could be in TFC. In exchange for the lost offensive power the class gets to become a real healer. The medics heal gun pumps up targets to 150% health and builds up a change. When full the medic and release this charge and ‘bubble’ himself and his target for a brief while. A carefully timed ‘bubble run’ can prove incredibly deadly to the opposition. The Spy has also gained a few new tricks. He now has the ability to stealth for a short time in addition to his previous ability to disguise himself as a member of the opposite team.

The default map selection is one of TF2’s few weak points, but it isn’t much of one. The game lacks a large official map library, but the ones you will find are quality levels and more are in the works. Before the end of the open beta you could already find several quality user made maps on server rotations, so I don’t think map variety will be much of an issue to most players.

Overall Team Fortress 2 was well worth the wait and one of the best online experiences I have had in a while. The class balance also feels somewhat off, though time will have to be the final judge on that. For the most part it feels balanced enough for the average online pickup game, but I feel that certain classes (heavy, pyro) are a tad weak and others (demo for example) are a bit strong for competitive play. Again, these are hardly game breaking balance issues, but I just can’t see some of the classes getting much use in a match setting.

Even with the plethora of solid shooters out right now, I can fully recommend TF2. The game delivers solid fun and truely was worth the wait; and with how long Team Fortress 2 was in the works that really says something.