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cberg1's Team Fortress 2 (PC)
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| [February 9, 2008 12:19:03 AM]
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Game Log #2 By: Collin Berg
Gameplay:
One thing I noticed about Team Fortress 2, is that most servers have a built in respawn time of around 16 seconds after the player dies. I found this to be quite cumbersome and annoying. It is very frustrating to be killed by one of your opponents and have to sit and waste 16 seconds of your time waiting when all you want to do is get revenge. However, this may be a necessary evil. If the players do not have a respawn timer, the game would be very difficult to complete, because the players would be at a stalmate, constantly dying and respawning, preventing either of the teams from completing the objective. If I were to improve upon this game, I would try to give the player some sort of use for that necessary 16 second time. The time wouldn't have to be spent in a manner related to the overall game, but rather make the player still feel that they are kept busy. One solution could be having the dead players compete in a minigame vs each other similar to what you would see in mario party, or something along those lines.
Overall I would rate this as one of my top games of all time. It has a diverse and complex character class system, appealing aesthetics, good level design, and provides a compelling platform for player to player competition which is where I thrive. Call it my internet masculinity, or maybe my ego, but whatever it is, this game provides me the opportunity to achieve high amounts of satisfaction when dominating over my fellow gamers. Many things in life seem to be a competition between rivals and this game enables that primal instinct and transforms it into the fun game that I am writing about.
Design:
Level Design: The layout of each of the levels is well thought out and balanced. No team has a clear advantage based upon their environment when competing against the opposing team. The levels tend to be symmetrical on the Capture the flag modes, and on the capture point/terrain modes, each team has an opportunity to play offensively and defensively.
Game of emergence: For being a first person shooter, this game has a surprising amount of depth and complexity as a game of emergence. One thing I noticed while playing was that I could constantly create new techniques and styles of play to complete my objectives with each class. For instance, instead of playing the traditional role as a sniper who lays back and fires from a distance, I found it entertaining and challenging to go on the offense and shoot enemies with my sniper rifle without using the scope, and then proceeding to mow them down with my machete. Various other tactics can be utilized with each character class making this game have a lot of depth to it.
Reward Structure: The game sets performance based goals for its players, giving them incentives to perform in a certain manner, or play to a certain extent. For example, players are given an achievement when they have the best score for the certain character class at the end of the round. This built in reward system hooks players into playing the game more, and makes the user feel like they are playing to achieve a greater goal.
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| [February 8, 2008 09:25:18 PM]
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Game Log Written by: Collin Berg
Game Title: Team Fortress 2
Summary: Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to the renowned game Team Fortress Classic which was based on the half life engine. Team Fortress 2 is a first person shooter designed on the Half life 2 Source platform. It explores similar concepts to its predecessor, allowing players to join one of two teams and battle each other toward victory. There are several different team battle types, one is capture the flag, another is capture point, and a third is territory control. Furthermore, players have the capability of creating their own maps and hosting them on a server for other to players to play on.
Gameplay: Having been an avid gamer of the original Half-life series (Half life, Counter-strike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress Classic), I heavily anticipated the release of the orange box (a Team Fortress 2 Bundle). With high expectations, and giddy excitement, I loaded up the game for the first time and entered the magic circle that would rock my world. Nostalgic ecstasy I think best describes my initial thoughts and feelings for the game. Fond memories of a time long passed flooded back into my mind of blazes of gunfire and glory that can only be experienced in a gameworld such as this.
Saturated in euphoria, I savoured every head shot I scored as a sniper, relished every time I backstabbed someone, and cheered whenever I captured the enemy flag (intelligence). Feelings aside, I particularly like several things about the game. One was the unique class list to choose from. There are nine classes to choose from, almost always guaranteeing the user the capability to become their own unique entity(From what I've experienced, users like their avatar to be one of a kind and be differentiated from their peers when playing games and Team Fortress 2 enables that). Each class has unique weapons, abilities and serves a different but essential role in the challenge for victory over the opposing team. Another thing I liked about the game was the skins created for the character avatars and levels. The skins are designed to look like cartoony retro military outfits as seen in older movies of Hollywood. This brings a sense of nostalgia to the user as well as a sense of mischief, acting as military personnel attempting to steal the opposing team's flag (called intelligence).
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cberg1's Team Fortress 2 (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 8 February, 2008
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