Saturday 9 February, 2008

GAMEPLAY:

I was right about this game, it DOES get a lot funner the more you play it. It's common knowledge -- winning is fun, losing is not. Even though all the classes are fantastically well balanced, that doesn't mean a thing until you have reached the average skill level. This game is very fun, but can get frustrating when you're playing against a team that you just can't seem to win against.

The classes add a new dynamic to the first person shooter genre -- for example, playing as a spy changes the feel of the entire game of first person shooter to a splinter cell-esque stealth game, where you attempt to convince your enemies that you are one of them and they should not attempt to blow you away just long enough for you to kill them instantly by stabbing them in the back. In fact, the first few times that I played as a spy I had to change classes because I felt too badly for disappointing the enemy team like that, a few times I disguised myself as a medic and it felt like my enemy really was counting on me to come through for them. Of course, this feeling of sorrow went away eventually and I came to really enjoy the spy class. The hardest part is to get them to not attack you, because you are unable to kill your teammates so they would lose nothing from simply blasting you in the back a few times to make sure that you are on their team.

DESIGN:

Team Fortress 2 is an exclusively multiplayer game -- there is no single player or tutorial option. When you start the game, you are presented with the same options that veteran players are, thus a beginning player is lacking in absolutely no in-game benefits that any other player would have on any normal server (players can host their own games on their own servers and add their own layer of rules onto the game, which could serve to give some players advantages over others). The core gameplay philosophy behind Team Fortress 2 is that, under normal during routine gameplay circumstance, the game is designed to place the most emphasis on skill, experience, and strategy, rewarding players not for playing the longest or even perhaps for putting the most energy into the game, but for making the right choices at the right time. Every class is nearly perfectly balanced, playing team fortress 2 is a lot like playing rock paper scissors with 9 objects and where all the items shoot bullets.

The focus of the gameplay is centered around everybody attempting to keep themselves alive and killing everybody of the opposite team, not so much on accomplishing the objective. The concept is that those who are the most effective at killing the other team and keeping themselves alive, are most likely to be able to accomplish the small task, and it does that pretty well.

This is fine, and just about what we're looking for. Your analysis is decent, though it could stand to be longer, maybe discussing how the different classes work together and effect the strategy of the game and why the devs might've chosen to make it like that. Still, this is all right.

Amy Leek (grader)