Tune in for splatterfest

HOW can a game that looks like a Warner Brothers cartoon be a worthy successor to a military shooter? That was the question E-Talk asked before launching into Team Fortress 2, the long-awaited sequel to the 1996 first-person-shooter classic.
Originally a modification for the game Quake, Team Fortress that pitted two teams of military grunts against each other as they competed to control the map, or territory.
The original Team Fortress was an online success that introduced the idea of class-based gaming.
Games have since copied the formula – you choose a class such as soldier, sniper, machine gunner and so on, and exploit that class’ special abilities while working together as a team to achieve an objective.
Team Fortress 2 follows that formula but evolves it to a point where the game is almost perfectly balanced.
It should be noted that while the gameplay has been improved over the original, the graphics have been changed from a conservative real-life military setting to a Looney Tunes style, carnage-packed splatter-fest.
While some people expecting a rival to the forthcoming Call of Duty may be disappointed by the style, E-Talk believes the cartoon style exaggerates the abilities of each class and truly develops the character of the game.
Team Fortress 2 is about fun and with statistics between each respawn, achievements to unlock each round, and a cache of corny commentaries your player can ‘speak’ with the press of a button (and taunt your opponents with) it’s hard not to have died several times because laughter distracts you from your enemies.
There are nine classes in the game, divided into three categories – attack, defence and support.
Support is the most interesting as its classes rely purely on supporting other players in achieving the game’s objective.
Instead of shooting enemies, a Medic is more likely to be trailing a Heavy or Soldier class player, healing them with the health ray gun as they face the enemy’s barrage of rounds.
But that’s not to say the standard attack and defence are boring – in fact they’re so well balanced that you’ll find yourself swapping between them mid-game to suit your mood with little difficulty in picking up each role.
E-Talk loved the ‘vanilla’ flavoured Soldier class.
Yes, it’s fairly routine but in the context of Team Fortress 2, it’s awesome fun running around with a rocket launcher and shotgun and watching your enemy splatter helplessly on the walls of a corridor after a well-placed shot.
But enough talk – go and try it for yourself, it’s on both PC and Xbox 360 as part of Valve’s Orange Box collection, which comes with the critically acclaimed Half Life 2 game and a few other surprises.