As of late I have been spending a chunk of my gaming time on Team Fortress 2, a somewhat comical and very fun multi-player shooter for the PC.

The game uses the Steam network and the Half-Life 2 engine, with graphics that are made to look reminiscent of early to mid 1900′s art and cartoons.  Lighting, shading and color choices allow the older engine’s graphics to look great, I dare say it looks better than many newer-gen shooters and engines.

The sound is perfectly fine, if not overpowering at times (if you have several heavies, soldiers, and demos all unleashing hell around you it will be quite loud). The audible character sounds are very fitting and often comical.
Gameplay is great, simple and classic shooter. Classes and objectives add the interest and tactics to the game, the rest is wonderful fragging. Twitch gaming is usually the call for these shooters, and it plays a part here. Unlike a lot of other shooters, though, not all of the game’s classes will be favorable to the twitch play style. The spy for instance, with his fairly low health and stealthy style, is not as good at twitch gaming as the pyro or scout (the scout I find to be the best at this, as the speed and double jump are natural). For the non-twitch gamers, the game offers the sniper, the engineer, the medic, the heavy, and the aforementioned spy. For the twitch gamer: the scout, the pyro, the demo (I guess I would put him here, it’s all in how you use him), and the soldier.

The community seems to be doing well, the game has been out since early October and I can still manage finding matches in whatever map I want whenever I want. Can’t say much of the mod scene, at the moment (not that it doesn’t exist, but I’ve yet to look deeply into it).

Overall,  it’s a damn fun and cool game.