Sandvich hungers FOR BLOOD!

I'd like to start by saying: I'm not big on the first person shooter.  That is to say, I don't pick up a game to play solely because it's a first person game.  There's many reasons that go into my choices, but the genera isn't the only bet.  That's mainly why I don't pick up Medal of Call of Military blah blah blah title games.  That and military sims are not my favorite games (I need more....surrealistic game play to keep me entertained).  Multiplayer is fun, it's true, but I feel like games that support only multiplayer are sort of scamming gamers into buying less content for the same price as full fledged single player story lines.  Paying full price for a 5map multi-player game without story or anything substantial just doesn't add up to 70+ hours of involved lore and problem solving.  If these games had both, awesome, great game, but often times, they just simply...don't.  It's also a possible explanation on how they keep putting out new versions every handful of months to make you pay full price AGAIN for a couple new maps, which could easily be dlc updates.  It's an infection of "the bottom line syndrome  that all of the entire entertainment field is stuck in at the moment. If it doesn't make money, it doesn't fly, which is a shame as that way of publishing/producing closes the doors on a lot of innovation and fresh life the whole, not just gaming, entertainment industry desperately needs (again).

So, now that that is over with, here is where I eat my words.

Game: Team Fortress 2
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Mac
Developer: Valve Corp
Rating: 8 KABOOM! 

This is a game that I have been putting off playing for a very long time.  I've owned it in a package deal with Portal 1 and Half-life 2 with the Orange box, but after playing 1 map, having no tutorial, being confused, and dying in B.S. ways from spawn-campers, I put it down and never picked it up again.  That  is, not until they made it free to play via steam.  Now, I plug in every so often, wreak a little havoc for 15-30 min and then I'm spent until next time.

"Push the bomb" is a very common objective.

Team Fortress 2 is, for all sense and purposes, a First Person Shooter based on sort of a 1960's understanding of War fare.  You have various special forces that are all caricatures of said employments (I.E. the spy is french, explosives are Scottish, heavy weapons is Russian, engineer is American Mid-west/south, scout is New York, and you get the idea).  You have various simple objectives such as capture this, stand here, stand there, take object A move it to point B, guard this, destroy that, push, pull, jump, hop, skip, breath, eat, sleep, game.  Each class has "jobs" to do that are worked into their play style.  For instance, the spy destroys electronics, the pyro can find invisible spy's with fire, the scout is fast, the heavy lays waste but is very slow, medic....is medic, that sort of deal.  The steam version has a tutorial, all is right with the world.

Sandvich?

The thing that pulls me in and keeps me playing is the fact that there is a sort of A.I. in your character that is independent from you.  Your person's A.I.'s job..........is witty banter.  Your character spouts off things according to your situation to other characters.  Their A.I.'s then respond to yours in THEIR situation and it's absolutely hilarious.  The story I like to tell, is when I was a heavy.  Heavy weapon's guy has 3 weapons.  Big gun (Natasha), little gun, and fists.  You can have an option not to have little gun, and instead you have a health item named "Sandvich".  It is just what it sounds like, a sandwich.  Lettice, cheese, ham, bread, toothpick, olive, sandwich.  The medic's super power is that he can make himself and another invulnerable for a short time.  The classic combo is medic follows heavy and turns heavy invulnerable when surrounded by squishy enemies to kill.  So me (heavy) and medic are running down a hallway and we get into enemy base.  He pops invulnerability on me, and I, in turn, pull out sandvich and start having lunch in the enemy base.  Heavy starts eating (omm nom nom), medic player starts screaming and raging on the microphone, and enemy players are unloading clip after bullet clip into my invulnerable face trying in vein to kill me. And then it happens.  I nearly died of laughter.  My heavy starts yelling and taunting the other team "Me and Sandvich is coming for you!  SANDVICH THIRSTS FOR BLOOD!" and somebody's scout yells "No, NO! Anything but SANDVICH! AAAAAH!"  I lost it.  I couldn't continue playing I laughed so hard.  Me and medic both died there.  Medic rage quit out of the server, also funny, but wow, so funny.

Yup, Team Fortress 2, if your wondering why everyone dresses up in real life to cosplay as the players in it, download steam, play for free, it's pretty sweet.

Rating: 8 KABOOOOOM!