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Team Fortress 2 (PC)
by Thebaker50
Team fortress is a totally free 2 play online shooter game. In fact, before you read the rest of the review, head over to steam now, and start the download. That way by the time you have read this review, you might be some way through your download!
To start with, TF2 is a fps (first person shooter) game, but with a ... "comic" twist to it. And personally I think this game does it better than any other out there (including non-free 2 play games). What is great about this game is that originally it was not free 2 play, but it has been released as such, so it doesn't feel like you are getting a watered down game, but rather you are getting a properly developed game... which it is.
I should probably point out at this point before I carry on that the game is not TOTALLY free 2 play, you can't get some of the hats, costumes etc without payin, although therotically all the weapons are unlockable in free2play guise, they are just harder to unlock (but its good that its like this, this way the paying players do not have a stupidly overpowered advantage).
In the game you can play a variety of classes, from heavy (armed with a huge spinning gattling gun), engineer (shot gun welding turrent building master of destruction), demo man (kaaaa booooom!), solider (missiles are the order of the day here), pyro (some people just want to watch the world burn), medic (help your comrades), scout (unbelievable fast), snipers (take your enemies before they see you) and spy (master of disguise and perception). Each class has its own weapons and abilities, for example, spy can go invisible, or disguise him/her self as the enemy. Pyros can set people on fire, soliders are a good all rounder etc). Each class also has various weaknesses (for example, heavys are very slow, making them easy pickings for snipers, especially when firing).
However, the game doesn't feel like its just a case of looking for people you are strong against, itsmore a combination of finding the right enemy at the right range. A pyro stands no chance against a sniper at range, but if he manages to sneak closer, the sniper is toast... literaly!
There are loads of gameplay modes, but all are pretty similar. All either involve capturing bases within a time limit (or capturing them all), or moving a cart/stopping a cart (in the cart is a bomb) to a certain locaiton. Some maps have both teams trying to move a cart whilst defending their own base etc. But in general I would say its safe to say all game modes involve capturing flags/carts. The only exception to this is capturing the suitcase, where you have to grab the suitcase and run back to your base, whislt defending your own suitcase. This gameplay is quite fun but tricky at the same time.
The graphics are not high def or anyhting like that, but then again, they are not meant to be, and there is a large amount of weapons availble (but to start with you only have stock weapons, but these are not much worse than the unlockable weapons so you are not at too much of a disadvantage). These range from flamethrowers, magma axes, laser pistols and even bow and arrows!
In summary, i think this is a great game. It does get a bit repetitive from time to time, but if you are looking for a fun, comical fps game, go no further than this one, i mean its free 2 play, if you don't like it, you can always just uninstall it, and it wont cost a penny!
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Battlefield Heroes (PC)
by Thebaker50
Hey all
This is my review of battlefield Heroes. For those of you not aware of what this is, it is a completely free to play 3rd person shooter by the makers of the other battlefield games (EA). The game is fre 2 play, but by paying real money you can get new weapons, characters, customisations etc.
To start with, the ... game is a sort of cartoon style 3rd person shooter. Think similar to team fortress 2. Basically the game doesn't take itself too seriously, and the game isn't about having pro skills, its more about just running around having fun.
The game has a standard layout like most battlefield games, a ticket system with bases to capture. What makes this game unique from team fortress is that you can drive vehicles (around 3 vehicles in total, a fighter jet which I just found a bit useless most of the time, a tank which just feels overpowered sometimes, and a car just for getting around). It adds a fun little element to the game, but sometimes when up against paying players in a tank, they just spam the repair vehicle button, and if you are only a free 2 play player, it can be really difficult to kill them.
There are only 3 classes in this game, assault (with machine guns and shotguns), support (heavy machine gun and missile launcher) and sniper (sniper rifle, knife and annoying invisibility). Each class has its own set of abilities as well. For example, assault can lay down a barrage of grenades, heal teammates and self, or "mega punch" a tank away from you. You can earn these skills in skill trees when levelling up characters. However in this game, you don't choose your class on the ap, you choose a class per character. This means that you are not as adaptable in battle, as if your character is assault, you can only ever play assault unless you change character... by leaving the server... Its ok i guess, but it gets annoying on servers with lots of tanks if you want to play say assault.
The gameplay is ok, just the fact on this game playing players have such and advantage. On TF2, paying players get hardly any advantage at all, they just get hats etc, and the weapons they get are not overpowered. Sadly this isn't quite the case on BF heroes, but overall its a good game to play if you just want a simple free shooter, thats quite laid back, although I would say that TF2 is better. This would be an ok game for a young player. But a quick note is that on this game free plaers can only have 3 characters. As there are 3 classes per side (axis vs allies) you cannot have a character of each class on both sides, so prepare for this when you select your heroes. I made a mistake on this, and the game doesn't let you delete characters for free (or at least, not when i played).
In summary this is a good free game, but just falls short of the TF2 mark (TF2 is also free to play, i will write a separate review of this at some point), i would recommend that instead unless you really want to drive vehicles.
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Battlefield 2 (PC)
by Thebaker50
Battlefield 2 is an online war simulation game, based on modern combat. It is actually a pretty old game, but that doesn't stop it being good. Here is the review.
Battlefield 2 is more of a family of games, as there are about 4 "expansion packs" (special ops, euro fighters... i forget the rest, the only one worth ... having is special ops, the rest, I literally have not played once as there are never any servers up).
This game is an online game, with no real 1p mode (except playing against bots, but that becomes quickly boring. The real meat in this game is the number of vehicles you can drive (each side has tanks, helicopters, jet fighters, bomber etc, but there are problems with this, see later).
Ok, first off:
The graphics are ok, nothing that is going to blow you away, but good enough (i am comparing them to todays standard of graphics). The game runs smoothly (once you have a good PC), and you do really get absorbed into the game. There are checkpoints you have got to capture, and you win by killing everyone, capturing all the points, or a variety of the two.
With the expansion packs, you can get more levels, and more maps, and more weapons. But honestly, as said previously, special ops is the only one worth getting. All the others have "dead servers", i never once got to use any of the new "cool" aircraft, simply because everyone plays either the base game of ops version. I will not review the ops version here, as I plan to write a separate review on that.
BF2 advantages are the fact the sheer number of vehicles, weapons, classes and map size is pretty awesome. I havben't play a game like this, or since with this number (except maybe BF2142, but that's essentially the same game but set in the future). Also the map sizes are very nice and big.
However, this game has a few problems. Firstly, because of the number of vehicles on some maps, it becomes more like some tank battle. and it can get frustrating to play when everyone is just in a tank. Sometimes it feels like there are just too many vehicles...
Which brings to problem 2. There are often "queues" of people waiting for the vehicles to spawn. So often when you need some back up, at least 4-5 people on your team will just be waiting to take the vehicles. This is annoying 2 fold, because not only are you suddenly without 5 people, but you often do not get the chance to drive some vehicles unless you either a, wait for it, or b, join a game with just a ridiculous amount of vehicles. Its just a little thing that got on my nerves. personally I would love it if they somehow made it so the vehicles were computer controlled or something. That way people wouldn't just take them and camp in spots to get high k/d ratios... but thats one of the problems with online play I am afraid.
Thirdly is due to ammo. The support class (other classes are assualt, anti tank, engineer, medic, sniper, spec. ops) can resupply people with ammo kits. So in tight corners of maps, you end up with just grenades being thrown over walls constantly. It just makes the guns in the game feel pointless. Especially with Spec. op class, as his weapons are more close combat style weapons. In this game, there seems to be a bit of an unfair bias towards long range weapons due to map size, and building density, as well as the fact that any tight spots just get naded.
Overall, its a very good game, and I give it 4 minus stars (its better than 3 stars, but out of ten, i would give is 6.5). I haven't played the newer incarnations of this game, and I would really be interested to see if they rectified the problems with this game. However, overall, this is a very good game for the money (I got mine, and all expansions for around 8 pounds).
Thanks for reading
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