TF2 has not been receiving as much attention as Black & White and Halo recently but you do not have to go far to find plenty of previews. Briefly then, Team Fortress 2 is being made to be the ultimate multiplayer team game. Incredibly varied classes, weapons, skills and more besides forms the very core of TF2. The maps and game modes make up the rest of the game. However, (warning: well used cliché coming up) as always there is so much more to expect.

Sir, Yes Sir!

For starters, Roger Wilco is built into TF2 making it extremely easy to set up communications with your team, the spectators or even the opposite team if you so desire, Valve have total lip-synching included within TF2, say an 'oooh' sound and your characters mouth will move accordingly adding that much more realism. Then we get the vehicles, all of which are apparently driveable, these range from the gorgeous looking apache helicopters to the bog-standard Armoured Personnel Carriers. Valve are going to have to get the balance right between running around and hopping into a vehicle, taking over the controls and driving about in a rather "simple" realistic manner. We are also expecting a wide range of different game modes in TF2 including basic capture the flag levels but also multiple objectives and multiple maps playing one after each other in a mini-campaign set up by the server.

Team Fortress 2 is really set to revolutionise the first-person multiplayer scene with brand new (I really mean brand new) features. The previous features mentioned have already been implemented in some game or other, but the new feature I'm talking about involves the whole team. First off we have the commander, probably the clan leader or 'the lucky git' in public servers, this position enables the player to give other players real-time commands from a true RTS view of the battlefield, the commander can also tell the engineer where to build certain buildings and cameras so the commander can view the battlefield in 3D. The commander can also come out of the HQ and walk/run/fight with the rest of the team, if around players the commander gives them a bonus such as weapon accuracy because the commander is an influential character. This is just a snippet of the whole feature and to describe it fully would be to take up far too much space (and probably bore you to death…).

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