TF2 Study "I never really was on your side!"

Ahh. Team Fortress 2. Definition of FUN. What a great game. The things I like about this game are:

1) Colors: They really drove home the blue vs red. They did such a great job with the textures and feel of each side. The cool vs warm colors. The steel mill look vs the farm look. I love it. Too many games are super desaturated these days. They look good in their own right, but I'm just happy to see some colors!

2) Simple = Fun: Valve did a great job balancing out the classes. Game play for TF2 is very simple. It is a clear case of less is more and it really works for the game. Their decision to take out grenades for TF2 was a great decision simply because it added another element to the game.

3)Character Development: Oh man. I get excited watching the "Meet the Team" videos. Each character has so much personality! My personal favorite characters are the Engineer and the Pyro.

What I'd like to see (besides the new content in April) is an adjustment to how the Engineers points are accumulated. I think they are not getting enough points to provide incentive to play them.

My personal study into the game has yielded a lot of hand painted textures. Lower resolution maps with higher polycount objects. My favorite part of my TF2 map making and asset creation is the ability to give an inanimate object a personality or characteristic feel.

I just want to take this time out and reiterate on how important FUN is to the player. It is important to gamers. Too much complex stuff going on in a game can really pull away from the FUN aspect. I think Valve did a great job explaining this at GDC 2008 during the portal talk. If it wasnt absolutely necessary and fun, they axed it. Guess what!? Portal was fun too.