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LJ's Steam name is Allakhellboy and he hasn't played any steam games in the past two weeks.

It could be a boring +3 if you tell me your steam name so I can add you. I play TF2 fairly frequently.

I think that mostly depends on whether you like FPS at all or not.

If you don't enjoy the FPS genre period, then I don't see anything about TF2 that is so incredibly novel it will change your mind. It's not like they didn't anything as unique as making an FPS MMO like planetside.

If you enjoy FPS gameplay at all or are thinking of trying the genre out, then I would recommend TF2. I recently talked Makaro into buying that game and the only other FPS experience he had was L4D2. He enjoys is quite a bit.

TF2 is very noob friendly, which is one of it's greatest features. It's possible to install the game, join a server, and pretty much start having fun right away. There's stuff to elarn, but it's not like an RTS game where you have to learn everything firs tand THEN you can play it.

So great noob friendly features are:

1. Class system. Instead of beign some guy who picks up weapons around the map like most FPS games, you start as a specific class. IF you play the "heavy weapons guy" class, then you're a big guy with lots of hp and a minigun who moves slowly and pumps people full of bullets very quickly. You start with everything you can ever do, so there are no weapon spawns to memorize on each map to learn where the best equipment is. Anotehr benefit is that it's very easy to know the type of opponent you are facing. Everyone isn't the same guy with a different weapon, everyone looks very different. The heavy weapons guy is a really big russian dude, and you can tell from very far away who he is and you know what he's going to do to you. The "pyro" is a class in a rubber flame retardant suit and wields a flame thrower; you can't mistake him for anything else. IT's very easy to learn what every type of class does and know who you are facing.

2. It's possible to be effective in a game even if you aren't very good. There are classes that are still very effective at a low skill level. The engineer class is a guy who builds lots of stuff like a turret to defend places, a healing/ammo machine, and teleporters to help people reach the front line. He doesn't need to have twitch skills to contribute to the team. A medic person just follows allies around healing them, and doesn't need to be super good at aiming to be a big help.

3. You know how you died. One of the greatest features for beginners. It can be frustrating to begin in any FPS game because when you are killed you often have no idea what killed you. Was it a sniper from across the map? Was it some guy behind you that you didn't see? Was it a grenade? TF2 fixes this. After every death the camera zooms in on your killer showing you who and where they were.

4. Up close combat. There are snipers in TF2, but it is 1 class out of 9. You spend most of the time killing people and being killed by people who are near you and who you can see.

5. Easy to learn maps. We already discussed how there aren't any weapon spawns to learn on any map. In addition to this since Team fortress 2 is mostly a team game, you can follow your allies. There aren't any free for alls or death matches, so people aren't running in a bunch of different direction. The games are all objective based, which means people will all be running to something. If your on an attack-defend map, you can follow your allies who are all rushing to either attack or defend a point. If you're on a capture the flag map then you follow people towards the enemy flag. There are also signs everywhere directing you toward objectives.



Beyond being new player friendly, I think the game has a lot of style that keeps the atmosphere good. It's humorous and each class has it's own very distinctive personality, which is played out in many of the websites videos about the classes. They're funny just to watch on their own. I like the gameplay a lot because most of the classes offer a very unique experience. A "spy" spends much of his time stealthed or disguised, sneaking around. An engineer sets up camp and builds his base. A sniper is... a sniper. The scout uses his mobility to rush in quick, take out a target, and get out fast. And so on.