Team Fortress 2 is the greatest game I have ever played in my entire life.

Yes that's a bold statement, but it's a very true one. My play time speaks for itself. It is the reason I created a Steam account 8 years ago. It is the reason I have nearly 200 friends on my friends list. It is the reason I have a few thousand dollars worth of goofy virtual hats. This game literally took over almost half of my life.

I don't expect that most people will have the same reaction that I did and VERY few people will sink the time, money, and effort that I have into this game but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I did and I don't regret a single bit of it.

Nearly every single facet of this game is a masterpiece in its category. The gameplay is one of the most balanced and best examples of "easy to learn hard to master" I've ever seen. The weapons are crafted to make every visual and sound create a permanent feedback loop of serotonin. The music, performed by the fantastic Valve Studio Orchestra, creates an atmosphere so reflective of all features of the game that other studios can only dream of having a soundtrack as profoundly awesome as TF2's. The in-game economy is literally the subject of TED talks (https://youtu.be/w-I6Qn56QWI) for how reflective it is of real life counterparts. The lore, as shared through voice lines, in-game events, and a web comic series is vastly deep and entertaining. We are astronomically lucky to have a game in such a (generally) polished state.

Believe me, the game has flaws, but most, if not all, of them come from the game's publisher, Valve. Valve has left this game in the dust. Yes, it's old, but it still has a very active and growing fanbase that practically give Valve free money whenever a crumb of content is pushed into the game. TF2 has been so starved for updates, we haven't gotten a major content update in nearly 4 years. The game has been reduced to semi-annual lootbox releases containing new hats and rare items to be obtained with real money. If Valve actually cared about this game, who knows how much better it could be come? Additionally, if you haven't played TF2 yet it's probably because A) you're new to computer gaming, or B) you've heard about the hacker bot crisis currently going on. For a little over a year, bots with hacks have infiltrated games and caused damage ranging from crashing entire servers, to kicking innocent players, to auto aim insta killing all players on the enemy team. This is horrible and the developers of these bots are in no way blameless, but the people responsible for the bots ongoing activity in my eyes are Valve, who have put in as little effort as possible to address this issue. They removed new players abilities to speak, which didn't do much as bots could still play, cheat, and harass other users via vote kicking. Other than that, not much has been done to stop the bots from ruining such a precious game. Whether or not anything will ever be done, I don't know, but TF2's community has done all they can to find alternative ways to play without botting issues. Regardless, if you decide you want to start playing this game, it is very important that you understand that you will be dealing with an incompetent company that's not even greedy as much as it is lazy.

With that out of the way, I want to thank you for taking the time to look into TF2. I genuinely hope you stick around and at least try it out. Hell, maybe it'll take you on as much of a ride as it did for me. Sure it might be lame for a lot of your childhood memories and moments you've had with friends took place on a video game from 2007, but honestly I don't care. I love TF2, and though one of these days I'll launch the game for the last time, I don't think I can ever forget the impact it's had on my life.

10 out of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 10

Team Fortress 2 is the greatest game I have ever played in my entire life. Yes that's a bold statement, but it's a very true one. My play time speaks for itself. It is the reason I created a Steam account 8 years ago. It is the reason I have nearly 200 friends on my friends list. It is the reason I have a few thousand dollars worth of goofy virtual hats. This game literally took over almost half of my life. I don't expect that most people will have the same reaction that I did and VERY few people will sink the time, money, and effort that I have into this game but goddammit I did and I don't regret a single bit of it. Nearly every single facet of this game is a masterpiece in its category. The gameplay is one of the most balanced and best examples of "easy to learn hard to master" I've ever seen. The weapons are crafted to make every visual and sound create a permanent feedback loop of serotonin. The music, performed by the fantastic Valve Studio Orchestra, creates an atmosphere so reflective of all features of the game that other studios can only dream of having a soundtrack as profoundly awesome as TF2's. The in-game economy is literally the subject of TED talks (https://youtu.be/w-I6Qn56QWI) for how reflective it is of real life counterparts. The lore, as shared through voice lines, in-game events, and a web comic series is vastly deep and entertaining. We are astronomically lucky to have a game in such a (generally) polished state. Believe me, the game has flaws, but most, if not all, of them come from the game's publisher, Valve. Valve has left this game in the dust. Yes, it's old, but it still has a very active and growing fanbase that practically give Valve free money whenever a crumb of content is pushed into the game. TF2 has been so starved for updates, we haven't gotten a major content update in nearly 4 years. The game has been reduced to semi-annual lootbox releases containing new hats and rare items to be obtained with real money. If Valve actually cared about this game, who knows how much better it could be come? Additionally, if you haven't played TF2 yet it's probably because A) you're new to computer gaming, or B) you've heard about the hacker bot crisis currently going on. For a little over a year, bots with hacks have infiltrated games and caused damage ranging from crashing entire servers, to kicking innocent players, to auto aim insta killing all players on the enemy team. This is horrible and the developers of these bots are in no way blameless, but the people responsible for the bots ongoing activity in my eyes are Valve, who have put in as little effort as possible to address this issue. They removed new players abilities to speak, which didn't do much as bots could still play, cheat, and harass other users via vote kicking. Other than that, not much has been done to stop the bots from ruining such a precious game. Whether or not anything will ever be done, I don't know, but TF2's community has done all they can to find alternative ways to play without botting issues. Regardless, if you decide you want to start playing this game, it is very important that you understand that you will be dealing with an incompetent company that's not even greedy as much as it is lazy. With that out of the way, I want to thank you for taking the time to look into TF2. I genuinely hope you stick around and at least try it out. Hell, maybe it'll take you on as much of a ride as it did for me. Sure it might be lame for a lot of your childhood memories and moments you've had with friends took place on a video game from 2007, but honestly I don't care. I love TF2, and though one of these days I'll launch the game for the last time, I don't think I can ever forget the impact it's had on my life. 10 out of fucking 10