Team Fortress 2 goes Free to Play!

The strictly online class based FPS shooter Team Fortress 2 has been a quite popular game in the four years that have passed since its release, and today, surprisingly it was announced that it is now completely free! This news comes with the "Über Update" for the game which (also free of course) features a number of new items, a new map and other tidbits which I have shamefully not updated myself completely on.

What I will say though is that Team Fortress 2 is one heck of a game and it is almost sad to see it join the Free to Play market as many of its brethren are of questionable quality. Perhaps TF2 will change that view?

For anyone who hasn't played Team Fortress 2, here's a quick rundown. Playing as either a Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy Weapons Guy, Medic, Spy, Sniper or Engineer, help your team beat the opposition in online objective based battles. The objectives are typically based around capturing or defending key locations or Intel (CTF), or having one or both teams trying to escort a bomb cart to their locations.

All classes play wildly different and also have a wealth of options for loadouts that slowly unlock as you play. Or if you are not the patient type you can buy whatever you want from the TF2 store through microtransactions. In all but a very few cases though, the different loadouts are not straight upgrades as they come with sometimes drastic changes to damage done or taken, or plainly change the way the class plays completely. As an example I would use the Demoman who can swap out his grenade launcher for a claymore sword and a targe shield, which lets him charge enemies and return health while increasing his damage for each decapitation. As opposed to lobbing grenades all over the place as he would normally do. Or you could have your medic use a healing gun that when fully charged gives your target guaranteed crits instead of invulnerability, the difference there should be obvious. Or you could give your Heavy Weapons Guy a Sandvich to eat instead of his secondary Shotgun.. The amount of customization should be apparent by now and adds greatly to the already varied and (amazingly) fairly balanced gameplay.

There are just way too many weapons and things to say about the game's classes and weapons, so I'll just say...

Its free, be good to yourself and get Team Fortress 2 right away!

OH YEAH:

I guess some introductions are in order...

Meet the Team:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiV_X15OWYM

(Copyrights wont let me embed the video. Clicky, go 720p and enjoy 10 minutes of glory)

... and  the medic:

 and the spy:

Edit: Just a quick update on the update. You can indeed get the game for free now and it servers are bustling with new and returning players, almost enough to make an old Heavy teary eyed *sniffs* However, there are currently some problems with the master server list, meaning many will not be able to get fresh server lists for the time being. The quick play and regular server lists are thus broken for now (fix incoming) but your favourites tab still works (not that this helps a completely new player or anyone with an empty favourites list).


Edit on the edit of the update on the update!


Seems the server list is working again so should be go for all! Merry gibbings o/