Team Fortress 2. No.. really.

[Cor]

2:26 Valve's Gabe Newell is now on the stage to show us an updated trailer for Half-Life 2: Episode 2. There are some new images of a strider and smaller walker-like enemies decimating a group of human fighters in the forest. Otherwise, this is pretty much the same trailer we saw at the end of Episode 1.

Newell talks about getting players out of City 17 in the next episode (duh), as well as giving them new weapons and new enemies to use them against. Looks like the Source engine will be getting a lot of upgrades in Ep 2. A "cinematic physics" system is coming from former Weta Digital employee Gray Horsfield, along with new particle systems, better foliage, and more.

2:34 Newell's gone on to discuss the episodic-gaming business model. Short version: Valve likes it. It will even let them explore new types of gameplay in a new upcoming game called Portal (which seems to be a working title). It looks like they took the portal concept from Prey and slapped it on a gun--you can shoot them into walls and floors to solve all kinds of crazy puzzles, teleporting objects around and stuff. Looks like a total mindbender.

TEAM FORTRESS 2. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? Hey, they're still making it! It's got a totally exaggerated, crazy art style now. Looks a little like Spy vs. Spy or No One Lives Forever, kind of a '60s spy feel. It's going to be the included multiplayer mode in Episode 2! Class-based, etc. You know the drill. Great news for shooter fans. We all thought this game was dead years ago.

And hey, Half-Life 2: Ep 2 will ship for Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously with the PC. The console games will basically include all of the HL2 back content, so you'll get everything on there that you can get on the PC. Who expected all this Valve news?

Source -- http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6153984.html

Took them long enough. Quite curious to see how this turns out.

[Zefah]

This one was up there with Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever. Lets hope its good. The new Source updates sound pretty cool as well.

[Cybsled]

Is it anything like the old design that Battlefield 1942 beat them to the punch on, though? I know they had plans for tanks and whatnot originally. Makes me wonder if TF2 will just be TF: Source ;p

[Akileese]

I can read it all I want. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Tuco]

I hope it's unrealistic in the same way TF/TFC was unrealistic. Rocket jumping and all. I'm tired of realistic war games where two players will meet, jump on their bellies then shoot. I want some bunny hopping, rocket jumping goodness.

Man this makes me want to play TFC again.

[Dyscord]

I miss being the flame trooper. I never killed anyone, but I could piss soooooo many people off by chucking flame grenades into their respawn.

Demolitions was the way to go though. It owned setting demo charges int he middle of a battle area and people would just ignore them because they took a minute or so to go off. Well, ignore them till they detonate at a seemingly random time kiling everyone.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Tuco

I hope it's unrealistic in the same way TF/TFC was unrealistic. Rocket jumping and all. I'm tired of realistic war games where two players will meet, jump on their bellies then shoot. I want some bunny hopping, rocket jumping goodness.

Man this makes me want to play TFC again.

Yup, that's the kind of shit that made TF so fucking awesome. Cheesy snipers, rocket jumping, juping all the over the gd place. And I agree, this makes me jones for TFC.

[Luthair]

Originally Posted by Soygen

Yup, that's the kind of shit that made TF so fucking awesome. Cheesy snipers, rocket jumping, juping all the over the gd place. And I agree, this makes me jones for TFC.

TFC wasn't as good as the original imo!

[Cor]

New article from ign - http://pc.ign.com/articles/718/718495p1.html

Team Fortress 2 Revealed
Valve's other shooter not only isn't dead -- it's super-spy sassy.
by David Adams and Chris Roper
July 13, 2006 - Speaking at EA's annual summer press event, Valve's Gabe Newell revealed -- at long last -- Team Fortress 2. Not only did Newell confirm that the title will be included as the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, but a first glimpse of the class-based shooter showed a surprisingly stylized look reminiscent of campy 60s spy films -- an approach used in titles such as No One Lives Forever and XIII.



Just prior to announcing the game, Newell said that one of the major advantages to working with episodic content and the like is that the team is able to take numerous risks that it normally might not on a multi-year project, like a wildly unique art style. Team Fortress 2 features just this, what with its characters looking like a cross between an action figure and a cartoon character. They're obviously 3D, but their textures are draw flat, giving them something of a mix between a plastic and hand-drawn look.

On top of this, the characters have been designed in a very exaggerated way, be it a ginormous mustache, oversized arms, pencil thin bodies or whatever. In other words, Team Fortress 2 looks nothing like what we've seen before, and fortunately that's an extremely good thing.

The teaser for the multiplayer-centric game focused almost solely on its nine character classes, which include the Spy, Heavy, Scout, Demolitions, Engineer, Medic, Sniper, Soldier and Pyro. Each was basically given a few seconds to mug for the camera before we got a few quick composite photos at the end before the logo splashed again. While it wasn't gameplay footage, what we did see was all done in-engine, though not live.

This was just a first peek -- stay tuned for more on Team Fortress 2 as news comes in

Looking forward to see some pics/vids of it in action.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Luthair

TFC wasn't as good as the original imo!

Yeah, I played original TF more than any other incarnation of it. Original and sometimes I would play on MegaTF servers(those had some of the craziest mods on them).

[RiskyChris]

God I want to play TFC more than anything right now. I hope this is true!

(2 foot diameter red dots for the big win).

[Lucificate]

Original TF is the best game I have ever played online, really what got me into online gaming as a wee lad. I hope this turns out well, I remember way back when it was just a rumor that they were workong on a TF2 long before it was ever even announced and Id love for the damn thing to be worth playing.

[Hatorade]

I was so freaking good at medic concussion flag boosting it was insane...damm I miss that.

[Malakie Torsade]

Holy Hell, much <3 for TF. I loved TF... it was the only reason I bought Quake. I remember finding servers with 300-350 pings and thinking "Damn, this is so fast!"

Honestly, I would like if they get rid of cheesy shit like RJ'ing and conc jumping. While I'm totally sick of realistic war FPS, I would really like to finally play a TF game without people abusing the physics. Let those people play on "Mega Super Ultra TF" servers or something. :P

I miss being the flame trooper.

I swear, they never could balance Pyros right. First they sucked. Then they were bad ass. Then they sucked ass again. But yeah, somtimes I played one just to annoy the hell out of the other team. My personal favorites were sniper, Eng, Spy, and Axe-only medic, though.

[Jabberwhacky]

I think one of my favorite parts of TFC was that the snipers had that little red dot that showed up for everyone. It was really daunting when you'd turn a corner and catch a glimpse of the dot and realize someone was staring down the barrel of a rifle, waiting to blow your head off.

Stolen from VE3D: