On Saturday, I was catching up on my tivo’d Heroes episodes, when I heard the mail slot by my front door open. Like a Pavlovian Dog, as soon as I heard that mail slot sound, I shut down the tv and raced to the mailbox. I was salivating like the big bad wolf going to a pig roast! Sure enough, my white and orange mailer arrived. It wasn’t a red ryder BB gun, but it was the next best thing: The Orange Box! It’s safe to say that I spent the rest of my free time that day playing Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2: What I love and hate about the game after the jump.

What I love: The game has a ton of style that really sets it apart from other multiplayer games on xbox live. The classes look really well done in that 60’s cell shaded style. The classes’ taunts are entertaining, but Demoman’s taunt is outright hilarious. I played primarily as an engineer, scout, demoman, pyro and spy. The Scout was my favorite, followed closely by the pyro, for obvious reasons.

Valve did a nice job on the level design. All of the maps allow these different classes to really shine. For instance, the Scout can use his double jumping ability to access the enemies base in ways that other classes are unable too. Couple this with their blinding speed and you can usually catch a team off guard for an easy quick score. The classes all do things differently and I’m glad to say that all of the classes are really fun to play.
The gameplay controls were exceptionally tight. Especially with the super quick Scout. The online gameplay itself was also pretty tight, except for one thing…

Lag.

What I hate: At this point, lag kills the 16 player match. When I say kill, I mean stops it dead in its tracks. The whole game just stops. It’s really annoying, however, given Valve’s track record, I expect this to be resolved with an update. I just hope it comes sooner, rather than later, as a 16 player match allows for more classes to run around and more fun to be had than a 6 v 6, 12 player match. Really the only part of the game I disliked was the lag, but it is a pretty big problem.

Get your butt in gear Valve. Fix this.

More on the Orange Box will come as I play through it. You’re just gonna have to wait, or buy it yourself, you cheap bastard.

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