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This review was submitted by Steve Blake. If you’ve played Team Fortress 2, or just want to ask Steven more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Team Fortress 2: The Engineer Update (PC)
You must have heard of TF2 by now, so I’ll keep this part short. TF2 is: multiplayer, an FPS, class based, and topped off with a unique visual style. The engineer’s role is setting up three types of building: sentries, which target and kill the enemy; dispensers, which provide health and ammunition to allies; and teleporters, which get your teammates to the frontlines on the double. Clearly then, the engineer plays a vital role. The engineer’s class update was released a month ago and it’s time to decide if Valve hit their target.
Loved
The Wrangler: This is the only weapon I have selected to be a mainstay in my class set up. The wrangler gives the engineer something he has lacked for a long time: versatility in sentry placement. Usually limited to a pre-set range of detection, the sentry can now be controlled using the wrangler, meaning it is able to shoot further, opening up a multitude of options when choosing where to put your sentry. This ability has been perfectly balanced with a cooldown time and inability to repair your sentry while firing.
Pumping Iron: The engineer has been hitting the gym and can now haul his fully upgraded buildings across the map. It fits the profile of an engineer perfectly where efficiency > backache. After an initial negative reaction, I discovered Valve’s true intention of this update. This ability allows the engineer to break many situations that would otherwise be boring stalemates, creating a more fluid game.
Hated
Gung ho Gunslinger: The mini sentry was a great idea in concept, creating an offensive engineer. The reality is the gunslinger defeats the purpose of an offensive engineer. That purpose being to secure a frontline, giving your team a fall back position. The mini sentry is too easily overwhelmed to fulfill this duty. After extensive testing, I wasn’t impressed. Perhaps if the ability to move buildings hadn’t been introduced it could find a niche.
No justice to be found: Rewarding the destruction of your sentry gun with critical shots is a poor concession prize. It seems obvious to me that this weapon was conceived with the mini-sentry in mind, perhaps a contributing factor as to why I hate it so. Even in ideal conditions, saving up 35 critical hits before your sentry is destroyed, how far can an engineer expect to go offensively with a shotgun that only chambers three rounds?
No doubt there will be TF2 fans lined up around the block donning a staggering array of hats to state their deep love for the gunslinger and the frontier justice. However I cannot objectively praise these weapons. I feel this update was a tad of a letdown compared to past updates. Needless to say, these updates are provided free of charge. So at the end of the day, complaints should be filed directly to your paper shredder and instead praise should be given to Valve for three years of excellent community support.
Reviewed by: Steven Blake
You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 500 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.
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