A couple of weeks ago, we had a little fun with the latest Battlefield game by recommending some shooters you should play instead. With Call Of Duty 4: Part 3 out next week it's time to take a stab at the Modern Warfare series. Apparently, Call of Duty fanboys…I mean, “players,” feel that a game becomes obsolete once it hits the one-year mark. How else do you explain the outrageous sale numbers with each yearly Call of Duty release? I know it might be hard, but instead of answering the latest "Call", why not play a shooter that was released in the far-gone year of 2007? This shooter is Valve’s Team Fortress 2, and it was described as “The most fun you can have online” by PC Gamer for a reason (or two…or three…or…).
While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will cost you 60 George
Washingtons, Team Fortress 2 is free. Yes, free. If you own a computer (PC or Mac) that is up to 2007
standards, there’s really no reason that you shouldn’t have this game installed
on your hard drive.
Team Fortress 2 has hats. This extremely vital gameplay aspect is
clearly absent from Modern Warfare 3. How a game developer does not include such an important
thing as hats is beyond me. Hats set you above every non-hat wearing player on
the server, truly the mark of a gamer who is dedicated to their game. These
hats provide you with performance boosts, such as…well, they just look cool!
Where else can you see a huge minigun-wielding Soviet with an Elvis hairdo?
Distinct character personalities? Yep, Team
Fortress 2 has it too. Besides the different play styles of the nine
classes, every character is full of charisma. The giant Heavy, who acts like a
child, has an obsession toward his gun (which he even gives a name), and just
can’t stop eating his Sandvich. The egoistical Scout talks a lot of trash, even
though he is the smallest person on the team. You could come up with unlimited
descriptions for these characters.
Modern Warfare 3 pits you against
terrorists (*yawn*) battling in the near future (wake me up when you’re
finished). While Team Fortress 2 doesn’t necessarily have a storyline (although
countless Youtube users would beg to differ), it is set
during the Cold War era. You will see opposing bases have nuclear warheads
pointed at each other, and even a mode where you must transport a bomb (in the
shape of an atomic bomb) to the enemy’s base.
It wouldn’t be a shooter without weapons,
and Team Fortress 2 has a large variety of them. While Modern Warfare 3 has countless
nondescript weapon names (G36C? M16A4? What is this gibberish?), Team
Fortress 2’s weapons are as unique as the characters themselves. You can mow
down cowards with the Natascha minigun, blast away enemies with the
Force-A-Nature shotgun, or even force enemies to bleed out with the Southern
Hospitality blade-wrench.
Team Fortress 2 is one of those games
where you can tell that the developers had fun creating it. Actually, “had”
isn’t an accurate word. I should say that the developers are having fun with this game,
because they frequently update it with new content, even four years after its
release. If you want to play another status-quo game, check out Modern
Warfare 3.
I’ll be busy trying out new hats in Team Fortress 2. Oh, and did I mention
it’s free to play?
Check back with us tomorrow for another alternative to Modern Warfare 3.