The Twos

Team Fortress 2
Valve's The Orange Box is only a few more weeks from being released (its due out in early October for the PC and Xbox 360 and a few weeks later for the PS3). At the event, Valve showed off an Xbox 360 version of one of th e five games included in The Orange Box; the long, long awaited Team Fortress 2 (the game will also have Half-Life 2, HL2 Episodes 1 and 1 and Portal). This update to the classic multiplayer shooter (that began as a Quake mod before being made into a Half-Life 1 based title) has one of the most unique art styles of any shooter; basically what if The Incredibles was merged with a shooting game. However the game is more than just a remake. The gameplay retains the basics of the original but adds a number of new elements.

We played on a remake of the classic Team Fortress map 2Forts (it now looks like a cross between a farm and a high-tech spy facility. Instead of capturing a flag each team has to capture and bring back an "intelligence" suitcase (there will be other multiplayer modes). Team Fortress 2 has nine character classes, separated into offensive, defensive and support roles. The offensive roles are the scout (much faster and good for capturing suitcases), the pyro (with a massive flamethrower) and the soldier (with his rocket launcher). Defensive roles are the Heavy Weapons Guy (slow moving but with the huge mini-gun), the demoman (with grenades) and the sniper (self explanatory). The support roles are the engineer (whipping out the self powered turrets), the medic (healing teammates and even making one invulnerable for a short period) and the spy (with his Predator style cloak and his ability to disguise as any one of the enemy team's classes).

Our brief gameplay session with the Xbox 360 version brough back a lot of memories of playing the original Quake mod and the Team Fortress Classic version in Half-Life 1. All of the character classes seem to be very well balanced. The scout can move fast but doesn't have a lot of health and has low firepower from his scattergun. The engineer is a lot of fun to play if you like knowing your turrets can keep an entire enemy team at bay with a well place structure. The spy is our favorite at this point; you can effectively sneak into the enemy base to steal the intelligence suitcase without anyone knowing; however once you have the case you can't use your abilities anymore.

Team Fortress 2 played well on the Xbox 360 and looked terrific during our sesson. We think the PC version will look even better. We were told that more maps for the game are already in the works for release sometime after The Orange Box ships to stores (they will be free for PC users but it's still not decided if the Xbox 360 or PS3 extra maps will involve a charge). Team Fortress 2 looks to be the most popular of all the games in The Orange Box and we think both new players and old time TF fans will be pleased.

Army of Two
EA's Montreal studio is busy putting the finishing touches on this two player co-op based shooter that's based in part on real mercenary teams. We got to see the game at E3 a couple of months ago but at the EA press event we got a look at a couple more levels, including a section of the game that takes place in a flooded Miami (thanks to a hurricane) where your two mercs pilot a hovercraft through the water filled streets and then later take out a series of RPG armed enemies while riding on a rail tram car.

Army of Two's two player game design is looking to be pretty unique as each is dependent on the other to work. There's no cowboy-lone wolf stuff here; the two player motif is paramount as you attack foes while your buddy (either human or AI) sneaks around unseen to take out enemies or accomplish other goals. It goes without saying that reviving each other when the other team member is shot down is also important. The game uses the Unreal Engine 3 tech and Army of Two's tough and gritty character models for the two team members are highly detailed and just plain mean looking.


Army of Two is aiming to be the ultimate co-op game and it looks like EA Montreal is poised to accomplish this. Look for the game to be released for the Xbox 360, PC and PS3 this fall.