Introduction
There’s nothing quite like the end of summer, for gamers. After weeks and months of puzzle games and expansion packs, the games of autumn come out all at once, and short circuit everyone’s time organization and needs. This week’s culprit for distracting the minds of both children and adults worldwide is Team Fortress 2, from Valve software, purveyors of graphics engines and online delivery systems extraordinaire.
  
As the more perceptive readers might have by now surmised, Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to Team Fortress, and they'd be wrong. Team Fortress 2 is the sequel to Team Fortress Classic one of the most popular Half Life total conversion mods of yesteryear, which in turn was a conversion of the original Team Fortress mod for Quake. This game got history (thanks to Layoric for the historical corrections). Just like Counter Strike before it, Team Fortress has gone the commercial route, and is now one of Valve’s AAA top shelf titles. Unlike Counter Strike: Source, however, Team Fortress 2 has received a full makeover in the years it’s been in development, and it is far more than a simple adaptation of the original to the Source engine. It’s a whole new, extremely polished ball game, and today we take a look at the beta run that all Valve Orange Box pre-purchasers have been enjoying for the past week. With screenies. And benchmarks.
Page 01: Introduction
Page 02: Presentation
Page 03: Gameplay
Page 04: Performance
Page 05: Conclusion
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