Team Fortress 2
Individual Game Mechanics:
Looking
Moving
Jumping
Crouching
Firing
Switching Weapons
Reloading
Spectating
Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first person shooter by Valve Software. We will assume for this exercise that the selection of the character class and team are not part of the actual game mechanics. We will focus on the gameplay once the match has started.
Real-Time Control:
Looking and moving have uninterrupted continuity, every press or release of the movement buttons either starts the player moving or stops within the 100ms limit. The same is true for moving the mouse around to look in different directions. Jumping enforces a severe movement penalty once the player has left the ground, however there is some slight control while airborne so the player still has real-time control over the movement. Crouching, firing, alt-firing, switching weapons and reloading all happen within the 100ms response time with all of them being interruptible animations, for example while reloading you can click to shoot and you will immediately stop reloading to shoot. We can easily say the game has real-time control.
Spatial Simulation:
Team Fortress 2 has simulated space; the player can interact with the terrain and features in several ways. The player cannot pass through walls but they can see and jump through open windows. Doors open and close as the player approaches and there are multiple health and ammo pick ups scattered around the level to collect. A variety of paths through the level to each objective encourages exploration, but concentrates gameplay around certain chokepoints or capture points. And while the winding paths can be confusing, thankfully the levels have signs posted letting the player know where there are supposed to be going.
Polish:
Team Fortress is nicely polished, it does not try to be a realistic shooter game, instead focusing on making gameplay fun and exciting. All the attacks are nicely animated, with most having a noticeable effect (such as the soldier’s rockets leaving a smoking trail, or the demoman’s bombs glowing trail). Weapon fire leaves scorch marks and bullet holes in the terrain and hitting an enemy leaves blood spatter on the surrounding area. Spy’s can cloak, creating a predator like distortion effect, while the medic’s healing gun shoots a stream of red cross symbols at the intended target.
All together the games has real-time control, spatial simulation, and polish. Therefore it successfully creates game feel for the player.
Comments are closed.