Assignment 5 - Getting Started

So I have definitely decided that I'm going to be looking at Team Fortress 2 for the assignment to deconstruct and analyse a game of our choice. 

For me, this is going to be a fun assignment for I certainly have a lot I could talk about... beyond what was discussed in class yesterday. A lot of the design choices behind Team Fortress 2 were very deliberate and serve to make the game enjoyable as well as functional.
I'm going to be making a list to refer to once I get into the research proper.


1. Underlying mechanics

As discussed, Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer team and class based first person shooter, with a very strong emphasis on TEAMWORK. The example cited was how the medic is focused on healing other team mates in order to build ubercharges which will allow the player to grant ten seconds of invincibility to another player and break through choke points (And the fulfillment that results from both players in allowing the rest of their team to take position after they have cleared out enemy players). I will be going more in depth with the other ways that players are made to work together to produce rewarding results both personal and as part of a team

2. Art Style

I am certain that the art style of Team Fortress 2 is another very important aspect to the game, and this ranges from the cartoon style of the graphics making the over the top action that little more believable to the fact that characters and their weapons were deliberately designed to be distinct from one another - to allow the player to identify an enemy player's class as well as the weapon they are carrying even when a large distance seperates them. 

3. Sound

An area I'm not all that sure about researching into, but again... Team Fortress 2 uses sound effectively. To go with visual identification, the game also makes use of sound by giving every weapon a different sound that can help a player work out who they may face as they approach a battle. For example, the engineer's sentry gun constantly beeps and can alert a player to it's presence and adapt their strategy accordingly... it becomes the player's fault for lacking caution if they were to then run straight into the path of said sentry. 

Voice commands could be another area to consider. At a fundamental level, the voice commands in the game allow players to communicate without the use of a microphone and thus give instructions to team mates or alert them to the presence of a sentry or an enemy spy.

I'm tired. I shall remind myself this is just a list that I'll go indepth with at a later date.