I?m trying something a bit new here, so I?m going to review the Heavy Update for Team Fortress 2.
First off, let?s take a look at the achievements. Almost every single one of them is a communist joke of some kind, from Iron Kurtain to Stalin the Kart. Those that aren?t are generally Russian jokes of some kind, like Rasputin, which you get by being bludgeoned, shot, hit by explosives, and lit on fire in one life. The achievements are better than the previous ones in that they are somewhat sensible for a Heavy to actually get in the course of normal play. Whereas ubering Scouts for Medics was, at best, a bad choice, most of these make sense. Eating Sandviches, killing Scouts, killing cloaked Spies, killing people for hurting your Medic, all that stuff just fits the theme of the Heavy. Some of the achievements are kind of bad (killing people underwater is always dumb, as are achievements based on luck and using your melee weapon) but there are more than enough achievements that you can get through normal play to unlock all the weapons, so overall the achievements are the best yet by far.
Now let?s talk weapons. The Heavy?s new primary weapon is Natascha, another Russian named minigun. It replaces his generic minigun, which has no special effects. It slows enemies down by 50% on hit for a short time and deals 75% of the normal minigun's damage, which is actually very noticable. It also sounds completely badass, but generally being a badass doesn?t help you in combat. For the life of me, I can?t get why Valve thought this was a good weapon unlock. Granted, it isn?t worse than the normal minigun, but it?s just not fitting with their theme of making the Heavy less reliant on Medics. After all, he?s now dealing out less damage and being shot at longer, and this only helps him against Pyros, which weren?t that big of a deal for any Heavy that could aim. I mean, in arena mode, it?s great against pesky Scouts, but in any game mode where dying and health packs are fairly common, the loss of combat ability in exchange for being able to wound Scouts and Pyros slightly more is just not going to separate the Heavy from his Medic any more than a pop up ad is going to prevent us from watching Zero Punctuation. I mean, sure, some people might get pissed off and leave because of that, but anybody smart realizes that I?m overextending this metaphor Zero Punctuation (and Medics) are still great.
Now for the knockout punch of the group, the KGB. Yes, another communist pun. It actually stands for the Killer Gloves of Boxing, which are the heavies new comical melee weapon, replacing his bare fists. They punch slower (about 80% speed), but they give you 100% crits with any of your weapons for 5 seconds if you kill somebody with them. The problem with that is that, compared to other classes, the Heavy's melee weapons are the most useless of them all.. I mean, sure, if you got behind the enemy you could go on a killing spree after killing the Medic at the back of their group, especially on payload, but I then point you to the Spy class, because anybody who can sneak behind the enemy as a Heavy is either playing idiots or a natural born Spy. It doesn?t fit Valve?s plan to detach the Heavy from the Medic either, but the melee weapon isn?t ever useful anyway. Unlike other melee weapons, it isn?t much of an upgrade, since it fires slower in exchange for an upgrade that, more than likely, will not get you any real bonus. I guess it?s useful in comical Heavy sudden death melee brawls, but it?s a melee weapon, so it?s not ever going to be that useful in actual play anyway.
And for our delicious weapon finale, I present to you the Sandvich (now with new meat!) The Sandvich is a weapon that allows the heavy to eat his sandvich over the course of four seconds, healing him for 120 (rougly one third) of his health. It?s a replacement for the Heavy?s shotgun. The shotgun deals good damage at close range (no more than his minigun, though) and is suprisingly decent as a medium range alternative to the minigun, because he is more manueverable with the shotgun and it does comparable damage. At long range, the shotgun is close to useless, but I bet that was pretty obvious. The sandvich is pretty great as an alternative. It gives away his slight combat functionality with the shotgun (which is quite useful at times) in exchange for the ability to go around without a Medic and be fairly effective. It?s especially useful in arena mode, where you can practically become a hit and run class by using this to heal whereas other classes cannot. It even comically heals you in bursts of 30, which was pretty neat, in my opinion (instead of just healing 120 at the end of it all), and heals anybody who runs over it. The Sandvich is funny as a weapon, unique, and overall the only one of the new Heavy weapons I genuinely liked through and through.
Speaking of not liking much, let?s talk about CP_Steel. It?s not that I don?t like the map, it?s just that it isn?t much besides making a community map official, and, while I commend Valve for encouraging the TF2 modding community, it doesn?t really feel like part of the update so much as saying ?Play this map, it?s better than anything we could come up with!?
Badwater Basin is the new Payload map, and I have to say I can never decide if I like it or not. Any location in the map can become a total roadblock, which is great for defenders, except that anywhere that isn?t a roadblock is the offensive team steamrolling them. I mean, it?s great how the defenders have to set up well and the offense has to attack well to get either way, but at least in Payload when two teams of nearly equal force struck each other, it was a slow moving clash for the ages with the cart constantly teetering near the edge of that next point. Now it?s either like the stall to get the cart moving in the first place at any random point on the map or it?s just a steamrolling until the next somewhat random choke point. I still don?t know if it?s good or bad, because the team that is slightly better is getting a huge advantage, and I guess my opinion is mostly dependent on my mood and what team I?m on.
Now for more likable affairs, let?s talk about Meet the Sandvich. It was short, it was funny, and that?s about it. It could have been made in Gary?s mod with the official voice actors, except I don?t think the Sandvich existed in Gary?s mod back then. It was funny and all, but seeing a Sandvich just sitting in the fridge the whole time wasn?t exactly worthy of a cinematography award. I liked it, but I think more effort could have been made.
Finally, one of the most likable things about the update for me was Arena mode. A lot of people hated it from the start, but I gave it a try and I like it. Granted, the arbitrary and unchangeable ?one third of players, give or take, must sit out every round? rule sucks, especially when you get 7 backstabs in an 8 on 8 match and the only guy on your team not sitting out was the guy who jumped off the cliff (that really happened to me, by the way.) Everything else about it, though, is pure gold. It?s fun, it?s frantic, and it gives the Sandvich, Medic?s, and Scouts even more use (besides the Medic, all of those were only situational in other modes). The new maps are also great (especially Lumberyard, which shows Valve actually can make maps that aren?t desert?s) and the updates of the old maps aren?t bad either.
Overall, the Heavy update was good fun. It?s free and you have to download it to keep playing anyway, so go get it and then notice that the aforementioned necessity of the update makes this review as worthless in terms of recommending something as a review about being a carbon based life form.
First off, let?s take a look at the achievements. Almost every single one of them is a communist joke of some kind, from Iron Kurtain to Stalin the Kart. Those that aren?t are generally Russian jokes of some kind, like Rasputin, which you get by being bludgeoned, shot, hit by explosives, and lit on fire in one life. The achievements are better than the previous ones in that they are somewhat sensible for a Heavy to actually get in the course of normal play. Whereas ubering Scouts for Medics was, at best, a bad choice, most of these make sense. Eating Sandviches, killing Scouts, killing cloaked Spies, killing people for hurting your Medic, all that stuff just fits the theme of the Heavy. Some of the achievements are kind of bad (killing people underwater is always dumb, as are achievements based on luck and using your melee weapon) but there are more than enough achievements that you can get through normal play to unlock all the weapons, so overall the achievements are the best yet by far.
Now let?s talk weapons. The Heavy?s new primary weapon is Natascha, another Russian named minigun. It replaces his generic minigun, which has no special effects. It slows enemies down by 50% on hit for a short time and deals 75% of the normal minigun's damage, which is actually very noticable. It also sounds completely badass, but generally being a badass doesn?t help you in combat. For the life of me, I can?t get why Valve thought this was a good weapon unlock. Granted, it isn?t worse than the normal minigun, but it?s just not fitting with their theme of making the Heavy less reliant on Medics. After all, he?s now dealing out less damage and being shot at longer, and this only helps him against Pyros, which weren?t that big of a deal for any Heavy that could aim. I mean, in arena mode, it?s great against pesky Scouts, but in any game mode where dying and health packs are fairly common, the loss of combat ability in exchange for being able to wound Scouts and Pyros slightly more is just not going to separate the Heavy from his Medic any more than a pop up ad is going to prevent us from watching Zero Punctuation. I mean, sure, some people might get pissed off and leave because of that, but anybody smart realizes that I?m overextending this metaphor Zero Punctuation (and Medics) are still great.
Now for the knockout punch of the group, the KGB. Yes, another communist pun. It actually stands for the Killer Gloves of Boxing, which are the heavies new comical melee weapon, replacing his bare fists. They punch slower (about 80% speed), but they give you 100% crits with any of your weapons for 5 seconds if you kill somebody with them. The problem with that is that, compared to other classes, the Heavy's melee weapons are the most useless of them all.. I mean, sure, if you got behind the enemy you could go on a killing spree after killing the Medic at the back of their group, especially on payload, but I then point you to the Spy class, because anybody who can sneak behind the enemy as a Heavy is either playing idiots or a natural born Spy. It doesn?t fit Valve?s plan to detach the Heavy from the Medic either, but the melee weapon isn?t ever useful anyway. Unlike other melee weapons, it isn?t much of an upgrade, since it fires slower in exchange for an upgrade that, more than likely, will not get you any real bonus. I guess it?s useful in comical Heavy sudden death melee brawls, but it?s a melee weapon, so it?s not ever going to be that useful in actual play anyway.
And for our delicious weapon finale, I present to you the Sandvich (now with new meat!) The Sandvich is a weapon that allows the heavy to eat his sandvich over the course of four seconds, healing him for 120 (rougly one third) of his health. It?s a replacement for the Heavy?s shotgun. The shotgun deals good damage at close range (no more than his minigun, though) and is suprisingly decent as a medium range alternative to the minigun, because he is more manueverable with the shotgun and it does comparable damage. At long range, the shotgun is close to useless, but I bet that was pretty obvious. The sandvich is pretty great as an alternative. It gives away his slight combat functionality with the shotgun (which is quite useful at times) in exchange for the ability to go around without a Medic and be fairly effective. It?s especially useful in arena mode, where you can practically become a hit and run class by using this to heal whereas other classes cannot. It even comically heals you in bursts of 30, which was pretty neat, in my opinion (instead of just healing 120 at the end of it all), and heals anybody who runs over it. The Sandvich is funny as a weapon, unique, and overall the only one of the new Heavy weapons I genuinely liked through and through.
Speaking of not liking much, let?s talk about CP_Steel. It?s not that I don?t like the map, it?s just that it isn?t much besides making a community map official, and, while I commend Valve for encouraging the TF2 modding community, it doesn?t really feel like part of the update so much as saying ?Play this map, it?s better than anything we could come up with!?
Badwater Basin is the new Payload map, and I have to say I can never decide if I like it or not. Any location in the map can become a total roadblock, which is great for defenders, except that anywhere that isn?t a roadblock is the offensive team steamrolling them. I mean, it?s great how the defenders have to set up well and the offense has to attack well to get either way, but at least in Payload when two teams of nearly equal force struck each other, it was a slow moving clash for the ages with the cart constantly teetering near the edge of that next point. Now it?s either like the stall to get the cart moving in the first place at any random point on the map or it?s just a steamrolling until the next somewhat random choke point. I still don?t know if it?s good or bad, because the team that is slightly better is getting a huge advantage, and I guess my opinion is mostly dependent on my mood and what team I?m on.
Now for more likable affairs, let?s talk about Meet the Sandvich. It was short, it was funny, and that?s about it. It could have been made in Gary?s mod with the official voice actors, except I don?t think the Sandvich existed in Gary?s mod back then. It was funny and all, but seeing a Sandvich just sitting in the fridge the whole time wasn?t exactly worthy of a cinematography award. I liked it, but I think more effort could have been made.
Finally, one of the most likable things about the update for me was Arena mode. A lot of people hated it from the start, but I gave it a try and I like it. Granted, the arbitrary and unchangeable ?one third of players, give or take, must sit out every round? rule sucks, especially when you get 7 backstabs in an 8 on 8 match and the only guy on your team not sitting out was the guy who jumped off the cliff (that really happened to me, by the way.) Everything else about it, though, is pure gold. It?s fun, it?s frantic, and it gives the Sandvich, Medic?s, and Scouts even more use (besides the Medic, all of those were only situational in other modes). The new maps are also great (especially Lumberyard, which shows Valve actually can make maps that aren?t desert?s) and the updates of the old maps aren?t bad either.
Overall, the Heavy update was good fun. It?s free and you have to download it to keep playing anyway, so go get it and then notice that the aforementioned necessity of the update makes this review as worthless in terms of recommending something as a review about being a carbon based life form.
