Eight years in development. Eight bloody years. Work on Team Fortress 2 began back when we were teenagers (ahem) and shooters didn’t get much better than, well Team Fortress, which itself was just a popular mod. When it comes to it, rating a game that’s sat in development for such an obscene amount of time ultimately means you’re either looking at a world-beating classic or a game so detached from its original idea that the end product is a shadow of its intended brilliance. Given the quality of The Orange Box so far and considering Valve’s illustrious career to date, however, it’s pretty obvious which side of the fence Team Fortress 2 falls on. This puppy clearly rocks.

Don’t let those cel-shaded, good looks fool you, though. It might look a bit like The Invisibles on acid, but you couldn’t find a more serious shooter on the 360 (or the PC for that matter). Its feet are firmly grounded in tactics, communication and teamwork. Make no mistake; this is hardcore.

Anyone who’s taken a look at Valve’s comic teaser trailers (one of which is on this month’s disc) will already be very familiar with the art direction Valve took with the sequel. It’s actually quite hard to stress quite how impressive they are. There’s a very strong comedy element which Valve used to spectacular effect at every turn, but there’s also a real sense of clarity that comes with it. It’s a treat for the peepers whichever way you look at it, but its visual flair also manages to filter through to the gameplay.

So bold are the graphics and the character models, that a quick glance around the corner or a brief glimpse of an enemy turning a bend is all that’s needed to get a grasp of the situation. Sniper top-left, two Pyros up front. From the bumbling, bulbous Heavy to the svelte, imp-like Scout, each of Valve’s nine characters are instantly recognisable. Beyond simply helping you to judge your tactical advantage, their visual styling speaks volumes as to how they play – the graphics intuitively point to their strengths and weaknesses. The Scout might be very hard to hit due to his amazing speed, but before you even pull the trigger it’s clear that a couple of good, clean shots will kill him, while the complete opposite is true of a Heavy.

So which class is for you? Noobs will probably look to the Soldier, the Heavy or the Pyro to get their fix early on. All three characters play an important role in the proceedings, but their place is up front, all guns blazing – cannon fodder to a limited extent. Although mastering any class in TF2 requires hours of practice, they’re nowhere near as challenging as the more technically demanding roles of the Medic, Engineer and the Spy. This is where rounds are won and lost. The Engineer’s ability to set up sentry guns in defensive positions and then move forward to build weapons and health dispensers (and even teleports) in the thick of the action turns a normal battle into a RTSstyle race for domination over key map locations. While there’s nothing stopping anyone jumping in for half an hour of mindless fragging, as your skills and fundamental understanding of your role develops, so does your taste in classes.

So what of weak links? Our only real complaint is the inclusion of just six maps. Given the depth of gameplay and nine classes to master, there’s more than enough to keep the most demanding player amused well into the new year, just in time for Valve and MS to offer a downloadable map pack or two. Hint.

Assuming you read reviews in the classic ‘see score, read if bothered’ sense, you’ll probably have noticed that the big fat ten adorning the score box nearby is actually for The Orange Box in its entirety. Why? Simply put, our online experience of Team Fortress 2 was a controlled one. Everything was played on Valve’s network and the ‘in-house’ nature of the environment doesn’t make for truly objective criticism of an online game. A score at this early stage would be lunacy, no matter how sweet the action seems.

Despite knowing full well that Valve as a developer has more than enough experience to provide a faultless online experience (and Microsoft’s end, though not without its faults, can be trusted to follow through) we’ll reserve final judgement for when we can play the game in the wild, without Valve’s hand holding and without a dozen co-playing developers going easy on us in an effort to make us look good.

That said, we can say without much further justification that this could be the next Counter-Strike, and it almost certainly has the balls to challenge the mighty Halo 3 for ultimate onlinegaming supremacy. Take our advice and look out for our final word on the matter next month…

Russell Barnes