OVERTIME: A brief introduction to Team Fortress 2

I promised myself to write at least one post a week, but I just don't know what to say today. It has been quite a lame week.
So... I could talk about some of my hobbies/interests/crazeness.

Some of you may know a videogame titled "Team Fortress 2". If you don't, don't worry. You don't like first-person shooters. It's OK. I'll explain it briefly.

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. (From Wikipedia, see this for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_fortress_2.)

Screenshot showing gameplay. The player uses the Medic to heal a Soldier, while a Scout fights against an enemy Pyro.

TF2 is different from other FPS, because it has some touches of strategy. In the game, two teams (RED & BLU) fight each other for achieving goals, like capturing a briefcase with important documents or pushing a bomb cart right to the other team's base.

BLU and RED logos

When you have chosen a team, you choose among 9 different characters (from the speedy Scout to the stealthy Spy). Each one of these characters has their own abilities, which need to be combined in order to win the game, so gameplay depends above all on teamwork.

The nine classes (characters you can choose) are the following:

Attack classes:

Scout: The Scout is the fastest class. He can capture control points and push the bomb cart at double speed, and he can perform double-jumps. Very useful for hit-and-run attacks.

Soldier: Armed with a rocket launcher, the soldier is a basic attack unit. He can perform rocket-jumps, which allow him to reach very high places.

Pyro: The Pyro is perfect for ambushes. With his flamethrower, he can ignite enemies and hurt them even after the Pyro died. The flamethrower can also reflect rockets and other projectiles, and blow out allies that are in flames.

Defense classes:

Demoman: The Demoman is an expert on explosives. He can lay a group of bombs and detonate them when an enemy approaches. He can perform sticky-jumps, which allow him to reach even higher places than rocket-jumps.

Heavy: The Heavy Weapons Guy is the class who has the most health, but he is also the slowest. He uses a huge machinegun and is vey useful for defending narrow corridors or rooms.

Engineer: His principal aim is defending a zone. The Engineer can build sentry guns, which are mounted turrets which will shoot any enemy they detect. He can also build a dispenser of health and ammunition, and teleporters for reaching the battlefield faster.

Support classes:

Medic: The Medic is one of the most useful classes. As you can imagine, he can heal teammates, but not only that. He can deploy an Übercharge, that will make himself and an ally invincible for 8 seconds.

Sniper: The sniper is a support class. With his sniper rifle he can kill enemies with a single headshot, but he needs to charge his rifle in order to make considerable damage.

Spy: The Spy is the stealth class of TF2. He can turn himself invisible, he can disguise as an enemy, and he can kill enemies with a single backstab (but only if he is able to sneak behind his enemies).

Spy and Sniper are my favourite classes. Maybe another day I'll talk about them.

This is only an introductory post about TF2, just in case I decided to talk about the game, so you already know what it is about. Actually, I whink this will be the first of a long series of posts talking about TF2 (specially if I don't have anything else to talk about).

See you. Now I have to go, since our control point is being captured.

*Updated 2009/12/11 with the new section logo: "Overtime."