TF2 vs The Robots

I’ve never been much of a Team Fortress 2 fan, in spite of being an early investor in the Orange Box. According to my Steam profile I’ve only given four hours of my life to the game, which is a curious statastic when I recall enjoying Team Fortress Classic so much and happen to love multiplayer shooters almost to the exclusion of all others. I don’t know what it was that didn’t click with me, but it certainly wasn’t the Play icon. The graphics being too cartoony perhaps, playing my preferred role as a medic being rather dull and the game itself being too popular are the three main excuses that I can think of. Give me Shattered Horizon - the dusty, (at one time) spec-shattering, Billy No-Mates of shooters – any day of the week.

All that said I’m intrigued by the introduction of Mann vs Machine, a new co-op mode for Tf2 that will be going live tomorrow, in which red and blue players can join forces in taking out hordes of grey AI-maintained robots. With the ability to take stock and claim upgrades in between waves of the deadly automatons, MvM seems to be a curious mix of old-school survival mode and Valve’s take on Dungeon Defenders. If it is, I can see myself downloading the game again and giving it a quick blast, assuming it’s not too late to try to get back into Team Fortress 2. I suspect it might be though.