Natural Selection 2
Computer gaming has a long, diverse history one which many are unaware of and is as detailed and exciting as that of the music or movie industry, and strangely follows the same trends. As can be seen at this moment the gaming industry is dipping into the period Hollywood entered in the 1920s – 30s, that of independent studios being able to finance and publish their own product. In our modern case this is able to happen through the low cost of developing tools (Creativity and brains... hardly lacking amongst the billions of internet users) and extreme flexibility of online distribution platforms, mainly Steam.
The earliest forms of independent projects were back in the 80s and 90s when devoted fans of several games took to fiddling with internal code to add a map or change the smallest thing. By 1999 the hugely popular Unreal Tournament and Half Life both had massive modding communities and before long these intelligent publishers snatched up the brains of these ideas. Some of the biggest revolutions in gaming (or even just the biggest names!) are modding projects. Glancing over Valve’s lineup they have one series which is pure, original Valve and that’s the phenomenal Half Life series. Sure Team Fortress and Counter Strike have an undeniable whiff of Valveness but they are all fuelled by sharp home grown game designers.
‘This is all great Beau, but what has this to do with Natural Selection 2!?’. Very good question mystical person (Conscience?). You see Natural Selection was born from the early stages of indie development. Much like the famed Tripwire designers of Red Orchestra, Natural Selection 1 was a unique mod for Half Life, initially coming out in 2003. Due to its late release it failed to find the huge popularity of CS, Team Fortress or even the older Day of Defeat! So, they missed the boat at first. It had a large fan base and some great ideas (FPS/RTS? Moar!) but Valve had its mind turned to HL2.
So it’s 2011, 14 years since Half Life 1 and 8 years since NS1. How did they go from HL mod to independent game? Quite simply (from a spectator view, mind you) – ditch the Source engine idea and make their own engine! For those long eight years Unknown Worlds (the company) struggled in the dark pits of independent gaming development, slaving away under the master’s whip to produce the state we reach now – Natural Selection 2. It stands on its own legs, has its own laurels and is quite proud to be indie. Unknown Worlds has given access to the first 10 000 people a chance to have a crack at the unstable beta game and act as a mass of guinea pigs. After browsing through some trailers/info I whipped out my credit card and was paying the $35 to buy the game/participate in the beta. So here I am – standing at the door of a great looking game, but kind of unsure.
‘Why unsure... you sound pretty sold already!’ For two reasons disembodied voice. One, it is a beta and bad things always happen to the guinea pig. Rather than jumping straight into the game, it might be better to hang on until the game is gold, and what I am playing is exactly what the developer wants me to play, rather than a rough draft. And secondly – I haven’t played it yet, of course I’m worried!
Time to put my worries to rest. After a unique process I finally registered my game with Steam and was running it – up burst the main menu. Very sleek and eerie with a confident marine standing up to a background of darkness and running aliens. Strangely I felt that this menu was very Source-like, even though it has its own engine – just to prove this I went straight to options and cranked everything to as high as it could go (Bless my new gaming computer!) and slipped back into the server list. This was the most surprising part as there was only two or three servers at once boasting a small nine people. I can’t be too critical but I was hoping this game would be more active even slightly, which as I find out is a shame as with many more people at once this game could hit the potential it has in loads. (Call of Duty 2, released in 2005 and still a firm favourite of mine has over twenty servers and five full ones active six years later) To add to my slight frustration I could not find a server where the game was stable (most of were US or European) but I must underline something really important for the game at the moment – it is in beta. This game is not fully released yet and if you buy it right now you must expect it to be only 40% complete so as long as you maintain that frame of mind (and shoulder the bugs and report them) then you can really appreciate the game.
The one thing which really drew me to NS2 was the hybrid genres – a mix of the two most popular genres in gaming surely couldn’t go amiss. When I got into a Aussie server later that day I put this to test. In the ready room you choose to be a marine, alien or spectator. The marines are slow yet strong, small in numbers yet advanced. The aliens meanwhile are a mixture of flying creatures, fast leaping beasts and small, pudgy builders. For the marines they can build structures but you strart off with a command post. One person occupies this CP at a time and they are the commander (Imagine any RTS game. You are the overlord moving the little guys below around and they are expendable AI. Now, the ‘overlord’ is the guy in the CP and those small people are actual players!). This commander can issue move orders and construction decrees and are the brain of the team. Via communication the commander controls the marines building an armory so we can equip shotguns or machine guns, or portals to make sure there is a steady reinforcement rate. Let me take you through a match to properly explain this.
I quickly teleported into the match. The portal was tucked away in the corner and was overshadowed by the CP (occupied). There was a corridor in front which at either end had two massive doors *closeable* and now had three marines running through it. I jumped down and ran to my right following another marine as the commander issued a move order into alien territory. The atmosphere came through here – it was very dark and every noise made you jump but what really got to me was the echoing, growling roars of the alien dogs as they tore through these dark corridors. Sticking to my fellow marines tail we entered into an alien hive (the alien equalivlent of the marine base) to find a pulsing mass of green alien brain surrounded by small pods, all of this given a red tinge from the lack of lights. Really creepy. I let my comrade go first.
Soon we were gleefully hacking away at the hive mass and pods with our axes. We were geniuses! This was easy! The match was – damn. As the commander was yelling for us to RTB and gunfire echoed from down those horrible corridors there was a tearing growl as a alien dog-thing leapt from the shadows tearing into my comrade.
Until that moment I had been enjoying the game. The idea of having a commander was really smart – someone who could see the strategical level and actually command the team. As little marines he made us build harvesting sites around the map so we could have carbon, which let him build an more portals so we could get through new recruits easier. When we had trouble defending a tight spot the commander got the reserves to harvest more carbon/energy so he could research flamethrowers – giving us the upper hand in this battle. I really liked this part – this was a RTS, two players vs’ing each other but those little people below were real, they were fighting there own battle. It really was a hybrid and I felt it could work sometimes.
Back to the rabid dog though. As I said some winged demon things were attacking the base and CP but we battled the aliens furiously in there own home. The dog launched itself at me and I fired furiously going through several rounds as I back-pedalled away from this monster. My comrade poured shotgun rounds into its flank moments before its claws cut me down, at which the monster itself took a final shotgun pellet to the head.
It was game over soon after this. The CP fell after I spawned there defending our final refuge hopelessly. The machine gun rounds scattered around the aliens as they gassed our Last Stand. Game over.
RTS/FPS can and does work. There are certain requirements for it to work though, mainly a good team and a commander with an IQ over 100. Because, at those upper levels of being a commander you really are playing a RTS. This could be Company of Heroes or Commander and Conquer. That fine line between RTS and FPS has been explored a lot (I’m thinking World In Conflict which really fleshed out the individuals story) but this game crosses that line. Your playing an RTS, building those infantry-spawning buildings and resource harvesters but those infantrymen your pushing around on the map ? Their playing an FPS and each one is in their own match, their own game.
NS2 is only in beta and it shows. Weekly updates fix bugs which are uncovered daily – sometimes game breaking – and you really are a beta tester... just paying for it early.
Afternote: Two things I'd like to add. One - these screenshots are not mine but some from the NS2 website Unknown Worlds and Two - this is the first game where I actually got to me the developer! Playing by myself in a server one day (Yes... sad...) the developer joined and asked me about the game! Wow!
(Review originally posted at Gamer's Utd by me!)