Despite being a fairly lesser-known mod for Half-Life, anybody who played it back in its hayday would find it difficult not to smile at the mere mention of Natural S
election.
A magnificent project, not only because something so high quality and polished could come to the public, for free no less, from a bunch of bedroom coders and modders, but because it did something that had rarely been done before, and did it really well: Multiplayer First Person shooter with a healthy dash of Real Time Strategy.
The game is a simple premise of Aliens versus Marines (In space!), with one marine player acting as the commander, essentially ordering players, building structures, and researching and distributing upgrades. The aliens on the other hand prefer the socialist approach, with resources being earned into individual player’s pools which can be used to buy upgrades and evolutions, with some players evolving to builder aliens that create small structures for the team.
So after several years of development, hampered by financial problems halfway through, the sequel to this glorious gem of gaming has been announced to be released this Fall (Autumn to us Europeans), along with a teaser trailer which er, doesn’t really explain a lot other than fapping material for old NS players.
The game can also be pre-ordered with one of two packages: A standard preorder for $20 which provides the game as soon as it’s out, and access to the beta. Or you can buy the ’special’ pre-order for $40, which also throws in alpha access and special black marine armor in the full version of the game.
Here’s the slightly strange part though: You can only buy the game through their website, they’re not selling it over Steam, for what I can only assume is to maximise the amount of money they make, instead of just royalties after Valve take their cut. They’re also not clear on whether the game is going to be released through Steam or not.
You can pre-order the game here.
If you love Team Fortress 2’s class based team combat, and you haven’t played Natural Selection before, this should be right up your alley.
(Oh, I should probably mention, I have had my author account here for a while now, but finally have an excuse to write something. I am Cup of Squirrels, long time pal of Daedalus and occasional actor in his videos, rogue, slacker, and existentialist extraordinaire! I hope to write more here in the future!)
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