Natural Selection 2

Here is another multiplayer only game that I bought on the recommendation of +Rakan Aksoy that has only served to damage my trust in his opinion. Granted its not his fault that the game was only popular for a few months before just dying.

Natural Selection 2 is a team based shooter that combines both elements of the first person shooter genre and the real time strategy genre. The game was developed and published by Unknown World and is only played on the PC and on that platform it is only playable on Windows and Linux systems.

The most impressive thing about this game are its mechanics. It could have easily been a stupid counter strike clone like the droves of other games out there that actually are and aren't even worth mentioning. The design team actually put some effort here and managed to create a game that was actually interesting. One team in the game is your standard first person shooter fair being your standard space marines, you know, machine guns, grenades, shotguns, etc. The other team however are aliens who have six very distinct classes last time I played some of which focus on ranged combat while other focus on melee combat. Each of these six alien class have some really different abilities not only from the marines but from each other making for some really interesting games whether you are playing agaisnt or as them as you have to use some very different strategies to fight as them or fight against them. On top of that, one person from each team is tasked with acting as the commander giving that person a top down real time strategy view of the map with vision being granted through their team as they move around the map. The commander is tasked with placing buildings and using power ups in order to give their team members on the ground some advantages in their fight against the enemy team. Together this made for a very deep game on a strategic level that had a huge amount of reply value.

The sound and graphics in the game are are also pretty well done. The marines as well as the aliens have this nice polish about them and the various alien classes look really distinct from one another. The levels are mostly pretty samey but are well done in their layout and rendering. Sound in the game is pretty important as both teams can hear each other coming and a good player can set up some nice ambushes as a result and sound effects make for some very intense team fights.

Despite having some strong replay value due to its entertaining and strong mechanics, this game has gone the way of pretty much most multiplayer only games on Steam. People have lost interest and the servers have become ghost towns. The developers here also seem to have given up on the game with the last content pack being almost two years ago. If you are thinking of buying the game now, I just want to tell you that you are very very late to the party.