Natural Selection 2 video

[angry.bob]

Unknown Worlds put up a video of the dynamic infestation they'd like to put in NS2 that would "creep" over the areas of the map that Khaara control. I really hope that the franchise gets a shot in the arm. I love NS, and like NSC enough, but the community has really died off over the years thanks to some godawful design decisions and the game's tendency to let one bad player completely fuck the whole team. Anyway, video is here

[geldonyetich]

Looks like we've something in common Angry.bob, because I too really love the natural selection series and am looking forward to its Half-Life 2 release in Natural Selection 2.  That bacterial affect looks awesome, I just hope it doesn't kill the framerate too much.

To better define this for people who may not have heard of this before, Natural Selection is a truly awesome Half Life multiplayer competition based total conversion mod where one side plays space marines and the other side plays aliens.  On the space marine side, one of the players jumps in the command pods and plays from a RTS-like interface in order to give orders to the other players and drop vital equipment, while the rest of the players see the orders to completion (or not) from a FPS perspective.  On the alien side, there's no commander but rather a hive mind - the alien players (who all play from a FPS perspective) can see markers through walls that other alien players have dropped or that reflect certain goings on.  One of the more interesting things about the mod is that there's a lot of structures being built: the marine commander can put down autoturrets, technology upgrades, and weapons that the marines can then assemble or use, while the aliens can build nests of pods of various functions.  As the game goes on, the aliens get access to better evolutionary chains (they can go into a cocoon hibernation in order to change their shape on the fly) while the marines are granted better equipment and armor by their commander depending on what buildings are up.  In addition to the tactical aspects, twitch is an important consideration, and so a marine player would be challenged in hitting a charging skulk (a alien player in its bare form that looks like ferocious lizard dog thing) while needing to understand the importance of covering eachother while structures are being built.

There's a lot of quality gameplay packed in here, the only real downside being a relatively stiff learning curve.  One would probably go through a dozen or so games before really knowing what they're doing.   Still, if I were trapped on a desert island with a somehow powered laptop and satelite Internet access, this is the only game I'd ever need - not even ready access to porn would be as effective in staving off my castaway fever.

[edit: Many edits because I like to elaborate and reread what I wrote more times than NASA mathematicians.]

[Viin]

Awesome, I love NS. There's some unique and fun game play.

[Nija]

THAT is cool. I've never played NS, yet I've heard a ton of good things. I just hate HL netcode so much.

[Kitsune]

Correction, NS was awesome.  It stopped being awesome once the game developers started making design decisions based around clan competition.  One of the best games I ever played was a single round of NS that ran for hours.  There was a writhing stalemate that swung from side to side while both teams were hanging on by their very fingernails, and only at the very end did the humans pull off a win.  Battles were going on across the entire map, I was holding a hive point alone against a continuous stream of aliens while waiting for backup to arrive, and not a single person quit before the game was done.  It was fucking sweet.

Then they started spouting shit like, 'We're designing for rounds to last fifteen minutes.'  Yeah, fuck that.  The fun of the game is ruined by a quick, decisive victory.

[Strazos]

Seriously. That game needs time to simmer each round to build into awesomeness. Both sides were so different, but oh so cool.

And fuck clans and the damage they wrought upon NS. They're like uberguilds in a MMO.

Just play the fucking game, bitches. Some of the best time is when you have decked-out marines fighting against top-tier tank aliens, with the medium types stealthing and jumping around, ambushing marines and shit.

Also, jetpacks.

[Yoru]

Last game I played that had really satisfying jetpack combat was Giants: Citizen Kabuto. But damn, that was a lot of fun.

Too bad no one plays it any more.

[Strazos]

I still have the discs that I got with an old video card. Installed it...but never played it. 

[Nija]

I wonder if anyone has ever written anything about why Giants: Citizen Kabuto wasn't more popular. It was an amazing game. I have 3 copies of the game - two copies were bundled with video cards and I had previously bought a copy of it.

[Strazos]

I could ask the same question about the Kohan series, or any other under-rated games.

[ahoythematey]

I'm kind of glad that I have little interest in NS2, because even if they went back to the original flavor with war-of-attrition style of play, it would still be 2+ years before anything were out for play and the wait would be excrutiating.  I don't doubt, though, that they will stick with the arcade bullshit that currently dominates NS.

[geldonyetich]

Sounds like I stopped playing NS before it got sucky.  Well, there's always a chance in serverside balance tweaks, if one can muster the effort.

As for Giants, good game but the balance felt really wierd and it was kinda buggy in execution when I played it.  Some more polish would have rendered that game legendary.

Then, of course, there was the new Battlezone.  BZ 1 was cool - moon landing conspiracy theory meets space tank warfare.  BZ 2, unfortunately, innovated in less interesting directions and bombed.

[ahoythematey]

I don't think it's really that it became sucky, because there is still some decent FPS to be had with NS, but NS started out with it's cock rocking out, so to speak.  It was different from pretty much EVERYTHING and managed to be a continually exhilarating experience.  Those early days, seeing an Onos stampede towards your base was pure terror, whereas now it seems like Just Another Enemy^TM.

[Strazos]

I loved jumping across maps, maiming a few marines, jumping away, and regenning as tha hydralisk-type alien.

Also, re: Onos - Watch Out For The Big Girl. 

[Nija]

Did any of you guys play Gloom for Q2? Is NS anything like that? Seems to be from what I understand.

[Trippy]

Did any of you guys play Gloom for Q2? Is NS anything like that? Seems to be from what I understand.

Yes it is similar to Gloom except that the Human-side in NS has a commander that plays the game from a top-down view like an RTS like geldon said and he's the one that places the structures that the other team members then have to "assemble".

[bhodi]

Now, we Donce.

[ahoythematey]

Interestingly enough, I consider Dystopia to be the newer NS in terms of a FPS mod bringing radically differently playstyle into a capture the flag game.

[Fabricated]

NS was a love-hate thing for me. The first releases were way unfair to the marines, and then after a couple patches the aliens had no chance at all to win due to insta-tracking turrets of death/buggy hitboxes/ovepowered Marine weapons and tech. Then there was this sweet spot where the gigantic battles of attrition everyone loved so much took place. You'd have an hour+ long match where Marines would sneak around the map almost like the aliens so they can ambush a hive or drop a portal/turret cluster close enough that you could overwhelm it...You'd always have to worry about an army of upgraded fades/onos hitting your base, or amazingly, fully upgraded skulks. I liked that the base attack alien was viable the WHOLE match. Stealth movement + Invisibility + Celerity = some scary multiplayer.

Then they made all these tweaks for clan play and the fucking matches ended in 5 minutes half the time. You can still get a great 30minute+ slugfest off and on but it's just not the same. Also, that NS combat thing they added sucked ass.

[Prospero]

Teaser trailer out today

Pre-orders with alpha access available too. Apparently that whole video is in-engine.

[bhodi]

Want. I had wondered what happened to this game. I haven't heard anything for years!

[Prospero]

Yeah, outside of a few blog posts they've been pretty quiet the last couple years. I pre-ordered so I could get in the alpha. NS is one of my favorite games, but they started to fuck it up with the 2.0 release. I need to be able to rant and rail early.

[angry.bob]

Wow... in game graphics. Not suprising, the first NS always had maps that really pushed made the most out of what the HL engine was able to do to create the right atmosphere. Hopefully they designed it for longer gameplay. Three or four hour rounds sound really annoying until you've actually played in one. They were a real point of pride to play in for server regulars. Viva la Red Room last stands!

The new Oh-noes is love. His mouth looks to small for Devour though. But I guess the old one did too. I've been using a W40K marine pack and an Aliens alien pack for so long I forgot that they had tiny mouths.