Natural Selection

Natural Selection has to be one of the most innovative shooters on the planet. Taking the now dilapadated Half Life engine, they have turned a standard humans-versus-aliens shooter into a shooter-meets-strategy game. Because of this, Natural selection could be considered one of the best Half Life mods available- let's see why.

Natural Selection's core gameplay is the humans versus aliens conflict. Just like 90% of all shooters, it puts you in one of two places- the Space Marines or the Aliens. Yeah, this sounds boring. To name, I can think of two big name titles (Doom 3 and Halo) that do this. But what's cool about this game is that it twists in some parts of Starcraft, too. Let me explain.



Let's say you're playing the game with some buddies, 5 players on each side. First of all, the level is massive and full of chokepoints, so you're at your base together making sure not to run all off (Like in a typical Counter Strike match). One of your buddies can get into what's known as a "Command Console"- a console that turns the whole game into a Strategy game. Not only can your friend now tell the people on the ground what to do, but he can build turrets, armories, and about everything else you might ever need to make your victory sure.

So, what does this mean? Well, in an EFFICIENT game of NS, the people listen to the commander, who helps them by dropping them weapons and helping them destroy the enemy. Cool, right? Of course, this rarely ever happens. People will generally ignore the commander, because he has the following limitations:
- He can't actually see the enemy
- He's usually a dumbass who can't play the game, so he jumps in the cockpit to hide that fact
- He's usually overbearing.

And then, the people actually playing have the following limitations:
- They think they can play the game like Counter Strike
- They don't care
- They consider this something like a Doom Deathmatch



So essentially, no-one listens to anyone and it's just turned into another Counter Strike match. Sure, some servers are stricter than others, but the whole issue is, no-one wants to listen to the pussy commander in his little cockpit. And the commander very well could be some sort of sadist and want his team to die. It happens.

Overall, though, NS is by far one of the most impressive mods I've seen on the Half Life engine. The graphics are oustanding for the engine. The animations and general ambiance are as great as the graphics. The gameplay is outstandingly fun when played with people who WANT to play the game. However, keep in mind- a good game of NS demands upwards of 10-15 players a match, which means it's not a good friends-against-friends game. Maybe a LAN party? You'd need a pretty big LAN party....

4 star(s) out of 5

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