Natural Selection 2 Review

Introduction

Natural Selection 2 is finally out, and what a journey it has been. I've been following this game since its inception. I've always loved the FPS/RTS genre--whether it be C&C Renegade, Giants: Citizens Kabuto or Savage--it combines two of my most loved genres into one delightful treat. There's something about it that just strikes a cord with me, I always seem to play these types of games for much longer than just another FPS or RTS, and the fun factor is just so much more intense.

For those who are uninitiated, FPS/RTS is a mix between both FPS and RTS (you don't say). Games usually follow the same pacing of a popular FPS whilst including the elements of base building, defence and offence. Most FPS/RTS games have one commander, that literally gets a top down RTS style view of the map. The commander gives orders to teammates--which are mostly player controlled characters--whilst also building the base, snatching the hotly contested resource nodes scattered throughout the map, and using those resources to provide tech upgrades; improving their respective team's weaponry and utility. It's all pretty basic when you think about it, but these type of games usually offer up an insane amount of depth. Which upgrade should I get for my team first? Which side of the map should we push towards? What should I do after that one Onos snuck past our defences and killed our forward base? These are all questions that a commander has to potentially face when in an average game of NS2.

Natural Selection was originally a mod for Half Life, and although it wasn't picked up by Valve like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress was; it still received wide spread success, GameSpy even hailed it as "...possibly the most ambitious user-made modification ever brought to fruition..."  - GameSpy's 2002 Mod of the Year Award. The Natural Selection Universe features a war between the Marines (aka Humans) and the Kharaa (aka Aliens). It is very reminiscent of other popular Science fiction, namely the Alien and Starcraft franchises, but we're not hear to discuss that, let's move onto the damn game already.

Explosionzzzzzzzzzz!

How it Plays

Now that we got that little introductory spiel out of the way, let's get down to matter at hand shall we? As I said before, I've been following this game since its inception. Initially I was hyped, but it soon fizzled out after I preordered and got my hands on the Alpha. Unknown Worlds Entertainment, the indie developers of Natural Selection 1 and 2, sought fit to create a whole new engine for NS2, quite an ambitious feat. All throughout Alpha and Beta there were huge glaring issues, as with any new engine. Graphically it looked amazing, but it suffered in performance, even those with the best of machines couldn't play without FPS drops, freezes and crashes. Playing the game was a bit of a chore at some times, quite frustrating indeed, but of course it was both a legitimate Alpha and Beta, not the usual demo Betas that most gamers are used to these days. But nevertheless, that's all in the past, and what really matters is what the game is like in its release state.

Out of the two playable races, although they have the same goals as each other, they play very differently. Marines rely on a more defensive style in the early game, and arguably requires more teamwork than Aliens in general. The Marine commander has to put down buildings that the player controlled Marines then build, the general flow of a game is to start out with an Armory which can provide Health, Ammunition and Weapons to the Marines, and then to expand outward into the map and get the Mineral extractors throughout the map. The thing about Marines is that because players have to physically build stuff the commander drops down, they have to stick together and push as a team. Marines require power for their buildings to function, power nodes are all around the map and there is one for each sector, Aliens can attack the power; taking out the lights, resulting in a spectacular graphical darkness, and also disabling the nearby Marine buildings. Because Marines are relatively slow, they can get around the map via Phase gates, which are basically two way teleporters all interconnected to each other.

Aliens on the other hand have no such 'teamwork' handicap. The Alien commander can give commands to the Alien players, he is somewhat free to do as he pleases seeing as buildings complete on their own, similar to the Zerg in Starcraft. Aliens require cysts--again, similar to the Zerg's creep in SC--to plop buildings on, so the commander must spread a lot of this stuff to nearby extractors and the like in order to gain control of the map. Aliens rely heavily on sneaking, harassing and disruptment. If you rush into a Marine head on with a skulk (the base line unit for Alien), the skulk will almost always die, but if they sneak up behind the Marine and get the first few hits off first, the Skulk will almost always win. The benefits of Aliens rely on the pure speed that they can achieve with the Celerity upgrade. They can zip around the map and cause all sorts of chaos for any unprepared Marine team, taking out power nodes and extractors that aren't defended and generally being a nuisance. Alien units rely on evolution rather than the passive upgrades that the Marines have, every time you spawn you have to pick what perks you want (e.g. Celerity for increased speed, deception for silence in your movement and attacks and Carapace for increased armor). Of course any perks or upgrades rely on what your commander does, you don't have access to any of these until your commander has enough resources to research them for you.

A win is considered when either all enemy units are dead and there is no way for them to respawn (e.g. the Aliens destroy all of the Marine's Infantry Portals and then seek out the remaining Marines around the map) or more commonly, one side kills all of the enemy's command centers or hives.

The end game unit for Marines, the Dual Minigun Exosuit. You'll need a handful of marines to back this baby up with welders to keep you topped up, but with a few of these you can easily plow through an Alien base.

Critique

I'm a veteran to this genre, it didn't take me long to pick it up and learn the mechanics, but I can see how someone who is both new to RTS and FPS/RTS could find this quite overwhelming. This game lacks a tutorial, which is a pretty necessary thing in my opinion. Fortunately there is a Rookie mode and some use of hints for some of your abilities and base mechanics. Rookie mode highlights your name in Green, indicating to other players that you are new. From what I've experienced most people are quite friendly, and veterans are quite helpful if you need to ask questions and will happily teach you how to play. Along with Rookie Mode there are also Rookie servers which offer a friendly environment for new players to learn rather than being yelled at for being terrible.

I think Unknown Worlds have done a fantastic job at bringing in the community on their game. From day one they have listened to the community on bugs, balance issues and all sorts of things. They even implemented the Steam Workshop so that community modders and mappers can provide endless amounts of content for the game that they love. I feel like the community is the most important thing for games like this, and it's what drives Indie titles into the spotlight.

Whilst I'm amazed at how far this game has come, there are a couple of issues with mouse movement and still some times where the FPS starts to stutter a bit (generally in large fights). Granted, I have quite an old PC, but it would be great to see them improve on this even more, and I think it's totally possible, considering where they came from to where the game is now.

Playing pub games can be a bit disheartening sometimes, if you get a bad commander that doesn't have a mic or lacks communication you will usually lose. There's nothing that the developers can really do about it, it's just an inherent problem with the FPS/RTS genre. This game heavily relies on teamwork and communication,  and for the most part people are pretty good in those fields, but it's just that off chance that you get a bad commander or unresponsive teammates and you lose because of it. Like I said, this is just the nature of the game, and it's the same in pretty much every team oriented game. The moral of the story is to play with friends or a clan and you can avoid this problem every time.

I understand the need for lowering the amount of weapons and variety to increase the game's balance, but I think there could really be just a few more weapons for Marine. At the moment the Marine's only have a choice of about 6 weapons. This is no big deal though as I'm sure that Unknown Worlds will be releasing more content for this game, in either expansions or DLC. It's really a minor issue but I can't wait for some more weapon.

The top down commander view for Marines, it actually looks more polished than this in the release build.

What I like

• Community involvement via Steam Workshop and design choices.
• LAN. People can create a server at the click of a button, that means there is LAN. This is something sorely missed from many modern triple A games these days.
• A seamless integration of FPS and RTS.
• Excellent price. $25, come on, you can't not get this game.
• Replayability. There's just so much depth you'll be playing it for months to come and will still be finding new strategies.
• Graphically great.
• Audio works the way it should, you can hear Aliens in the vents above your head, and can triangulate exactly where they are with enough practice.
• Amazing atmosphere. When you're a marine and you can hear the skittering of a handful of Skulks in the vents whilst in a pitch black room all by yourself, you can't help but feel scared for your life. Even though the horror aspect is not the most glaring part of the game, it does it better than most dedicated horror games out there.

What I dislike

• No tutorial. If you are completely new there is a steep learning curve with little help from the game itself, you will have to rely on friends, guides or strangers in games to help you out along your way.
• Performance drops and mouse movement issues.
• It could use just that extra bit of polish in the UI and other areas of the game to tip it over to the triple A status it deserves.

Verdict

8.9/10

An all around amazing game. I think it's a must buy, just be aware that if you're new to the genre you maybe be in for a bit of a steep learning curve.

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