Natural Selection

I started playing Natural Selection again a couple nights ago. This game kicks so much ass, because:

• It's a quasi port of the movie Aliens, which is one of the best all time Sci-Fi flicks. So right there you know it's going to be awesome.
• You can play either side, everyone likes to play the bad guy once in a while.
• It combines two of my favorite game styles: FPS & RTS. Which others have attempted but miserably failed.
• It's a mod for the original Half Life. So it's non-profit game created by gamers for gamers. Plus almost everyone has a copy of HL1, if not it can be purchased for $9.95 through Steam. And HL1's system requirements are minimal. So everyone can run this game.
• The development staff are dedicated to constantly fix bugs and develop new enhancements. The mod was initially release approx four years ago and today it's on version 3.1.3, and have developed two game play modes: Combat & Classic. Combat is good for when you don't have much time to play or just want to play quicker matches. I usually play a few rounds when starting to get warmed up.
• It's got voice communication! How novel is that? I'm still shocked by how many games are released with out this. Especially when they are military strategy type FPS. So you can actually bark orders during a heavy fire fight instead of retreating to a safe house to type chat.
• There's a variety of weaponry, gear, and offensive/defensive structures for the marines. As well as a variety of alien species with different attack methods, and different offensive/defensive structures. This really helps keep the game interesting. Imagine walking into a room that appears empty, only to find that it's actually full of cloaked aliens. Alternatively, being rushed by jet pack enabled flying marine troopers.
• With a myriad of online servers around the world there is always someone to play with.

Dang this list is getting long! Really I could go on and on about how awesome this game is, but honestly you should try it for yourself. It's a ton of fun. That's why it's one of our regular games at our LAN parties. If you aren't getting invites to our LAN events and would like to attend, drop me a note. I'm even more stoked about this game as the development group are actively pursuing a production version of this game on a higher gaming engine (like maybe HL2?)