Natural Selection

July 31, 2003 3:50 PM

Half Life 2 may be postponed, but there's something here to keep you going - Natural Selection. The site is currently sporting a spartan look because they just released a new version of this essential Half Life mod, which combines games such as Command and Conquer with that of action shooters. Visit The Ready Room for more info.
posted by Orange Goblin (17 comments total)

But it's not postponed- check Shacknews.
posted by crazy finger at 4:40 PM on July 31, 2003

Has anyone here seen the 'direct feed' full-screen videos from E3? God, just from the gameplay you see in those clips (never mind the graphics), I'm more than willing to see it delayed for the sake of quality.

I hear Natural Selection is brilliant - unfortunately, I can't find my Half-Life CD to install so I can play it.
posted by GriffX at 4:57 PM on July 31, 2003

In that case, download the Steam beta and get Half Life for FREE. I meant to include this in the FPP but was too excited by NS..
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:08 PM on July 31, 2003

Natural Selection is a great game. In addition to being terribly addictive, ground-breaking and free, the game seems to have a much older group of players, resulting in a slightly more mature audience.
posted by fatbobsmith at 5:33 PM on July 31, 2003

fatbob: that's interesting (mature audience). One of the things I hated most about the more popular Half-Life mods (and most online games) is the over-abundance of jerky, young people. I must confess that I once was a jerky young person online, but that's a whole other matter.
posted by crazy finger at 5:58 PM on July 31, 2003

Mmm, jerky.

Seriously, the Half-Life 2 demo is absolutely incredible. It's like a half-hour long, and it's better than most 2-hour action movies. In fact, probably the best action movie of the summer. Not that that's saying much.
posted by Hildago at 6:14 PM on July 31, 2003

Steam installs a ton of spyware.
If you can live with that, have fun.
posted by Trik at 7:52 PM on July 31, 2003

The newest rev of Urban Terror is scheduled for release on 9 August. You need to have Quake 3, it is a total conversion of Q3, but it is free
posted by a3matrix at 8:31 PM on July 31, 2003

Steam installs a ton of spyware.
If you can live with that, have fun.

Do you have a citation for this?

My AdAware and Spybot have not found anything particularly out-of-the-ordinary since installing Steam.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:37 PM on July 31, 2003

Regarding the hl mod maturity factor...

My little bro plays natural selection. One of the more bizarre computer-related moments in my life came when I went over to see what he was doing and heard a very high pitched "Go Go Go! Get the #$@! outa there! You bastards!"

It would turn out that voice chat is common in both natural selection and dod (Day of Defeat, a freakishly hard hl mod he is way into) and I was listening to some uber-nerd playing team captain as my bro ran around as a marine trying to fight really small, fast, aliens.
posted by cohappy at 1:15 AM on August 1, 2003

One more vote for the pure awesomeness that is Natural Selection.
posted by PenDevil at 1:30 AM on August 1, 2003

NS is the only online game I play. And unlike the frag-fests of other FPS games, this one actually requires teamwork.

And 2.0 is definitely da bomb!
posted by eas98 at 6:34 AM on August 1, 2003

i havent played NS or DoD in months (to me, both are great games, much more rewarding than counterstrike), i'd love to see how its progressed, i am currently enjoying Planetside, when i have time
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 7:34 AM on August 1, 2003

Natural Selection has been out for quite some time now.

It's without doubt one of the best "team" games around, in the sense that you are forced to perform as a team (not so much for the aliens though). but it also has some flaws, though I havent played it for about 6 months now, so maybe they've been fixed.

From what I remeber NS games while often very enjoyable, could also be really really bad too.
posted by carfilhiot at 7:47 AM on August 1, 2003

natural selection is wonderful.
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:56 PM on August 1, 2003

sorry, does anyone have a link to the half hour demo ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:58 PM on August 1, 2003

Half hour demo of Half Life 2, or NS?
posted by Orange Goblin at 3:01 PM on August 1, 2003