Is there really teamwork in new online games? Until now there were few games that focused on team work. Sure, in games like Quake and Unreal Tournament you get to whomp on your friends, but that just gets boring and tedious after a while. Most supposed “team based games” all lack something—playing with your friends as a team to accomplish a goal.
Natural Selection is the latest in a long line of Valve conversions of the Half-life engine in which players seemingly take on the role of the Khaara, or aliens, and the Frontiersmen, or marines. Game play is somewhat reminiscent of Alien vs. Predator, with a single exception—every aspect of the game revolves around team strategy. You either live or die as a team.
Just like in Counter-Strike and Alien vs. Predator, players see the map in first person mode. Hence the atmosphere is one of sounds, dark enclosed hallways, and the chatter of your scared teammates over the communication channels. Unlike other first person shooters you need to construct buildings or structures in order to do pretty much anything. For example if the marines want ammo, they need an armory, and aliens need a hive in order to evolve and gain better attacks.
Each side has a special character that orchestrates the building of structures for their team. The marines have a commander who sees the map laid out in all its glory, just like in a real time strategy game. Basically the commander’s job is to convert resources into structures, weapons, and upgrades—like a jet pack, which is lots of fun—for the marines under his command. However, the commander can only place the structure while his marines have to build it.
The gorge, the aliens’ builder, sees the map only in first person. This is an extreme disadvantage because the gorge can’t scroll across the map to find ideal places to build; it must instead go to the position it wants to build something. Unlike the marines’ situation, the gorge is the only unit that can build anything. The aliens also need to build hives, but there are only three places to build them on a map.
What really makes this game stand out from others is the teamwork and leadership. If marines or aliens have a good leader to tell their counterparts what to do, they will most likely always win. This game, unlike other first-person shooters is extremely strategy dependent. In most public games of Counter-Strike the only strategies involve crouching, strafing, throwing the occasional grenade, and sharp shooting therefore anyone with enough practice can become very good. In Natural Selection, even a team made up of very good individual players can lose. However, individual strengths are welcome, because if you don’t have an effective leader the game is almost always in the other team’s favor.
The learning curve on this game is very steep, and you really need to play with people who are good in order understand all aspects of the game. All in all I would give this game a must play rating. You can find the patch at http://www.naturalselection.org and a local server on the LAN.
