NaturalSelection

A delightful Half-Life mod that can be compared to a blend of StarCraft and AvP?. Natural Selection pits aliens against marines in a RTS/FPS environment, and with the right group and size of people, there's nothing quite like it. Playing it with drunk people can also represent the epitome of amusement. Why? Please refer to CrackInTheAC. In our defense, most of those quotes (well, all of the ones I was around for) were said by sleep-depped people, not drunk people.

• AvP? has a far superior implimentation of the aliens, especially in the climbing on walls aspect. It's actually FunAndEasy (and useful) in AvP?
  • I have not played AvP? so I will refrain from directly countering, but as a person who can really ONLY play as a skulk, and typically does a damn good job of it, I must say ceiling-camping has its advantages --DuctTapeGuy AKA one-man wolfpack

The two sides play radically differently. For the marines, one must play as the commander, using an RTS interface so that he can guide the troops, order supplies, and decide where things get built. The rest of the team does the actual building and fights the hordes of aliens. Upgrading the tech tier gains access to upgrades and stompier weapons and mechanical armor for the marines, which makes them tough enough to go toe-to-toe with the higher evolved alien forms. This is, however, in theory. In my experience, by the time one team gets to the top of the tech tier, the other team is woefully behind in tech and resources and thus the game is pretty much over.

The aliens are a different breed (literally). There is no commander, but rather, a sort of "Hive Sight", so that everyone knows vaguely what's going on with their stuff. Most forms of the aliens are different levels of fighters, but at least one must choose to be the Gorge, who builds the organic alien structures, thus giving the rest of the team access to better attacks and more evolved forms. Most people find that the aliens are harder to play at first, but its a little easier to manage a team since, well, you don't really need to do much managing as long as the Gorge knows what he's doing and everyone else is aggressive enough to keep the marines at bay.

• I'd have to agree... It seems to me that NS players fall in one of three categories: (1) You're a casual player or learning to play, and tend to go Marines. (2) You're a serious player who's getting pretty good, and tend to go Aliens to feast upon (1) instead of being bogged down. (3) You're very, very good. Good enough to tend to be a marine and own singlehandedly. Needless to say, you Com.
• Hmm ... I've played a lot of NS online, and I'd say that there are a very wide range of players of all sorts. Of course, the game is singnificatly different when you have 20+ players... And, by the way, good comms go comm; good marines are needed in the field. And you need more than one gorge, even in the early game. JoshMiddendorf

Also one of maybe 3-4 LAN/online games that AlexBobbs actually likes. So it must be good.

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Also note Mortos's /GuideToMarines and /NsEtiquette
Please contribute tips towards the creation of a decent /GuideToKharaa
Spellman23's /GuideToComming