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10 years to the day after it's original release as a Half Life mod Natural Selection 2 is now finally a full commercial title running on it's own engine. My history with the game is not as a competitive player but just as a fan of Half Life mods who had stumbled upon it many years ago and enjoyed the asymmetric play style in a shooter environment.

When the team started accepting pre-orders in order to fund further development of the game I put down my money really not sure what would become of the game. Several alpha and beta builds later I'm thankful to report that it's actually a damn fine game. As someone who watches and plays a fair amount of Starcraft I hope I can give you some idea of what you're getting into if you seek to purchase it.

So what is it?

NS2 is a hybrid FPS/RTS with two unique races. Each team has a commander that is playing a Top-down view RTS.By building structures, collecting resources and issuing orders to players on the ground you hope to facilitate the destruction of all of the enemies command stations or hives.

What is it not?

If you go in as a fan of RTS expecting to play as the commander 24/7 and entirely ignore the FPS part you are going to be disappointed. The role of the commander is limited to one a side and usually best filled with the most senior player on the team that already understands the ins and outs of the game. The best way to learn is to play on the ground and understand the pros and cons of all the upgrades, classes and weapons as well as getting a feel for the kinds of strategies that are effective.

The RTS interface is also, by today's standards, reasonably primitive. You can assign control groups but double tapping them will not pan your camera, there are no camera locations, very limited visual feedback on order queueing and the game is also not isometric, it is top-down to facilitate the dual FPS nature of the game.


Given the lineage it should also not surprise you that the FPS portion also does not ascribe to some modern conventions. There is no iron sights, one-hit melee animations or persistent unlock system. I say that not to disparage the game, but merely to point out that most of these are design decisions, the game is not meant to be a throwback or to play on nostalgia, they seem more aimed at doing what's right for the game as a whole.

Micro?

One of the things that is sure to frustrate is that players are autonomous, they're not going to obey your orders very quickly or even at all. Many people seem to think this undermines the whole game, that the commander becomes either useless if he's not listened to, or too important if he's required to make all of the decisions.

Thankfully the game has an interesting take on this problem similar to Starcraft's own solution of balancing fast and microable armies with powerful positional armies. The commander has to trade off between empowering his own team's units on the ground, or concentrating more on his own role. For example if your marines don't seem particularly good at aiming and taking out their opponents it might not be the best idea to give them upgraded weapons. You might instead want to invest in an ARC, the natural selection 2 equivalent of the Siege Tank, where the commander takes a more active role in it's deployment and positioning at the expense of mobility.

Frontiersmen

Somewhere between Terran and Protoss, the idea of Marines with warpgate and mass recall should strike fear into the hearts of any Starcraft 2 player and rightfully so.

Units:

Marine



The basic unit of the frontiersmen, all players on this team start as a Marine and pick up more equipment over the course of the game to keep pace with the variety of alien lifeforms.

ARC



The archetypal siege unit. Controlled by the commander, the ARC, once deployed can fire a sonic blast through walls as long as it has sight provided to it by a scan or marine. To counteract this, the shots have a large cooldown, and the ARC itself has very little armor when deployed, making it necessary to defend them at all costs.

Equipment:

Rifle



The standard issue rifle that all marines start with offers a good rate of fire and allows packs of marines to scale well.

Pistol



Also part of the default kit, the pistol is excellent when you need to reload your rifle and find yourself in a pinch.

Switch-Axe



The default melee weapon. It allows you to conserve ammo when destroying anything that doesn't fight back, but it's hard to rely on if you're in trouble.

Welder



The welder speeds up the rate at which a marine can build and repair and is an excellent early strategic choice for the commander to upgrade.

Shotgun



One of your first options for timing attacks, the bursty nature makes dealing with alien mobility a bit easier and it's high damage is enough to very quickly kill the less advanced alien evolutions, especially without the carapace trait.

Flamethrower



Perfect for clearing clog walls and preventing spore clouds from slowly chipping away at your marines. Having at least one flame-thrower in a push greatly increases it's value.

Grenade Launcher



The Grenade Launcher is perfect for clearing out enemy defensive structures and slower moving units to clear the way for your other marines.

Mines



Perfect for space control, the mines deal friendly splash damage if the owner is nearby and are defused by the Onos stomp ability or infestation spread.

Jetpack



The Jetpack allows you to use terrain features like high ceilings and dead space to your advantage, keeping you out of reach of the most dangerous Kharaa life forms.

Exosuit



A great way to make a game-ending push. The Exosuit costs a significant amount of personal resources, but a well supported exosuit can make short work of almost any alien lifeform. Can also be upgraded into a version with 2 machine guns.

Kharaa

Very much the Zerg, swarming your enemy with low range melee units and infesting everything they touch. The waved based spawning and high mobility of the Kharaa is just as formidable in this incarnation.

Units:

Skulk



It's a Zergling that can crawl on walls. Perfect for group assaults but losing a bit of it's effectiveness as the game wears on, every Kharaa player starts their life as a Skulk.

Gorge



The closest thing to a Queen in the game. It wants to stay close to the infestation so that it can always slide away on it's glowing belly. It's healing spray and ability to puke static defence make it an ideal support unit when playing a defensive game. Later on it's Bile Bomb is extremely effective at taking out large groups of buildings or armoured units.

Lerk



Closer to a Viper than a Mutalisk, the Lerk is highly mobile flying alien capable of shitting out spores which cause damage and reduce the accuracy of sentries caught in it's pesticide-like cloud.

Fade



Almost a melee version of a Stalker, the Fade's strength lie in it's ability to engage and disengage from almost any situation after dealing a huge amount of damage using it's Blink ability.

Onos



An Ultralisk in almost every sense, it's the giant bag of resources you use in an attempt to end games or throw away to put yourself terribly behind. Especially effective when paired with a Gorge to heal it after or during engagements.

Traits:

Each alien is allowed to choose from a group of traits depending on which structures are created by the commander.

Carapace or Regeneration

The most basic choice between aggressive and defensive options, because all hives heal and this tech path also opens up the Crag structure, healing is a simple matter of returning to base making carapace the better choice on defence. Regeneration allows you to be out in the field longer without retreating enabling more hit and run style attacks and helping you engage in small numbers.

Celerity or Adrenaline or Hypermutation

Celerity provides an out of combat speed boost that is excellent for getting around the map and performing counter attacks. Adrenaline on the other hand boosts your energy pool which is perfect for the more energy-hungry lifeforms like the Gorge, Lerk and Fade. Hypermutation is the most interesting, allowing you to swap out any of the other two trait groups even after they have been locked in, allowing a player to for instance, go into a battle with carapace, but retreat and evolve regeneration to stay in the fight.

Silence or Camouflage or Feign Death

These traits are seen less often than the others just because it's seen as the less useful tech path. Silence allows you to be a bit more mobile while still remaining covert by covering all of your noise, while camouflage is an excellent method of always getting the jump on your opponents and with feign death you might just be able to survive a big engagement and sneak away.

This is just a short primer, I haven't even touched on the differences between the commander roles or any of the buildings and their abilities for instance, there's a lot of complexity here and while it can be tough to soak it all in at first, hopefully this was enough to get you started!