This looks awfully familiar...
Like many people, I was addicted to a Half-Life 1 modification called Natural Selection. So addicted in fact, I would quite often call in sick to work just so I could get in some additional games, in stretches of up around 6 hours to be exact. Safe to say, I have probably invested more hours in playing NS 1 than any other game (let alone modification), AAA or indie and yes even more than the original Counter-Strike (which is a ton of hours). But that was many years ago, before I had a family of my own, and things called responsibilities to something other than my computer and maintaining the Gorge fort.
Many years have since passed since I was an active part of the NS 1 community and gradually NS 1 died out, to the point only a small handful of servers remain today. One thing never diminished however, and that is my love and memories of a mod that broke new ground and inspired me to dive into game development myself. Natural Selection 1 for me was and still is, one of my favorite games of all time. The number of amazing moments in my long history of gaming is filled by a large percentage of games of Natural Selection. So now that you know how much I love NS, let's move on to why I am even writing this entry.
So what is NS2:C exactly? Well at first glance it would appear to be NS 2 because very little visually is different, but once you are actually inside the game and playing you quickly learn to appreciate how much different everything plays. I want to quickly point out that Dragon (one of the lead developers) has informed me that his vision of NS2:C is not that of an exact remake of NS 1, rather the goal is to start where NS 1 left off and improve on it. That said, lets move on to how I got to experience this in the first place.
Recently, I stumbled upon a thread in the NS2 forums about a modification called NS2:C (short for Natural Selection 2 Classic). Having been involved in NS 2's progress since the first Alpha build, I have never quite experienced much of the excitement from NS 1 I found myself searching for in NS 2. Now now, I know what you are thinking, while I think NS 2 does have some nice things going for it, there are a number of changes which I personally have found to detract from my own enjoyment in the NS world and it has always left me with an itch that NS 2 just can't seem to scratch. Long story short, I was contacted by one of the developers of the NS2 classic mod and invited to participate in the beta. To be clear I was not asked to write up this preview, I am simply doing it as a courtesy to the development team, and as a fan of Natural Selection because I think it deserves some publicity.
This is a preview of what I have personally seen and experienced...
Many years have since passed since I was an active part of the NS 1 community and gradually NS 1 died out, to the point only a small handful of servers remain today. One thing never diminished however, and that is my love and memories of a mod that broke new ground and inspired me to dive into game development myself. Natural Selection 1 for me was and still is, one of my favorite games of all time. The number of amazing moments in my long history of gaming is filled by a large percentage of games of Natural Selection. So now that you know how much I love NS, let's move on to why I am even writing this entry.
So what is NS2:C exactly? Well at first glance it would appear to be NS 2 because very little visually is different, but once you are actually inside the game and playing you quickly learn to appreciate how much different everything plays. I want to quickly point out that Dragon (one of the lead developers) has informed me that his vision of NS2:C is not that of an exact remake of NS 1, rather the goal is to start where NS 1 left off and improve on it. That said, lets move on to how I got to experience this in the first place.
Recently, I stumbled upon a thread in the NS2 forums about a modification called NS2:C (short for Natural Selection 2 Classic). Having been involved in NS 2's progress since the first Alpha build, I have never quite experienced much of the excitement from NS 1 I found myself searching for in NS 2. Now now, I know what you are thinking, while I think NS 2 does have some nice things going for it, there are a number of changes which I personally have found to detract from my own enjoyment in the NS world and it has always left me with an itch that NS 2 just can't seem to scratch. Long story short, I was contacted by one of the developers of the NS2 classic mod and invited to participate in the beta. To be clear I was not asked to write up this preview, I am simply doing it as a courtesy to the development team, and as a fan of Natural Selection because I think it deserves some publicity.
This is a preview of what I have personally seen and experienced...