Game structure (cont’d)

The aliens also have three structures they can build on top of other basic structures, these are the alien tech tree: movement, defense and sensory. Each hive the alien team controls allows the building of one type of these structures. Then, breaking down from there, each of those structures has three separate categories of upgrades an alien player may buy one of. For example, if your team builds a defense tower with their first hive you may then buy a regeneration ability, a carapace ability which decreases the damage taken by enemy fire, and the last which is redemption, a resurrection of sorts where instead of dying, the player prematurely returns home to his hive. The effectiveness of each of these is determined by how many of the structure your team has. A skulk running around with the regeneration ability will minimally regenerate, but if his team has a whole horde of defense towers at home at the hive, he can literally be regenerating a tenth of his health per second.

Yeah, I know it's an Onos, I'm halfway into it.

Charging the Onos with a knife!

Getting ready for the next bout

Make it stop!

That’s an awful lot of details to absorb, to be frank, we’ve barely described them, and not even mentioned them all. It’s very easy reading all the features of the game to be intimidated, surprisingly however, actually jumping into the game and getting a feel for it is easy. The Natural Selection team has included a wide variety of help options. By default when a player joins the game tips appear in the corner of the screen, these might be information about alien mutation forms, hive upgrades, or marine technology. As a player from either side you can simply look at a structure and you will receive information about what it is, what it does and what it produces, and it works regardless of which side you’re on. So when you’re hanging back as an alien you’ll know which structures to stand near to if you wish to regenerate, what if you blitz the marine base and you wish to know what to kill? Look around at the structures and the in game HUD will tell you what is the turret factory, and what chair the commander sits in if you want to dethrone him.

The Natural Selection team has made a very complex in-depth game, and made it very easy to get into and understand. By no means should a player be intimidated by the depth of the game, after playing for an hour you’ll know that sensory upgrades aren’t half as great as defense, that standing in front of an Onos that is battle screaming is a one way ticket to observer and that “parasite detected” means you have a giant “Kill Me” sign over your head.