Natural Selection vs. Counter-Strike

CS is pretty cool, but the originality factor is floating somewhere around absolute zero.

NS is quite cool, not terribly original with regards to the theme (marines vs. aliens), but the implementation if friggin genius. It's also one of the very few multiplayer games that can truly be considered team-based. In CS, yes, there are teams and yes, you can work together, but it isn't even remotely close to the level of teamwork that is required in NS.

I personally find NS infinitely more fun than CS. Fighting back and forth on huge maps, taking, losing and retaking key control points, battling for resources, assaulting fortified positions, following the orders of your commander or flowing with the hive mind from one conflict to the next, running under the floor, across the walls or on the ceiling as a Skulk... CS (and virtually all similar games) can pretty much be boiled down to buy a gun, shoot things that move, hopefully not die, round restart, buy bigger gun, repeat.

You also really can't say much about the graphics, since they both very obviously have be spawned from the HL engine. However, the environments in NS are much nicer; it's all indoors and futuristic, but you can always tell when you're approaching a hive, because the walls slowly become more infected as you move closer. The sound is great too; marine commands, taunts, requests, the hive mind speaking to you, little (or sometimes large) alien clawsteps, that great Onos primal scream...

Yes, CS is an entertaining diversion, but Natural Selection is a game.

I'm such a damn nerd.

- = Game over, man. Game over. = -