Page 2

19 Dec 2008 at 11:27:57 by Spanner Spencer

Insurgency

http://www.insmod.net/

Insurgency has become something of a game in its own right – providing a total conversion for Half-Life 2 that brings the FPS action in direct competition with contemporary commercial shooters. Based in the Middle East, Insurgency is an intense urban warfare multiplayer that plays heavily on teamwork tactics and organisation.

Indeed, the only real way to make any progress in Insurgency is by crafting yourselves into a finely honed and well-regimented squad. Fantasy MMOs have promoted the idea of hierarchical guilds for a long time, but the FPS genre hasn’t really explored this territory. Multiplayer shooters tend to be a collective of players, fighting together without too much organisation, but Insurgency demands you and your teammates tailor your approach to the urban tactics.

It offers a host of modern, war-torn battlefields that are practically recognisable from real life news reports, in such locations as Almaden, Baghdad, Haditha, Karkar, Ramadi, Hillah, Abdallah, Buhriz and a host of others as the community builds more and more arenas. These maps are also designed very intricately to ensure you use every doorway, concrete bollard and burnt out car to edge your way into dominance.

Insurgency is another mod that Valve has put out on its Steam distribution network, so you get automatic updates, leaderboards, easy install and an ultra-simple way to get in on some tense multiplayer action.

Smashball

http://www.smashball.tv/

The new Speedball game didn’t turn out all that spectacular, sadly, but that hasn’t stopped modders from advancing the concept of futuristic, designer blood sports. Indeed, it’s something of an interesting twist that the FPS framework of Half-Life 2 has been put to sporting use in Smashball – a high octane, ultra-violent ball game mod.

Smashball features some truly unique maps as the playing field for the simple, yet intricate sport. Players must fight their way through the labyrinthine levels to grab the ball and run it into the opposition’s goal. The teams are equipped with full physics-equipped grappling hooks and jet packs to boost them around the urban mazes as they try to avoid – or kill – the competition.

Each player is also tooled up with a weapon to whittle away at the enemy’s energy; making them more vulnerable to the hand-to-hand combat attacks that ensue during the aggressive tackling. Energy levels do replenish, but there are no rules as to the ferociousness of your tackling, so Smashball players can regularly find their characters injured or dead.

With the Smashball community regularly building new maps and tonnes of league action for you to get in on, this is the perfect mod for anyone who found the new Speedball game a bit lacking, and is bored with the over-licensed commerciality of dedicated sports games.

Comment