#netrek

or: Album Cover Photos Taken Seconds Before Disaster.

I've played countless multiplayer PC games since the early 90's, some that have been wildly popular and some that received critical acclaim yet were never commercial successes.  I'd like to highlight a few of these lesser-known games that were influential to me and that I felt deserved recognition.  All of these games still have an active community of highly devoted players and can be played for free.

1. S1. Savage (2003)

If you’re a fan of both RTS and FPS shooters, this is the game for you.  Imagine playing an RTS, where all your combat units are FPS players.  You mine your resources, build out your buildings and tech, and give directions to your units (which they may or may not follow).  In general, a single player will play the role of commander, though an inexperienced commander may quickly be voted out of the hot seat if they prove themselves inept.

The teams are split into two warring races (beast and human) with vastly different tech trees and abilities.  Generally, the Beasts are based on strong melee and fast offensive abilities while the Humans are ranged and defensively focused.  Such a difference in skills is difficult to balance, but Savage pulls it off wonderfully.

Savage was plagued by early game glitches in 2003 and was eventually released as a freeware title in 2006.  The game has been kept very much alive by the player community which continues to run servers and tournaments today.  Recently, a team at Newerth.com developed and released Savage XR, updating character models, animations, music, and adding gameplay improvements.  Definitely worth a look!  Be wary though, as the community has been around for a while, the learning curve to get to a respectable skill-level (either as a unit or commander) is quite steep.

Http://www.newerth.com

The creators, S2Games, are also behind the DOTA-style title - Heroes of Newerth.

2.       2. Netrek  (1988)

Deemed the first internet team game, I found out about Netrek a few years after its late 80’s heyday.  This game pioneered the team-based RTS genre with balance and game mechanics that I have not since encountered.  Each match was an epic conflict to genocide the opposing race through planetary destruction.  Control of valuable resource planets helped maintain superiority in a sector of space and helped launch your next offensive into enemy territory.  You could help fill a variety of necessary roles on your team, the fragile but fast scout, the balanced cruiser, the specialized planetary assault ship, the slow heavily armored battleship, and the space-controlling starbase.  With a high learning curve, mechanics that rewarded organized team tactics, and a game language of its own (“free beer”, “ogging”, “twinks”), Netrek was an influential gem in early internet gaming.

Ofcourse, you can still play it free now (and possibly forever)!  Though finding enough players for a quality T-mode game is sometimes difficult.  Give it a try.

http://www.netrek.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek

  3.       3. Soldat  (2002)

I remember finding this treasure after searching for a decent real-time Worms alternative.  I lost many a night glued to the screen, playing the most popular capture-the-flag style match.  The game played much like a fast-paced 2D Counterstrike, taking out enemies with a variety of weapons.  There’s nothing like saving your flag mere pixels from being capped and then capping the enemy flag in turn.  One of the biggest draws was the blossoming mapmaking community.  Even now, there are thousands of player-made maps (some amazing, some amateur) that are still floating around.

The creator Michael Marcinkowski went on to develop the addicting indie title “King Arthur’s Gold”, where you can see the Soldat styling and influence in action.

Soldat - http://www.soldat.pl

King Arthur’s Gold - http://kag2d.com

KAG Gameplay - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5xakGLn2yI

4.       4. Subspace (1997)

 A 2D top-down multiplayer Space shooter released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1997, Subspace was a fast-paced game with a variety of objectives based on the zone and server you played on.  Players zoomed along in a pseudo-accurate zero-gravity physics system adding a new dimension to ship control.  Varied objectives like  capture the flag, turf wars, ball sports, and just plain ol’ PvP destruction could be accessed in different zones or played concurrently for points.

http://www.subspace.co/

5.       5. Shattered Galaxy (2001)

Spawned from the RTS games of the 90’s, Shattered Galaxy was an early attempt to turn Starcraft into an MMO with character development and control of only up to 12 units on a battlefield of 40+ players at any one time.  Factions fought individual battles for territory on a larger planet map, gaining control by “POCcing” points of contention.  As players gained experience in battle, they would be able to afford more units and bring stronger combinations to the battlefield.

Unfortunately, the dated graphics didn’t help during the release and the game wasn’t considered a commercial success.  However, the title was clearly a breakthrough in the MMORTS genre and continues to be played today.