Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 28 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 467 Ratings

  • Summary: Natural Selection 2 is a revamped version of the Half-Life mod that will be available through Steam as a stand-alone purchase.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 24 out of 28
  2. Negative: 0 out of 28
  1. Nov 5, 2012
    91
    Natural Selection 2 is one of the best FPS online of the last years. It blends FPS and RTS perfectly. Buy it.
  2. Dec 18, 2012
    86
    The results are fantastic. NS3 is tactical and tense, but sometimes the emphasis on teamwork can mean you're stuck on a long losing slope if your pals are rubbish. [Jan 2013, p.86]
  3. Dec 12, 2012
    85
    Tightly designed version of the eternal struggle, aliens versus space marines. Maps make it too easy to lose one's bearings and biting/hitting a marine could use some visible feedback.
  4. Jun 10, 2013
    71
    Certainly not for newcomers in the genre; but it’s a blast for hardcore gamers that crave for action instead of the classic FPS mechanics and want matches that last something between a Counter-Strike and Battlefield 3 battle. [March 2013]

See all 28 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 13 out of 180
  1. Marvelous game, every bit as entertaining as Natural Selection was years ago. The most important thing to understand about this game is that everything was made by a handful of dedicated people with an ENORMOUS modding community behind their back every step of the way. New content will be continuously released (including combat mode from ns1) on a monthly/weekly basis including: maps, models and skins, game types, etc.
    As with any mixed-genre game, getting a grasp of ns2 can be a challenge. Marines/aliens with sub-par FPS skills will be worse off than the counter-strike gods, and commanders that breathe Red Alert will be tactical masters in just a few games. There is variety of playing styles to suit you, whether its being a scout for your team to warn of incoming threats/enemy positions, supporting by building or protecting valuable ground, or endlessly assaulting the enemy base, you can sink hours at a time into this game without even knowing you've killed half of your free day.
    Sadly, as with most online games (mostly the PC versions), teamwork is a HEAVY requirement. For some people this may make the game, for others it will break it, but regardless playing with friends and communicating with your team is HIGHLY ENCOURAGED. Remember, you could easily kill a few marines and look cool, or you could strategically kill the power and prevent many more from spawning.
    Now for the reason it can't be a 10, and maybe never will be... Latency scripting. No matter how 'professional' or 'godlike' or 'stronk' you may be, having a ping above 100 will ALMOST ALWAYS ruin your gameplay. You might hear things like "wall hacker" and "godmode" and such, when in reality you're shooting 2 feet behind the skulk lagging like a b*tch, or biting where the marine was nearly a second ago. Sure, your damage drawer might shot -420 on a skulk, but that guy dodged every shot on his screen, and he happened to roll a 6 this time around while you got a 5. For this, all I can say is to bear with UWE until they can polish their coding. Until then, for everyone's sake, don't join a server if your ping is gnarly.
    Anywho, if you played the first NS, you owe it to yourself (and possibly your childhood) to buy this game. Great remix of classic NS1, with a few additional key elements to balance it out once and for all, as well as some added quirks, tech tree elements, and skills.

    P.S. currently $10 on steam until 1/7/13
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  2. 8
    Very fun game made with lot of effort from the developers. The only problem I have with it is that I find it too difficult. It's probably just me being terrible at every game. Hohoho. Expand
  3. It's a good game, a faithful recreation of the HL1 mod. But sadly, that's all it is. A recreation. No real new features to speak of, ones that add to the game, that is, and we lost alot of features as well, so it comes out to less.

    The game also has horrible performance, as you can see on their forums, even with a high end rig. There's numerous bugs that have existed for over two years in the beta form, that are still not fixed. At it's core, it's really fun, but lacks polish and content.
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  4. 0
    I previously gave this game a 9, but I've changed my mind and I think it deserves no more than 7.

    The main problem is *performance*. I don'
    t have particular issues, I have a pretty decent rig, but you simply can't expect people to have high end machines to play your game, which doesn't even look that good or complicated.

    At first I was more forgiving, the game had just been released.
    But now months have passed, and performance has even got worse for some in the previous patches (240 and 241).

    Then there's balance; I understand that the asymmetry of the game makes it hard to do proper balancing, but when UWE fixed major hitreg bugs AND heavily nerfed Skulk's mobility *in the same patch*... well, that was stupid.
    Skulks are the backbone of Alien teams; any significant change to both skulks and base marines might have a huge impact on balance.

    You should never ever fix major bugs and nerf these units at the same damn time.
    The result is that skulks are very easy to hit and they move like a brick, hence marines win most games nowadays: well done.

    Also, I hate how they overhyped certain features which turned out to be stupid and useless (yes, i'm talking about Babblers). They made a trailer about it. I have no idea how Babblers made it out through internal playtesting, they are abysmally bad and a waste of resources.

    They enjoy suiciding in places like Crevice, they can't keep up with the gorge (which is the slowest life form too), they have a 2 minutes life span which isn't reported anywhere in the game, they are extremely easy to dodge as a marine: in short, a fail-feature.

    Well, that's it.
    I guess my rant is over.
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See all 180 User Reviews