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This is not a stand alone game, but rather, a mod for Half-Life 2. And it's free, if you happen to already have Half-Life 2.
It's really awesome.
I can only describe it as a combination of Starcraft and Battlefield 2.
It's primarily a first person shooter. Only one player per team really gets to play the game as a RTS game... the commander. But its not a click-fest. It's very team oriented. And with HL2's voice comm interface, if you have headphones with a mic, you can communicate with your team and plan out your strategy... what tech's to research, where to build your buildings, defense guns, etc.
The first day I installed this mod, I played the game about 9 or 10 hours straight. It is really addicting.
There are two teams to choose from. The Brenodi Empire and the Northern Faction. The teams are not balanced either. The Brenodi are stronger. However, the game is balanced in such a way that the maps are usually a struggle between the Northern Factions superior numbers versus the Brenodi's superior technology and firepower. Depending on what team you are on, you have to use different strategies to win.
There are 4 different classes to choose from. Rifleman, Grenadier, Engineer, and Scout. Each has different weapons and abilities. Some classes even have different primary weapons that they can choose from. The Rifleman, for instance, has 3 different kinds of weapons to choose from... a light assault rifle that has a moderate zoom, a heavy assault rifle with a light zoom, and a heavy machine gun with no zoom. The scout has a sniper rifle or some SMG's. The engineer has SMG's (but has powerful repair and construction abilities). And the grenadier has anti-vehicle RPG's and land mines.
Also, in this game, when you kill people, buildings, and vehicles; you get rank points. After 10 rank points, you get promoted and can unlock a skill. These skill points can be allocated to various traits each time you select a class. So you don't have to commit to anything permanently. Also, you gain rank points by joining and participating in squads. Being a leader in a squad gives you extra points.
Research in this game is very important. The commander researches things in different areas and unlocks new capabilities primarily for the vehicles in the game. When you want a vehicle, you go to the vehicle factory, hit the use button on the computer terminal, and you select what chassis you want, outfit it with whatever weapons you want, and it puts you in the cockpit. You can get jeeps, apc's, tanks, artillerys, and there are even air vehicles (but I've not used them yet). There are even nukes in this game.
Winning the round in this game can depend greatly on what path of research the commander takes. Most rounds will be over by the time everything gets research.
The maps are very large and open, like Battlefield 2. Some maps, you have to capture flags. Some maps, you just have to build bases, capture resource points, and basically, kill off the opponent before they kill you (there are a set amount of tickets for each team). In some maps, one team may have 1500 tickets and another may have 50 tickets. But the team with 1500 tickets has 1 flag and their tickets are counting down and they must capture all the flags before time runs out.
The maps are fun because they aren't all designed the same. It's not all about just building and doing the same thing. And IMO, that adds a new dynamic to the game.
This mod is Beta 1.0 and it came out March 4th I believe.
It's very cool... I've only played as commander once, it was fun, but I think I prefer playing as a "grunt". But when your team has a great commander, you can really dominate.
If you own Half-Life 2, I suggest checking it out. It's a free download... only about 400 meg.
here are some screenshots
I'll try to make a demo of gameplay
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