NS2: Combat Reviews

Free-NS2-mod turned paid-standalone-game. Unlike the original Combat mod that gave an extended shelf-life to the original NS (offering free access to myriad more players who had the base game), this stand-alone mod alienates the NS2 community and signed it's own death warrant (by the very fact that people must pay a good amount in order to access such trivial extra content, compared to the base game, the lacking player base leaves nothing for those who actually purchase this title - no one to play with - as the servers are completely dead). *Actually had the chance to play this when it was first relased and it was little more polished than the earlier workshop mod of the same title. If you have NS2 installed, you will need to download another 11GB of files in order to play, as it does not utilize any of the base game's files. Anyway, this game is quite dead now, as it's the weekend and there is a whopping total of 0 people playing. **Only sensible thing to do for the developers, at this point in time, is to make the game F2P and give some useless bonuses to those who actually paid for it**

It was good as a map on NS1, really good. But now it's a standalone game for extra money. And this ruined nice gameplay, no one playing it. Don't buy this.

9/19/15 update: A new patch has been release that addressed a lot of balance issues! YIPPY! I suggest reading the patch notes on the news page to find out more. This great game is back on track :D To those that played NS1: It is what combat should have been if it was in NS2 from the start! It is fairly well balanced, and includes some fun upgrades from extra levels. To those who never played NS1: This is a team FPS game. Sorta moba style were the point is to push into the enemy base and kill there CC/Hive. You must work as a team to complete this task. But, unlike NS2 (vanilla) you dont have a commander that chooses your upgrades and dictates the path your team takes, each idividual player gets to pick there own upgrades as they level up during the round. Honestly I cant do it justice in trying to discribe it! Simply put this is a fun, fast paced, action packed game, and I strongly suggest you pick it up and play!

Well in my opinion this game is pretty exciting with its gamemod, levels and etc. But the loading speed is very slow and I would like to state that this mod is not worth buying for full price, you may buy it during sales at a discounted price of 50%-75%. So I would give this game a 6/10

"None of your friends have played this game recently. Tell them why they should." They Shouldn't. It's a vain cash grab at monetizing a previously free mod for NS2, with the forced breakage of the natural NS2 mod (and refusal to update it to fix it) coinciding with the release of this game. Segregating this portion of the community behind a paywall has only fractured the remaining players. Although it has potential, the developer's hard-fisted approach to balance quickly brought even the most dedicated players into reluctance for a quick match. The low population of players (often only one server is populated) quickly declined from double, to single digits after reckless developer patches that implimented more frustration and ruined balance. In the last two weeks, those single digit numbers can be summed up as one digit. "0" players. RIP in pieces.

I don't recommend this game, won't and never will. It's NS2, nothing is different other then a GUI change, and some simple physics changes, a couple of maps from ns1 which were already available on the workshop, they added in a gun and some other combat features that were already available in the workshop, the selling features are nothing. I am glad they introduced extra entities and worldpoints/trains, but it doesn't justify its own standalone game. Someone please copy all the .lua and put it back into ns2 as a mod.

As a huge fan of the original, I really wanted to like Combat. As it stands, here are the biggest issues: * Not enough differentiation from NS2 base game. New weapons and abilities are present, but what would have been really great is new game modes. * Loading times are still abysmal. One of the few games worth installing on a SSD. * Only 1 active server, with tons of experienced players which results in ridiculously stacked games. Matchmaking is useless, so its pretty disheartening to have new players get chomped through. Much less voice chat which made the original NS2 more of a community / kept new players engaged. All in all, worth <$5. At $15, it's overpriced for what it is. Know that you are paying to basically play against 40-50 regulars.

First off, I'm going to write about the game, not the price tag. Personally I don't have a problem with them charging extra for it, but that doesn't affect my review. So here's where I'm coming from: I've played Natural Selection since the release of the original mod for Half-Life, Combat for Natural Selection, and NS2, but not the Combat Mod for NS2. I'll be comparing this to both NS1:Combat and NS2. Main Differences from NS2 and/or NS1:Combat: Good: 1) No commanders. Also in NS1:Combat, this is one of the main draws of the gametype. You don't have to rely on anyone to get the weapons and upgrades you want. You don't instantly lose because a first time commander is in the chair. It sets up a more casual game that focuses on kills instead of a big strategic plan of attack. 2) Buildings. Yes, you can build stuff, unlike NS1:Combat. A huge change. Phase gates and Gorge tunnels help you control the map like you're playing a vanilla style NS2 game. I like it. Bad: 1) XP Gain. Another huge change from NS1:Combat is how hard it is to gain XP. Leveling is much slower and gone is the "area xp" where everyone gets XP in the vicinity of the kill. You get XP from kills, assists, and captures. Also making XP gain difficult is that with such a small player base, 90% of the players are already very skilled NS2 players. If you've never played NS, you will die alot and you will never get XP. One of the things I really liked about NS1:Combat is it's more casual gameplay style. Level gains were quick, if you fell behind, you'd get XP anyway. Here, if you fall behind, you're done. You can't really compete when you're low level against a bunch of people with armor, and the game doesn't help you out any. I've read the upgrade progression is very limiting as well, but I haven't been able to level up enough to run into that problem. It's hard to recommend this game to anyone. If you already have NS2, it's pretty much the same game. If you don't have NS2, you're going to die a lot, get stuck at the bottom of the scoreboard, and never given any upgrades to help you compete. A new player would actually have an easier time in standard NS2, as personal performance doesn't matter as much.

Australians, be aware there are NO Australian servers for this game. Impossible to play on 200+ ping so don't bother buying like i just did. You've been warned.

An overpriced mod with currently not enough content... uses all the NS2 assets, so its a mod - there's no denying it. It is not the old Combat from NS1 that we all know and loved. I bought this game on a gamble becuase I figured, "how bad could it be?" Turns out I bought this just so I could tell the rest of you it's not worth it right now for this price. If it goes on sale for a noticable amount, then it might be worth something. The only MOBA element is the fact that each team has their main HQ building and the objective is to destroy it. There are no creep waves, no item shops or items to buy. Sure you get your upgrades, but it just feels kinda shallow, like there just isnt enough variation or something in the upgrade paths you can pick. In terms of relating this to the old NS1 combat, it simply just doesn't have the progression and variety that it had. It doesn't have the HMG, Heavy Armor, and it doesn't have the extensive amount of upgrades that Extra Levels plugin offered in the old NS1, which is what everyone used to play with. Everyone seems to forget that nobody liked the vanilla NS1 combat that came with the game, it was the Extra Levels plugin that made it more enjoyable. And right now, nobody plays this game. Why? Probably either becuase it just isn't fun enough to keep people interested and/or is way too pricey for the kind of game it is. Thus it probably isn't worth the price.