[mr. burns]

I've been playing this game for a week or two and have gotten pretty hooked. It's made by a small company with not much money for marketing and it seems like nobody has ever heard of it. It's a mix of RTS, RPG and FPS. It's available for Windows, Linux and Intel Macs[native]. Oh, and it's FREE.

You play as either human or beast and one person from each team takes the commander position, playing the game like it's an RTS. They do the building, build up resources and tech, buff/debuff, resurrect etc., all from the top-down view. Instead of creating units and controlling them, everyone else on the team plays as a unit on the battlefield. There are different classes to choose from and more, like healers and siege units, become available further in the match as the commander builds up their base. The game is melee oriented and that's where the third-person RPG part comes into play, but some classes have ranged weapons/spells and that's when it switches to first-person.

The combat system is pretty simple, but tough to master. You can sprint, charge, jump, swing and block, with each class getting it's own set of special moves or abilities. Skill, timing and overall game experience really come into play when you're fighting people. It's not simply a rock, paper, scissors type of thing. The games can go back and forth and get pretty epic at times.

The game is free, but for $10 you can have two more items in your inventory, get access to your lifetime stats and watch replays [think Warcraft III] of every match ever played. If anything, I'd say the game is easily worth $10, but from my experience, playing for free doesn't put one at a significant disadvantage, unlike pretty much every other 'free' game out there. Definitely worth trying out, at least.

Game can be downloaded from
http://savage2.com/en/

Here are a couple videos showing the human and beast gameplay
Viddler.com - Savage 2 Gameplay 3 - Uploaded by S2Mercenary
Viddler.com - Savage 2 Gameplay 1 - Uploaded by S2Mercenary

[redJag]

That actually looks pretty impressive, gotta give props for cross-platform release too. I'll definitely try it out.

[mr. burns]

I think some people might be put off by the whole free thing, thinking that means it's probably crap, or they're trying to mix too many genres into one, but it really is done well. It reminds me a little of DOTA for warcraft III, only in third-person view, with more involved combat, but a little more like a team-based fps, as far as class selection. It was a regular retail game when it was first launched but was made free a year or so later. Still, $10... that's the cost of a shareware game. This is definitely better than a shareware game.

It's really hard to describe or get a feel for it just from videos. You really have to play it to see what it's all about.

[redJag]

I downloaded it but haven't registered and given it a shot yet, so I may be wrong here.. but I think it is multiplayer only and that is pretty intimidating for some people. For example, I know my brother would absolutely not be interested in trying it because of that fact. People just aren't comfortable learning a new game with others that already know how to play. Do you happen to know if you can create private servers where only your friends can play?

[mr. burns]

Yes, it's multiplayer only.

Well, there are designated beginner servers. You start from level zero in every new match but as you play, your account gains experience and you gain levels that pretty much just represent how long you've played the game. Servers can set a max player level. I think there are one or two that have a max level of 5 or 10, which is pretty low. I've played 2 weeks and I'm level 13 now, I think.

You can also create LAN games, or use the practice mode to fight against AI opponents and try out all of the classes. And of course there's the tutorial.

I jumped right in and started playing on the California server simply because it had the best ping. It doesn't have a max level and there are some pretty good players there. It was a little crazy at first but at the same time, I think I learned a lot quicker. What's nice is you can also spectate in games and fly around watching what people do. Or if you have a prime account, you can download replays from good players and watch from their perspective. Everyone's replays are automatically put on the site after each game. So if you see someone who did really good in a match, you can look up their profile, get the replay and watch what they did.