Empires, the award winning Half-Life 2 mod, combines the best of the first person shooter and real-time strategy genres. Fight as either the Northern Faction, remnants of the fallen nation of Jekotia, or as the imperial Brenodi Empire. Empires features:
10/10 - Agree (10) Disagree (1)
I first came to Empires in January 2008. At first, I was a bit put off. It didn't look that fantastic, and I was never that sure what to do. But I had a friend who already played the mod, so I stuck with it to keep him company. Nearly 3 years later I'm still here, and can say without a doubt this is the best game I've ever played.
Empires is an RTS/FPS, but lets make this clear. 1 person on each team is in RTS "mode", the rest are in FPS. You fight over refinery points in a variety of vehicles, which also have a variety of armaments which can be added to them, as well as different engines and armour, all based off what your commander researches. It's unlike any other game for the simple scale of what you're playing. With games as large as 32v32, things can get incredibly hectic.
The infantry combat at first seems quite simplistic, as there isn't a huge variety of weaponry. But as you get further into playing the game, the sheer scale of the tactics you can use due to the engineer wall emplacements that he can drop, tank support, squad powers, and so much more, you realise just how different it is to every other game, and how much fun it can be. With Jeeps, APCs, Armoured Fighting Vehicles, Regular tanks, Heavy tanks and Artillery tanks, there's so much variety. And that's not to mention that some day, there may well be aircraft in this game, which are being added as we speak (Although don't expect them that soon).
There are problems, don't get me wrong. The game isn't the most intuitive for new players, and that's possibly the biggest drawback. A tutorial map is under development at the moment to fix just that. The GUI can be a bit complex, and there are still the odd bugs, many of which have been present for a long, long time. On top of that, it isn't the most pretty game you'll play, although every release updates the graphics of the game that little bit more.
But above all, the amount of teamwork in Empires is what sets it apart from every other game. Ever.