Free Indie Shooters

This might come as a shocker to a lot of you but I have pretty much always been broke. As a consequence of this, the majority of computer hardware I have owned has been either thrown together crap, revitalized garbage, or hand-me-down gifts from friends. While this has been a bit of a dampener in the past (like when one of my franken-builds almost killed me) it has given me an appreciation for free and low(ish) spec indie games. Combine that with a short but spirited stint of playing nothing but a copy of a er… “discounted” copy of CS 1.6, I got a taste for simple online shooters and have found multiple of them. I don’t necessarily like all of the ones I have found but I do know that quite a few have flown under the radar and that doesn’t sit quite right with me. I do have a few of them listed on my “Games” page, so if you don’t feel like reading this blog post feel free to go here instead.

Assault Cube

I’m starting out with probably my favorite. Why is it my favorite? Well that isn’t super easy to answer but I guess it’s because it’s a mix of aesthetic, performance and fun. It’s very reminiscent of Counter Strike 1.6 in it’s look, while playing like an old school competitive shooter and has all of your favorite game modes. While the armament may seem lacking (only five primaries), and the graphics are fairly dated, I would’ve killed for a free game like this back in high school. It’s install package is small (~50mb) and it can be played over a 56 Kbps connection. Honestly I don’t know anybody who still uses dial-up but since I did up until about 2013 I’m sure someone somewhere still is. Combine that with the in game map editor and the ease of modding the game you really do have something you can mess around with for years to come if you so choose. Did I mention it’s Open Source?

Counter-Strike 2D

I remember when I first found this while searching for a uh “cheaper” download of CS 1.6 to play. While it wasn’t the 3D FPS I was originally looking for, it hit all the right buttons for me and I was smitten. Easy map creator, multiple game modes included that you would have had to mod Vanilla 1.6 to play, loads of maps and weapons on FPSbanana and all of that counter terrorism goodness wrapped up into one fun little package. The game plays from a top down perspective and while that can seem somewhat alien to a lot of people it plays phenomenally. I honestly think I spent more time on this than I did 1.6 back in the day because of all the fuckery we pulled on the school computers.

Quake Champions: DOOM Edition

This one is relatively new to me and as such I don’t know everything about it. HOWEVER it is probably the most fun I’ve ever had in a DOOM based multiplayer game. I was always more of Unreal Tournament kind of guy so I’m not sure how 1 to 1 this conversion is but the sheer dedication required to make something this smooth and this polished is monumental. Oh and remember when I said I liked UT? Yeah it’s got those weapons too. Not only that but depending on which “Champion” you pick the guns look different and fit more with their home game. The champions are something else too, you have everything from Doomguy, Gordon Freeman, Duke Nukem and even Postal Dude. It’s a bit more sizeable than the last two I’ve mentioned but in my humble opinion is absolutely worth it. If you’re a fan of arena shooters or miss that old school cool this is not one to miss out on. Fair warning, the engine this is built from was never intended for this level of crazy so if you have a really REALLY crap computer like I do your performance might be less than ideal.

Xonotic

If you liked Unreal Tournament, you’ll like Xonotic. This open source shooter started out as a fork of the game Nexuiz and while the exact reason for the split escapes me I do believe it was because Nexuiz went commercial and the designers for Xonotic (former members of the Nexuiz crew) wanted a game that was Open Source and stayed free for it’s community. I know there’s a few other differences but ultimately it doesn’t matter because we aren’t talking about Nexuiz are we? Xonotic is a love letter to UT99-UT04, and it shows. Bunny hopping, manic combat, power ups, even a lot of the weapons are pretty similar. Legally distinct, but similar. Nearly all the game modes that I loved (barring things like Assault or Onslaught) are there, and even though I’m probably worse at Xonotic than I was at UT99 I still have a blast every time I play it.

OpenArena

Quake III Arena but free and open source. Not a lot to say about it, since if you’ve played QA you know what to expect. Sadly the player count seems pretty low any more but it can still be fun with bots when solo and runs well on pretty much anything. The character models are pretty outlandish though so it might grind against your personal tastes. Either way, worth an afternoon to at least try.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten

The sequel to the hit shooter Cube, Sauerbraten takes what worked in the original and builds upon it. Open source, easily modded, and comes with the in game map editor that made the original so popular. I don’t play a lot of this one to be honest as I’m usually playing Assault Cube (a fork of the first game), but it was fairly popular on it’s release. While this is a fully functional shooter game, the design of Sauerbraten is fairly simplistic. While I wouldn’t venture to call it “barebones” or “plain”, you can tell that the devs intended this to be more of a fun map maker that other teams could use as the skeleton for their own games. Red Eclipse is a great example of this.

Red Eclispe

I wasn’t going to put this on here since I haven’t really played it, but since I used it as an example in my Cube 2 entry it seems fitting to include it. As I stated before, Red Eclipse is a fork project of Sauerbraten and uses it’s engine. It has improved graphics, a sci-fi aesthetic and an emphasis on parkour to get around the maps. If you thought the bunny-hopping and rocket jumping in other games made hitting your opponents difficult, Red Eclipse is that but on steroids. I can’t really give a lot more on this game as I’ve only played a few test rounds of it, but it felt well-polished and the movement mechanics were very smooth.

I know there’s a lot of other indie PvP shooters, but to be honest with you I rarely get to play games I like let alone try new ones. So if this list seems incomplete I apologize, however I hope that I might have shared a little bit of fun with you by writing this. I am by no means an encyclopedia of game knowledge but all the more reason to share things that might seem obvious for those who might not know about them. Hell, I didn’t even know QC:DE even existed until about two days ago (at the time of writing this anyway), and it’s apparently been a pretty big thing for a while.

Thanks for reading, and happy fragging!