For the past week I’ve been playing Tremulous, an open source game that blends a team based FPS (First-person shooter) with elements of an RTS (Real-time strategy). Its based on the Quake3 engine and the graphics are superb!

Getting and installing Tremulous

Linux users can download this package and run sh tremulous-1.1.0-installer.x86.run to install.
Ubuntu users can install it via apt-get

apt-get install tremulous

Windows users, use this.
Theres a Mac OS X version too, get it here.

Game play

The players need to chose between two teams, Humans and Aliens, based on their kill score, they evolve from stage 1 to stage 3. Both teams have a “superstructure” that controls and powers the rest, the Humans have a Reactor and the Aliens have a Overmind, without these all other structures except the spawn points (Telenodes for the Humans, Eggs for the Aliens) cease to function.

The Humans

When you enter the game you chose between Rifle or Construction Kit.
With the Construction Kit you can build and repair structures, the main defensive structure is the Machine Gun Turret, in stage 2 and 3 you can build a Defense Computer that allows you to build Tesla Generators which are more effective than Machine Gun Turrets. Other structures include the Armory, where humans can buy armor and weapons, the Medistation, where humans can heal their wounds.

The Rifle is the basic Human weapon, its most effective on small aliens (Dretches), for each kill or damage inflicted Humans get credit points, with credits they can go to the Armory and buy new, more powerful weapons and armor.

The Aliens

You can chose between a Dretch and a Granger.
With Granger you can build stuff, its similar to the Construction Kit. The main defensive structure is the Acid Tube, in stage 2 and 3 you can build Hives (insect attack, more effective than Acid Tubes), Trappers (that trap nearby humans), Boosters (give the aliens poison attack).

The Dretch is the basic alien unit, its small, its fast and it can crawl on walls. For every kill or damage inflicted on humans, the aliens get evolution points which they can use the evolve into bigger, better creatures (Basilisks, Marauders, Dragoons, Tyrants).

After some time (depending on the server settings) the game goes into Sudden Death and no more new structures can be built, so if a team loses its spawn points the other team usually wins.

Thoughts

There were a few minor things I didn’t like about the game:
1. No mouse scroll in the menus - might be just a problem on my PC but its very annoying, especially when playing as a human.
2. Bots - This is mentioned in their FAQ as well, Tremulous is currently multi-player only game, I really hope the next version will have some sort of AI.
3. More lighting on some maps.