If you were playing PC games in the early 2000's, you probably remember a little game called Unreal Tournament 2004. If you were like me, while you weren't scoring Headshots or Monster Kills on as many noobs as possible, you were trying out as many mods as possible. Single player mods. Multiplayer mods. They were all fun, and it was nice to partake in what had become a thriving community of creative and innovative game developers both in and out of the industry.

One of my favorite single player mods was a little top-down shooter made in the obvious spirit of Starship Troopers. It became so popular that the mod mades it onto the Editors Choice edition of the game. The game was very fun and introduced coop play into the Unreal world by introducing classes that worked together and possessed unique abilities. And with enemy being the everyone's favorite target (bugs), it was fun for hours.

Well, the folks at Value hired that original team of modders and have rereleased the game on Steam. The best part.... its free!!



The keeps all the same stuff I loved from the original game. The top down POV, the bugs, and the classes. Here is a class break down:

Officer

Grants a passive bonus to damage and damage resistance to nearby allies. He has access to a class-restricted shotgun with an incendiary grenade launcher and has general all-around abilities. They are also capable of throwing extra amounts of explosive ordnance, and may find class-restricted ammo caches on the field for his Vindicator shotgun. The two playable characters are Sarge and Jaeger.

Carries a motion sensor, can set up sentry guns faster, welds doors faster, and is the only class capable of unlocking certain door panels or completing certain objectives by means of a hacking minigame. They also have access to a prototype assault rifle with auto aiming capabilities and the ability to fire stun grenades. The two playable characters are Crash and Vegas.

Special Weapons

Brings raw damage to the table and starts out with a customized autogun with superior parameters, high magazine capacity, and auto aiming ability. The Special Weapons gains access to a powerful minigun at a high enough level, and can pick up class-restricted ammo caches on the field. The two playable characters are Wildcat and Wolfe.

Medic

Is able to equip and deploy temporary healing beacons, and at a high enough level can use a "healing gun" to selectively heal teammates and themselves. The two playable characters are Faith and Bastille.

Tech

Carries a motion sensor, can set up sentry guns faster, welds doors faster, and is the only class capable of unlocking certain door panels or completing certain objectives by means of a hacking minigame. They also have access to a prototype assault rifle with auto aiming capabilities and the ability to fire stun grenades. The two playable characters are Crash and Vegas.

So why the free release? Well, it doesn't look like there is much "game" behind the game. From what I have seen and read, the story and levels are pretty simplistic. G4 TV (where I first heard about this, sorry I don't have a link) gave me the impression that when Value hired these guys, they main took the previous code and game assets, did a little bit of retooling and tweaking and released the game. Accompanying the game is an SDK allowing players create their own levels and possibly story-lines.

So the idea I am getting it this: Value is just floating the concept around. If it catches momentum and gets really popular, perhaps they will retool the entire thing and make an actual game out of it. Otherwise, they will let it evaporate and put the newly employed modders onto other Value projects.

Regardless of the intent or plans, we should all be thanking Value for the opportunity to play this awesome, bug-shoot-em-up game. And for free?? Who can pass that up?

As a lazy developer, I think I have put it off as long as I can, and I don't think I can put it off anymore. It seems to me that HTML5 is getting closer and closer to being the ready to take it's place as the standard for web layout, design, and coding. Time to take the plunge I guess.

If you are like me, you have been following what cool things Safari and Chrome have been doing with HTML5, but you might not know where to start. It might seem odd, but I have found a good place to start is Twitter. If you do not have or follow Twitter trends, now might be a good time to do so. Here are some of the most informative tweets I have found in the #html5 trend.

arcadian: Go play! #js #html5 #css3 http://playground.html5rocks.com

guerrier: Building a custom #HTML5 video player with #CSS3 and #jQuery http://bit.ly/bNyfVk #WebDesign

fmontes: 25 HTML5 Features, Tips, and Techniques you Must Know - http://goo.gl/CI49 - #html #html5 #css #css3 #webdesign (via @rafaels76)

I know it is not too much, but it is a good place to get started.