Red Eclipse

I said I'd get back to this one, so here comes Red Eclipse! Another truly excellent FPS, Red Eclipse focuses on a somewhat unique gameplay twist: mobility is your best weapon. Using parkour-style moves, moving around is not limited to walking and jumping. In Red Eclipse, you can run along walls, double-jump, dash and slide your way around the environments, all while wielding everything from swords to flame-throwers. It's extremely fast-paced and takes a while getting used to, but the gameplay is certainly worth the effort. Few games make you feel as agile as Red Eclipse does, and the game really takes advantage of that fact. Beside the traditional deathmatch and capure the flag-modes, there is also something called Time Trial, where the goal is to run through a level full of tricks and traps in as little time as possible. This is really fun, and certainly puts ones skills to the test.

Two other nice functions Red Eclipse include are loads of mutators and character customization. Mutators lets you modify each match with a whole set of different rules which alter gameplay in various ways. A personal favorite is Coop, where all players fight against a bigger number of bots. Classics like one shot one kill "Instagib" and swords only "Medieval" are also fun. Character customization lets you dress up your own avatar. You can for example add a top-hat or a pair of wings, making players you encounter online a whole lot more personal.

Red Eclipse really has a lot going for it, and one more thing that has to be mentioned is the realtime level editor, where several players can create a map together, directly in the game.

Oh, and did I mention Red Eclipse looks fantastic, even on quite simple hardware? Most netbooks can run this game well and it still has high quality graphics and awesome level design. If there's one thing to complain about it is that the graphic quality is a bit uneven between the different levels; some look fantastic, but some are quite plain. Lighting effects and lots of sparkles compensates quite well for this though, and for every release everything looks even better.

Wow, long text this time. But Red Eclipse deserves it. It does a lot of things very well and with it's unique approach to FPS games, it's among the absolute best in the open game world. Get it now!

Red Eclipse also has a 3rd-person mode, which not only looks cool but is helpful as well.