This blog post will revolve around the independet open-source shooter "Warsow" and is intended as a little introduction to the game, rather than a review, because it seems that not many people know about this game.

"Warsow" was released in 2005 and was developed by various programmers and artists. The game is based on the famous "Quake"-series, to be more exact on Quake II, and is consequently a multiplayer focussed first-person shooter.
The thing that immediatly sticks out is the graphic. It uses, like another favorite game of mine, the Cel-Shading look and invigorates it by chucking lovely details left and right.
Other nice graphical effects find their way into this beautifully crafted game like bloom for lightning, which not-so-tech-savvy gamers know mostly from Shadow of Colossus were it was heavily utilized. The maps have a mainly cyberpunk feel to them, which influence can be traced back to a online published novel named "Chasseur de bots" [Hunters of Robots] by Fabrice Demurger, whose influences anon are Otomo's "Akira".

Sadly, do the models pale in comparison to the maps, but that doesn't hurt the overall look of the game so much since your opponents will be passing you by like steamrollers.

Which leads me to the gameplay, this game is really fast! It's a blast to rush through the map for the third time and shooting your enemies without noticing their guts hitting the bottom. In return, though, isn't it as fun to get shot every few seconds.
And even if it isn't as bad in reality, is Warsow a really tough game to master. There are a lot of basic and advanced movements that take a considerable time to learn, and even longer to fully grasp, but when you do like in every other game it's sweet. The second important thing in Warsow are the weapons. The weapon designs are following the same theme as the maps by sticking to the sci-fi look, albeit there just a new skin on old and beloved weapons such as the shotgun (Riotgun) and the rocket launcher.


An aspect in which this game still fails are the bots, those freaking mad virtual placeholders are just to imbalanced, and that's in every meaning of the word. Their skill level ranges from ludicrous to Mr. Miyagi, no joke! I advise you, if you check this game out, not to train using those bots if you want to really get better at this game and not Metal Gear. Sneaky bastards -__-).

Did I actually ever mentioned, that this game is free? Yeah, this game is free and for hobby programmers is the possibility to create on maps, models and huds by using their SDK that is also free to download on their website: http://www.warsow.net/


Warsow was really an innovation and more known in Europe and Japan, where it has a little and avid fanbase that is always growing. And albeit it is still a beta, is Warsow [currently at version 0.42] accepted at tournaments such as the ESL and spawned own little cups like ESW: Warsow.
Lastly, I hope I could do this game justice by giving you [yeah, that's you!] a interesting peek into this fabulous game!

[Sidenote: Some screens were made on a low resolution so that they'll still look okay after the resizing. Plus, not every screen was made on high graphic settings.]