Free Game Savage & Retail Game Savage 2

[Pwnzilla]

I don't know how many of you have heard of either of these titles as they are both produced by a small dev group named S2Games. They are a small indie that has pretty much gone it alone without selling out to one of the major publishing groups. Due to this, they have not had a big marketing campaign to advertise their products so many of you may not have heard of these titles.

Savage: The Battle for Newerth
For those looking for a fun free game. The developer/producer has made this available as a free download. I bought the retail version back in 2003 when it was released. Sort of an alternate TF2 with the added variable of the Commander role and structure building. Game is set as humans vs beasts. Both teams have the same basic abilities, they are just implemented in different ways. The humans side might have a catapult for siege where the beast side has a huge critter that directly deals the damage. The different unit types and weapons (scout/ranged/assault/healing) add variety and the ability to improve your character through game play is an added incentive.

Your team can build structures at the direction of your Commander that serve as forward spawn points, base defense, weapon upgrades, etc... You can level up your avatar during play by killing opponents so you become progressively tougher. It was a very neat concept and gameplay is a blast. The only game I know of that comes close to it concept wise, is Battlezone. But even with BZ, the computer controlled the fighting units. In Savage, all the units are other people playing the game. If you have a poor Commander or uncooperative team members your team will have a tough time winning the match.

The Commander plays the game more like an RTS except the people playing the FPS/Melee role are the units they direct. So long as you have a half way decent Commander on your team that knows how/where/what structures to build, you can have a fun game. Commanders can also grant individual players special powers for brief periods of time to allow them do more damage, imbue them with a damage shield, etc... Players can vote the Commander out of the role if they think he/she sucks too badly. Usually by then though the other side has gained such an advantage that you won't win that particular match. I don't know how active the servers are anymore but it was one hell of a fun game back in the day.

FAQ
http://www.s2games.com/savage/faq.php

Download link
http://www.s2games.com/savage/downloads.php


Savage 2 - A Tortured Soul, is available for digital download retail as well. I am probably going to buy this to carry me over till WAR releases. The original Savage was so much fun; I want to see what improvements they have made. From what I have read they have tweaked the gameplay a bit to alter the attack methods and slowed movement down just a bit as it was very fast/frenzied in the original version. They have also written an entirely new engine for the game.

It's nice to see that good games can still be produced by a small group of creative people without a huge dev team and scads of money to fund the project. From what I read, the cost of developing Savage 2 has been mostly funded from the pockets of Marc DeForest, the co-founder and president of S2Games. I had pretty much forgotten I even still have the original Savage till I ran across an article about the release of Savage 2.

Savage 2 FAQ
http://savage2.s2games.com/gp_faq.php#q95

Here's the site for Savage 2 where you can look/download/buy if interested. It's $29.95 to purchase and no monthly fee after purchase.
http://savage2.s2games.com/main.php

You can create an account that allows you to download and play the game for five hours to see if you want to buy it.

[HeLLMuTT]

It's just like a fantasy style Battlefield game. Been playing the last hour with Part 2, It's quite fun. Definably something different. I like it.

[Maniacus]

I played the free 12 day trial a few years ago for the battle of newerth and thought it was a very fun game but unfortunately back then i was on dialup...lol So didnt buy it but ill have a look at the new one once i get back from holidays so might join ya then if ur still playing

[RaekwonThaChef]

i bought savage 1 when it came out was a real fun game but because of lagg failed