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Red Eclipse 2
Red Eclipse 2 is a major update to the first Red Eclipse, an open source first-person shooter that's been around for over a decade. The original game was focused on online multiplayer mode, with addictive, fast gameplay that felt very much like the best bits of Unreal, especially when you played it competitively with your friends. It's a huge achievement that a game like this can survive so long, and more importantly, that a game like this has enough support to keep growing and developing. This new version includes a new UI and heads-up display. The graphics engine has also been re-engineered to include real-time dynamic lighting and shadow, ambient occlusion, volumetric lighting, global illumination, HDR, bloom, and tone mapping, as well as water and glass reflections and refraction. The end result is a fantastic looking game that looks much more modern than its previous 1.6 release. There's also a much more dynamic movement system that even incorporates a "parkour" type of mechanic alongside impulse boosts and dashing. You can practice your new-found parkour skills in a new single player training mode that challenges you to use different moves. This and the practice levels with bots are the only single-player experiences in the game.
Online gameplay has been refocused and intensified by only offering a limited set of maps, with seven main deathmatch maps and one race map included by default. But there's also a tutorial level for beginners. The game's permissive licensing means you can now download the game for free from Steam, too. This allows you to take advantage of Steam's multiplayer functionality, as well as the convenience of the game being listed and updated alongside any other games you may own. But you can also download, or even build, the game manually and run it without any other configuration.
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