If you haven't tooled around with the Empires mod for Half-Life 2, let me tell you, you've been missing out. The full conversion multiplayer mod introduces full-scale 64 player warfare, complete with all sorts of vehicles and huge maps. Today, it gets version 2.4, which adds five new maps, a bunch of visual tweaks, and a slew of bug fixes. Considering it's the first update in nearly two years, it's quite welcome in the community.
Sure, Empires may look a little aged as of late (it's a mod for a game that came out in 2004, after all), but its combination of FPS and RTS elements is something that very few people have managed to get right over the years. Natural Selection 2 comes to mind, but that game sure as heck isn't free. I mean, technically neither is this, but if you don't have Half-Life 2 sitting in your Steam list, I'm not sure where you've been for the last eight years. Heck, I've had the same gift copy for as long as I can remember.
Check out the Empires change log here, and download the mod from their official site.
