I played NS for a while on Linux using WINE, before Steam came along and destroyed all that. Prior to that, I gamed under Windows, but I eventually got sick of using crappy Windows 98 (since Win2K wasn't great for games) and banished it from my home.
But now that I've got an XP gaming system, I was actually just thinking of getting Steam and playing NS again -- despite my reservations about Steam, or the longevity of HL-based mods and all the empty servers.
The same day I was pondering Steam+NS (just this week), I came across Tremulous, and you can imagine I was pretty excited. Been playing every minute of every evening since then, and I can say I like what I've found. (Ironically, I don't have a Linux install on my gaming system yet, so while I played Windows-based HL on Linux, I'm still playing cross-platform Trem on Windows.
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Having said I like it overall, it's not NS, and I know it's not meant to be. I saw it mentioned in the other NS-oriented post that NS = strategy teamplay while Trem = strategy deathmatch, and I totally agree -- it puts into words the basic gameplay style difference I was feeling but couldn't put my finger on.
I think each has their place, with advantages and disadvantages.
In both games, the final objective is to destroy the enemy base; the difference is in the means. In that, I preferred NS's system of fighting for objectives rather than fighting for credits/evos. Even suicide rushes were an acceptable tactic so long as you were helping the team, whereas that just feeds the enemy in Trem.
NS is much more slow to develop, because players move slower and res nodes take time to set up -- and even then, they can only produce res at a certain rate. On the other hand, the endgame is more swiftly resolved, because once one team gains an advantage over the other, they can use that advantage to halt (or even reverse) the other team's progress, via securing res nodes and fencing the other side in. Also, even if both teams are evenly matched come the endgame, it only takes a little push to move the game in favour of one side or the other, and that tends to topple the balance pretty fast and lead to a quick victory.
By contrast, I find Trem moves at a quicker speed up until the endgame, where things completely stall. Assuming the humans fail to break through and destroy the alien base before the aliens reach S3, most endgames I've seen take the form of a standoff around the enemy turret defense lines. Unless the humans can break out or the tyrants can break in, it takes Sudden Death mode to decide the game -- usually in favour of the aliens, since they rely on creatures while humans rely on structures.
Trem has a much better variety of human weapons and equipment, but NS's heavy gear is more universally useful than Trem's. The grenade gun is like a faster lucifer, while the heavy MG is like a chaingun with accuracy. Conversely, NS aliens get more abilities than Trem aliens, including the Lerk's true flight, the Onos' ingestion and stomping, and the true ranged attack abilities of the basic Lerk and fully-upgraded Fade. Having more effective marine endgame weapons and more effective alien endgame attacks again contribute to NS's short endgame.
I like the basilisk grabbing and the advanced basilisk's poison a lot. However, I find the latter is nerfed somewhat by humans with helmets being immune, especially since it can be hard to tell whether they've got helmets or not when you're zooming around at typical alien speeds. (Is the helmet immunity a server-specific thing? Because it's not in the manual...)
I found NS's jetpack really sent you flying and was more about getting places fast, while I find Trem's is about taking advantage of the aliens' lack of ranged attack ability. Each is suited to their own game, but I find the latter more useful overall.
Finally, I found NS's wall-walking
much less disorienting than Trem's, even with Trem's auto-pitch turned off. I don't recall exactly why (been a long time since I played NS), but I suspect it has to do with faster movement speed, automatic (or just more twitchy?) camera movement, the wider field of view, the lower viewpoint, or perhaps just more complex surfaces. I know Trem has me following just about every bump in the surface of the wall/ceiling (and pitching/rolling wildly while I do), while I seem to recall NS was much more smooth, more like running on a flat floor.
The usefulness of wall-walking in a combat situation suffers accordingly, since more often that not, if I try to run up a wall or across a ceiling, I don't end up where I wanted to be. It's less of a problem when I just want to get somewhere high or wait in ambush, since I have time to pause and get my bearings, but even then it can take a few tries to get where I want, sometimes falling off in the process. Round pipes are probably the worst part of Trem wall-walking; unless I approach them perfectly straight-on, I corkscrew up the pipe and get hopelessly disoriented.
All in all, Trem's gameplay is a bit like "NS Lite" for me, but that's just because NS is more my style, IMO.
Both games rely on old engines -- 1998's Half-Life and 1999's Quake 3 -- but NS's biggest technical disadvantage is its continued reliance on HL (and hence Steam) as compared to Trem's standalone nature. The latter allows for much easier installs, along with customisability of the actual Quake 3 engine itself if needed. And of course, the GPL ensures Trem's continued freedom, whereas NS is well and truly dead as soon as Valve decides to terminate Half-Life support.
Overall, the gameplay difference is small enough that I'm happy enough to avoid Steam and enjoy Trem. Even if I were to install Steam for some other reason, NS simply doesn't have the community any more. So as long as I feel like playing an aliens-versus-humans FPS with RTS characteristics, it looks like I'm here to stay.
