We featured this a while back in our Retro FPS Freeware lineup, but sometimes an update is worth featuring, especally one as momentous as this. A great many years ago, a small company called Bungie (heard of them?) made the Marathon trilogy. Three heavily story-driven FPS’s that were years ahead of their time. Some time later, Bungie were kind enough to release both the game content and the engine source-code to their fans. Today, the Aleph One project has finally come to its peak. In conjunction with Freeverse, the folks who updated Marathon 2 into ‘HD’ for Xbox Live Arcade, the trilogy has finally been updated fully to modern spec.

Update: Delays and problems, it seems. The free 5-day weekend thing has been delayed until the 15th. Guess it’ll be a couple more weeks until we can hit the battlefields of tomorrow.

When you advertise a ‘free weekend’ for your game, it usually leads people to assume that it’ll happen over the weekend. Netherlands-based indies Interwave Studios dare to think different, though. Starting this December 1st and continuing until the 5th, everyone will be able to download and play their interesting FPS/RTS hybrid Nuclear Dawn for free via Steam. Accompanying this will be a permanent price-drop to a more palatable $20, and a range of temporary perks on top of a recently-released mod toolkit.

As I sit down to write this, my hands still occasionally twitch as my pulse returns to normal level. I just completed Serious Sam 3: BFE (Before First Encounter, allegedly, although it varied depending on who you ask), and I would not be the slightest bit surprised if there were more enemies in the final level than in the entire Modern Warfare trilogy combined. This is a game that wears its heart on it’s sleeve – it’s relentlessly, proudly bright, loud and old-school, despite having a slightly more muted aesthetic than the earlier games. Just don’t mistake ‘loud’ for ‘dumb’. SS3 is a game that you shouldn’t ever underestimate.

Another day, another chunk taken out of your wallet, and another few delicious indie games added to your swelling Steam account. As with all our other updates on this subject, these are just the daily deals that you should be paying attention to – there’s no shortage of other games out there. Today, just a couple of items, but they’re essentials if you like your games bright and shooty.

This November has been an enormous month for gaming, with major mainstream titles coming out every other day. Now, the indie scene rolls out its own heavyweight in the form of Serious Sam 3. Developed by tiny Croatian studio Croteam (named after their own country, as it is so unknown in game development circles) and boosted into stardom by equally tiny indie publishing outfit Devolver Digital, Serious Sam 3 promises old-school FPS gameplay with hundreds of weird and ugly monsters to kill per level, mixed in with modern production values and online co-op for up to 16 players. Beyond the break, a very metal launch trailer, and play-by-play first thoughts on the initial sections of the game.

Another retro mod spotlight, yes, but this one is special. I’ve been saving this one for a rainy day – this, without a doubt, is one of my favourite mods for any game as of the past few years. What is it? Well, Brutal Doom is a general gameplay overhaul for seminal FPS’s Doom and Doom 2, utilizing all the perks of the modernized GZDoom engine. What does it change? Everything. But specifically, how does chainsaw surgery, Mortal Kombat style finishing moves inspired by the above comic and a ‘Go F*%# Yourself!’ button sound?

I tried reviewing this game a while back. I failed. EYE: Divine Cybermancy is a dementedly over-ambitous FPS/RPG hybrid with a setting and story that reads like a hybrid of Warhammer 40k and Shadowrun, if they’d been written by David Lynch and drunkenly translated into French and only halfway back again. It’s a game where – while playing as a bizarrely incoherent and profane cyber-ninja-monk-mage – you can have your brain hacked into by a surly ATM, or violently explode your foes with just the power of your mind. And for the next 24 hours, you can get it for half price on Steam. Hit the jump for a trailer, and more on why this game was so impossible to review.

First person shooter games are always impressive. They’ve got great graphics and fast, fun gameplay. They also typically require plenty of resources and dev teams in the tens or hundreds to make (see: Modern Warfare). Which is partly why I’m so impressed every time I see a true indie FPS game come out such as SickBrick, by Misfit Villager.

If you suffer from motion sickness or a poor sense of direction, just move on. There are other games for you. For those with a strong stomach, here’s another blast from the past – 1998s free-flying ‘6DoF‘ FPS, Forsaken, originally released by Acclaim and now revived and ported to modern Windows, Mac and Linux by its fans after the source-code and game resources fell into their hands, and boasting support for modern systems, resolutions and controllers. Despite its age, there’s really not much like this outside of the recent Shattered Horizon, hence the community interest in keeping it alive.

Futuremark Game Studio emailed me this morning to let me know two really great things about their FPS, Shattered Horizon, winner, by the way, of our 2010 indie games tournament.

The first piece of good news is that you can now own the game for $4.99. That’s about how much you would pay for a few tacos at Taco Bell and, really, you’ll feel better after playing Shattered Horizon.