Warsow

Warsow is a multiplayer first-person shooter computer game first publicly released on June 8, 2005. The game is actively developed by a crew of freelance software developers and artists.

Warsow’s codebase is free and open source software, distributed under the terms of the GPL; it is built upon Qfusion, an advanced modification of the Quake II engine. The artwork and other media are licensed under the proprietary Warsow Content License, which allows the contributors of this media to use the work in a "personal portfolio" but not in any other game.

Warsow is loosely based on the E-novel Chasseur de bots by Fabrice Demurger. The novel is the basis of the game's cyberpunk visual style, which is achieved by combining cel-shaded cartoon-like graphics with dark, flashy and dirty textures. Since visual clarity is important in maintaining competitive gameplay, Warsow tries to keep effects minimalistic, clear and visible.

Gameplay
The very competitive gameplay of Warsow focuses heavily on movement and trickjumps. Many of the tricks in Warsow, which originate from the Quake series, include circle-jumping, bunny hopping, strafe-jumping, double jumping, ramp-sliding, and rocket jumping. Warsow also gives players the ability to dash, dodge or wall jump, tricks that were originally possible in the Unreal series. It uses a separate button for most of the special movements, making it easier to use them while doing other things at the same time. The various movement tricks combine to add an extra dimension to the gameplay; as the player's proficiency at moving increases, they are able to collect health, armour and weapons more quickly, and to overpower less capable enemies. The variety and flexibility of the physics has spawned an entire community dedicated to competing on the various Race maps that the game offers.

Warsow also has a unique power-up system for weapons. In addition to regular ammunition, ammo boxes found on the map contain strong ammunition. Strong ammo either increases a weapon's power or modifies its behaviour to make it more effective. Weapons are restricted to using strong ammunition until depleted, at which point it would switch back to using regular ammunition. Unlike Unreal, Warsow weapons do not have an "alternate fire" option (pressing a different button to use different attacks with the same weapon).

Mentions in the media
Warsow was mentioned on ABC's TV program Good Game in the episode on 14 April 2008 in a segment listing the best free to play games available.

Competitive play
While Warsow is still beta software, it has been accepted as a competition-worthy game by several large online leagues such as the Electronic Sports League and ClanBase. In addition to acceptance by large leagues, many specialized Warsow cups have emerged. Well-known examples are Bamboocha, a Europe-based Warsow Duel Tourney, and ESW : WARSOW, a Japanese Warsow cup. In 2007, several LAN tournaments featuring Warsow have emerged such as Crossfire Devotii Challenge 3, Warsow.nl LAN, and E-SPORTS STADIUM 2007.

Additionally, Warsow has been featured on the German TV-channel GIGA Television several times, namely in GIGA eSports and its sub-shows Skill Sunday and Free For All and the Pay TV ITV station GIGA 2, also produced by Turtle Entertainment.