When Sierra first released the origional Tribes, everyone was a little put off at first. I mean, it was part of the Starsiege universe, so we all expected to see 40 foot tall mechs battling other giant robots, as they lumbered about in hilly, rolling terrain, or blasted out cities. Instead, we got humans in funky armor, that spent a lot of time capturing flags and frying each other with chainguns. At first, I was like "Hrm, this is odd.... I'm not sure if I like this much." That phase lasted about 12 seconds. Then I realized how downright fun it is to play this kind of game. Now, Tribes has spawned an even more mighty and righteous offspring, Tribes 2.
While the plot is secondary to gameplay, it is interesting enough to give it a little bit of lip service here. Tribes 2's story line deals with a group of neo-barbarian 'tribes', which are the descendents of combatants in an interstellar war. They have long since forgotten why they are fighting, but they continue anyway. In Tribes 2, a new element has been added to the mix, that of the Bioderm race. Origionally, the Bioderms were a slave race, bred to fight in the tribal wars. Unfortunately, they revolted, and are now on a mission to destroy humanity.
A word on gameplay:
Tribes introduced a unique type of gameplay. It's a First Person system, but you can play the game in Third Person with decent results. The real fun stems from the fact that your character is wearing a suit of high-tech armor, that allows them to do all kinds of nifty things. Foremost among those is use of 'jump jets' built into the armor. By holding down the appropriate button, you can fire the jets, lift off, and fly a short distance. Having extra momentum will allow you to fly farther. Also, there is the ability to 'ski' down slopes. This means you simply hold the jump key, and bunny-hop merrily down the slope, picking up immense speed. An experienced player can master a combination of skiing and jetting to get to any place on a map with incredible ease.
Also, Tribes 2 is an Outdoor shooter. This means that while you have labyrintine bases and bunkers to crawl through, the majority of the action takes place in beautifully rendered outdoor environments. The outdoor environments are beatifully rendered, and really show off Tribes 2's graphical capabilites. This is one of the contributing factors to Tribes 2's engaging gameplay. With agile players and heavy weaponry, you have an environment that combines the hectic frag-fest of Quake III, with the engaging co-op play of Counter-Strike.
Cooperation with your teammates is essential to success in Tribes 2. Each objective (Capture the flag maps are a perennial favorite) is guarded with extreme amounts of weaponry, booby traps, and angry players with rocket launchers. This makes teamwork and coordination paramount if your team wants to accomplish their goal. Also, several ingenious little touches have been added to make players work together. Take for example, vehicles. There are multiple flying and ground vehicles in the game, and most have multiple crew slots, forcing you and another person to work together to pilot and fight the vehicle.
Also, Tribes 2 has a very robust communication system. Pre-bound radio macros can be used to communicate a variety of objectives, along with standard text based chat. A really amazing feature of Tribes 2 is that it implements a built in VON (Voice Over 'Net) package for players to communicate via voice over the internet. For those of you familiar Roger Wilco, or Battle Com, Tribes 2's VON system will be very familiar. There are a very limited number of VON channels avalible, which limits the number of people who can talk at once, but most Tribes 2 players tend to be very tight lipped, so this is not a big problem.
Sources of more fun than a person should have:
Tribes 2 has a myriad of ways for the player to enjoy themselves. Chief on my list is use of vehicles. Tribes 2 has implemented a lot more vehicles than it's predecessor, and the stable of vehicles is both varied and unique. From a deployable mobile base, to an assault tank, to a grav cycle, to a full fledged bomber, each vehicle has a distinct personality and tactics associated with it. Each vehicle has an important purpose to serve within the game, and several maps are very vehicle-centric. Trust me, nothing says fun like grabbing two of your friends, strapping on a Thundersword Bomber, and raining explosive hell down upon your enemies.
Next on the list of fun things Tribes 2 gives you to play with: Deployables. Deployables is a general term for a number of different objects that your player can deploy from their armor. These include mobile inventory stations, mines, spy cameras, and 2 varieties of automated sentry turrets. Again, this not only adds another layer of strategy to an already deep game, but another layer of fun. Nothing gives a player an evil chuckle like seeing an enemy rush into the front door of a bunker, and get immediately toasted by a sentry turret that the ill fated enemy didn't notice.
Last but not least: Grunt work. This is what Tribes 2 is all about. Grunt work means grabbing your plasma rifle, and going out to crack some enemy skulls. Of course, this means that you need to get ahold of some equipment first. Equipment is controlled through 'inventory stations' scattered throughout your base. There are 3 armor classes avalible, from the lumbering 'juggernaut' heavy assault armor, to the light and nimble scout/sniper armor. Also, there are about a dozen different weapons and a myriad of packs and deployables to choose from. There are 20 'favorite' equipment combinations that you can hotkey, and you may change the makeup of any one of these 'favorite' setups.
Nuts and bolts:
Now, all this fun and eye candy has to come at a price, right? You bet. Tribes 2 does require quite a bit of horsepower to run effectively. It lists the bare minimum requirements as a 300mhz pentium II and a GeForce gfx card, though gfx card requirements drop as clock speed increases. I would not recommend trying to play this game without at least a PIII/celeron class processor, and a 32mb geforce 2 card. I was running a 3DFX voodoo3 2000 card when I first got the game, and it ran like a pig. A geforce based card is most definitely the way to go. The voodoo cards don't have enough horsepower, and from what I've read/seen/heard, there are some issues with the Radeon cards and Tribes2. I switched over to a 64mb Geforce 2 MX, and the game now runs like a dream, even on my aging K6-2 processor.
Now, even within this long winded review, I've still missed quite a bit. I didn't even touch on the single player/ bot games, where one can spawn 'bots' to play against if they choose not to go online, or the different strategies that people can invent, or even the problem with llamas and teamkillers on some servers. (Or the ingenious player voting system that allows said llamas to be kicked/banned, or have maps changed) Oh, and I also didn't mention the TMMS script, that allows one to listen to their favorite MP3's within the game. Oh my my my, I've missed so much....
Conclusion: In short, if you are looking for a quality first person shooter that is loads of fun, here's the place. If you do not get this game, I will personally mail you a rabid badger =P.
The most innovative first person action franchise takes team-based warfare to new heights with TRIBES 2, where only superior teamwork and cunning tact...More at eBay
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