At the tail end of 1998 PC gamers had the pleasure of playing the first game of its kind: Starsiege Tribes. Since then, several other titles have focused on team/multi play, but none have had the same effect that Tribes did. A long time coming, Tribes 2 was announced in the summer of 1999 and the anticipation began. Promises of new weapons, giant maps, and a new engine got Tribes fans drooling on their keyboards. After nearly three years of development, an assload of hype, and enough screen shots to kill a few large animals, Dynamix's big sequel is here.
What the hell is it?
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Despite the improvements listed above, hardcore Tribes fans will find that the basic mechanics of the game have not changed, but now there is a newer graphics engine, larger network games, and a host of new weapons, items, and vehicles for you to play with. For those of you who are not yet Tribes veterans, you can use the game's offline training missions to get you started.
Tribes 2 gets its sci-fi setting from previous Dynamix titles involving mechs: Starseige and Earthseige. What makes Tribes 2 unique is the large outdoor environments and the flying mobile suits with several high tech weapons and items to chose from. You get your choice of three classes of mobile suits: Light-Scout, Medium-Assault and Heavy-Juggernaut--all three vary in weapons and mobility. Each class of suit can hold up to five weapons, grenades/mines, and a special pack. You can now chose what armor/weapons/items you use in each battle with a redone inventory system that allows you to pull up a screen and pick what equipment you want to use, which takes affect when you visit a inventory station. You can change your armor and all things mentioned anytime in the match if you are near a station. This is a big improvement from the first Tribes. Indoor turret defenses make fighting inside quick and nasty, but special pack and weapon combos can keep you out of harms way.
So it's just a FPS?
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If you're looking for incredibly fast fragging action found in such games as Quake 3: Arena, Unreal Tournament, and Counter-Strike, then T2 isn't for you. Those used to a fast pace will quickly find that the jet pack has a large effect on combat. Your jet pack gives you a limited burst of upward or directional thrust that can be deadly once mastered. In the days of the original Tribes, players could hit the jump key repeatedly and "ski" down large hills and players with light and medium armor could move across large areas in a short time. Now, all you need to do is hold down the jump key while going down and you will slide down the hill quicker.
Offline play with only blots (bots) isn't too stimulating, but everyone enjoys a good bot match now and again. Unfortunately, the blots don't interact with the vehicles at all and tend to be pretty stupid at times, even at a high difficulty. An alternative for those stuck in slowdem hell is and always has been to get yourself onto a LAN. Being one of those people stuck with a modem myself, I was unable to play smoothly on-line and decided to have some buddies over to test it out. Tribes 2 has greatly improved upon network code which can hold about 60 players without any problems, and above 60 with some minor problems if it has enough dedicated bandwidth. I have not had so much fun in a multiplayer game since the first Tribes. I found my heart rate go up as I hopped in a transport with the enemy flag, plasma turrets blazing from every direction, and the excitement I felt when I finally capped that flag was innumerable. All things aside, this game is just loads of fun.
Talk to me.
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The communication system in Tribes 2 is very nice; you can organize clan happenings and chat with the general populous with the built in community features. As of now, only the News, Chat, and Game Finder options are available because of the incredible load on Dynamix's servers. Email and other features should be functional soon enough. Also, T2 has a built in voice chat function that makes it easy to communicate with your team to make things work. Don't even think of using this though if you're on a 56k.
Revving the New Engine
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The most noticeable and usually most focused on difference between Tribes 1 and 2 is the graphics engine. The engine has been tweaked and tooled to take advantage of more advanced 3d accelerators and higher end PCs. You can find lots of eye candy in everything you do. From the enormous buildings, blurred energy shots, and footsteps in the snow and rain, to beautiful looking explosions and weapon affects. Although the game runs all right with the settings on high on my new box, many will find the game sluggish in the more large outdoor maps with many of the affects turned on or up. Most mainstream machines won't run Tribes 2 well unless the effects are turned off and texture detail is lowered. Without many of these settings, the game doesn't look nearly as good... in some cases, not even as good as Tribes 1. I would recommend using at least a 600Mhz+ CPU, 128MBs of RAM, and nothing lower than a GeForce 2 or a Radeon as your video card (preferably with 64MB of DDR).
Overall:
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As a whole, Tribes 2 was really well done. Killer graphics, lots of action, and great vehicle battles are only a tiny part of what makes Tribes 2 a great game. Unfortunately, many of those who slapped down $50 for the game found almost beta-like qualities. There's no end to 3dfx users that have complained about horrible performance, while countless others experience random UE errors, and several other bugs hinder many players fun. What I feel is that with such a quality piece of software and the fact that it was only just released... who cares! Receiving several patches right after release is nothing new to the PC gaming community. Hell, we've been running MS software for years, and with them, every new version is basically a big patch. Tribes 2 is definitely worth buying. Right now, a patch that fixes a major memory leak and supposedly fixes 3DFX users problems is in testing and will be available Thursday.
Tribes 2 requires quick skills developed in Quake like games while blending in slow, more thought out tactical fighting, such as in Deus Ex and Thief. You won't find anything else that isn't Starsiege: Tribes like Tribes 2. Nothing else offers so much mayhem and fun like this.
Enter breathtaking worlds where brainpower and teamwork are the only true keys to survival . Plus, join an existing Tribe or start one of your own!More at BargainStation.com
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