It has hover tanks, it has bombers, it has jump packs and it has turrets, thank you Sierra! What I love about Tribes II is that it gives you the ability to play the game in so many different capacities. You can be a sniper, a heavy weapon specialist, drive vehicles, place turrets, repair generators, attack through stealth, place explosives and that is a short over simplified list! Three different ‘armors’, a plethora of weapons, packs galore, plus vehicles and mods allow this great amount of options.
This variety is what first got me into this game, that and the beautiful, easy to control vehicles. Moreover, yes, I did fly a couple of ‘juggernaut transports’ into mountains, but only because the juggernauts were so heavy (and I was pointed at the ground, tomato, tomato)! As I was saying, the shear number of options is invigorating, refreshing and some other words. However, it can also be over whelming. Want to be an assault class armor with storm hammer, repair pack, frag grenades, pea shooter, plasma rifle and salad shooter? You can, but you may not know how initially. The manual is a great deal of help in this regard, explaining how to use the number pad to change load outs. Specifically, I believe that you hit numpad enter, and it will give you a list of load outs that you can customize as you see fit. People online are quite courteous (for the most part, every not and then a shazbot), and nearly always willing to help you. The in-game help can be useful as well.
The vehicles can be a bit imposing at first as well. You will find yourself crashing the flying vehicles into the ground, and flipping the ground vehicles over when you first start piloting them. Stick with it though; read the manual for the basic idea how to do it, and then practice. Practice first with smaller, one man craft, as people can be a little testy when you crash and kill them. After some practice, and if you’re inclined, climb aboard and pilot a bomber, transport, or tank. People are usually looking for pilots, and even if you crash a few times, explain you’re new and then quickly change servers (I’m just kidding, why bother telling them if you’re going to quickly change servers anyway).
The weapons are interesting, and a nice change of pace from the norm. I myself would enjoy a shotgun, however, but it doesn’t keep me up at nights. The storm hammer takes a little to aid, and I recommend practicing with it a lot, as it is quite useful. The storm hammer and the chain gun I would put forth to you as the tried and true combo. They are very effective and cover various needs quite well.
The jump pack is a nice item, every armor has it (though to varying degrees of maneuverability), and it is the primary mode of transportation. I would also like to recommend practicing jump packing. It is highly important, as much as aiming, and will keep you alive like you wouldn’t believe. Using it effectively allows you to move around quickly, and dodge enemy fire (thus the keeping of the alive).
Graphically, Sierra did a bang up job, especially when you consider this is an online game. You get smoke trails from aircraft and missiles, reflections, transparencies, beautiful explosions and all this at a crisp frame rate. What the Tribes II engine does best however, is combine detailed indoor environments, with wide open outdoor environments, something which was highly touted during the prerelease media blitz. Furthermore, when I say 'wide open', I mean wide open like Rosie O'Donnel's mouth in the buffet line. The horizons, in certain levels, are ridiculously far off. This is not merely graphics for the sake of graphics either. It is extremely important to the sniper class, as well as just being generally useful to everyone else.
The controls are good, fairly standard first person fair here. There are additions for things like 'packs' and such, but nothing ground breaking. The vehicles piloting controls are pretty basic, with up/down controlling pitch, and left/right controling yaw. The enter key is a 'boost' button which can be used for vertical take off (provided that's possible for the vehicle you're in), and in both cases to go, and I quote, "Really fast." Using the boost does deplete your shields though, and veteran pilots will use it as little as possible in enemy territory, you know, so they live longer.
I would advise a newbie to play a ‘duel mod’ level after a while. It provides an excellent chance to practice jump packing and aiming, and generally staying alive. Enjoy this game, I certainly will!
Addendum:
I have mistakenly given all the praise to Sierra for this wonderful product, while in actuality, all those bastards do is distribute it. Dynamix is the team that made it, and Dynamix was disolved today 8/10/2001 by management for reasons unknown, but presumed greedy. It's sad when good game makers go down, we see it all the time, but these guys seemed to have suffered particularly under Sierra's yoke. Let's all pour some Jolt on the concrete for our fallen homies.
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