I have a serious problem. A very serious problem. It hasn't started to affect my personal or professional life yet, but it's just a matter of time.
I stay up, bleary-eyed, refusing to stop until, realizing I cannot function on just 2 hours of sleep a night, I resign myself to the fact that I must turn it off.
Tribes 2.
At work on my lunch break, I used to be hooked to Unreal Tournament. Our collective bosses finally banned the game from the building. We would hook up on the LAN and blast and curse and yell over the cubicle walls until, with the induction of new ownership (who might not be so lenient with that sort of thing) our bosses decided it was unsafe for their professional lives to allow this to continue.
My jones had to be fed, so I would try to get into the online fragfest on the internet. I don't know, but without knowing who I was blasting to pieces, it lost a lot of excitement.
Then I bought Tribes 2. Similar in concept in some ways with the Arena/Deathmatch features, when used as a Capture the Flag platform, the game takes off completely and leaves UT in the dirt.
It seems from the luke warm ratings I have received on this review that it may not be "helpful" enough. I decided it was because I didn't describe the mechanics of the game well enough.
Tribes 2 is a first person shooter video game for your PC where you play the role of an armored trooper intent on completing a mission. The player chooses from three types of armor classes to wear, each armor class determines what type of weapons you can carry and your mobility. The mission you choose is dependent upon which scenario you choose.
You can decide to engage in a game of "Rabbit". One flag exists and the object is to get it and hold it as long as you can while everyone else tries to kill you. When (not if) you die, the flag is dropped and someone else grabs it and runs.
In "Capture the Flag", the most popular type of game offered in Tribes 2, players organize in defensive and offensive units to protect your team's flag while trying to capture your enemies.
"Capture and Hold" is all about controlling locations. You gain points by capturing locations and more points by holding them for a given period of time.
"Siege" begins with one team on offense trying to take an objective, while the defensive team tries to hold it. Once the offense has achieved their goal, teams switch and the newly offensive attackers must take the objective in less time than their opponent.
"Deathmatch" is your typical "Last Man Standing" arena fragfest.
"Bounty", like Deathmatch, except that you must hunt down one specific target player. You suffer penalty points if you kill any other than your bounty, except for the player hunting you.
"Flag Hunters", played in individual or team mode, troopers must destroy other players and capture as many flags as possible and return them to the "Nexus" for points.
Employing seemingly endless landscapes, extending the map size by a factor of ten, and adding vehicles like tanks and bombers where you can actually be the bombardier or the tail gunner, Tribes 2 is on a completely different level.
With three armor types, almost unlimited weapons combinations and the ability to deploy turrets and radar and cameras, T2 is a gamers dream. Whether you want to be a rogue assassin, employing a cloaking pack and a power leech capable of fatally shocking an opponent without his even knowing you were behind him until it's too late, or packing on the Juggernaut armor and strapping a hill-shattering Fusion Mortar gun to your arm with the ability to not only destroy armaments and installations quickly, but to blast an opponent into tiny fragments of armor, limbs exploding outward from the blast zone, every firepower fetish is explorable.
You can sit on the sidelines and man missile or mortar turrets, you can act as General and direct troops to the action, you can act as defense, destroying enemy troops as they try to capture your base or flag.
I personally like to try different things, not happy with the same-old. My favorite is the Juggernaut Assault configuration, for the sheer joy of unstoppable firepower, but sometimes I like to go light and fast and fly in under my own power and snag the flag.
The ability to make rocket assisted jumps across the map (somewhat limited with the Juggernaut armor) adds a third dimension to the game that keeps it fast.
Online, this game really takes off. In order to be a bombardier, you need to hook up with another player who will fly the craft. If you want to be a tank gunner, you need a driver. I've noticed that the successful assaults always seem to have a coordinated effort, where the individuals have either planned their attack beforehand and each trooper has a specific mission within the assault, or they simply yell "Attack!" and everyone assault en-masse. This, of course, makes perfect sense; therefore it behooves one to communicate with other players. This can be done through the chat interface that allows you to choose from a set of pre-programmed phrases, like "I'll attack the enemy generators", or "I've got the flag, cover me", or through straightforward type in, entering your own messages via the keyboard.
You could also have voice chat with a headphones setup to keep the hands free to destroy opponents.
T2 has a seemingly infinite number of maps to battle in, with new ones being developed by players all the time, as well as new weapons and armor classes that have been built into some servers. Shielding, beacons, updated weapons, new skins for you armor, new vehicles, a virtually endless array of additions to the game combine to keep it fresh and fast and furious.
There simply is not enough time to go into everything the game has to offer. There are only so many hours in a day and I am not going to waste any talking to you when I could be dropping a Fusion Mortar in your lap and obliterating your slow-*ss, useless newbie butt!
Oh yeah. Eddard is my other screen name. I also go by protoguy.
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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