Overview

Developer: Dynamix
Publisher: Sierra
Tribes 2 official page: http://sierrastudios.com/games/tribes2/

Refining greatness

If you've read gaming articles on FiringSquad for a while, you probably already know about the months of my life that Tribes sucked up. It is, in its own way, the best first person shooter I've ever played. It could be said that I feel about Tribes the way most of my coworkers feel about NetQuake. It was original, pure and absolutely unadulterated. Like NetQuake, various unintended features were discovered and turned the game into something far different (and arguably better) than what the developers intended.

I hate those spineless Scout ASS-ASS-ins

Me showing off some of my frustration. I love this game

Go Big O!

It is a game that had an extremely steep learning curve (for a shooter), yet could be enjoyed by newbies, average gamers and the competitive hardcore alike. Its most distinctive feature was not even intended to be part of the game - skiing. Skiing changed the game more than rocket jumps changed Quake, or strafe jumping changed Quake II. It allowed any of the three armors - light, medium or heavy - to reach insane speeds and cross a map in a matter of seconds. All you needed was a full bar of energy, a hill and you'd be off to the races. The whole trick was to launch yourself down the hill with rapid-fire jumps, which increased velocity thanks to gravity. With judicious use of the jetpack and jumping, you'd fly over the next hill and gain more speed as soon as you started falling back down. Repeat, ad nauseum, until you were at the enemy base.

Choose yer poison

Sigh, losing in style

Abusive? At first, yes. Even later on, a very good player could dominate a public server by himself, ignoring the whole teamplay shtick that Dynamix was throwing around, and capture flags at whim. The only way to beat him was, simply, to capture the flag more often than he could. Tribes was about offense, the blitz - not about defense.

Defense rah-rah!

That is, until you got into hardcore clan matches. There, everyone's role was defined to a 't'. One lone ranger couldn't capture the flag by himself. He'd need support in the form of other light armor flag runners, heavy offense to disrupt the enemy base and flag defenses, and people to run interference against pursuers.

Base defenses up

Flag defenses were NOT

In fact, many games switched from being flag-oriented to being base-oriented, where taking out the enemy's base (specifically his generators) would temporarily knock out his ability to replace equipment and troops. Heavy defenses, especially on weak-base maps like Raindance, were set up just to allow the team to survive.

How do you top that?

Tribes II tries to address many of the issues that Tribes had. Most stemmed from skiing - like the occasional good player dominating a public server, the lack of teamplay, weak vehicles and some weapon balance. Dynamix is trying to make T2 into a newbie-friendly game which encourages teamplay, yet won't scare off the old guard. Are they succeeding?