Overview

The game of games

In late 1998 a sleeper hit by the name of StarSiege: Tribes emerged. Tribes was met with little fanfare and silent reviewers, but soon it took the world by storm. Tribes emphasized several multiplayer game features that gamers were starting to demand.

Tribes took the notion of teamplay expounded in such classics as Team Fortress and leapt into the air with it, skied down a slope and fired it through a disk launcher. Dynamix defined its classic game with fully three-dimensional environments, an outdoor emphasis, a fast-paced, online-only nature and brilliant gameplay.

Foolish mortal

Flag!

In the course of a year, Tribes would secure a place in the hearts of thousands of fans. Many dubbed it the online game of the year, some even gave it the award for finest first person shooter. When the time came to get nostalgic and folks started talking about the best games of all time, StarSiege: Tribes got as high as the top twenty in some of these lists. A cult following has since huddled behind the game in all its online environments, and Tribes is still one of the most played internet games two years after its release. Now gamers are anticipating the long-awaited sequel.

The budding sequel

Tribes 2 will change the face of Tribes, but we'll still see the same style of outdoor-intensive gameplay that we all know and love. The number of vehicles has been doubled, and Dynamix has added new weapons, options and maps, and a radiant new engine.

Descension

Oh no, I'm spontaneously combusting again!

Above all, the kinks have been smoothed out, gone are the long lines at the inventory, replaced with a polished hop-in and hop-out speed philosophy. The extreme nature of some of the armor strengths has been toned and refined. We are also given numerous new environments, water, and more realistic fog. We will also have the ability to edit these environments with a gorgeous, new, world editor. Moreover, Tribes 2 will feature a true single-player campaign, something that the first game sorely lacked.

The launch date for Tribes 2 has been pushed back several times but Dynamix is still going strong; there is an almost unspoken refusal at being held back. As of this writing, the closed beta has just started, and hopefully we can expect the game on store shelves soon.

Dave Georgeson, the man with the plan, gave us the honor of chatting with him for a wee bit about Tribes 2. Read on to see what the producer of Tribes 2 had to share with us.

And while he is doing that... I'll just pick up these here flags...

The Aurora Borealis is not limited to the skies anymore.