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| Tribes 2 |
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In an industry filled with games
that are hyped up at release, played, and quickly
forgotten, titles that come out of nowhere and
become smash hits are pretty rare. Those that
wind up being played for a while after being
shipped aren't exactly common, either. Yet
Starsiege Tribes, a title released two years ago
with little anticipation from gamers or the
press, made a huge impact on the online gaming
scene and is still played by legions of gamers
today. In contrast, it's sequel (Appropriately
titled "Tribes 2") is gearing up for
release with high expectations and plenty of
media coverage. Based on the beta I've been
playing for the last few weeks, though, it looks
like Tribes 2, with plenty of new additions and
improvements over the original's playstyle, may
not only live up to the hype, but surpass it with
a near perfect online action game.
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As was the case with it's predecessor, Tribes 2
is based entirely around online teamplay. Dynamix
hasn't completely ditched the single player game,
however - T2 includes a very thorough single
player game campaign to prepare new players for
the online scene. This is much more robust and in
depth than the small set of tutorials found in
the original game, consisting of actual action
and win conditions. A botmatch has also been
added, so players with relatively slow internet
connections can still get plenty out of Tribes 2.
As with just about any sequel, players of the
first game will find themselves familiar with a
number of the game's elements. The weapons are
largely unchanged, and the general gameplay
mechanics and feel of Tribes remain intact. Level
designs in general are still huge, sprawling
outdoor environments with bases at opposite ends.
Although most gamers simply ignored them and
stuck with Capture the Flag, Starsiege Tribes
boasted a large number of different game modes
that went far beyond the traditional deathmatch
and flag defending games. Aside from CTF, two of
the team-oriented game modes in Tribes 2 are
Capture and Hold and Siege. Capture and Hold
involves each team attempting to grab specific
locations and points on the map and hold them for
specific periods of time. Siege, as the name may
well imply, puts one team on the defending end
and one team on the offensive. The match ends
when the opposing team achieves it's goal, at
which point the roles are reversed.
Despite an overall team based emphasis on Tribes
2 as a whole, there's a good deal of action to be
had if you're a loner. A simple deathmatch is
included, but it's concept is made more
interesting in Bounty. In this mode, each player
is only allowed to "hunt" one player at
a time, and is penalized for killing anyone
except him or her. In Rabbit, another DM
variation, everyone "hunts" the player
holding the level's only existing flag. The last
gameplay mode in Tribes 2 is Flag Hunters, in
which players frag others and grab the flags
they're carrying, which count for points only
after being "cashed in" at a central
location called a Nexus. As far as ways to play
the game go, Tribes 2 looks to take the variety
crown previously held by Epic's Unreal
Tournament, and offer a bit for all types of
players.
One of the most interesting aspects of Tribes was
the use of vehicles, something previously unseen
in online action games. Although a player could
travel by foot through the game's huge levels,
traveling by an aircraft was much faster and
significantly more efficient when transporting
several players at once to the enemy base in
hopes of a surprise arial attack. In this way,
vehicles in Tribes added a lot of strategy to the
gameplay. Tribes 2 is no different, as it's array
of aerial vehicles include fighters, bombers, and
heavy multiperson transports. New to the sequel
are three ground vehicles: A "grav
cycle" lets players ride over to a base
quickly, grab a flag, and speed right back to
base, and an assault vehicle with a two man crew
(A driver and a gunner) is great for Attacking
other warriors on foot. The last ground vehicle
is a one manned mobile, deployable base.
Another notable improvement over Tribes is a
cleaned up interface. Enemy base and flag
structure locations are pointed out on the main
screen, preventing the need for constant
switching between the map and the game screen.
The graphics themselves - now supporting OpenGL
(Good news for those annoyed with the Glide only
support out of the box in Tribes) - have also
dramatically improved since the first title,
sporting beautiful lighting and fogging effects
and detailed character models, terrain, and
bases.
All taken into account, Tribes 2 looks like the
ideal sequel, preserving all of what made the
original great while improving in all crucial
areas and in the process creating what could well
be the first must have title of 2001. Keep an eye
out for this one.
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