omega329
21st April 2012, 10:23 AM
So, Hi-Rez Studios have bought the IP to the Tribes series and have developed a free to play FPS.
I love. this. game.
Honestly, it's one of the most refreshing FPSes I've played in years, it has this strange blend of old-school "screw realism" with modern elements of gameplay, accolades and awards thrown into the mix, somehow it just works. For those unfamiliar with the Tribes series, the core gameplay mechanic is skiing and jetpacks.
Holding down the space bar causes you to ski, you slide frictionless across the landscape, building up speed as you go down slopes, losing it as you go up them. Now here's where the jetpacks come in. You use your jetpacks to stop yourself from losing speed as you go uphill, these have a limited range, but "energy" is constantly recharging. This leads to awesomely fast gameplay. There's an amazing thrill to seeing your team assaulting an enemy base distracting them as you ski down a huge hill towards the enemy flagstand, usually you'd be spotted, however in this case the enemy is in dissarray. You speed up, catch air on a small upslope heading straight for their flag, at 250km/h you grab the flag, zooming away before anyone has a chance to even comprehend the giant "Diamond Sword has the Blood Eagle flag" message on top of everyones screens.
Flag grabs are insanely fun, however combat for a new player starts out as frustrating, with virtually every weapon being projectile based, and targets moving over 100km/h in most cases, you have to learn how to lead targets properly. As you improve, you get a sort of innate feeling as to how other players will move, what slopes they'll ski down, how fast they'll be going afterwards. With most weapons being explosive in nature, there's a bit of forgiveness when trying to hit someone. There'll be a time where you've got an enemy just about to capture your flag, they're in mid air and there's no way you're going to get a ground shot on them before they cap the flag, so you'll shoot at them in mid air, hoping it'll hit...
*phchuck* (hit marker sound)"you killed LlamaGrabber"
*kerching!* "Blue plate special award"
you've done it! the game's tied at 4-4 and you've just prevented them from winning! your last-ditch attempt has paid off, you've sucessfully calculated parabolic trajectories, distance to target, your velocity and its effect on your projectile, their velocity, guessed at how much energy they've got left and used that data to think "aim there." and it worked. A pathfinder on your team grabs their flag as you return yours. Sadly, you die, standing right in the enemy base when you've just stopped them from winning the game usually isn't a good idea, especially when there's half a dozen pissed off heavy classes that want to ruin your day.
So yeah, I love tribes ascend, and there's a growing community of players who want to get tribes ascend running as a competetive e-sport, it's got great potential due to the incredibly high skill-cap that there is, along with the ease of getting new players into the game. It also makes for really awesome montage videos and is interesting to watch due to two main reasons:
1. Boom-boom pew-pew speedy-speedy gameplay
2. Tactics involved, a good team needs to communicate well and co-ordinate attacks, a flag-grabber isn't going to do anything unless there's someone to distract and disrupt the defense.
Anyway, I've rambled on about how much I love tribes, has anyone else given it a go?
I love. this. game.
Honestly, it's one of the most refreshing FPSes I've played in years, it has this strange blend of old-school "screw realism" with modern elements of gameplay, accolades and awards thrown into the mix, somehow it just works. For those unfamiliar with the Tribes series, the core gameplay mechanic is skiing and jetpacks.
Holding down the space bar causes you to ski, you slide frictionless across the landscape, building up speed as you go down slopes, losing it as you go up them. Now here's where the jetpacks come in. You use your jetpacks to stop yourself from losing speed as you go uphill, these have a limited range, but "energy" is constantly recharging. This leads to awesomely fast gameplay. There's an amazing thrill to seeing your team assaulting an enemy base distracting them as you ski down a huge hill towards the enemy flagstand, usually you'd be spotted, however in this case the enemy is in dissarray. You speed up, catch air on a small upslope heading straight for their flag, at 250km/h you grab the flag, zooming away before anyone has a chance to even comprehend the giant "Diamond Sword has the Blood Eagle flag" message on top of everyones screens.
Flag grabs are insanely fun, however combat for a new player starts out as frustrating, with virtually every weapon being projectile based, and targets moving over 100km/h in most cases, you have to learn how to lead targets properly. As you improve, you get a sort of innate feeling as to how other players will move, what slopes they'll ski down, how fast they'll be going afterwards. With most weapons being explosive in nature, there's a bit of forgiveness when trying to hit someone. There'll be a time where you've got an enemy just about to capture your flag, they're in mid air and there's no way you're going to get a ground shot on them before they cap the flag, so you'll shoot at them in mid air, hoping it'll hit...
*phchuck* (hit marker sound)"you killed LlamaGrabber"
*kerching!* "Blue plate special award"
you've done it! the game's tied at 4-4 and you've just prevented them from winning! your last-ditch attempt has paid off, you've sucessfully calculated parabolic trajectories, distance to target, your velocity and its effect on your projectile, their velocity, guessed at how much energy they've got left and used that data to think "aim there." and it worked. A pathfinder on your team grabs their flag as you return yours. Sadly, you die, standing right in the enemy base when you've just stopped them from winning the game usually isn't a good idea, especially when there's half a dozen pissed off heavy classes that want to ruin your day.
So yeah, I love tribes ascend, and there's a growing community of players who want to get tribes ascend running as a competetive e-sport, it's got great potential due to the incredibly high skill-cap that there is, along with the ease of getting new players into the game. It also makes for really awesome montage videos and is interesting to watch due to two main reasons:
1. Boom-boom pew-pew speedy-speedy gameplay
2. Tactics involved, a good team needs to communicate well and co-ordinate attacks, a flag-grabber isn't going to do anything unless there's someone to distract and disrupt the defense.
Anyway, I've rambled on about how much I love tribes, has anyone else given it a go?