Review: Tribes 2 for PC on GamePro.com.

Review: Tribes 2

Review by HUMANTORNADO | 04/05/2001 | 18:38:51 PM PST

Tribes 2 is a worthy successor to the original game. First person shooting action combined with a hefty dose of strategy make this massive multiplayer game a winner.

Starsiege: Tribes took the Internet by storm when it was released back in 1999, and now, finally, Tribes 2 has hit the PC with a bang. This highly anticipated sequel is sure to please hardcore Tribes fans, with a slew of new features and tweaks, however, there are a few caveats, especially for the action gamer who's new to the Tribes universe.

For those unfamiliar with the Tribes games, the premise is simple. Set in a high-tech science fiction background, Tribes 2 is a multiplayer-focused first person shooter with an emphasis on team strategy. The game lets up to 64 gamers simultaneously battle in large outdoor environments, either on foot or in a number of vehicles, in one of many different games.

Tribal Instinct
The action can be insanely chaotic especially in games with large numbers of players. Up to 64 players can duke it out in a single game, and with such a large number of players Tribes 2 becomes something of a squad based realtime strategy game combined with heavy first person action. There are a lot of different game modes to pick from. Bounty has you hunting a specific enemy player, once you eliminate that player, you are assigned their bounty and so on until there's only one player left standing. Capture the flag has you try to penetrate the enemy defense, steal their flag, then hightail it back to your base. Capture and Hold has your team try to take over certain objectives such as towers. Rabbit is a kind of "kill the flag carrier," while Siege has one team defend a base, and the other try to take it over. You can play any of the games solo against some very good AI bots, or go up against human opponents on a LAN or over the internet. Tribes 2 servers can be accessed directly from the in-game menu that has some nice sorting capabilities for ping rates, kind of game, number of players, etc.

Once you've picked a game and jumped into the current battle, you've got to outfit yourself correctly for the role you want to play. You can choose to play defense and go with a heavy, less mobile setup, or snipe the enemy from long range in a light scout setup. There are a number of different armaments you can pick from--close quarters weapons like a chaingun to a wicked laser rifle to grenade launchers and the like provide a complete arsenal, and each weapon is distinctly different. You'll have a blast trying to pick your favorite. You can also select from different armor and equipment packs like cloaking devices, sensor jammers, and repair packs to keep your turrets and sensor array working. One nice addition to the gameplay is that you can pick your equipment selection before you go to an inventory station to change your armor, weapons, and equipment setups. This speeds up the process a bit.

Hitch A Ride
While you can fight on foot, you can also take advantage of a number of vehicles ranging from a quick single seat Grav Cycle that hovers just above the ground, to a Thundersword heavy bomber that takes a crew of three (pilot, bomber, and gunner). Piloting the different vehicles is quite tough however. While the Grav Cycle is the fastest, it's also extremely unstable, and you'll bounce off of trees and hills like a pinball unless you drive very slowly, and that kind of defeats the purpose. When you're airborne in a Shrike fighter or Thundersword bomber, the controls are marginal. You can't look around if you're the pilot (your view is locked in the direction the craft is flying) and with the fog, it can be quite disorienting. You'll crash often (and hard) unless you're careful. The control in the vehicles is still very touchy, and for the uninitiated, will probably be frustrating.

Tribes veterans will be instantly familiar with the control interface, but for the action gamer who lives for Unreal Tournament, the controls in Tribes 2 are insanely complex, and you'll use most of the keyboard to access different commands and to communicate with other players. But that's simply due to the more intricate nature of the game. Giving and accepting orders, tracking player movement, typing messages, and managing your inventory can be really hectic, especially in the heat of battle.

Commandeer It
The command map also lets you plan out strategy via an overhead view. Here you can set waypoints and issue orders in realtime as well. The game is improved immeasurably when one team member "takes command" and takes on the role of coordinating your team's efforts. This is relatively simple if you're a Tribes vet who's a clan member with regular teammates, but playing pickup games over the internet with strangers is usually chaotic, and not as much fun as it should be. Put simply, your mileage will vary as far as online gaming goes, but again, the game does have some solid AI bots that you can play against.

A microphone and headset are almost necessary equipment for gamers who want to make a serious effort at playing Tribes 2 with other gamers. Granted, you can get by with a keyboard, but because the gameplay is so focused on team coordination and the action is so fast, staying in contact with a mike will give you an advantage. That advantage will be multiplied if your whole team is wired for sound. Tribes 2 has integrated voice support, so you don't need a third party solution like Roger Wilco, and it does a good job of limiting unnecessary chatter by limiting the active channels to two, and displaying a list of gamers wishing to speak. You can also mute other players if they prove to be too annoying. Still, even if you don't have a microphone, the quick list of messages you can pull up from the menu via keyboard is good and quick enough to keep you in the game.

Graphics Glitches
The graphics in Tribes 2 are much improved over the first Tribes with better details all around. The terrain graphics are very well defined, with lots of rugged mountains, hills, and crevasses to set ambushes and find cover. However, even an 800 megahertz PIII and GeForce 2 graphics card couldn't keep the game from dropping frames at 800x600 resolution, especially during close quarters combat outdoors. With a GeForce 2 card, the game looks decidedly better in Open GL mode, with the Direct X video looking quite muddy by comparison. In addition, there are a lot of various documented graphics issues floating around the various Tribes forums. That said, there are plenty of graphics options to tune the game to your system specs. There is a good amount of fog in the game, but the viewing distance is good, and gameplay areas are huge. The fog actually improves the team aspect of gameplay a bit making players pay more attention to protecting and maintaining their sensor arrays to track enemy movement.

Tribes veterans will want to run out and pick up Tribes 2 right away. Actually, if you're a Tribes fan, then you probably already own Tribes 2. But if you don't, there are enough new additions to the game to make it a worthy purchase, aside from the various graphics issues. It isn't a game that you can just pickup and get into, and newbies will have to be patient. The controls are very complex, and the added elements of team play add another layer of difficulty. However, if you're patient and spend a good amount of time playing against the AI bots, your enjoyment of Tribes 2 will increase tenfold.