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dkirschner's Tribes: Ascend (PC)

[January 21, 2016 10:28:10 PM]

Wow I got really busy really fast. I haven't found time to write this and it's been a week. Tribes is a lot of fun. I used to play old school Tribes in high school. This is really similar. You ski around and kill opponents. Hi Rez did a fantastic job designing maps around skiing. If you've never played Tribes, you don't just run around the map like most shooters, or even jetpack around. No, you ski. If you hold space bar on a down slope, you gain speed. You can then jetpack over a hill or keep holding space bar and ski up it, then jetpack off the top, launching you. Hit the next down slope, while still holding space bar, and you can continually pick up speed. This is "skiing." And you have to get good at it or you are utter cannon fodder.

In addition to getting good at skiing, you must become adept at shooting people who are skiing (i.e., moving reeeeeally fast) and shooting people while skiing, forwards and backwards. Then you have to get really good at shooting people who are jetpacking through the air. You've got to develop a sense of when and where people will land and fire at the ground at the right moment. It's a really fun, fast game, and there's a lot of dancing around, jetpacking up and down trying to outmaneuver your opponents, trying to make them think you're about to land, then jetpacking to the right or quickly skiing somewhere else. It's very cat and mouse I guess, and all the modes I played have this cat and mouse, pursuer and pursued feel.

I had intended to reach Rank 7 and open up a world of possibilities. You see, until rank 7, only team deathmatch and capture the flag are available to play. You gain experience when your team wins, by holding the flag, and getting other gameplay achievements. I was very much enjoying team deathmatch and capture the flag, particularly the twist on team deathmatch whereby there is a flag and whichever team is holding it their kills count double. So you want to be fragging people, but you also want to carry the flag, protect your flag carrier, and gun for theirs. It's an extra element of fun (and urgency to either get those 2x kills or avoid dying so you don't give the opponent double points!).

So I finally hit Rank 7. I eagerly went to the server lobby and what did I find? Oh, team deathmatch and capture the flag are pretty much the only modes anyone plays. Hahaha. There are several other modes, including "arena," which is just a 5v5 team deathmatch with a last man standing element, and some others that no one was playing. Oh well. I'll keep this installed and maybe play some capture the flag every now and then. I was looking forward to something surprising and fresh after Rank 7. Still looking for that multiplayer shooter that's going to stick. Trying CounterStrike next.