Tribes: Vengeance Review

Award of Excellence

The Tribes games have always been designed for multiplayer play, but the latest game in the series, Tribes: Vengeance, provides a single player campaign as well. I know what you’re thinking, the single player component of games designed for online play are usually, well, underwhelming to say the least. Well Vengeance has a little surprise in store for you – the single player campaign is actually quite good. In fact, the game is worth buying just for the single player component. Don’t worry; it’s not a sign of the apocalypse. Instead it is a blessing for Tribes fans and action gamers alike.

I’m going to create a sacrilege here – I’m going to lead a review of a multiplayer online shooter by telling you about its single player campaign. That’s because unlike other such games where the single player aspect deserves no more than a footnote or passing mention at the end of a review, Vengeance’s single player campaign is actually a pretty good one – although you’ll have to put up with some really long load times and a few overly difficult missions. The campaign follows the story of the conflict between the Empire and its royal family and the rebel outcasts known as the Tribes. You’ll get to play as several different key characters at a key time in the conflict. Suffice it to say that not everything is as it seems and that as the campaign unfolds the dividing line between Empire and Tribe will blur and intertwine. The campaign game is filled with plenty of cutscenes to relate the story, but it definitely feels episodic in nature. The reason for this is that while it is a great way to create a richer backstory for what is primarily a multiplayer game, the campaign is essentially an extended tutorial. During the course of the campaign you’ll get a chance to gain experience with the various weapons, armors, vehicles, and game types found in the multiplayer game. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be spending all of your time battling bots in multiplayer arenas, although there are some missions like that. There is actually a wide variety of environments in the campaign from the interior of starships to underground caverns, so you won’t really feel that you’re just prepping your skills before going online.

Once you complete the campaign the multiplayer action awaits, and it is the online battles that are at the heart of the game. Up to 32 players can compete in a match and all of your opponents will be human as there are no bots in the game. The battles in Tribes have a different feel to them than in most multiplayer shooters because of some features unique to the game.

The first of these is that all players are equipped with jetpacks. The jetpack can be fired at any time to give you a speed boost, an extended leap, or to send you soaring across the map. You can generate quite a bit of speed and loft with an extended burn, but your pack has a limited supply of energy. Burn through it all and your jetpack will cut off and you’ll need to give it a chance to recharge before it is at full strength again. You need to be careful not to burn through your energy when you’re high off the ground or you will be in for a nasty fall. Of course you’ll still be able to fire your weapons while aloft, so Tribes features some very exciting aerial dueling. It takes some skill to hit flying targets while you yourself are airborne, so if you’re a shooter newbie who has trouble hitting stationary targets as it is you’ll probably find the action too fast and challenging. On the other hand, action gamers will love the faster and more challenging gameplay created by a seemingly innocuous accessory, i.e. the jetpack.

Another feature unique to Tribes is your ability to “ski.”. No, you don’t strap on the boards and hit the slopes in the game. Rather a press of the space bar will remove the friction from your feet allowing you to sail down slopes in the terrain. This obviously allows you to move a lot faster on the ground, but it also opens up a number of maneuvers when combined with the jetpack. For example, you can fire off the jetpack while you have skiing engage and use an upslope as a ramp to launch you on a high speed trajectory. Or you can ski right into and through an enemy base, grabbing the flag before they can even see you coming.

 

Tribes doesn’t feature a character class system, but it has something that works better. Through the use of equipment stations you can select between heavy, medium, and light armor, the trade-off being speed versus protection. There are also some weapon restrictions between the armor types, such as heavy weapons supported only by the heavy armor and the sniper rifle only being available when using light armor. After that you can select a special pack for your armor that will boost your armor’s strength or energy, or give you a special ability such as repair or healing. Finally you can then select three weapons to carry with you from the list of all weapons. This system works well for a couple of reasons. First, you can customize your character to your play style. In Tribes it is possible to be a medic/sniper hybrid if you’d like. Second, you’re not stuck with your choice for the whole game. If you find something isn’t working or that you need to adjust to the tactics of your enemy on the fly, all you need to do is to make a trip to the nearest equipment station. Tribes will even let you try and take this flexibility away from the enemy by allowing you to destroy equipment stations. If you succeed, then the enemy will not be able to change loadouts until they can get someone with a repair pack to the station.

The equipment stations are not the only installations vulnerable to attack. Resupply points, defensive turrets, and even the power stations that drive everything can be taken down by the enemy. Because of this Tribes games are more than fragfest free-for-alls. Good players and teams will need to coordinate to defend the base and its vital stations, attack the enemy’s stations, and of course work to achieve the game’s objective.

Of course Tribes supports the tried and true deathmatch and capture the flag modes, but you also get some other game types. Ball mode is like a deadly game of football where the object is to get the ball into the enemy’s goal. With flying, armed players, you can bet the action is more exciting than any gridiron action you’ve seen before. Fuel mode is a collecting game in which each team has a fuel depot and must fill it by collecting the canisters found around the map. You can also try to get more fuel while making things harder in the enemy by stealing fuel out of their depot and depositing it in yours. Rabbit is a game of keep-away in which players try to hold on to a flag as long as possible while the other players hunt them down.

Tribes: Vengeance delivers fast-paced and exciting gameplay.  Battles take place in underground caverns, destroyed cities, island chains, and even within the friendly confines of a coliseum.  Imagine large maps filled with players flying through the air, others skiing across the landscape, and others piloting vehicles on the ground and in the air - and all of this happening at a high-speed pace.  This is not a game for the casual gamer and beginners will find it quite challenging to contribute to more than the opposing team's body count.  Fans of the original Tribes games will love to see that newest version delivers the same great gameplay, while those new to the series will find a lot to like with it and a faster and more in-depth shooter than most other games out there.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 90%.  Tribes is back with a Vengeance.

System Requirements:  Pentium 4 1.0 GHz; 256 MB RAM;  32 MB Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM;  5 GB Hard Drive Space;  Mouse.

 

Final Rating: 90% - Tribes is back with a Vengeance.

 

Note: A review code for this game was provided by the publisher.