Review: Tribes: Ascend

[News Portal]

The free-to-play [app=8130]Tribes: Ascend[/app] has now launched, and brought with it a bunch of happy gun-toting skiers, all of whom are only laying down money if they think it's worth it. But is it worth it? Marcus Dunn investigates.

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[Merkin]

Formatting is broken in the first line!

[Mearehear]

Review sums it up quite well

[Tim Colwill]

Formatting is broken in the first line!

So it is! Thankyou!

[Joshua]

Tribes: Ascend is a good game. But it is definitely not for everyone.

It is lacking of some variety and teams can become horribly unbalanced.
Not to mention game-play is primarily focused on "be up higher than your enemy and fire explosives near them when they are on the ground".

Perfect game to play for an hour or so when 'You have been disconnected from EA Online (1)'.

Plus it plays very well for the graphics. UT3 engine is very underrated.

[Cyrinno]

It plays well, its' definately a kill someone on the groudn with a spinfusor or kill em in the air with an assault rifle.

I like that there's turrets, forcefields and a whole bunch of other deployables.

I think it's a refreshing game.

[MCUD]

Great game that everyone should at least give a try to experience something different to Battlefield: Call of Honor - Modern Assault

[HandsomeSandwich]

How to install after unpacking?

[Drakand]

haven't heard anything about hats yet...

Game does look pretty awesome though, may have to jump in

[skard]

Ironically in the game when a player complains too much about what he doesn't like some players will suggest usually in not so polite a fashion that they return to CoD. I've not played CoD since it was first released in 2003 so the comparison is lost on me. I've played Tribes since 2001.

You failed to mention the value of Team Death Match for the new Triber - this is where non-skiers will learn to master the MOST important skill of playing tribes - skiing.

In regards to balance skill is a huge variable when trying to weigh balance. The awesome player can cap with a heavy consistently or defend with a light armor better than most could with a fully unlocked heavy. Balance is important but can't be raised above overall fun for the noobie and veteran alike.

You mentioned play to win - some still-struggling-with-skills players will cry about "pay to win" but the simple truth of that is there is no weapon or loadout that can compete with skill.

Even for a teenager if you invest $20-$30 on a free-to-play game like this - thats still less than the standard cost of a FPS game in retail. And if the teen has to wait for a birthday or some other reason he can still play while he waits.

You mention clan support, tournament modes and voice chat. Tribes:Ascend was still in Beta til a few weeks ago and ever few weeks they add something new. As a consumer we might want it all right now, but if a game can continue to grow and develop and mature while maintaining it's robust coding (few to no crashes) I have great faith that in the next few months now that T:A is out of Beta you'll be seeing the above and more. The coders read the forums and respond to requests and concerns. That is a rare treat for any player in any serious gaming context.

Finally in your Good vs Bad columns I do agree Tribes:Ascend could use a few more maps. Note that they have actually taken a few maps offline because they probably weren't quite ready for all around play. And just late last night they did add a map to Capture & Hold which is my current preferred gaming mode after having played CTF since November.

[Bugalugs McScruffin]

Bad: Doesn't seem to run on Windows 8.

If anyone has got this running in Windows 8, please let me know how. <3

[LeX]

I'm enjoying the game. sometimes i do ok and other times I'm completely out skilled witch is sort of refreshing knowing there is a learning curve, something that is missing in most new FPS games.

[Yamiki]

Me and a few mates played a few rounds last night.

This game is pretty fun, the skiing didn't take long to pick up, yes the explosive type weapons are basically the go, but it you've got a good enough aim, the projectile weapons are basically a great finisher weapon.

Picking up the flag at 200kph and hearing the music pump up in the background proved to be the moment sent the game into the next level.

It is well worth the try... The 3 basic classes are great, I got the free facebook gold and bought the Infiltrator class... which I'm trying to master because good golly miss Molly, sneaking into the generator room and blowing up the player trying to heal it and then cloaking and jetting out ...

Worth a try and if you grab the G.O.N Mirror download, All you need to do is download the launcher and copy the files across.

I can see this becoming a regular game around our area and who knows, if it takes off, maybe a G.O.N server

[Marcus Dunn]

Yeah that's a good point - there's a few promotions floating around at the moment. One will net you something like 250 gold, another will get you a free utility pack for Soldier. From memory there's also one to give you a free spinfuser for Soldier - if anyone has those links handy, drop them in here.

Soldier pack utility thread: http://bittah.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18253
Soldier spinfuser: http://massively.enjin.com/tribeslaunch

The above may have expired.

[HandsomeSandwich]

How to install after unpacking?