ONCE… Just once has a suggestion from game stop actually been worth the effort.

This was back in 1999. I believe I was still living at home and was associating with my good friend Rocky at the time.

The suggestion was thus, “You would like to play Tribes”.

I had never heard of tribes, and didn’t know what the game was about. It was a FPS with a twist, you had a jetpack and could ski across HUGE amounts of land very quickly. Of all the game I think I have ever played, this one is by far the fastest playing and requires the most amount of twitch.

Well, after playing tribes for a bit, I realized that this game was quite entertaining. I mean, REALLY entertaining.

So, after figuring that out, as a child of the era when the internet was still new, what did I do? I uttered the rallying cry that wasn’t even a phrase yet…. “TO THE INTERNET!”.

I fired up google (Because I used google before it was a verb), and looked up tribes. I found screenshots and such from the game. And honestly, this is pretty much what I was playing…

Nothing fancy. Well, the internet told me that there was going to be a sequal. I even knew roughly when the release date was.

Since game marketing was still young, the best you could get was a display in the electronics portion of the local walmart or fred meyer.

While at the electronics department of the freddies down in Bremerton Washington one afternoon while I was with Rocky, we spied something. It was what appeared to be Tribes 2.

I looked at rocky and exclaimed, “It’s Out!” and ran over…

The following is a decent account of what took place as I stepped up to the display.

The boxes on that display were empty. The game wasn’t supposed to be out for a few more days at least. What is really sad is I knew this. What is even MORE sad is that I had seen this comic that morning before Rocky and I went down to Fred Meyer.

Yeah, that’s right, I got suckered in to a display. Honestly, it sucked. So, I waited the extra week and sure enough, the actual game was out.

I purchased my new game, I went home, I installed it, and started running the updater. (All while Playing Descent 2 on Kali in the background).

After the updater was complete (I already knew it was a horrible update system they were using after glancing it it), I was faced with a situation a lot like this one….

I took my beating and the update completed. I was playing tribes 2.

Much better eh?

Well, time passed, games come and go, and I moved on.

Well, here I am, 10 years later and I found a link to a new game. Tribes: Ascend.

Just like Team Fortress 2 (GREAT GAME BTW!), it was free to play.

In my head, I started doing the “No-Pants, I’m so happy Dance”.

I clicked join.

I clicked install.

I clicked update. (No kicking this time)

I clicked play.

What did I see?

BAM!

(Oh yeah, click the pics to make them bigger… will ya?)

Bar far, this is the best tribes yet in the way of looks.

But how does it play? Well, it’s still as fast as the first two. It’s still got all of my favorite features. But it’s a tad different.

Lets look at this video before we get too far. Just to give you an idea of some of the things that take place in this amazing game.



It used to be that you couldn’t change your loadouts on the fly anymore, they have since fixed that, but it wasn’t a big deal because your life expectancy isn’t long enough to really matter.

Oddly enough though, after my first few minutes, it reminded me a lot of playing Halo. The first one. Something about the way the gun is carried. The general feeling of the architecture. The overall mood seemed kinda like something Bungie would put out.

Honestly, I’ve only had two hours logged in game when I wrote this, but I’m really enjoying it. Little things like the the damage effect, the key layouts, and the ability to use grenades are pleasing to see.

Will I keep playing? Probably. Do I want my friends to play? YES! Yes I do.

Would I be crazy excited if my wife and/or son decided to play with me? HELL YES!

I’m a little excited honestly. Okay, maybe a little more than I like to admit. But regardless, it’s a hoot.