Tribes? Is this bows and arrows?

CalBear:
Let's see, I played a multiplayer only 3D first person shooter. It has a rabid following, hundreds of servers to choose from online, and thousands of gamers play it every day. You also have to choose from light, medium, and heavy character classes. So what game is it? Well no, it isn't Quake 3, it's Starsiege Tribes, from Dynamix. Unlike Quake 3 however, deathmatch isn't the core of what Tribes is all about (although it is an included game type). Tribes focuses mainly on team play strategy, and shares a lot of the same themes as the Team Fortress mod for Quake. The most popular game is capture the flag, but there's also capture and hold, defend and destroy, scavenger hunt, and deathmatch.

Normally this is the part of the review where I go over the background story of a game. But Tribes is a multiplayer game and as such, the players create the story. Dynamix devotes half the manual to a gratuitous plot line but quite frankly, I didn't care to read it and it doesn't affect gameplay or understanding of the game one bit. As I keep saying to Dennis, "I don't care what the story is, I just wanna shoot people!" Thankfully, Tribes includes a nice tutorial that goes over the basics of the game so you'll be more or less prepared for online battles. Players learn the basics of movement, how to use the weapons, and more with the tutorial, which is all I needed to get going.

Getting ready to rock and roll

Thresh:
I'm not sure I agree with you on the story aspect. It's pretty hard to get into any game, multiplayer or not, without having at least something to chew on mentally. It only takes a quick scan of the fiction story in the manual to know that Tribes is set far into the future, after an era of mechanized warfare. Those huge walking machines were just too damned big, so instead humans turned to using lighter powered armor to fight in. Infantry in powered armor, along with various vehicles, are now the main weapons humans use to fight their wars. It's a simple, plausible story, and a good starting off point for immersing yourself into the game. I do agree with that the tutorial will do well to introduce players to the game, but some people will be interested in the story line as well, as obligatory as it may be.