Tribes Ascend: The best Free To Play Game. Ever. Or is it?a
First of all let’s talk about the concept, Take HALO (or any futuristic shooter) combine it with the Tiny Wings concept (flying up hills and skiing down them) and combine those two with the speed of a game such as NASCAR and you have just created Tribes Ascend.
First let’s talk about downloading the game, The process is absolutely HORRENDOUS yes HORRENDOUS it took longer to install than any other game i have previously played! First you download the game (preferably off Steam) (The download is about 4 Gbs) Next you have to open the launcher and install a bunch of prerequisite programs, Then you have to install and update, Then patch and restore the game, Then you have to install another update then Patch and restore the game, etc. It took over 4 hours to install the game! Crazy! But as soon as i started playing the game, the install became worth my while.
RAGE QUITTERS BEWARE!:
When you first get into the game you will want to rage quit. I recommend to take the ski course in training before going online (unless you like getting PWNED) In this game you will never walk. You will jet pack up hills and ski down them, you will also ski on flat surfaces. Mastering this technique is worthwhile because then you can achieve incredible speed. As soon as you go online you will need to shoot as well as ski/Jet Pack and this can be very confusing for the untrained brain. Once you get used to it ( I don’t know it might take a week or two) it makes combat a lot easier. The trick is to subconsciously be skiing while you think about other things such as shooting.
That brings me onto my next thing: Shooting
You may think shooting is simple but tribes ascend makes shooting a nightmare. First of all the people you shoot are going INCREDIBLY fast so you need to aim a mile ahead of them. You also need to change your aim depending on whether your falling or going a certain way, for example if you were skiing down a hill going right you would need to aim higher and more to the left because since your going down the projectile will go down (unless your using an SMG) and it will also since your going right the projectile will travel to the right. Honestly this is all very overwhelming and hard to take in and it is also frustrating because you will probably miss everything until you have played the game for a couple of weeks.
But when you finally master the combat system and you are able to start shooting down some enemies in mid-air then you will be hooked. As soon as i shot my first mid-air Spinfuser shot (which was one of my proudest and most rewarding gaming moment ever.) i was unstoppable. Mastering both combat and Jet Packing is an instant pass to PWNAGE.
There are 3 types of classes: There is the Light Armor type, (perfect for quick flag captures though less health and not as effective weapons) The medium Armor type (the best well rounded classes) and the Heavy Armor type (Slower but deal the most damage)
Some classes include:
The Infiltrator class (can turn invisible) (Medium Armor)
The Pathfinder class (insanely fast) (light Armor)
And many more.
The game is Multiplayer only (Like TF2) but it does offer an offline training mode. The game modes are Team Death match, Capture the flag (This game was built for capture the flag) and it also offers a wide variety of custom modes.
The graphics in this game are brilliant:
In Fact so brilliant we gave this game a 8 for Looks.
Everything in this game is free though you start with only a few classes unlocked and you can either unlock them with XP or you can buy the classes for under $30. Same with the weapons only a few are available at the start the rest you need to unlock or purchase. If you have no money don’t fear EVERYTHING in this game can be unlocked free of charge, it will just take a while.
WRAPPING IT UP:
This game is as good as it get’s for free games, Beautiful Graphics, Fast and Furious Game play, Rewarding combat and a variety of classes and Weapons. Everyone should check this game out (and it’s free so you have no reason not to) Though this game is good it really won’t keep you interested for long unless your a huge fan.