Tribes: Ascend officially went live this week, the free-to-play shooter now available to all. The cash shop system for the title is handled very well, allowing players to unlock classes, perks, gear, and essentially everything else through either gameplay or "I want it right now!" gold system. If this sounds a lot like the League of Legends system, that's a fairly translatable assessment.
Pre-level 8 gameplay options are designed to give players a chance to learn the base game mechanics like shooting, skiing, jetpacking, and the core class weapons and abilities. Tribes: Ascend is a title that requires careful consideration to each weapon's individual strengths and weaknesses, a "spray and pray" approach is not going to get a player very far.
Tribes: Ascend is also a title with a good deal of time spent alive compared to other latter day FPS offerings. In fact, players may stay alive so long that they may run out of ammunition, pack items, grenades, or need a life and energy refill. Inventory stations are located on each map to get players fueled up and back in the action without the need for a suicide respawn or a last-ditch melee charge.
Most players will begin with Team Deathmatch. Kill the opposing team, get points. Simple enough, no? Tribes: Ascend comes with an additional and very important clause to the classic "kill the other team" approach of Team Deathmatch. There's a flag. Now this isn't the a Capture the Flag style situation, but the team that controls the flag gets double the points for each kill, making the flag an extremely important tactical objective. This also prevents the teams from trying to establish "bases" near vital inventory stations and simply fire long range weapons at each other from across the map – The flag keeps the fight focused, mobile, and active at all times. Most Team Deathmatch games last around 3-7 minutes.
New players also have the option to get right into Capture the Flag style play, featuring a full complement of vehicles, bases, and other accoutrements of objective based gameplay.
After level 8, new options option up for the more experienced player. Arena and Capture and Hold style maps become available, with ranked matches on the way.
The main currency of Tribes: Ascend, experience, will begin to accumulate quickly as players participate in games. Additional experience is awarded for a wide variety of accomplishments, everything from a match win to revenge kills. Players are treated to a listing of their earned medals and bonuses at the scorescreen after each match.
After players have played a few matches, it's probably time to start considering what to spend the currency on. If another locked class looks like something interesting, players may wish to continue saving toward one of these. Otherwise, it's time to think about getting some upgrades or new options for your existing loadouts.
The whole system provides the player with a good sense of progression instead of a mindless point grind. As new options become available, they requiring learning time as well – swapping from a long range auxiliary weapon to a shotgun is going to take some practice. The classes are very different from one another, so playing each one does feel like a completely different game experience, adding a good deal of replayability factor even for a seasoned vet.
The main menu provides everything a player will need outside of a game, with a very clean interface. Nothing is more than a click or two away, and the focus is clearly on getting players into games and blasting away.
Tribes: Ascend has an old-school shooter feel with a modern progression system in a F2P tortilla that really feels perfect. There's a lot of teamwork, plenty of strategy, and a good deal of individual skill and decision making that go into each match. If you're a fan of classic FPS franchises like Unreal Tournament, Quake, Tribes, or anything before the dawn of the AWP, you're likely going to love this game. If you're into more recent genre offerings like the Call of Duty series, you'll probably love Tribes: Ascend too.
Tribes: Ascend is a quick download at about 2 gigs, and is full on free-to-play. If you're a fan of the FPS genre, do yourself a favor and give Tribes: Ascend a try.
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