Well, it looks like Hi-Rez is doing the one thing I thought they weren't doing: making another Tribes game. But I'm still a bit proud of myself for uncovering the game before they announced it, even though I was dead wrong about a name change. I was quite pumped after watching the trailer on PC Gamer, then decided to actually read the article. I then saw something that, quite frankly, has me extremely worried. Tribes: Ascend will be available for both the PC and Xbox 360. Now, since Hi-Rez's first game was for the PC I'm hoping they'll view the 360 game as a secondary version, while the PC game gets top priority. One can only wish that this is fan service, and will support modding, dedicated servers, custom scripts, ect. Basically everything that made Tribes awesome.
On the other hand, everyone is familiar with recent titles available for both PC's and consoles. No modding, no dedicated servers, launch-day DLC. While certain developers are claiming the PC isn't in any danger and that the PC version of their game will get top priority, simply saying it'll get the same amount of DLC as the console version isn't very reassuring. Hi-Rez essentially has 2 mountains that are almost impossible to climb: pleasing both the Tribes and PC gaming community. If they can pull it off, then brav-fucking-o to them. Till then, I'll wait for some actual gameplay videos. Speaking of videos, let take a closer look at that Tribes: Ascend trailer:
The first thing people will probably overlook is the 'shazbot' etching, which is visible at around the 0:25 mark. Another thing to note is at 0:31. There's a transparent video on top of the armor of what looks like a T1 disc firing at a T2 generator. This doesn't really make sense, but it looks exactly like a T1 disc and it certainly looks like it's firing at a T2 generator. As someone who hasn't played a whole lot of T2, maybe the disc just looks like that. I've discussed it a bit with people in #tribesascend and we're still not entirely sure. That's pretty much it for the main video, other than the Blood Eagle and Diamond Sword models. Next we'll move onto the quick flashes at the end.
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The flashes provide the most interesting information in my opinion. The AR-30 MOD 6 likely refers to an assault rifle. We can also spot a Diamond Sword single handedly wield a sword at the camera. You'd assume it would be similar to the melee combat in Unreal Championship 2, but Hi-Rez hasn't divulged any details about that just yet. I can't say I'm too thrilled about this possiblity, since Tribes has never been about that kind of combat. Hell it never had assault rifles either, so who knows where they're taking the franchise. One last thing I saw, besides the humorous rock-paper-scissors flash, was this. That Diamond Sword guy sure looks familiar, doesn't he? Let's hope the similarities end there.
I'm also curious about what Tribes will be featured. tribes Universe will be limited to just 3 (Diamond Sword, Blood Eagle and one unannounced). But Tribes: Ascend could, and should include them all. If it's strictly a multiplayer game similar to Tribes 2, which it sounds like, then they'd have no real reason to exclude any of the existing tribes.
In the end, I'm very excited for Tribes: Ascend, perhaps even more-so than Tribes: Universe. If they play their cards right and stick to what made Tribes fun, it could be a fantastic game. But they certainly have their work cut out for them.
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