Tribes Ascend 📽 Through the Lens

Oh boy... this one is gonna hit different for me. 😭

If I could get into a time machine and return to a time when a game was relevant and actually being played, out of all of the games that I've played in my life, I would choose Tribes. 💯

That might sound crazy. But for me, this game was so hype and special. I am genuinely sad it no longer exists. I can only pray 🙏 that someday some big wig decides to revive the franchise.

Hey! It happened once!

Until then❗️ In this edition of Through the Lens 🎞, we'll be taking a look at Hi Rez Studios's revival of a classic PC shooter from 2012: Tribes Ascend, Roll it! 📽

🔶 UP TOP 🔶

The soundtrack is nothing to write home about, but it still slaps. It fits with the genre and gives you that Unreal Tournament/Quake style of feel. Which is apt since that is where this game belongs.

_{Compossed by the talented Mr. Chris Rickwood.}

Like I said in the intro I played this game A LOT, A LOT. I've always been a fan of arcade shooters, and the uniqueness of Tribes just took the cake for me. I dunno why I was drawn to it but I was a 🐝 to 🍯 with this title.

I'm so sad it's dead. 😭 Let's try and figure out why...

🔶 A CLASSIC 🔶

So the original Tribes and Tribes 2 were classic PC games that amassed a rather substantial cult following over the years. 💯 What set them apart from the rest is that you as the player were skiing dawwwgggg.

Yes, apart from the little to no hit-scan weapons (meaning you actually had to aim your shots) the movement was very unique. Granted, the movement in all of these games is always important (i.e bunny hops and whatnot) but Tribes took that concept to another level. 😮

As with everything in Tribes, moving across the map required skill. You have skills and you had jet boosters. Managing when to skii and when to boost to get maximum velocity and speed was pretty tricky. 😎 You had to be extra cool to zoom past the map, murdering fools as you did so. That feeling of landing your shots while also going 200km/h (or m/ph for you heathens) was like no other.

Ok, so the game was skillful, what else? Nonono, that is the beginning and end of this tragic tale my boy. And for that, we need to transition into the next section - 🏃🏃🏃

🔶 SKILL 🔶

Hi-Rez tried to dum Tribes down for the layman. For the casual that just wanted to blow some steam. And they did this: they introduced classes, they made the traversal a smidge simpler, and they added more hit-scan weapons.

• And you know what? It was still too hard...

I won't say that the skill floor was the reason why this game failed we'll get to that in the next section but it certainly didn't help. It was, I would say, the other main reason why it failed. 😅

While we're still here let's talk about the different playstyles in Tribes.

"The main game mode in Tribes has always been Capture the Flag."
Well-known internet fact.

Ascend tried adding different game modes but they never really took off. So CTF worked as it did in any other arcade shooter, except Tribes had basses that protected the flag, armed with turrets and scanners that alerted the defenders. The generator was how these defenses were maintained.

• There were good at defending the base, setting up shields, or repairing turrets.
• There were classes that were super fast, meant for taking the flag and scouring points.
• There were classes that were base destroyers, with weapons meant to sabotage equipment and clear the way for the flag catchers.
• And anything in between...

It was super cool. I was the base destroyer guy btw. You had fast classes, and you had big chunky tank classes that were slow AF. You had something to match any taste. 🍕🍕🍕

Alas, the game was developed by Hi-Rez, and therein lies the rabbit...

🔶 MONITIZATION 🔶

Hi-Rez had no idea how to monetize this game.

This is no surprise seeing as how literally all of their games have failed. Except for Smite but that's not looking to good nowadays either. 😅

The game was too consumer friendly in some ways, and not enough in others. How you can manage both in a free-to-play title is beyond me. 🤷‍♂️

I remember sitting with my bros shooting the $#!% and just talking about how they could better monetize the game. They did so little customization that it boggles my mind. Like, people want skins! They did eventually start releasing them, but it wasn't really the type of skins the audience wanted.

Since Tribes is such a fast game, you need to quickly identify who and what you are shooting. Skins just disjoint that. What they should've done was made more of an effort to customize your weapon: how it shoots, how it sounds etc. The color of your boosters, your HUD. I duno, ANYTHING. 😡

And since I am talking trash, the tutorials in the game were also god-awful. You couldn't learn anything. You had to go on YouTube to learn the game, and instead of making a nice in-game tutorial, they just linked all the YouTube tutorials in-client. 🤦‍♂️ I mean, how lazy can you be?

🔶 LEGACY 🔶

I'm this close to kidnapping someone, then use the randsome money to buy the franchise off of Hi-Rez. // not actually, kidnapping is bad folks, don't do it

And I still feel like that might happen (the franchise being bought out part, not the kidnapping bpart) 😁. This game, this series, hit an itch that no other game/series really has. And while multiplayer arcade shooters have essentially died out as of late, the CIRLCE TURNS!

I am sure that in the right hands this franchise can make a resurgence. That's a lot easier said than done though. 😅

As for it's legacy, I would say it's slightly below Unreal Torunament in the rankings of arcade shooters, but that's so arbitrary that it doesn't mean anything. 😂 It's a founding father to one of the main FPS genres, that has to count for something.

Thank you for reading, you rock! (and maybe roll) 👏👏👏

Shout-out to the 🍕PIZZA🍕 gang, 🤙 gang. 🤙

I might start going on an arcade shooter kick soon. 😁 There are a bunch of games we can talk about here. Maybe Quake next? Hmmmmm?*

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Hope you had an amazing week. 🙌