Tribes: Vengeance Updated Preview

First-person shooters started out as simple games that put you into a first-person perspective, armed you with a weapon, and let you blast away at your enemies before they could blast you. But over the years, they became more refined and new features were added, and they began to place more emphasis on teamwork and team-based strategies. The original Starsiege Tribes from 1998 was among the first first-person shooters to focus almost exclusively on team-based gameplay. It featured multiple character classes, futuristic weapons, jetpacks that let you fly for brief periods of time, and "skiing"--a technique that let you skate over the surfaces of the game's alien worlds at high speeds. In 2001, Tribes 2 improved on the formula and added a race of "bioderm" aliens, but it also launched with some technical problems that have since been largely worked out by the game's remaining production team, and publisher Sierra Entertainment (also known as VU Games Northwest) and developer Irrational Games are now at work on the third game in the series.

As we've discussed in our previous coverage of the game, Tribes: Vengeance will differ considerably from the previous games in a number of ways, not the least of which will be the game's comprehensive single-player campaign, which will feature a unique story that will be broken up between different time periods of the protagonists' lives. The narrative will actually jump back and forth between the characters' present conditions and past memories, in a structure that will resemble that of sci-fi author Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon.

The game will also differ from the previous games in that it will no longer focus on conflicts between humans and alien creatures, but rather on conflicts between warring factions that took place centuries before the events in the previous games. Irrational Games designer Ken Levine compares his studio's approach to Vengeance's setting with the difference between antique and modern planes. In other words, modern technology has allowed aircraft manufacturers to conceal the turbines, wires, and other machinery of their planes' engines under layers of sleek steel hulls, comfortable reclining seats, and little bags of peanuts, while the biplanes of the early 20th century were far less appealing to the eye, since aviators were less concerned with making their planes pretty than they were with making flight technology actually work. As such, the weapons, vehicles, and technology in Vengeance won't look quite as sleek as those in Tribes 2 and will likely have a more raw look to them that emphasizes function over form.

That said, even though Tribes: Vengeance will take place many years prior to the events in the previous games, and even though the new game will feature different-looking technology and weapons, it will still have familiar features, mechanics, and weapons that Tribes fans should recognize immediately. These include the "pack" system, which reappears in Vengeance. Tribes 2 fans will remember the process of equipping themselves with various equipment packs that changed their weaponry or support abilities, and the pack system will work similarly in the new game.

In Vengeance, like in the other Tribes games, you'll be able to play as one of three character classes based on the battle armor you wear: heavy armor, medium armor, or light armor. All three classes will be able to carry various types of packs, which will be carried at your character's hip and will be visible to other players from both the front and back. Different packs will have different advantages, including some abilities that must be actively used or some bonuses that will be provided passively.

For example, the energy pack will be a miniature power plant that increases the recharge rate of your armor. With a faster recharge rate, your energy-based weapons will become more effective, and your jetpack will recharge more quickly so that you can fly even higher than normal. The higher recharge rate will also let you force-dump extra energy into your jetpack to provide an immediate burst of speed in the direction you're facing. This ability will be helpful not only for covering ground, but also for making quick changes in your direction if you happen to be skating along a certain path and for making quick stops if you turn away from the direction you're skiing and hit your jetpack for an instantaneous reverse. You can even use this ability to fly over tall hills--you won't get quite as much height as you would by "rocket-jumping" (pointing an explosive weapon, like the disc launcher, at your feet, then firing and jumping onto the blast), but you won't sustain any damage from your own shots, either.

Another pack that will be featured in the game is the repair pack, a helpful item that continuously manufactures microscopic "nanorgs," which restore your character's lost health and armor strength. While this can be helpful to survive the initial damage you take from a surprise attack, you regenerate lost health and armor at a very slow rate, so it definitely won't make you invulnerable. However, the pack itself charges up gradually, and when it's full, it will disperse nanorgs into the air around your character and will begin to repair a nearby friendly target, similar to the way a health kit works. With a fully charged repair pack, you'll actually be able to get repairs on a damaged friendly target started, then move on to a new friendly target while the first recovers on its own. If settling down and quietly waiting for a full recharge isn't an option, as it likely won't be in the game's multiplayer matches, you can still partially repair any nearby friendly targets just by getting close to them.

In addition to packs, Tribes: Vengeance will feature new weapons, like the rocket pod, as well as a new sniper rifle weapon. This long-range, energy-based weapon will let you fire a superheated energy beam to strike at your enemies from afar. The sniper rifle will actually let you charge up your shots by drawing upon your armor's power reserves--though this enhances the effectiveness of the weapon, it also limits your mobility, so that botching a high-powered sniper shot may leave you without enough juice in your jetpack to escape when things get ugly. In fact, firing the sniper rifle will leave behind a very visible trail that will reveal your location, similar to the lightning gun in Unreal Tournament 2003, so you probably won't be able to do much "camping"--the cowardly tactic of hiding in one place and taking potshots at your opponents--unless you want to set yourself up to be hunted down.

Tribes: Vengeance will attempt to combine an involving single-player story with the kind of fast-paced multiplayer play that fans have come to expect from the series. The game is scheduled for release next year.