Shadowed by Time - Starsiege: Tribes

Welcome to the first ever Shadowed by Time segment. This segment is dedicated to games from the past that may not be all that well known, or have faded with time, and yet are still worth a play.

Let me introduce you to a little game called Starsiege: Tribes

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Starsiege: Tribes was developed by Dynamix. While other first person shooters like Half-Life and its mod Counter-Strike, Doom, Quake, and its ilk deserve the praise they get for the various innovations they have brought, Tribes rarely gets mentioned in the same breath.

Though playable through a single-player mode, it really shined through multiplayer. Where Counter-Strike and the others may max out at 20 or so, Tribes could allow up to 64 players on a server at once. Divided into two teams, the only mode (played anyway) was capture the flag.

Tribes also allowed for an insane amount of modifications, something mirrored by the infamous Half-Life game by Valve. But while one would have to download and install the mods for HL, no downloading was required for Tribes. Each server could host a different mod, complete with totally different armor setups and weapons. The most popular, last I checked, was the Top-Guns server, which allowed up to 40 players, and had weapons including a laser rifle, a chaingun, and disc launcher.

Tribes also gave players a jetpack. Yes, a jetpack. Players had to react to threats from every direction. The Heavier armors obviously could not fly as long, so the jetpacks were better used for slowing a fall. The light armors, however, could fly very far, depending on the mod the server is using. Especially useful for a sniper. One could fly to the peak of a mountain, wedge in and snipe the enemy's base from what seems like a mile away.

Speaking of distance, for some maps and servers taht don't restrict you from venturing beyond the normal map's parameters, the game is huge. More than once my flyer exploded, throwing me far away. Even with a light armor and boosts, it took me almost five minutes before I returned to the combat zone.

Interested? Well, even more good news. While Tribes was once relegated to bargain bin status (my brother and I found the only copy I have ever seen in a Best Buy years ago), you can now download it for free from fileplanet. Give it a turn, and if you like it, throw me a SHAZBOT!