Super Nerd Sundays Presents: Where Have All the Spinfusors Gone!

I’ve self-identified as a gamer for some time now, probably since I was in third grade. Back then it was just me sitting in with my SNES on weekends, playing Chrono Trigger until I couldn’t stand up, I’d be crouched in front of the TV for so long. Since then I’ve changed quite a bit. Some of the changes are gradual, shifts between various, similar genres that made me reconsider the games I’d been playing and approach new experiences. Others were singular games that drew me wholehearted into new realms of gaming.

X-Wing, for example, put on me on a three year space-sim kick that took me past Freespace (which was incredibly hard for a twelve year old, by the way) and well through to Jumpgate. Ultima Online had me playing MMOs compulsively until I quit WoW due to a technicality. Myth showed me the wonder of both destroying physics engines and competitive RTS. And then there was the game that made me a real multiplayer gamer, a small, oft discussed, now all but ignored game called Starsiege: Tribes or, by its stalwarts, simply Tribes.

Anyone who played Tribes can tell you that it was, for its time, revolutionary. Team based first person shooter, especially ones made by dedicated development teams, were few and far between back in those days. The same could be said of games with limited weapon systems. Classes were being explored in a number of titles, but Tribes mix and match system was nothing if not an original and compelling take on just how you could play.

But what Tribes really brought to the table was its unique take on how first person shooters should be played. In an age of tunnel running FPSes, one which we are arguably still smack in the midst of, Tribes was a visionary of open world play. No boundaries, no lines, every player equipped with a jetpack. The invisible limits were enforced by a gradual kill switch, not a perfect means of enforcing boundaries but probably my favorite one to date in an open world game.

These revolutionary game play twists were wrapped around a series of mechanics that focused on map control in whole new ways. While the tried and true “capture the flag” mode was still in place the game its trappings were completely original. Various defensive measures, powered by destructible and repairable generators, made it harder to grab and escape with the flag. Outposts could be taken which would shift the balance of the map and force teams to adopt new strategies and styles of play in order to circumvent these obstacles. And vehicles, for the first time, played a serious role in just how you needed to play a first person shooter.

Who can forget those twitchy, finicky scouts? Those overbearing transports? And those god damn missle launchers, raining fire down on anyone who tried to stay in the sky? Tribes was a layered tactical shooter based on teamwork, coordination, and verticality in an age of Quake clones. It was brilliant and, in a way, this was its undoing.

Tribes was revolutionary, but it wasn’t very attractive and it wasn’t much of a marketing endeavor. It had no copy protection to speak of and, while it was incredibly fun, it relied on player mods in order to sustain itself. This resulted in an increasingly fractured community which, as time went on, made it harder and harder to find a game. Compounding these issues was Tribes 2.

Tribes 2 was, on paper, exactly what Tribes needed. Updated graphics, updated vehicles and an improved system of buildings and weapons were all there to add new depth to an already incredible experience. Flares and handheld missile launchers, a cloaking system and melee weapons; these elements, along with tighter map design, combined to make a game that, while aesthetically similar to the original Tribes, proved completely alien in game play.

As if this unintentional bait and switch wasn’t enough to alienate former players while baffling new ones, Tribes 2 was also plagued with technical issues at launch. It was nearly unplayable during its early period and by the time patches had made the game what it could’ve been it was too late. Most prospective players had wandered away to greener pastures, leaving on stalwart fans to keep Tribes 2 alive. And, to their credit, they’ve done an excellent job doing so with open source projects and the TribesNext project allowing players, both new and old, to soar through the air and fire disks at one another.

But there wasn’t a true successor to Tribes until three years after Tribes 2’s lackluster release. This time it came in the form of Tribes: Vengeance. Vengeance was an inversion of previous trends, focusing on the key aerial combat aspects of Tribes to the almost total neglect of vehicles. Paired with a single-player focus and a multiplayer system which offered up, at best, dodgy experiences for me personally, it departed dramatically from what had made Tribes so great and suffered for its attempt.

Part of the problem was that it encapsulated what was, in many ways, the worst aspects of Tribes. The bots, while better than previous iterations, were still bots and so much of Tribes’ appeal came from facing devious human opponents. And so much of the game was set in tightly contained arenas which fought the sort of play that made Tribes so much fun. The fast moving, high flying game play was gone, replaced with twitchy corridor battles which, while present in the original Tribes, were certainly not the game’s focus.

Paired with the unreliable multiplayer and an elaborate story which neither fit the tone of the previous games and was more like a reboot than a treatment of the existing Starsiege universe, it was no surprise that Vengeance failed to reignite the embers of the franchise. Vengeance had a sense of what made Tribes great, but it tried to ignore the improvements Tribes 2 had brought to bare on the franchise. It played too close to the core of Tribes, oddly enough, and because of that it lost the bits and pieces that made Tribes such an involving experience.

What is perhaps most puzzling is the way that most shooters have ignored Tribes to date. Some, such as Halo, have made vehicles a key part of play, and some smaller games, such as Fallen Empire: Legions, have tried to re-create the intense feel of Tribes’ combat. But the games which mostly closely resemble Tribes’ tactical mindset are the Battlefield games, which lack any of the depth of play which Tribes possessed.

So let’s end this article with a moment of silence for Tribes and the impact it had on players. It was a wonderful multiplayer experience, one that changed gaming for me forever. And even if its influence ebbs and its creators have all left to pursue new projects after making some hand handed moves with the property it still has a passionate, loyal fanbase who will be keeping the experience alive. At least for a little bit longer.