Tribes: Ascend is the most pure representation of the Tribes experience since Tribes 2 perfected it back in 2001. Almost every single part of the experience has been tweaked and improved, classes reborn and expanded, maps detailed and sprawling. You can ski like a master within minutes, but perfecting your routes, jumps and jetpack tactics are still the aim of the game.
In the end, even with just the three starting classes and nothing else unlocked, the game is a lot of fun and still completely free. It's worth checking out for both old fans and those of you who don't know what a Spinfusor is.
Literally too good to succeed. Hi-Rez has been on my **** ever since they screwed this game up and moved on to Smite, which is at best third place in its genre XD
good game. I am new to the Tribes franchise and enjoyed the challenge of skiing and trying to aim. I really enjoyed the beta and I'm excited that it's finally out!
Insane speed and vertical combat make Tribes: Ascend extremely enjoyable and rewarding. And it's free, so it's a sin not to give it a chance. [June 2012, p.78]
Tribes: Ascend is simply one of the best, if not the best, free to play shooting game available on the market today. It's all about your skill and not how much money you decide to spend.
Sure, you can dig out your old Tribes titles to fulfill the same craving, but Hi-Rez has provided a contemporary alternative that's free at the point of entry and not exactly costly to pick up long-term. That's something of a triumph.
Arcade online shooter surprises with fresh and fast paced playability and is a very good alternative to paid services with its free-to-play model. [Issue#220]
great game, and not a bit pay to win, like most free games where ripping a, go and try this awesome game good gameplay, have skill and more and looks okay
This game is incredibly fun when i play it with my friends. But whenever i join a lobby with randoms i cant enjoy myself. The pathfinder class ruins ever game mode in this game. I understand he is supposed to be fast, but the fact that in CTF he can literally run laps around the map and cap the flag six time uncontested and run through you 20 turrets without taking a single shot is insane. In TDM he takes the flag and runs laps around the outside of the map and hes so fast the even an entire team of pathfinders cant kill him. Its a fun free game but the fact that this can happen in every game ruins the fun factor and takes out some of the strategy. I enjoy it i really do and i recommend it. Just this one flaw **** the fun out if it sometimes.
It's free to play, so I can't complain much, but this is simply a F2P model that does not work, and with Sony publishing Tribes Ascend it's no surprise. It plays out as what you'd expect, you can level up normally (and rather slowly), or go the Pay to Pave option and obtain gold to buy market items, perks and skins. It's not with this that the game becomes broken, though many weapons become more and more overpowered with each consequential update that supposedly fixes these problems. It's the fact the disbalancement of F2P v P2P players becomes overwhelmingly clear through the horrible in-game matchmaking, which ends up pitting players with low points against MVPlayers most of the time. That being said, the pros of Tribes come from it's insanely fast-paced gameplay, intense objective-based modes, and unique graphically-stirring maps and designs. Cons quickly appear in minor, but overwhelmingly apparent doses still. The interface is clunky, OP weapons have not been fixed or have been made worse, and with many other problems surrounding matchmaking and gameplay, Tribes: Ascend loses its grand appeal in the first few hours, but still delivers to Tribes fans and those looking for a new skill-based shooter not unlike Quake. Given time, I'm sure that these problems will be ironed up, but the problem still lies in why they released the game when the beta clearly needed attention to fixes as well.
Great initial game play. Provides lost of incentive to play again. VERY crappy lvl system that favors player who have been playing longer not skill... crap gaming style.
Hi-Rez has the same problem with Smite and tried to fix it by starting all players at lvl 0 but still favors players who have been playing longer. Want more money? Make the game fun for everyone to play.
After about a month of this game, I think I have played enough to form a proper opinion.
Tribes: Ascend has two severely conflicting features. It has the Tribes game mechanic, which are incredible, and it has the Free to Pay scheme, which is terrible.
If everyone was equal, this would be a truly amazing game. Combat is fast-paced, based entirely around accuracy and split-second timing, and has rich tactics. The classes all play differently in a good way, and excel in different situations, and different weapons can be used differently depending on your environment and range to target.
Unfortunately, you don't get to any of that unless you spend money on the game. You start with three classes, and those classes in turn start with less health, less energy regeneration, less ammo, less weapons, and less perks than anyone who has paid into the game, even if they're using the same class that you are. For being "not pay to win," this is surprisingly noticeable in the game. In theory, everyone would be able to unlock weapons through "experience points" at a reasonable rate, but unfortunately the way Hi-Rez has weighted the costs of the items, it takes (litterally) about 300 matches at 20 to 30 minutes each to unlock ONE new weapon, never mind classes, perks, armor upgrades, and upgrades the weapons you've unlocked.
That's right; it takes well over one HUNDRED hours of play time to get a single weapon. Grand total cost to unlock everything (currently) in the game directly? About $150. And that's only currently existing items; expect more to be added faster than you can unlock them at your pitiful one-weapon-per-month rate with free points alone.
Because different weapons are better in different situations, "all weapons are good in some way." Unfortunately, all weapons are also BAD in some way... usually some way that is extremely easily exploitable by someone using... you guessed it: a weapon they paid money to unlock. The real issue isn't the different weapon matchups; the issue is that the combat in the game is 90% about switching weapons, classes, and loadouts to exploit your opponent's weakness, which is literally impossible to do without paying money into the game. As a result, spending money on the game gives you a clear advantage, which is the one thing Free to Pay schemes should never do, from a gameplay standpoint.
To be fair, this wouldn't be a problem if it was consistent. The problem lies in the fact that some people are earning their way up the ladder, while other people bought the weapons and classes directly, and then simply spend all their XP on upgrades so that even if you DO get the same class and weapon, their version of the class is STILL more powerful than yours.
Technically, you can unlock everything in the game with XP. But you won't. You won't even come close. The most generous estimate my calculator gives me is that it takes about 1250 hours of matchmaking to unlock everything in Tribes: Ascend without any payments. That's six months solid if you treat the game like a full-time job. And by then, you'd have to start over on everything that had been added to the game since.
TL;DR: Great game mechanics, but expect 9 out of 10 of your deaths to be from someone using a weapon you haven't unlocked yet and probably never will.
SummaryTribes: Ascend is a new generation of the online multiplayer shooter, incorporating classic Tribes elements such as fast-paced jetpack enabled combat, skiing, and vehicles, combined with teamwork and strategy.