Starsiege: Tribes

Game: Starsiege: Tribes
Developer: Dynamix
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1998
Stephen's Rating: 7/10

Starsiege: Tribes is a first person team based multiplayer shooter.

Basic Plot

The world is set in the Starsiege universe. The basic setting is a world full of roaming tribes who engage each other in battle in a futuristic setting.

Gameplay

The "thing" about this game was that it wasn't a land based first person shooter like Counter-Strike but rather an air and ground based combat system which utilised the 3D engine to a greater degree than other first person shooters at the time.

All players had a rocket pack which they could use to boost themselves into the air for short periods of time, depending on what kind of armour and items they held at the time. Another common feature of player movement was "skiing" which involved falling from a great height onto a downward slope. The player was able to slide along without losing speed or momentum and move quickly across the map. Perfecting both air-based combat (shooting while falling and flying) and skiing was a big part of becoming good at the game.

Disc Launcher weapon, looking at team mates who are both in light armour.

Players were able to choose between one of three armour types; heavy, medium, and light. The heavier the armour the more protection it would provide and the heavier the weapons you could hold. This came at the expense of greatly decreased movement speed and jetpack flying distance. Players in light armour were more mobile and able to boost great distances and infiltrate the enemy base more swiftly.

The only form of the game I played was capture the flag. Two opposing teams had a base each which contained a flag. The goal was to infiltrate the enemy based, capture their flag, and bring it back to your own base. This was a very difficult task and usually required team work to achieve. Each base had stations which could be used to buy weapons, armour, and items, and replenish both health and ammunition. These required power which was supplied by generators. The enemy team was capable of destroying your generators and shutting down power to your base. This could be repaired, but was a common ploy when trying to capture a flag.

There were some other aspects to the game such as airships and portable supply consoles (for healing or getting items in the field) as well as several items such as radar jamming packs, or energy packs which let you boost for longer.

Flying through the air.

Positives

This game required a lot of skill and I enjoyed that. There was nothing at the time which was quite like it, adding the sky as a playable area by including jetpacks was a genius idea which added a lot of complexity to the gameplay. There were a lot of facets to the game which meant it was very replayable.

Negatives

The learning curve at the start can be quite steep, especially working with some of the more complex weapons such as the mortar or disc launcher.

Memorable Moments

My best friend's dad used to play this game with us. It was hilarious. If you spotted the guy standing still out in the open sometimes looking around or taking a step now and again - that was him. He actually got "ok" at the game and even got some kills with the sniper rifle.

I had another friend who became a master at this game. He would go solo with light armour into the enemy base, take out their generators, kill everyone inside, and grab the flag before they knew what was going on.