May I add, you can play this game on dial-up, also...Which is what a few people still do. It also can get up to 32 people, but you need a special software for it.
Tribes Aerial Assault is based on a multiplayer first-person shooter series that debuted on the PC in the late '90s and quickly gained a large and loyal following. Now Tribes has come to the PlayStation 2 in a game that includes most of the core components of last year's Tribes 2 for the PC. In the game, players assume the roles of futuristic warriors on a 40th-century battlefield, fighting against a race that's literally been bred for battle and is trying to win possession of the humans' newly acquired worlds. In practice, though, the plot won't matter one bit as you engage in pitched battles against rival teams of players, all of you using your high-powered weapons, jetpacks, and vehicles to try to best each other. This can add up to some pretty serious but at times chaotic fun, if you have a network adapter and a broadband connection.
Tribes Aerial Assault puts you right in the thick of combat, giving you the ability to fly around using a jetpack, create and pilot various vehicles, repair weapon posts, or go on an all-out offensive to try to take out enemy strongholds. By default, the game uses controls that are similar to what you'd find in other console first-person shooters--the left analog stick moves your warrior around and the right analog stick controls where your weapon is being pointed. The jetpack controls and the bulk of the weapon controls are mapped to the shoulder buttons, which allows you to effectively move and shoot without having to reposition your hands on the gamepad.
Tribes Aerial Assault includes several different types of game modes, whether playing online against others or solo against AI-controlled opponents. These gameplay types include capture the flag, capture and hold, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and hunters, in which you have to collect flags from other players and bring them back to a particular point on the map to score points. While shooting down enemies will earn you points in Tribes, capturing the flag in CTF mode or completing other team-oriented goals will earn you many more, which makes the game more about working as a team than just simply blasting other players.
The game's main mode of play is its online component, which supports both broadband and narrowband connections. Broadband users can host their own games with a maximum of up to 32 players. Narrowband players can also host servers, though it's not recommended that they do so. Finding a server at just about any time shouldn't be a problem for broadband users, but narrowband games are a bit harder to find. Typically you can set up a narrowband game for up to four players, which is a bit of a gamble and can either be fairly smooth or terribly laggy. Interestingly, the game also supports two-player simultaneous play online play using a split screen. So if you've ever wanted to play an online game with a friend using the same unit, this is your answer. Obviously, you can also coordinate better with a teammate if he's sitting right next to you.
Tribes Aerial Assault is a fairly impressive-looking PlayStation 2 game. The maps themselves are one of the better aspects from a technical standpoint since they spread out in all directions for what feels like forever. The character models are fairly detailed and feature some decent textures. The models used for the vehicles and ships also look good, and the game can model a number of them onscreen at once without slowing down very much. The draw distance is quite far out, making for fairly high visibility, which is important when a swarm of enemy attackers is setting off to overrun your base. The explosions and particle weapons also look nice, thanks to some well-implemented lighting effects.
Here are some pics:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/20 ... een003.jpghttp://image.com.com/gamespot/images/20 ... een002.jpgMore to come.