The curse of the video game industry: create PC first-person shooter games that are too easy to pick up and they get dismissed as generic. Create PC first-person shooter games that require dedicated teamwork as to create kinds of gameplay that are complex and unique and the developers may have cult classics on their hands --- ones that will be easily forgotten except by their hardcore followers on the day a next-gen PC first-person shooter game comes along.
One such example is Starsiege: Tribes. Featuring a multiplayer shooter gameplay with jetpacks and almost no hitscan weapons, Tribes created the ultimate clay shooting game.
Heh. Boring? Definitely not.
Here, all of the players are the clay discs and you are armed with weapons that shoot --- if compared to bullets --- relatively slow-moving projectiles. You have to anticipate where your enemy is headed and shoot where you think he's swooping in (this is called "leading").
Wait there's more.
Yes, there's definitely more.The "clay disc" thing is just a metaphor. Heh. Ha. Ha. Here, you all are futuristic soldiers who are divided into three classes in each team --- Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each class has a role to follow in this team deathmatch multiplayer shooter and each has pros and cons regarding firepower, speed, and armor. You and your teammates defend a base that you can set up with turrets, mines and force fields.
These all make up for a game that, for its time, was absolutely unique. It's just disappointing that it didn't garner the kind of attention it should have gotten from the gaming community. The reason? The same one that makes it special --- it deviated too much from the usual PC first-person shooter games; it presented too high of a learning curve to new players.
Virtually a mobile artillery platform, a Tribesman encased in heavy armor scans the skies for incoming enemies.
Sniping at two enemies. Here, you can't hide as the game clearly marks each player with red and green arrows. It's all about the jetpacking and the leading.
A scout jetpacks towards her base while an ally stands guard at the entrance --- no one must infiltrate the base to wreak havoc on its electronics!Nowadays, this freeware multiplayer shooter is being kept alive by a robust online community who maintain servers.
Two of these, MaxOGC and the official site for the Annihilation Mod, have recently released an anti-hack script. Instructions on how this can be installed can be found HERE.
Happy shooting!
>>> Where can I download this freeware multiplayer shooter that has been hailed by Gamespot as one of the greatest PC first-person shooter games of all time? (Players are advised to download the 1.30 Last Hope patch as servers usually host v1.30 games.)
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