Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23350 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Loki Entertainment Software
• Platform: Linux
• Number of items: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Are you a team player? You better be, if you hope to succeed in Tribes 2, an epic first-person shooter where the lifetime of a lone wolf usually is measured in seconds. Like its predecessor, Tribes 2 focuses on team-based multiplayer combat in 40th-century wars between jetpack-equipped infantry factions.

A minimal single-player tutorial campaign is included to let newcomers familiarise themselves with the game's mechanics, but nothing can fully prepare a person for the chaos of Tribes 2's unique flavour of multiplayer first-person combat.

Graphically, Tribes 2 leaves a little to be desired in terms of detail, but the massive environments more than compensate for that shortcoming. It sometimes is possible to see enemies approaching from a few miles away, and those foolish enough to silhouette themselves on a ridgeline are soon dispatched by an enemy laser sniper they probably never see. The special effects are excellent, and there are few shooters on the market that can match the intensity Tribes 2 reaches when dozens of players are fighting all at once. --T Byrl Baker

Customer Reviews

Tribes 2 on a Linux machine
Introduction: Lokigames began porting Tribes 2 even as the Windows version was still in development. As such, the Linux port was released shortly after the Windows version came out.

Installation: This was fairly straight forward and all I had to do was run a single shell script on the CD-ROM. From that point on, there were pop-up screens with the standard EULA and installation path settings. After installation, I had to download the many patches that have been released (currently about 8 megabytes worth). This was achieved effortlessly by running the 'loki_update' program that is installed with the game. It even uses GnuPG to check the cryptographic signature of the patches.

Running the game: You need to ensure that you have the latest drivers for your graphics card installed. The in-game graphics are exactly as shown in the screenshots on the Lokigames website. I had to turn down some of the eye-candy in order to get the frame-rate to a reasonable level on my GeForce II MX, but my Celeron 533 is probably the limiting factor. Consequently, be aware that the hardware requirements are as steep on the Linux version as they are on the Windows one.

Online gaming: After the few training missions included on the CD to familiarise you with the controls, I decided to try playing on the public servers. The client is configured so all I had to do was fill in some user details and the provided CD-key and I was off. I have had no problems connecting to the servers with the Linux client.

Playing as a team: Teamwork is the key to success in most of the campaigns. Towards this end, the game incorporates an e-mail client, a bulletin board, a news client, an IRC client, and a "Community Browser". The Community Browser enables you to look up other players, to maintain a "Buddy list" and to create your very own tribe.

Conclusion: The Linux version of Tribes 2 is almost exactly similar to the Windows version and that in itself is quite a feat. As such, almost all the reviews of the Windows version of the game that can be found on the gaming sites hold true for the Linux version.