Tribes... I still think of Tribes. It still holds so many fond memories for me. Some people might relate to earlier games to recant their first love of the usually epic time wasters we have affectionately come to know as of Video games, but for me.. It's Tribes.

You have to realize that up until that point I had been playing games like Quake, MechWarrior, and even Wing Commander (Along with many others), but when I played Tribes for the first time it was like I was set free. Gone were the cold fetters of sadistic level designers that couldn't think outside the box and made it their goal in life to stuff you into a box of carnage. No more was I thrust into an endless trail of missions and campaigns, but for the first time in my little digital gaming life I was truly set free. I soon realized that just because someone could out snipe me, or even out shoot me with the disc launcher that Tribes gave you enough freedom to out think and out maneuver your opponents. Unlike the doldrums of WoW were a smart player at lvl 20 is hopelessly out matched by a 12 year old without a life, job, and three lvl 70 characters, in Tribes you were on at least on a semblance of equal footing that gave you a chance to beat even the best of players. Beyond the myriad of vehicles, weapons, and turrets that you had at your finger tips you had to truly work as a team. It was one of those games were you could take the best player in the world, put him on the worst team in the world and he suddenly became average.

And then there came the Mods..

On days when I wanted no thing but blatant carnage the Renegade Mod (Hope that's the name) was perfectly suited for it.. Where else could you find a fully automatic disc launcher, sniper rifle, and turrets that could shoot you across the map?

But..

The Shifter Mod is what sold me on Tribes. Invisible mines, det packs, plastique explosives with variable timers! It's one of those mods that I would gladly call, 'Extra awesome'. Flying across the map with a flight pack and moving with tremendous speed thanks to 'skiing' I would slip into enemy bases with my chameleon armor (The light armor set) and make their lives hell. I was loaded with explosives and my trusty boom stick that made me giggle like a school girl every time I ran into a hapless sniper that thought the female armor sets made them a smaller target (which it did at long range), but little did they realize at close range their heads were face level with the barrel of my boom stick.. Ahh the carnage. I remember setting my explosives with 15 second delays and scattering them around inventory stations and power sources, but just before everything would ignite into a near orgasmic symphony of destruction I would use one of their inventory stations (the beauty of Chameleon armor) and switch to a heavy armor set and bring the enemy into a whole new circle of hell.

It was just so much fun.. I'm not even touching on the deployable laser turrets, rocket turrets, plasma turrets, blast walls, force fields, hovering bases, and cloaking devices, or all of the amazing traps you could setup with det packs and invisible mines. The Shifter Mod in conjunction with Tribes had so much to offer..

If I was emotional, I might even be coaxed into shedding a tear.