tribes vengeance

8/9/2019 Tribes Vengeance

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Matthew Rorieign by Marty Smith

s been almost six years since the release of the original Tribes game. Although now multiplayer-ly titles seem to be almost the norm when it comes to the FPS genre, at the time (over a yearfore Quake III or Unreal Tournament hit the market) the thought of a game without any

gnificant single-player component was considered to be revolutionary, if not outright

ntroversial. Some games that attempt to be trendsetters fall by the wayside, but Tribes wasmbraced by a small but dedicated group of players, and received enough support to encourage

developer, Dynamix, to create a sequel, which was simply called Tribes 2. Although Tribes 2ffered from an extremely buggy launch, it was eventually patched into working order, and wentto sell over a quarter-million copies in the U.S. alone.

the PC gaming market, success begets sequels, so it’s no surprise that a new Tribes game hast arrived. Tribes: Vengeance has a different developer and publisher than the previous Tribesmes, so it’s no surprise to see a new take on the universe with the inclusion of a full-featured

ngle-player mode. Irrational Games, best known for its work on Freedom Force and Systemock 2, is no stranger to crafting excellent single-player FPS titles, and that’s what they’ve donere. As you play through the game, you’ll control five different characters, each with a differentrspective on the world in which they live, and will shift backwards and forwards in time, so thatu’ll occasionally see the ramifications of events before you witness the events themselves.

course, no Tribes game would be complete without a thorough multiplayer experience, andibes: Vengeance doesn’t disappoint. In addition to the capture-the-flag that’s the heart of theries, there are four other multiplayer gametypes included as well, and with support for up to 32ayers per server, there’s going to be a whole lot of skiing going on when you get online. The

ost notable thing about the Tribes experience, besides the gameplay impact of jetpacks, is thense of speed that the game brings to the table; other multiplayer games will feel sedate inmparison to Vengeance after you spend a little time online.

ameSpot happily welcomes you to peruse its unofficial game guide to Tribes: Vengeance. Indition to a complete walk-through of the single-player game, we’ve thrown in descriptions of allthe weapons, maps, and vehicles, as well as the proverbial "more."

Your Armor and Arsenal

Armor Choices Weapons Vehicles Rover Jump Tank Fighter Pod Assault Ship Walk-through Victoria: The Past - Origins Mercury: The Past - Assassination

Victoria: The Past - Captured Jericho: The Present - Deliverance


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Julia: The Present - Coliseum Mercury: The Present - Redemption

Julia: The Present - Discovery Victoria: The Past - Proof

Julia: The Past - Bloodlines Daniel: The Past - Judgment

Daniel: The Past - Rescue Victoria: The Past - Retribution

Victoria: The Past - The Rescue Julia: The Present - Trials

Daniel: The Past - The Rescue 2 Julia: The Present - Revelation

Daniel: The Past - Mercy Julia: The Present - Vengeance

Multiplayer Game Types Multiplayer Tips Maps

Your Armor and Arsenal

rmor Choicesinetic Light

you choose to enter the battlefield in light armor, you’ll be sacrificing health and the ability torry a lot of ammo in exchange for speed and maneuverability. Although you will possess only 75alth, you’ll be able to move much more quickly than players in medium or heavy armor; itturally follows that this is the best class for transporting game items, such as captured flags ore ball in the Ball gametype. If you intend to enter enemy territory, though, you’ll need to be

ware of your physical weakness; you can compensate for it somewhat by bringing along a shieldck and using it when someone starts to target you for destruction.

e special weapon for light armor is the sniper rifle, and special it is. Check out the weaponsction for a description.

atural Medium

e "average" armor in Tribes: Vengeance is the medium armor. When you suit up in mediummor, you’re saying that you’re unwilling to trade speed for health, or vice versa; this type ofmor is average in all statistical categories, making it ideal for both offense and defense.

e armor-specific weapon for medium armor is the buckler.

olossus Heavy

eavy armor has been the armor of choice for many redoubtable warriors, especially those who

shed to take plenty of damage and keep on kicking. When you do bring heavy armor onto thettlefield, you’ll gain a huge health boost, which will leave you with almost twice as much health


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a medium armor soldier, but you’ll pay for it with a large speed hit. Going from light armor toavy armor can be like jumping into a pool of semi-frozen molasses, but sometimes the extramor and firepower is worth it. In addition to being able to use the awesomely powerful mortar,avy armor soldiers will be able to carry much more ammo than their lighter counterparts.

Weapons

pinfusor very FPS has to have a rocket launcher, and the games set in the Tribes universe are noception. Although it’s called a spinfusor, no one should have a problem using it if you’re familiarth the standard FPS rocket launcher, you shouldn’t have any problems using this weapon.

Kablowie! The spinfusor has a great splash damage effect, so long as you canproperly lead your opponents.

e spinfusor is probably the most universally useful weapon in Tribes: Vengeance. It deals plentydamage, has a large radius for its splash damage, and can knock your enemies around when

ey’re caught near the detonation. In a pinch, you can even fire it at your feet to get a bit of aost before you use your jetpack. Beyond that, there isn’t too much strategy to elucidate for theinfusor; it’s a rocket launcher, for crying out loud! Point it at your enemy and fire!

e only bad thing about the spinfusor is that it loses effectiveness against enemies in midair, due


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the difficulty of actually hitting someone dead-on with a round. If you’re fighting againstmeone that’s taken flight, you’ll probably want to shift over to the chaingun until they land ort close to a surface that a spinfusor round could detonate against. By the same token, though,u shouldn’t aim the spinfusor directly at an enemy that’s on a level surface, unless you’re abovem; aim at their feet. This increases the chance that you’ll actually deal some amount of splashmage to them. Beyond that, you’ll need to practice with the spinfusor in order to figure out howst to lead your enemies.

laster e blaster is effectively a shotgun; it blasts out eight or ten small pellets at a time when fired,

hich quickly spread out and disperse. When fired in close quarters, you can deal a lot of damageth a blaster, thanks to the fact that you’re firing multiple rounds simultaneously, and also due toe fact that rounds that initially miss will rebound off of walls. (They’ll sometimes hit you,ough.) At long range, though, the way that the blaster rounds disperse causes this weapon toless effective than, say, a chaingun. One benefit to the blaster is that it requires no ammo; ities solely on your energy reserves to fire. If you run out of energy, though, such as when you

pack for a long distance, you’ll need to wait for it to regenerate a bit before you can fire.

haingun

you might expect, the chaingun puts a lot of metal in the air, but does so without much regardr where it winds up. If you’re an adherant to the school of spray-and-pray, then this weapon willit you. In point of fact, its accuracy isn’t terrible, and you’re going to be firing so many roundsat a few are bound to hit your target. Unfortunately, the chaingun gets less accurate the longeru hold down the fire button, so if you’re desperate to take down someone at long range, you’llher have to switch to something else, or stick to short bursts of fire. On the plus side, theaingun’s rounds move more quickly than those of almost any other weapon, meaing that youve to lead enemies less severely when you fire, making it ideal for taking out enemies that arenning away from you.

renade Launcher


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The grenade launcher is much more useful in tight quarters like these than it isoutside.

a game that values vertical mobility as much as Tribes: Vengeance does, a weapon with

ojectiles that only explode on the ground is almost automatically rendered less effective thanose that can be aimed at enemies in mid-air. Which isn’t to say that the grenade launcher isd, per se; it’s just worthless if your enemy has enough energy to use his or her jetpack, unlessu’re a good enough shot to land direct hits. Against enemies on the ground, however, or foes inht quarters, the grenade launcher packs quite a punch, and seems to deal more splash damage

an the spinfusor does. It’s also one of the few weapons that can be fired around corners, thanksthe fact that it usually bounces off the first surface it hits. (When fired at long range, theenade will detonate on the initial impact with whatever surface it hits.)

urner though the burner looks impressive, what with the huge radius of its flame effect, it winds uping more flash than substance. You can use it against multiple enemies at once, true, but thisakes it no different from a mortar or spinfusor round, and while it can deal damage over time viarning, you’re going to be accepting that in exchange for almost no initial damage. While there’smething very aggravating about being burned to death, you’ll still probably want to stick withe tried-and-true spinfusor in most combat situations. The main advantage to the burner is that,e the blaster, it requires no ammo, drawing only on your energy reserves.


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ocket Pod

though you may see the word "rocket" in the name of this weapon and assume it’s a rocketuncher, you’d be wrong in that assumption, at least if you thought you’d be picking up a rocketuncher akin to that seen in Unreal or Quake; the rocket pod in Tribes: Vengeance isn’t directlymparable to any weapon you’ve seen in an FPS before. (But then, so few of the weapons are.)

stead of shooting out one massive projectile that deals heavy damage, the rocket pod will letu blast away with six smaller projectiles that are fired nearly simultaneously. In addition, youn affect the flight path of these projectiles by moving your mouse after they launch; it’s veryfficult to gain pinpoint precision with this technique, so don’t count on hitting any jetpackinges. (Unless you possess monstrously good aim.) The pod is better suited for taking downhicles, due to their poor maneuverability and inability to rapidly move out of the way ofcoming projectiles.

oreover, rocket pods are essentially useless against most online enemies, due to the way theyal damage. Although one rocket deals minimal damage, each additional rocket hit deals more

mage than the last, meaning that if you can connect with five or six, you stand a good chancegetting a kill on a full-health enemy, save for those in heavy armor. The catch is that mostayers will be moving far too quickly to actually hit with a single rocket, let alone multiples,pecially when they’re in the air. The splash damage radius on rocket pod attacks is also notably

maller than that of the spinfusor, mortar, or grenades.

short, if you’re incredibly skilled, you may be able to use the rocket pod to get kills on enemiesho aren’t aware that you’re firing at them. Otherwise, you’re unlikely to hit anyone that’s activelydging you, rendering the rocket pods suitable only as a back-up weapon in case a vehiclemes along.

rappler

hile the grappler does have some interesting features, such as how it allows you to grab on toms and pull them towards you, its primary use is confusion. In most cases, players using theirrmal movement keys are capable only of fairly regular movements; you jetpack up, you runrward, and so on. Players using splash damage weapons will thus be able to narrow down thendow in which to aim if they want to hit you, based on assumptions about your current path. Ine hands of a decent player, though, the grappler can cause all of these assumptions to beown out the window.

rst off, you’ll need a surface to attach the grappler to. In multiplayer, such a surface can be hardcome by, especially in the large, open arenas, making the grappler more useful indoors, such asthe Cavern map. There is a range limit for grappler shots; if you shoot it at a surface that’s too away from you, the rope will fall inert and you’ll lose a round of "ammo." When you do

anage to connect to a surface, though, your path of travel will immediately shift in ways that willake it difficult for your enemies to target you. If you shot directly at the ceiling above you, forstance, you’ll start swinging along the vines like Tarzan, giving you a good amount of up-and-

wn motion, while preserving your jetpack juice at the same time. If you aim above and to the


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de, you’ll start to trace a circle around the impact point of the grapple, making it essentiallypossible for a following player to accurately line up a shot. (This will sap some of your forwardeed, though.) After you swing as far forward as you can with your shot, detach the cable byting the fire button again; you can then fire another grapple shot to swing again, or just useur jetpacks to take advantage of your new direction. Multiple grapple shots are tremendouslynfusing to anyone trying to hit you, so it’s generally best to continue to use it until you run outammo or reach an area where it’s unusable or of minimal utility.

your flag has been captured by someone that’s using a grappler to get away, there aren’t manyays to get it back. If you have a full reserve of jetpack energy and an energy pack, you can useur active speed boost to try and get close to the flagrunner and blast him at close range.ternately, if you’re on base defense as a sniper, you’ll want to try and wait for them tograpple and blast them with a full-power shot. Otherwise, your best bet is to try and hit themth your chaingun or sentry turret as often as possible. If you have access to a fighter pod orother quick vehicle, try to follow along on the ground and shoot them out of the sky.ternately, you can take a different tack and steal their flag, preventing them from completinge cap.

niper Rifle

e sniper rifle in Tribes: Vengeance is a critical part of any well-oiled team’s strategy. Anyoneho’s played an FPS should be familiar with the concept of a sniper rifle (although the sniper rifleVengeance more closely resembles a railgun than a "rifle"): you point it at someone’s head andll the trigger, then they die.


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You’ll want to have your fogging distance on the farthest setting if you want to takefull advantage of the sniper rifle.

ere are a few caveats, of course. To begin with, this is the only weapon that requires both

ergy and ammunition. In truth, you can fire the sniper rifle when you don’t have much energy,t its damage is greatly increased when you have a lot of energy in your reserves. Unfortunately,s means that you’ll only get one good shot at a time; after you snap off a round, a shot takenmediately afterwards will deal much less damage (thanks to the fact that each shot almostmpletely drains your energy). If you want to focus on sniping, then, you’ll want to bring alongenergy pack, which will let you regenerate this precious resource more quickly.

ll, though, the benefits of the sniper rifle outweigh these negatives. For one thing, this is thely true hitscan weapon in the game, meaning that your projectiles cover the distance to yourget instantaneously; no leading required, in other words.

uckler

haiku:

e buckler weapont very useful, we sayort range, lacks power

etics aside, you won’t see too many people using the buckler in multiplayer, we suspect.


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though it has a noble goal - to reduce the amount of damage you take by raising a force field -s doesn’t help you perform any of your real goals in the game, which are to kill people and take

eir flags. You can use the buckler as an offensive weapon; when fired, it zips out and will strikeemies, albeit only those in your immediate vicinity, as the range is quite circumscribed. If thisere a bit more powerful, it might see more use, but the damage doesn’t seem to bemmensurate with the short range of the weapon. On the plus side, you have a limited amountmid-air control of the buckler when it’s fired.

Mortar hen you’re looking for pure destruction, there’s nothing that can quite match the mortar. Thiseapon can only be attached to heavy armor, so you won’t be able to use it unless you’re willingsacrifice speed for power, but if you do decide to go heavy, you can rest assured that you’ll bele to absolutely annihilate most enemy defenses.

though mortar rounds possess the same basic weakness as those of the grenade launcher - thatey explode on the ground, when most of your enemies will be flying above you - it makes up for

s with sheer power: the radius of a mortar detonation is much greater than that of a grenade,d it deals much more damage, as well. Since the primary use of the mortar is to weaken upemy defenses, you also won’t have as many problems dealing with airborne enemies; mostemies that guard a flag will be sitting around on the ground, if only because jetpack energyns out so quickly. This isn’t even mentioning turrets, which are prime targets for mortars due toeir large size and immobility.

the name implies, mortars are intended to be used from long range. Since the shells travel inarc, it will likely take you some time to get used to firing them accurately; you can’t just aim atur target and hit the button, unless you want to fall significantly short. Since there isn’t any realnge-finding mechanism, you’ll have to judge the height of your shot by feel, and in this instance,e old adage of practice making perfect applies. After a few rounds of exclusive mortar use, youould get an appreciation for how to aim them properly. If you don’t want to risk embarrassmentline, create a non-dedicated multiplayer server and practice by yourself.

ain, though, the primary task of a mortar is to soften up enemy defenses in preparation for ag-snatching. On open maps, your mortar fire will serve two purposes: it will damage or killemy troops on the ground, and it will encourage survivors to come out your way in an attemptneutralize you. In many ways, the latter event will be better for your team, as you’ll draw the

emy away from their flag position, while an enemy that is killed will often be able to respawnd be back in position within a few seconds. If you do decide to go long-distance with mortars,ough, be careful to stop firing a few seconds before your teammate nabs the flag; otherwise,u might turn a perfect capping run into an unintentional friendly-fire incident.

Vehiclesere are four vehicles in Tribes: Vengeance. You’ll see these vehicles scattered throughout the

ngle-player game, although most levels will be solely reliant on footwork; you’ll become moreimately acquainted with their characteristics when you hop online for multiplayer matches.


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multiplayer, there are multiple spawn pads for the vehicles; the type of vehicle you have accessif any, will depend on the map. After a vehicle initially spawns, only the team that controls the

awn pad will be able to use it; if someone gets into and then leaves a vehicle, though, it’s fairme for players of either side. After a vehicle is destroyed, its pad will reset, and four smalllars will appear at the corners; these pillars will let you know how long it’ll take for the vehicle to

spawn. When the pillars retract all the way into the ground, a new vehicle will pop up, ready fore. The more powerful a vehicle is, though, the longer this process will take.

on’t forget that you can always repair vehicles with deployable repair stations or with a repairck. Although this process is slower in multiplayer than in single-player, it can still be useful,pecially for the larger vehicles like the jump tank or the assault ship, which will take a fewnutes to respawn if destroyed.

over

though the rover is less capable of taking hits than a jump tank, and possesses lighter

eaponry, it does offer a couple of interesting features that make it an integral part of youram’s strategy when you play on a map where it’s available.

begin with, it acts as a mobile spawn point; when the rover has been piloted away from itstial spawn point, you’ll be able to select it on your spawn screen (or via the spawn towers) andmediately spawn at its location. The utility of this should be obvious; if you drive the rover to ant-of-the-way location near your enemy’s base, you’ll be able to wander in through the backor, so to speak.

condly, there’s an inventory station built into the rover’s back side, allowing you to access freshpplies while you’re out in the field, or switch to another armor class. You’ll also be able to getl health from here, at least until the rover’s destroyed.


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When you’re standing still, the rover’s turret can be an easy way to get kills onenemies incoming to your flag.

e weaponry, though, isn’t as powerful as you might desire. The secondary slot possesses an

ti-air turret, which is effective at taking down targets you can get a bead on, but which isfficult to aim while the rover is moving. Since the driver gets no weaponry, it’s usually best top into the rover and take off, shifting over to the secondary slot and pausing the car when you

ant to take someone out. You’ll be a sitting duck for enemy fire, true, but you should be able toal more damage than they can in the same amount of time, save for mortar-firing heavies.

hen you depress your jetpack button, you’ll get an endless amount of acceleration boosting,hich can make you go very fast, especially when you’re heading downhill. Since you can’t carry ag into a vehicle, it’s rarely necessary to go supersonic, but it’s fun nonetheless.

ump Tank

e jump tank is by far the more powerful of the two land-based vehicles, mostly thanks to itspressive, driver-controlled main cannon. The cannon is on par with the assault ship’s bombs and

e mortar weapon in terms of sheer power; it’s ideal for taking out enemy facilities, if you can getem in your sights. The occupant of the secondary slot gains access to a sentry turret, which isore suitable for anti-personnel operations than the cannon, although the latter will do the jobite well when used against enemies on the ground.

e jump tank doesn’t possess the advanced features of the rover, but it can take quite a bit more


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but up. In most situations, you’ll want to use your jetpack in short bursts, to effect somethinga gliding effect, but that’s better for horizontal than for vertical movement. For now, just hitur jetpack button and hold it down until you reach the top of the shaft, then find the openorway and head on through.

Your burner can take out the tribals, although it deals damage rather slowly.

u’ll get your first taste of action here, as the tribals have overrun the throne room. The majoritythe tribals on the ship are in light armor, which should let you kill them off with your Spinfusora single hit, if you manage to aim it correctly. Don’t aim directly at them; aim for their feet. It’s

ore important to hit them with a majority of the splash damage than all of the damage thatey’ll take from a direct hit, and much easier to do so to boot. Destroy everything that moves,en use your jetpack to escape the room and to find a re-supply station. These are morestricted than inventory stations, in that they won’t let you change your weapons or armor, butll completely refill your ammo.

ter jetting up through the shaft near the re-supply station and shooting your way through thebble, you’ll come to the royal theater. Kill everything here and move on. You’ll come to anotherventory station soon enough; this one will let you change into heavy armor, if you wish.though it’s a bit more ponderous than the medium armor you were using, you’ll be able to takeot more damage, which will be helpful in the firefight that’s coming up. The tribals have lainwn multiple autonomous turrets in the next large room, so abuse that Spinfusor until you’rele to proceed.


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ext up are the reactor rooms, which are connected together at the top and bottom. You’ll needjet up and down these rooms to find the next door; when heading down, don’t forget to useur jetpack to lighten your landing, and beware of tribals on the middle walkways who’ll fire onu as you descend.

ter you pass through the medical bay, which follows the fusion reactors, you’ll have to switchck to medium armor to get through the doorway leading to the cargo bay. Note the assault shipone of the upper levels; you won’t be able to fly it yet, but you can get into one of the side-

rets. Do so, and you’ll be tasked with shooting down a few waves of tribals as they enter theip. Keep shooting until your sister instructs you that she’s dropped one of the defense shield,en find the green doorway and head on through.

ur last task is to release the clamps on Olivia’s escape pod from the control room nearby. Do so,d the level ends.

ictoria: The Past - Captured

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ter Victoria wakes up and finds herself in the hands of the fearsome Phoenix tribe, it’ll be yourb to jump through the hoops that Daniel places in her way. This mission is split into twoparate levels, with the first being a more thorough introduction to the principles of skiing anding your jetpack.

e first couple of trials that you encounter see Victoria attempting to ski down steep slopes toake it through a doorway before a timer shuts down. You can try these as many times as yoush, so don’t feel too pressured to get it done right away. In order to ski, you’ll need to haveur ski button bound to something conveniently close to your movement buttons. In effect,iing lets you remove move of the friction between your feet and whatever surface you’re on; onwnward slopes, this will let you keep most of your momentum when you hit the ground and letu accelerate as you move along. You’ll still lose most of your speed when you hit an upslope,ough, so be sure to hit your jetpack when this occurs. You also won’t have much control overur lateral movement when skiing; again, using your jetpack to get just off the ground shouldve you a bit of control here.

ter the second skiing trial, Daniel will have you maneuver through the wreck of an ancient city,hting checkpoints that are scattered around. There isn’t much purpose to this, but at least you’llt an idea of how to conserve your jetpack juice to glide around. Holding down the jetpacktton isn’t an efficient method of gaining flight; it’s good for short vertical bursts, but will drainur reserves too quickly for you to make any appreciable horizontal trips. A better method ofrtical travel is to use your jetpack in a medium-length boost to get off the ground, then startpping the button at regular intervals to slow the speed of your descent.

e checkpoints that Daniel will have you find are all indicated on your HUD’s radar with greenows. If the arrow is up, the checkpoint is higher than you; if it’s down, then it’s lower. After youd all of the checkpoints and light them (by simply approaching them), you’ll finally be able to


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ss through one of the forcefields at the bottom of this big zone and head through to the Gloraxawning pit.

Let the Glorax close in on you before using your energy blade to blast them.

e Glorax may initially appear intimidating, but they’re the easiest enemies in the game. Theyve a ranged attack, where they spit a glob of mucus at you, but it’s relatively low-damage.though you only have your energy blade at the moment, you can easily use it to slice throughem at close range.

ter the Glorax in the caves have been eliminated, you’ll finally gain a decent weapon, theaingun. Use it to clear out the silo level by level, and this part of the mission will end when youach the top and jetpack out.

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nally, an outdoors level! Anyone who saw the first screenshots of Tribes: Vengeance will noubt have been looking forward to one of these, and they don’t disappoint. There are somentastic draw distances here, and plenty of opportunities to ski around on the grass. There is ap to how high you can jump with your jetpacks here, but you shouldn’t even be able to reach itth a full jetpack blast, so no need to worry about that just yet.

aniel wants you to recalibrate the comm system in each of the towers here, which apparentlynsists of lightly touching a control panel in each tower’s interior. While you pass from tower to


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wer, get used to the feel of open-terrain skiing, as you’ll have need of this skill soon enough.

There are plenty of Blood Eagles in the valley, but you should survive - if you’re ableto ski, that is.

hen you reach the final tower, grab the Spinfusor weapon, calibrate it, and head outside to findurself dab smack in the middle of another tribe’s assault on the Phoenix clan. There appears tolittle enough reason for this assault, save to destroy the Phoenix’s equipment, but they’ve comeforce. Daniel will instruct you to make your way back to the first tower in the canyon, but you’llve to backtrack through quite a few Blood Eagles in order to reach it. Try to get used to usingur jetpack to clear obstacles and skiing when you’re on the ground, waiting for the jets tocharge. When you have enemies with spinfusors firing at you, however, you’ll want to save youriing talents for when you’re in a canyon or other land formation that prevents your enemies

om firing at you.you approach the first tower, you’ll spot a Blood Eagle rover heading your way. You can use

e Spinfusor to destroy it, if you wish, but it’s best to just bypass the numerous enemies arounde tower and head into the bunker there, which will end the mission.

ulia: The Present - Coliseum

e first of many timeline shifts occurs now; you now gain control of Julia, a fearsome Imperial

ncess, who’s struggling to defeat the Blood Eagles in Coliseum combat. Your team has


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anaged to fall behind eight rounds to two, but like Achilles come to avenge Patroclus, Julia hasme to rescue the Imperials from the brink of defeat, even if it means winning each remainingund.

u’ll have a few of these Coliseum matches in the single-player portion of Tribes: Vengeace. Inect, they’re just rounds of multiplayer games played against bots, in similar fashion to the

ngle-player mode in Quake III or Unreal Tournament. You have a few new gametypes to dealth, but the concepts should be simple enough.

Kill off the Beagle defenders, and you’ll capture the territories in no time.

ound 1: You begin with a round of Territory. You begin as the blue team, but all of the Territoryarkers are in the possession of the Blood Eagles, which are red. Your AI teammates will followu to the first marker, so get there ASAP and start to convert it. Each time you convert a marker,e of your teammates will break off to defend, so you’ll have to spread your forces out if you

ant to grab all of them, but this shouldn’t be too maniacally difficult, depending on your prowess.lia is only wearing light armor, though, so be careful not to get too hot and heavy with theemies.

ound 2: Another round of Territory, save for the fact that you’re now on pure defense, and willve to keep the Blood Eagles from capturing your markers. This is easiest if you just advance toe marker nearest the Blood Eagle spawn points and camp there, firing away at any enemies thatp out of the gates on the far end of the playing field, and restocking your health and ammo

om the weapons and medpacks that your enemies drop. Beyond that, all you have to do is wait;


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e round is seven minutes or so, so rack up the kills until time runs out.

ound 3: Now you have to deal with the Fuel gametype. The objective here is simple: grab a fuelnister and bring it back to your fuel depot. When the depot is full, your team wins. You’ll havegrab around ten canisters in order to fill your depot, but you shouldn’t have too many problemsre. Don’t forget that your resupply point (to the rear of your depot) will give you a full healthstore; you should activate it whenever you drop off a canister.

ound 4: Another Fuel round, but this time, you’ll have to nab the fuel directly from yourponent’s depot, by standing underneath it. The Blood Eagles will be bringing a few heavymors onto the battlefield, so keep an ear open for the telltale whistle of incoming mortars.ey’ll sometimes start shelling you while you stand underneath the enemy depot, so keepifting your position as often as possible. You can only get 15 units of fuel at a go, so grab it,op it off, hit the resupply for a health boost, and repeat.

ound 5: The second-to-last round is a pure deathmatch, but of course there’s a caveat: youon’t have any teammates to help you out. It’s just Julia versus eight or nine Blood Eagles. They here is to make this into a series of one-on-one duels, rather than an all-out melee against allthe Eagles at once. Use the terrain to your advantage, note when an enemy runs out of jetpackel, and take to the skies to get them with splash damage from your Spinfusor. Stick near yoursupply depot to get health boosts when needed.

The captain will give you a run for your money, but you have infinite health via your

resupply station, so there’s no reason to lose.


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ound 6: This final round pits Julia against one of the Blood Eagle captains, in a true one-on-oneatch. You shouldn’t have too many problems here, but you will need to keep an eye on youralth, as this guy is quite capable of hitting you in mid-air with a Spinfusor round. As per usual,ough, you should have nigh-infinite health, thanks to your resupply point; the Blood Eagle won’te his, so wear him down as gradually as you like before charging in for the kill.

ulia: The Present - Discovery

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It’s like shooting fish in a barrel! Luckily, the assault ship moves slowly enough foryou to get a good bead on your targets.

ere aren’t too many rail-shooting games nowadays - not on PCs, anyway - so enjoy the openingck-hunt while it lasts. You shouldn’t have any problems taking out all of the Phoenixes that youot with the anti-air gun. It’s not terribly effective against ground targets, but it’ll get the jobne if you concentrate your fire on a spot long enough. There is splash damage from yourunds, so don’t feel too concerned with being minutely accurate.

ter a few minutes of flying around, you’ll be let off the ship along with Henry. Save your gamere; you don’t want to have to sit through all of the gunnery exercises again should you die, and

ing is a distinct possibility here. Your goal now is to find and take out three of the anti-air


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rets in the area; these are all marked on your radar and command map, if you get lost. There’sparticular order in which you have to do them, so feel free to make your own path. As

entioned, Henry - who has frighteningly different voices depending on whether he’s shouting ate tribals or talking on the radio - is along for the ride, and is packing mortars along with hisavy armor, so let him take out the turrets. As you approach each turret site, stick close to Henryd back him up as he fires from a distance; if he takes damage, use your repair pack to get himme health back. The most important thing here is to not expose yourself to too much fire. Therets can take you out with just a few shots if you stand in the open, so keep behind a ridge or

her terrain feature until you get close enough for Henry to say "I’m getting into position!" ormesuch. After that, he’ll let you know when he’s done destroying the turrets.

hen all of the turrets have been destroyed, you’ll be given a new target on your radar; thetrance to the main facility of the Phoenixes. Make your way towards it as best you can. If yoush, you can wait for Henry, as he’ll give you a hand locking down the enemies that appear neare doorway, but you don’t necessarily have to; he’ll catch up eventually either way. After Albrechtts the door codes cracked, you’ll pass through to the second part of the mission.

art 2e interior portion of this mission isn’t too complicated - there’ll be plenty of Phoenix around tol, but the base is fairly linear in effect, if not in layout. Finding the next doorway is usually a

atter of looking around to see which door is lit in green instead of red. You rarely if ever head, but there is a time or two when you’ll need to drop through a hole in the floor to proceed onur way.


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ulia: The Past - Bloodlines

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is level takes place at an undeterminable point in time after Victoria’s capture by the Phoenix.on after the opening cutscene, you’ll find yourself, as a young Julia, navigating through thentilation system of the Imperial palace. There’s only one way to go, until you come acrossaius. After his ignoble exit from the mortal coil, you’ll have to weave your way through thebsequent room, under heavy fire, to get to the switch that’ll open the door leading to theperial soldiers. Good thing Julia’s tough, as she’s going to take a few bullets between now andr escape from the palace. Don’t worry, she’ll give as good as she gets.

e next room is another run-for-your-life affair; weave through the gunfire until you come acrossootsoldier exchanging fire with a turret, and smashing out a set of windows in the process.ese windows will lead into another small room, so drop down and avoid the turret within untilu’re able to bypass the next door and move on. This will lead you onto the next part of the

ssion.

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ore vent-crawling ensues at the outset of this level. You’ll eventually come to a deadend; whene Imperial and Phoenix troops exchange fire and blow a hole in the vent, crawl back and headough it. You’ll eventually come to the hangar bay, which contains a single Fighter craft, which isparently a perfect fit for a five-year-old. Dubious morality of letting a toddler mow down soldiersde, this is your only way out of the palace, so get going.


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hen they’re pointed out to you, as well as any more Phoenix troops that you come across.ventually you’ll reach a door that ends the level.

aniel: The Past - Rescue

ter the capture of the Phoenix civilians by Seti and his gang of satellite dish monitoring truelievers, Daniel takes it upon himself to rescue them. Your first goal is to encourage Seti to sendnforcements out from his underground fortress; this will let you penetrate to the fortress itself

hile the door remains open. To do so, you’ll have to play little game of Territory.

You’ll probably want to kill off these assault ships before you capture the territoryunderneath them.

ere are four nodes that you’ll need to control. Your first target should be the one in theuthwestern corner of the map, as controlling it will allow you access to the resupply stationneath the node itself; if you get into a bad situation healthwise, return here for a full refill.etting to the node will be a problem, though, as it’s guarded by no less than an Assault Ship. Ifu’re good at leading with the Spinfusor, you can take it down from long range, or you can usee Rocket Pods if you want to try manually aiming them. Regardless, you don’t actually have tostroy it; killing off the gunners will let you get close enough to the node to capture it. Just bereful not to get caught under it without any jetpack juice; its bombs are devestating when theyyou while you’re on the ground.


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ter all four of the nodes are captured, the door to the fortress below will open up and show onur radar. Make your way into it before the timer runs down to pass control over to Victoria.

ictoria: The Past - The Rescue

Ninja enemies are fairly easy to kill, since they rely on energy blades to deal damage.

r someone who hadn’t handled a suit of armor up until this point in her life, Victoria seems quitepable of dishing out the pain to these Blood Eagles. To whet her appetite a bit more, head intoe barracks, where a few Ninjas await you. Kill everything you see and explore the rooms in thisea, if you wish, but your goal is to unlock the door leading to the next zone by using the panelside the large windowed room.

ter heading down the "elevator," proceed on through another area similar in layout to therracks above. Be careful in the windowed room here, though, as there are a few Grenadiersho’ll pelt you with grenades as you move on. (One of them guards a Repair Pack, so be sure toab it.) Wipe them out before unlocking the door and moving on to the prison access area.

hen you reach the door marked Security, you’ll have to take a detour and head down anevator or two until you reach the prison cells, which are unfortunately empty. (It’s best to just

through the elevator passages as quickly as possible; there’s a high risk of injury here, and theemies within won’t follow you to the normal zones.) After you check a nearby computer (which

u find underneath the empty cells), you’ll find that the prisoners have been moved to the main


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ll. Daniel will soon contact you, requesting a security override, so head back up to the Securityor and give him what he wants.

ter some more running around, you’ll find the prisoners, but the level will soon end.

aniel: The Past - The Rescue 2

ur goal as Daniel is to penetrate the Beagle facilty (Blood Eagle, Beagle; get it?) and destroy thewer generator so that Jericho & Co. can infiltrate from the surface. Unfortunately, the easy wayto the generator is blocked off from you, so you’ll have to unlock another passage, found in thengar bay. In order to get there, though, you’ll have to do some crawling through the ducts. Youn find a passageway into the ventilation system by jetpacking up to the top of the room andstroying the turrets there.

ter you clean out the hangar bay, exit through one of the green doors and use the switch theredisable the force field on the bottom of the hangar. From there, it’s a fairly short walk to thenerator, which can be easily destroyed by the Rocket Pods, if you still have them, or your

infusor. There’s no obvious exit from the generator room, but if you poke around underwater,u’ll notice that the piping forms something of a vertical corridor which you can swim through.

hen you surface again, you’ll be faced with a few vertical passages between yourself and theain hall, where the prisoners are being kept. As per usual with vertical rooms, it’s best to justnore the enemies as much as possible, and just blast through with your jetpack until you cancape. After a couple of these shafts, you’ll come out into the main hall. You’ll face a couple ofedium armor foes; after they’re dead you’ll be able to unlock the energy field which holdsctoria and your friends captive.

aniel: The Past - Mercy

there are vehicles in a game, there’s gonna be a single-player level where you drive them; it’ssimple as that. For this level, you get to take out a rover for a spin. Daniel’s brother Jericho is

ong for the ride, as well; he’ll take the gunner position, which leaves you the driver’s slot. Youn’t get to use any weapons while you’re steering, so you’ll have to be careful to get the buggyo a position that lets Jericho blast away at anyone nearby. If there’s someone in front of you,

en, you’ll want to have the rover on a level surface, or tilting slightly forward.

point of fact, though, there’s no reason why you can’t get down and dirty at the same time asur brother. All you have to do is jump out of the car and blast away; Jericho will keep on theessure with the buggy’s guns while you use whichever weapon you wish to mete out your ownecific brand of tribal vengeance. You can leave the car at any time you wish, and what’s more,ere’s even a resupply/inventory pack on the back of the buggy, which will let you refill your

mmo and health whenever you wish. So long as you keep your repair pack handy and use it toal up the jeep whenever it takes damage, you should be able to make it through this level withry a hitch.

begin with, drive down the road a ways until you come to a closed door that blocks your path.


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u’ll get some audio tips to exit the car; do so, then jet up to the top of the nearby bunker andminate the turret and Beagles within. The switch that opens the door is within, so flip it, thent back in the car and proceed.

Although Jericho is quite capable of shooting enemies, you’ll have to leave the roverto manually shoot out the mines.

ur next obstacle is a minefield, which has been lain down inside of a tunnel. You obviously don’tant to just plow through such a threat, so get close to the mouth of the tunnel and exit theggy. Jericho will continue to blast away at any Beagle he sees, freeing you to eliminate thenes with your grenade launcher. You have infinite ammo, thanks to the resupply station in the

ar of the rover, so just spam the tunnel with grenades. After checking for any remaining mines,t back in the car and proceed on your way.

ound a bend, you’ll come across some rockfall which prevents your passage. A heavy-armoragle also waits near this obstacle, ready to pelt you with mortars, so get out of the buggy andup to his position; it’s best to give him two targets to shoot at, lest he deal significant damagethe buggy. When all of the enemies have been taken out, Jericho will automatically blast therrier; be sure to heal up the buggy with your repair pack before proceeding.


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et Jericho worry about any aerial threats; you can always jump out of the rover andrepair it if it gets damaged.

ext up is the ruined city, which you can spot on your command map. There are more and varied

eats here, including a short minefield on the approach; beyond that, though, you’ll mostly becing vanilla Beagles, in various weights of armor. If you’re playing on hard mode, proceed slowlyd surely, flushing out Beagles as they appear; on Normal or Easy mode, feel free to hit the gasd work your way through the first set of ruins at top speed. Your ultimate goal is the bridge toe northwest, but before you reach it, a couple of fighter pods will pop up. Jericho can easilyoot these guys down, but you might want to exit the vehicle and activate your repair podnetheless, as they can quickly dish out a lot of hurt if you’re unprepared for them.

hen you do reach the bridge, it’ll be quickly destroyed by a mortar, but no fear: there’s anothere to the north. To reach it, though, you’ll have to guide your buggy up an incline formed by thelen ruins of a building; check your command map to get an idea of where this is. The city on

e western bank of the river possesses similar traps as that to the east: sandbags, Beagles,attered mines, and so on. Make your way through these scattered threats to the southwest,here the path to the tunnels lie.

ter you finally reach the tunnels, a horde of medium-armor Beagles will descend upon yoursition. You won’t be any help inside the buggy, so jump out and use up any ammo you wish one enemies, jumping into the inventory station whenever you need more ammo or health. Keepeye on the buggy’s health here, as well, as it’s liable to take a bit of damage from the

enades. After the door to the tunnel opens, steer the buggy in for the win.


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Mercury: The Past - Assassination

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ercury, a cybrid, has been tasked with assassinating Daniel. This is your first opportunity to useniper rifle, so whip it out and go to town. The sniper rifle does more damage when you havel energy reserves, so if you’re flying around and you see a target, you’ll want to land and letur energy recharge before shooting. Note also that the rifle drains most of your energy whenu fire; you don’t want to shoot it when you’re high up in the air, lest you rocket back to earthr want of jetpack juice.

u begin the level near the area marked "Pack Storage" on your map. You’ll get some audiodications pointing you to this area; if you scout around inside, you’ll come across a pulsing,rple Speed Pack. This passively increases your speed, and lets you fire more quickly when youtivate it. The energy pack that you start the level with is useful, as well, so decide whether youant to move more quickly or regenerate energy faster. (Don’t worry about the energy barrier

re; there isn’t a generator anywhere nearby that will drop it.)

Sniping people is easy to do, but watch out for enemy snipers!.

hen you’ve made up your mind, you can start creating diversions. There are three locations

arked as objectives on your map: Resupply Control, Sensor Control, and Turret Control. You’llely want to head to Resupply Control first, as this will let you completely restore your health at


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y resupply point. As a note, there are dozens of extraneous enemies scattered about the level;e only parts you need worry about are marked on your map, so don’t get into fights justcause you can. If you want to snipe people from a million miles away, feel free, but it’s best tooid unnecessary melees.

king over Resupply Control is easier said than done, of course, thanks to it being housed in ahere hovering a hundred meters or so off the ground. You can jetpack up to it, but you’ll needbe quick about it, because there’s a jump tank and two turrets that’ll be pelting you with rounds

you ascend. It’s best to ignore them for the moment, infiltrate the facility, take over thesupply points, and then heal yourself up before heading back outside. Now that you’ve takener the resupply points, you can proceed on to the other objectives; if you don’t want to dealth the turrets and tank, just ignore them.

ext up is either the Turret Control or the Sensor Control, take your pick. The Sensor Control isobably a bit more useful, and is closer to the Resupply Control, so head north to find it. It’s eventher off the ground than Resupply Control, so you’ll need to find a way to boost your jump.

nfortunately, it’s also guarded by Rocket Pods. If you can snipe out the driver of one of these,u can use it to get up to the control center; otherwise, blast them out of the sky, then use thetapult to get yourself up to the castle in the sky. After you convert the Sensor Control over tour cause, you’ll be able to see any enemies on the map, both on your personal radar and on themmand map.

heck your map to find the Turret Control, then head out and nab it. This is heavily guarded byfantry, but all you need to do is convert it, resupply and heal up, then jet off to the newjective which appears on your radar, leaving all of the infantry in the dust. Don’t make troubleu don’t need!

the final objective, in the far northwestern corner of your command map, you’ll have to face offainst another small squad of infantry before you can penetrate into the Phoenix base.

art 2

e fruits of your implausible computer virus are retained into the Phoenix base itself, in thatu’ll be able to use resupply centers and take control of any turrets that you see. You alsoanaged to back up the sewer systems, resulting in a flood of mucky brown water that you’ll havewade through, about which no comment is perhaps appropriate.

eep an eye on the audio squawks here; you’ll often get advance warning of what’s in your path ifu pay attention to what Jericho is yelling at his underlings. To begin with, you’ll be able to pickf a bunch of Phoenix troops from beneath the brown water, if you duck back and forth betweene first large room and your small corridor. They can’t see you from above, so feel free to snipeem all out before proceeding up. When you surface, you’ll have to find another passage leadingo a small flooded shaft before you can finally surface for good.


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You can probably make it through this without using the turret, but it’s so muchmore fun when you do.

u’ll shortly come to a locked door leading to the sensor grid; use your virus on the lock panel.

hile you wait for the virus to actuate, use the turret to blast away at anything that comes youray. If you drop low on ammo or health, you’ll be able to find a resupply center when the hangarors open and the rocket pods appear.

oceeding into the sensor grid, you’ll have to fight your way ever downward through a series ofevators. Your journey through the base eventually culminates in a battle against multiple turrets,heavy armor trooper, and multiple infantry, so come heavy with a grenade launcher, if possible.hen you finally make it out of the base, the level ends.

ericho: The Present - Deliveranceart 1

ell, apparently Jericho’s going to make these Imperial scum squeal like a pig. He’ll have to begincapturing the Barracks, the Artillery Point, and the Docking Bay, in any order you choose. Eachthese is superficially similar, in that you have to penetrate inside the facility and capture thede within, as in a game of Territory, but each has specific defenses to deal with: the Barrackss a surfeit of infantry, the Docking Bay will have multiple Rocket Pods in the air around it, ande Artillery Point is guarded by multiple turrets.


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nce it’s closest to your starting point, it’s best to nab the Barracks first. There isn’t much strategyvolved; just storm the area and get inside as quickly as possible, using your mortars to blow

way anyone who stands in your way. You’ll take damage, but you should be able to survive thep, thanks to your heavy armor. After you do take over the base, you’ll gain access to a resupplytion, so use it to heal up before leaving the facility.

ou have plenty of ammo for the mortar, thanks to the capture of a resupply station,so don’t feel constrained in using it.

ter you grab the Barracks, you can head out for either of the other two objectives. Both thetillery Point and the Docking Bay will require a bit more softening up than the Barracks, but youould be able to use your mortars to good effect here. If you spot a soldier with a spinfusor, killm and grab it; it’s much easier to hit distant, immobile targets like turrets with it, and you’ll haveore ammo to boot.

hen you’ve managed to capture all of the bases, you’ll be able to infiltrate the prison, but useur scope and mortar or spinfusor to clear out all of the turrets before doing so, or you’ll likelyt overwhelmed.

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ow that you’re inside the prison, you’ll have to find the entrance to the mines, where Esther ising held. You only have one path to follow initially; grab one of the elevators in the first large


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om and proceed along the corridors until you get locked in by security. This is the first of a fewfensive stands that Jericho will have to make in order to get through the level. You won’t havesy access to resupply stations in here, so you’ll have to rely on first aid packs to keep youralth up, but when you do need to repel an assault, you’ll usually gain access to a number ofployable turrets and mines, as you do here.

eploy the mines near the entrances to the room, and the turrets as you wish. It’s perhaps best toploy the turrets on the upper level of the room, clustered together close enough for you to hit

em all with a repair pack when you activate it. (If you don’t have a repair pack, grab one on onethe desks on the lower level of the room.) When the enemies start flooding in, you can useenades or mortars to kill them while they move about below, and leave the turrets to finishem off if they hit the elevator.

You can chuck grenades or mortars into the windows here to kill off the door lock’sdefenders.

u’ll eventually be able to proceed, but move slowly, as there’s a heavy-armor unit in the hallwayading away from the room. Blast your way through to a central prison area that’s filled withemies, then start cutting them down with your mortars and grenades, if you have them. Youral here is to unlock the door leading to the mines; the lock is located in the control room at thep of this area. Flip the switch, then float all the way down to the bottom, disregarding anyackers, and fly through the now-open doorway to proceed on to the next part of the level.

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e third portion of this mission is essentially a replica of the second. You begin with aaightforward corridor crawl until you reach a set of doors leading further into the mine.

nfortunately, they’re locked, so you’ll have to wait two minutes until a minecart comes along,hich will automatically unlock it. As you may have surmised from all the turrets laying around,s is another position you’ll have to defend, so lay down the turrets as best you can before theemies start coming in. You’ll have to deal with a couple of heavy armor enemies this time, so to get away from the turrets before you get their attention, lest their mortars destroy all of

ur little friends.

Things can get a little hectic at the end of the mine, so be sure to save your gamebefore attempting to complete the mission.

ter the doors unlock, proceed through the mineshafts until you reach Esther’s cell. She’ll be ableeffect her escape through a nearby ventilation shaft (what would level designers do withoutnts and ducts, one wonders), leaving you behind to guard her escape. This is the most difficultthe three defensive stands, in that you don’t have any turrets to deploy, and due to the numberd quality of enemies that will be coming in. Most of your foes here will be medium-armor, withew heavies; many will have grenade launchers, which will cause you no end of trouble. Saveur game before this little abattoir opens for business, and use the catapults as best you can toep yourself off the ground; if you’re in the air, grenades have a very small chance of actuallyrting you. If you can, stay on the rafters near the ceiling and pelt everyone from there with yourortars and grenades. After two minutes, the mission automatically ends.


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Mercury: The Present - Redemption

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appears that, in addition to Jericho, Mercury is also alive and kicking twenty years on from theents of the past. Your goal here is initially undefined; all you’re told is that you have to makeur way into the Imperial base in which you first find yourself. You’ve infiltrated into the sewer

stem, as occurs in seemingly every FPS game. Unfortunately, the sewage here is contaminatedth some kind of corrosive, and will eat into your health when you’re submerged. It won’tmage you very quickly, though, so don’t feel too concerned with staying out of the water.

You can use your sniper rifle to great effect against the soldiers here; they have

nowhere to run to.begin with, you’ll need to maneuver through the first large room you enter and jet up to the

p platform around the corner to the left. You’re unlikely to get there on a single bar of energy,you’ll want to use your grappler to attach to the ceiling and help you along. When you reach

e platform, kill off the guards watching over the sewer system - most boring job ever? - andoceed down the open corridors until you find a door leading to an open shaft. After falling down,u’ll find the control room, wherein exists a switch which will stop the ventilation fan near theatform from blowing. Whether you backtrack or proceed forward, you’ll wind up back on theatform, so jump from there through the slowly-moving fan into the next room.


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ain, you’ll probably have to use your grappler here to get up to the highest level. You won’t bele to leave this room until you unlock the sluice gate in the water below; you’ll find the controlitch in a room on the second-highest level. When you unlock it, you should see the gateening below your vantage point, so drop down and proceed through it.

ter you jet up into the southern portions of your map, you’ll face a straightforward set ofrridor crawling that will lead you to the shaft from which you can access the prison proper.

art 2

ou’ll need to destroy these consoles to proceed, so blast them or hit them with yourenergy blade.

mediately upon entering this level, you’ll learn about the new twist: most of the doors here arecked, which forces you to destroy maintenance computers in order to unlock maintenanceafts. (Read: more narrow vents.) You’ll find the first of these computers above your startingsition, which unlocks a door immediately adjacent to it. The computer consoles are tough, so ifu’re willing to take a small health hit in order to conserve ammo, use your energy blade to blowem up.

the ensuing elevator shaft, you can drop to the bottom for more ammo and health, but youral is to penetrate the guard station at the top. The maintenance computers are marked on your

dar, so blow them, then head into the maintenance shaft and walk through to the guard station.


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Using your turrets to block off one of the entrances will let you concentrate yourdefensive efforts on the other.

begin with, you can use the deployable turrets to completely block off one of the entrances toe interior base. Set these up so that any enemies attempting to reach your generator wouldve to go over them, then tuck the mobile repair machine close enough to let it repair them, but to place it behind a wall so that it won’t be in the line of casual fire. The repair machine cansily keep the turrets up and running, but it won’t be able to repair itself, so monitor its healthd use your own repair pack as necessary to heal it up. You can cover the other entrance to theerior base by yourself, especially if you equip yourself with heavy armor and a mortar.

fact, for the first wave of Beagles, that tactic will work well. Set up your turrets, equip yourselfheavy armor, and spam away with mortars in the other entrance to the base. Beagles will also

casionally drop down from the skylight, so stay alert. Use a chaingun or other non-explosiveeapon to deal with any troops that actually reach the inside of the base; you don’t want to riskowing up your own generator.

ter a while, you’ll be tasked with returning to the territory marker and defending it from aagle strike team. You’ll alternate between defending the marker and defending the generator

r a few rounds of combat, before Daniel tells you that he needs to download some data from anternal site to break through the Beagle’s encryption. Damn you, PGP! Anyway, this will requirem to pop up the four satellite dishes which the base handily has access to. Your goal now is tootect those from destruction.


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e Beagles will begin their assault on the dishes with assault ships. These are riotously difficultr a player in a suit to take out, thanks to the fact that the side gunners will quickly pound awayyour health with their anti-air guns. If possible, use or repair the sentry turret on the western

de of the base and use that to blast away at the ships (there are two) from long range; this isuch preferable to having to expose yourself to the gunners’ fire. If the turret is unavailable, usee spinfusor to knock out the gunners before whipping out your rocket pods to finish off theips.

ext up are a pair of tanks which appear one by one. These guys will quickly destroy any turretu’re in, so you’ll need to take them out on foot. If you’re good at skiing, take advantage of thede open spaces inside the base by skiing more rapidly than the turret on the tanks can track you

hile pelting the vehicles with spinfusor rounds or grenades.

Your assault ship won’t last long against the heavy defenses here, so attack from asfar up as possible, and keep moving.

ter both tanks are destroyed, you’ll be given access to an assault ship of your own, which you’lled to fly north in order to destroy three Beagle generators in the sky. Before you head up thatay, though, do a fly-by around the base to ensure that there aren’t any more infantry unitseandering around; the heavy armor dudes that hang around in the hills will sometimes wanderwn after you fly away and wreak havoc.

e generators are a tough nut to crack, due to the heavy defenses built up around them. You’llce multiple incoming spinfusor rounds and turret attacks, so take your time and proceed slowly.


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By the time you knock a pilot out of his fighter pod, it’ll likely be near-destructionanyway, but you can still use it on the next wave of enemies.

e main kinks here are the inclusion of vehicles. In one round, you’ll have to take on two waves

two rocket pods apiece. If you use your spinfusor, you may be able to knock the pilot out ofe of the craft without destroying it; if this occurs, grab the pod before your teammates blow itand use it to shoot down anyone else that comes along. The pod will likely be in a fairly

ecipitous state so far as health is concerned, so it won’t last too long.

e final round is going to be your toughest challenge, as you’ll have to face off against an assaultip and a jump tank in succession. The assault ship won’t be too bad, if you can knock out thenners quickly; it doesn’t seem to drop bombs, so it’ll be a sitting duck after you do so. The jump

nk will be a tougher nut to crack, especially if you’re low on health. It travels along the ditchat runs around the outside of the arena, so you should be able to avoid its fire if you keep therain between you and it, but your teammates won’t be so lucky. If your turreteers are still

ound, they’ll get pounded by the cannon before you can destroy the tank, so don’t worry aboutem. Use your grenades and spinfusor rounds to off it from a distance.

ictoria: The Past - Retribution

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e hunt for Daniel is on! He’s fled into the bowels of the palace in an attempt to escape the


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nishment he so richly deserves. It’s up to Victoria to hunt him down, and hunt you must.

ur initial path here will lead you through a number of deployable turrets that Daniel or hisoenix henchmen have lain down behind them. These guys sting, so try to strafe out fromhind cover and get off a few chaingun rounds and then ducking back before they can get a lockto you.

This kind of fall would kill you in most games, but you’ll survive here, thanks to your jetpack.

ventually, you’ll reach a control room with a switch that opens up into the biggest vertical shaftu’ve seen in the game thus far. You can use the platforms below to arrest your descent, or just

mp and trust in your jetpack to prevent falling damage. You’ll have to keep passing through

ese shafts until you reach the bottom; when a pair of Phoenix ambush you, though, enter theom from which they came to find a handy spinfusor.

hen you do reach the bottom of the shaft and eliminate the Phoenix that guard it, you’ll quicklyss through to the next portion of the mission. Grab any grenade launchers you can find beforeing so!

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ore turret fun here, as the first room beyond the level start contains half a dozen or more of the


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le buggers. If you brought along a grenade launcher, shoot as many rounds as you needough the door until you’ve destroyed most of them, then proceed through and blast any that

main. If you’d prefer to just bypass the whole affair, jet and ski through the room to the door one far side.

ore Phoenix curs will attempt to impede your progress in the industrial areas that follow, butey should fall relatively quickly. More troublesome are the snipers that guard a large open area,t you should be able to move quickly enough to get to them before they deal too much damage

you. Unfortunately, your medium armor prevents you from using the sniper rifles; theyould’ve come in quite handy in an upcoming section of the map.

e next major challenge involves grenadiers pelting you from the rafters. If you can, jet up toeir positions and destroy them up close; if you can’t reach that high, use your spinfusor and takeem out from up close. If you run low on health here - a distinct possibility - you can find somealth packs in the ammo containers on the ground.

e rest of this level is an affair similar to what you’ve passed through before, in that it alternatesnstricted corridors with more open areas. Keep your health up with the health packs that fallenemies drop, and watch out for any resupply stations that you see.

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e challenge level has really ramped up since the beginning of this mission; to begin this portion,u’ll face off against eight or nine Phoenixes, all armed with spinfusors. Cut your way throughem, then unlock the door leading to another large shaft area, this one packed full of morefantry. You won’t be able to jet all the way to the top in one go, so you’ll either have to jumpom bridge to bridge, or use a grappler to help facilitate your ascent. There are plenty of troopsre, though, as mentioned, so feel free to cut through a few of them at a time before returningthe resupply stations in the room at the bottom of the shaft. There are also resupply stations at

e top, if you just want to grapple and jet your way past all the fire.


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After destroying his repair stations, try to finish off Daniel with splash damage fromyour weapons.

aniel himself awaits you in a small arena at the top of an elevator, and he is one tough nut to

ack, so save your game after resupplying, but before heading up. He’ll use both spinfusors andenades to wear you down, but he himself will be able to gain back health from the mobile repairtions that he’s lain down around the center of the room. These stations should be your firstget; to save ammo, use any throwable grenades that you might have squirrelled away tostroy them before shifting your sights to Daniel himself. The weapon loadout that you’re mostely to have at this point will be the spinfusor, chaingun, and grenade launcher, and you’llobably need to use all of the ammo from all three weapons to take him out. Needless to say,e your grenades while he’s on the ground, the spinfusor to get him with splash damage while’s near the ceiling, and the chaingun for the finishing blow from long distance.

ulia: The Present - Trials

order to get the information she wants out of Esther, who’s back with the Phoenix packlowing her rescue from prison, Julia will have to undergo the standard Phoenix initiation, whichnsists of a number of trials designed to test your various physical and mental abilities. You canempt the trials in any order, and will get as many attempts as you need to pass each one, son’t feel too pressured by the whole affair.

eed: The speed test has you attempting to make six laps up and down a long cylindrical cavern


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thin a set time period. If you can make a lap in around ten seconds, you should be able tomplete the test within the given time, but you’ll need to ski with the best of them to accomplishat. To begin with, equip yourself with the spinfusor and speed pack, and when the timer setswn to zero, use the catapult to get yourself underway. After using your jetpack to get yourselfto speed, set down and start skiing the night away.

e key here is to ensure that most of your momentum is along the front/rear axis of the corridor,hich means that you should minimize the amount of side-to-side movement you make. The

infusor is much quicker at correcting your course than is using your jetpack; if you start weavingo much, aim the spinfusor behind you so that its blast will counteract a bit of the off-axisomentum that you’ve picked up. You’ll take damage, sure, but you’ll gain it all back at the end ofe trial, anyway. You can also use the spinfusor to put yourself on the correct heading fortering the ends of the cylinder. If you hit the end while in the middle of the floor, you’ll lose allyour momentum; it’s better if you try to ski through it high on one of the walls, which will letu keep most of the speed you had going in. If you need a speed boost coming out of a turn,u can either jetpack for a few moments, or use your spinfusor to get going again.

This is an ideal placement setup for your turret and repairable station.

amina: In this trial, you’ll have to protect a flag against multiple waves of enemies, but you’llwell-armed for the task, since you’ll have heavy armor and any weapons you want, as well as aployable turret. Near the flag, you’ll also be able to pick up a portable repair station and aret. Lay these down near the resupply station, so that the repair bay can repair both of the

her items, as well as yourself.


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hen the rounds start, use your jetpacks to scout around and detect the enemies as theyproach. You’ll have to fend off five or six light-armor enemies as well as a medium-armor foering each wave. The lights are easily blown to bits with a mortar, but the mediums will beugher to lock onto, as they’ll often take to the skies and attempt to land directly on the flag; ifey even touch it, you’ll have to start over, so you’ll want to focus on killing them first. Use yourinfusor or chaingun to take them down.

exterity: The dexterity test has you attempting to place a ball into three separate goals

attered around a large cavern. The ball spawns on the small pedestal in the middle platform, sond over it as the timer counts down to get it as quickly as possible. When it does spawn in,u’ll want to hit the hardest goal first; this would be the one at the very top of the cavern. You

on’t be able to jet directly to it, so you’ll have to use the scattered catapults to get yourself up toYou don’t need to start at the bottommost catapult, though; pick one that you can jet to from

e ball platform and go from there to save yourself a few seconds.

e second goal is the one that rotates around the arena. This one is easy to miss, so be sureu’re as close to it as you can possibly get before letting loose with the ball. Lastly, there’s a goala room underneath the water, facing down, so dive as far as you can go to find it.

nesse: In the finesse test, you’ll have to take out multiple Phoenixes while armed with nothingt a buckler. The buckler isn’t much of an offensive weapon, but it will kill these fools in a coupleshots, so use your jetpack to avoid their fire while closing in for the kill.

rception: In perception, you’ll be armed with a sniper rifle and a blaster and tasked with killingf a number of Phoenixes as they attempt to destroy a generator. This is one of the easier trials,nce the Phoenixs will come into the arena one by one; simply get up next to the one of thellow energy field doors and use your sniper rifle to pick them off as they appear. If you hear

meone coming down the track behind you, switch over to the blaster and use that to off themclose range. If you run out of ammo, there’s a resupply point immediately below the generatorelf.

aptation: Another easy one. In Adaptation, you’ll be fighting against numerous enemies in aro-gravity environment. So long as you stay away from surfaces, you should be nearly immuneom splash damage, but your foes won’t be as smart, so use your spinfusor to blast them to bits.


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Esther’s fairly easy to defeat, so long as you can accurately aim the buckler.

ter you complete all of the trials, Esther herself will challenge you to a duel. While you possessly a buckler, she’ll use both her buckler and a chaingun, so stay on your toes. If it comes down

a buckler duel, you’ll win handily, as Esther is apparently too old to aim it properly. Whip her,d you’ll be able to move on to the next mission.

ulia: The Present - Revelation

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e beginning of this level plays in similar fashion to the earlier mission where Victoria piloted the

mp tank; like mother, like daughter, apparently. Fortunately for Julia, though, you will have anner along, which will let you concentrate on the primary concentrations of enemies while hekes down any individual irritants.


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he rounds from the jump tank’s cannon fire fairly straight, so you can use the zoomeature to spot exposed enemies from long range without having to modify your aim.

l you need to do here is blast through the various fortress gates in your path. Not to nitpick, but

e fortifications here seem fairly inutile, since they’re weak enough to be blown through by angle tank, and, well, all of the Beagles’ enemies can fly anyway. Brilliant design!

hen you reach the main courtyard of the Beagle base, you’ll have to blast through the doorsvering their bunker and proceed through on foot. Before you head inside, supplement youreapon loadout with arms dropped by the slaughtered tribals.

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u have two objectives inside the Blood Eagle base: locate Olivia, then rescue her. The firstjective will be accomplished in the Command Centre, located not too far from your startingint. Getting there isn’t much of a challenge; just blast through the Beagles that you come acrossd make your way along the only path that’s open to you at any given moment. Check yourmmand map if you need tips on where to look for the next doorway, but you shouldn’t have tooany problems.

ter you access the computer that enables you to locate Olivia, alarms will ring andnforcements called in. Apparently Albrecht’s access codes weren’t as foolproof as he thought.

e bulk of the Beagles will be waiting for you at the bottom of the elevator leading from theommand Centre, so you may want to send down a few grenades before you head all the way


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ulia: The Present - Vengeance

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r some reason, Olivia’s master plan is to crash a ship full of toxins into the Imperial capital city.hy? Apparently to get people upset at the tribals. Considering that the Imperials and the tribalse already in a constant state of war, this seems to be a rather brazen example of doingmething just because it sounds cool; nonetheless, you’ll have to stop her.

The turret soldiers won’t be able to spot you if you snipe from as far away aspossible.

order to access Olivia’s ship, you’ll have to destroy three generators that power a forcefield thatevents you from accessing the elevator leading to the ship. Before you head out towards thenerators, though, stop off at the mobile inventory station and grab a sniper rifle. Julia’s mobileough to let you jet up to the tops of mountains and snipe away at the many, many Imperialsat guard the generator facilites. You’ll want to pick off anyone who’s manning a turret, for sure,t the juicier targets are the heavy-armor rocketeers that dot the map. Unfortunately, these guysn spot you from beyond your view distance, so you’ll probably just have to get in close and useur grenades or spinfusor rounds to put them out.

e generator facilities all have identical layouts, so you shouldn’t have any trouble penetratingem and destroying the power sources. You may find a deployable inventory source; if you do,


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ve it and deploy it near the gantry itself to give you an easy way to resupply your inventory andstore your health while you take on the duelists and rocketeers that guard that facility. Whenu’ve killed everyone guarding the gantry, hit the elevator.

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Two men enter! One man leaves!

ur duel with Seti is one of the busiest boss fights in the game: in addition to Seti himself, you’llve to deal multiple light-armor infantry and the turret guns of the ship. You’ll have a difficult

me destroying the turrets, as many of them have repair stations set up near their positions, sonore them as best you can and focus on Seti. You can dip into the many depressions on theip’s surface if you’re getting pelted by the turrets, but don’t stay in one too long, as theenadiers will quickly fill your refuge with hot death.

ti himself is not too difficult to kill when you get a feel for how he moves; just wait for him to hite ground and use your spinfusor to deal splash damage. The important thing is to not let himt too close to the repair stations, as you can lose all of your progress in the fight in just a fewconds when this occurs, but if you can maneuver him into one of the depressions, you shouldable to pound away at his health until he starts jetting away. If you run low on health, seek oute of the light-armor Beagles in the area and take his or her health pack for a small boost.

hen Seti goes down, you get to enjoy a bittersweet victory. Even if your primary nemesis didanage to escape, you still managed to save thousands of lives, so be proud of that. The final


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apter of this story is yet to be written, no doubt, but you still have plenty of content to occupyurself with in the multiplayer game. So get hopping!

Multiplayer

ame Types

rena

ena is a combination of team deathmatch and the gameplay of Counter-Strike or Rocket Arena,any other round-based gameplay type. The team deathmatch portion is easy enough toplain: your goal is to track down and kill members of the opposing team, while dying as little asssibly yourself. The arena portion of the gameplay recipe is manifested in the fact that you’ll beaying a succession of rounds; if you die, you’ll be dead until the round is over. A round keepsing until all members of one team are killed, so as long as you have one teammate still

nding, you still have a shot at winning the round!

all

s a scrum at centerfield in the Ball gametype! In it, your team is tasked with grabbing a ball andowing it into the enemy goal. In essence, this becomes something like a capture the flag gameth one flag, as there’ll only be one ball on the playing field at a time. Like a flag, though, thisll can be dropped when you get killed, so you’ll have to balance your efforts between making itthe opponent’s goal and simply staying alive.

other facet to Ball is the fact that the ball can be thrown, and indeed must be thrown into theemy’s goal if you wish to score any points. If you’re hurt badly, though, and want to pass thell off to a stronger teammate, you can use the throw mechanism to do so; just make sureu’re as close as possible to your target, as the ball doesn’t move in a straight line, and thus candifficult to aim. The same theory applies when you get ready to score a goal. Note that you canld down the throw button (which is simply the fire button while you have the ball in your active

eapon slot) to throw harder.

apture the Flagyou’ll permit us to abandon our royal detachment for a second, please also permit us to say thats a pleasure to see a multiplayer game come along that’s completely committed to the idea ofpture The Flag as a centerpiece gametype. While Battlefield 1942-esque game types are all the

ge nowadays, there’s still nothing quite like the primal feeling of stealing something from yourponents and returning it to your base.

d that, in case you didn’t realize it, is the primary objective of Capture The Flag. In this

metype, two teams square off, each with its own base and flag. The goal is to steal yourponent’s flag (by simply running over it), bring it back to your base, and capture it by touching


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ur own flag. The trick (as if there were only one) is to ensure that your own flag is in placehen you return with the flag of your enemy; it’s entirely possible for both flags to be stolen ate same time.

t’s considered bad form to 'turtle,' i.e. hide in your base with the enemy’s flag. Youmight get kicked from your server if you do so.

your flag is stolen, then you’ll need to retrieve it from your enemy and return it. To do this,u’ll have to track down the enemy flag-carrier (who will appear on your radar as a green flag),d kill them. When a flag-carrier dies, the flag they’re holding will drop to the ground; if youuch it, it’ll return to your base, but if an enemy touches it first, they’ll pick it up and you’ll havekill them in order to return it.

ch successful flag capture will net your team one point, and at the end of a round, the teamth the most captures wins. Personal kills don’t count for much except bragging rights; if youant your team to prevail, you’d better coordinate your efforts with those of your teammates!ting off and randomly trying to kill enemies can be useful, but you’ll be of much more use tour teammates if you attempt to defend your flag or assault that of the enemy.

abbit

bbit is essentially a variant of king-of-the-hill. When playing rabbit, the goal is to grab t

tribes vengeance

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