20 Great Moments in PC Gaming
FEATURE
Starsiege:Tribeswasaweirdgame,being
essentially a pack-in bonus shooter that
came with the almost completely forgotten
mech-game Starsiege, in which two teams
foughtwiththe ’90s most awesome mode of
transportation – jetpacks. It was a game of incredible
scale, with precision targeting required to land a kill,
and a base-assault mechanic that still stood out a few
years ago when the series returned as Tribes: Ascend.
Tribes had rocket jumping, but its real secret was
skiing – abusing the physics engine to zoom down hills
while jumping, and thus crossing the map at incredible
speed. At the time, it was so fast that you could
practically feel the wind in your hair as you did so,
especially if you set up a small desk fan on top of your
stupidly huge CRT monitor. The experience of
bombing across a map, spinfusor flying, and taking an
enemy base before they could even get started gave
Tribes an edge that nothing else at the time could get
close to. And after that – jetpacks were still cool!
Later games didn’t simply keep this tactic, but wove
it deeper into their fabric. Tribes 2 maps were designed
around the ability and the series even offering tutorials
on how to pull it off. After a while, if you weren’t
skiing, you weren’t surviving. Learning to shoot on the
move... that took more practice. But still, there’s little as
satisfying as cresting a hill and nailing that enemy’s
head as you sped across the dirt. Shazbot!
The tragic opening to
Homeworld
By Richard Cobbett
Strategy games aren’t typically sentimental.
It’s hard to ponder the nature of mortality
when looking at a map and feeding between
one and one billion people into a glorified
meatgrinder. Homeworld, however, was different. Its
trailer set an oddly sombre mood, with spaceships flying
around to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. It stood out.
The intro to Homeworld should have been a joyous
occasion. Your people have put everything into the
construction of a mothership designed to take them
across the stars back to the home they were banished
from long ago. But no. That would not be an Adagio for
Strings-level situation. That kicks in after you test the
jump-drive and return to find that, in your absence, a
mysterious alien force has obliterated the whole planet.
Cue the music as you spend a mission not on the
offensive, but simply trying to rescue as many as you can.
And then, with nowhere to go but onward, embark on the
journey to reclaim what was once yours.
It’s a scene that plays out with incredible restraint. It’s
you, the music and a few ships floating around, with the
charred remnants of the planet telling all the story that
you need. This is a moment of regret, of catastrophe, of
remorse, all sold with that haunting tune.Learning to ski in Tribes
By Richard Cobbett
The ludicrous gibs in
Rise of the Triad ByJodyMacregor
The 1990s were a good
time for videogame gore.
Two year after Mortal
Kombat and one year
afterDoom,Rise of the Triad was a
particularly memorable example of
the artform of making red stuff come
out of people in entertaining ways.
Apogee had been working on a
sequel to Wolfenstein 3D when the
project was cancelled, leaving them
with a bunch of first-person shooter
assets. They built Rise of the Triad on
those bones (and it was later
renamed Rise of the Triad: Dark War
to differentiate it from the remake).
Apogee improved on Wolfenstein in a
bunch of ways, especially with the
scale of their game’s destructibility.Glass shattered, bulletholes persisted,
and various bits of level scenery like
plants and lights broke.
The most impressive destruction
was that visited on the enemies, who
popped into red smears. Hit them
with a rocket and they were reduced
to spinning offal: an eyeball; a severed
hand that gave the finger as it passed;
a skull with some attached spinal
cord. Accompanying this carnage was
the message “Ludicrous Gibs!” ‘Gibs’
was apparently short for giblets at
Apogee. This internal studio slang
would be referenced by Quake and
become a lasting bit of gaming lore.
It may not seem like much today,
but the first time an eyeball slid down
your screen it was pretty special.15
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