The free-to-play revival from Hi-Rez Studios is the first playable Tribes game in eight years, incorporating futuristic Biathlon-based mechanics with jetpacks and flag-gathering.

What is Tribes: Ascend?
Tribes: Ascend is a Free to Play Sci-Fi First Person Shooter made by the people who brought you Global Agenda. At its core it is an incredibly fast-paced capture-the-flag game, (although there are Arena, Team Deathmatch, and Capture & Hold gametypes) with vehicles, projectile weapons, and most importantly: jetpacks. It's a game where most of the fighting takes place mid-air, "twitch" shooting is virtually non-existent, and movement speed / positioning is just as important as aiming ability. There are many parallels that can be drawn between it and UT2k3 as well as the Halo franchise, but it is honestly a completely unique game and the parallels that can be drawn to other games are quite superficial. Here are some videos that might give you a feel of what the game plays like

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Differences Between Tribes: Ascend and most FPS's
The defining mechanic of the Tribes franchise is something known as [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . You'll notice that in the linked video, the speed of the player does not decrease unless he hits an obstacle dead-on, or chooses to stop pressing the "skiing" button, even when they are not flying through the air. This mechanic lets players travel at speeds that are much faster than 95% of modern FPS's, giving the game an amazingly fast-paced and exciting feel.

The other thing defining mechanic of the Tribes franchise is the presence of Projectile weapons as opposed to hitscan ones. What this means is that when you shoot a gun the bullets you shoot are affected by your movement speed and movement direction, it is not as simple as pointing your crosshair at a target and shooting them as quickly as you can. You need to account for how fast you are going, how fast they are going, and how long it will take your bullets / grenades / whatever to reach them. Because of this, Tribes: Ascend has an incredibly high skill-cap, and "twitch" reflexes are not necessary for being a good player

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How to Start Playing Playing
Tribes Ascend is as simple as going to the official website and signing up for an account. However, I would suggest that you sign up using [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] or that of a friends (everyone who plays this game has a referral link) as it will give you bonus experience once you reach level 6 which you can use to unlock weapons & classes to play with. If you don't want to use a referral link, the official website is [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] While you're downloading the game, check out the links below to familiarize yourself with how to play.

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Final Words / TL;DR
If you're looking for a change of pace from CoD and BF3 style shooters, you should give Tribes: Ascend a play. It is an incredibly fast-paced game with a very high skillcap, that has frictionless movement, virtually no hitscan weapons, and very fluid and intuitive gameplay. There are people who complain about the gameplay because it isn't identical to CoD or BF3, but I prefer it to every other shooter out there on the market right now, and I think most of you will too.