Although difficult at first (especially when playing against players with a lot of experience), aiming becomes very simple very quickly.  It doesn't matter if your crosshairs are perfectly centered on the enemy, because the game doesn't rely on perfect performance.  Like any good first-person shooter, it relies more on vicinity, which means that if you're in the vicinity of a laser blast, chances are you'll get hit!  I stunk at the single-player mode.  Nothing I did could stop the computer-controlled enemies from killing me.  Online, it was a whole other story.  Human players, even experienced ones, were dropping like flies.  I was playing on a team with this really skilled player, which the host didn't like, since we were killing him, so he took the player and moved him to his team!  As inexperienced as I was, I still managed to take the other team down and win the battle.

Tribes: Aerial Assault is fun with a few players, but it is an absolute blast when there are lots of teammates to work with, and several opponents to kill.  Most of the games are team-based, but it's not always equal.  The game begins as players enter, meaning that in a 10-player game, you might have four players on one team and three players on another until more players join the game.  I haven't found this to be a problem though, mainly because I always seem to end up on the team with more players (hehe).

I am currently limited to no greater than a 56k dial-up connection, but that didn't hinder my online gameplay experience nearly as much as I expected.  Amazingly, I only experienced a small amount of lag when playing broadband-hosted games with up to seven other people.  And I wasn't even connected at 56k -- more often than not my connection was somewhere in the 40-45k range.

Movement is fast and smooth.  Never once was I unable to run, jump or hover because of the less-than-perfect Internet connection.  The framerate never slowed down -- even in games with 15 opponents!  Slow weapon response time is where the lag is really noticeable.  You'll fire a weapon...and two or three seconds later, the game will react.  It's annoying, that's for sure, but it doesn't take away that much from the gaming experience.  Within the first 20 minutes of play, you'll begin to judge your delayed shots better, and learn techniques that will help guarantee that you hit your enemies.  Most gamers are using dial-up connections, meaning that most, if not all of your opponents will have just as much lag we do.  The specs of every PS2 are the same, so other than having the best possible Internet connection, there is no way for any one gamer to have a cheap advantage over the rest.

Connecting to Tribes: Aerial Assault's network is as easy as pressing X, X, X!  If you've already set up your Network Adaptor, installed the included software and registered your ISP, then all you have to do is select a 1 or 2-player online game*, choose a character and click "connect."  At most, the game will take 90 seconds to connect, but there were times when I'd be online in under a minute.  The time to takes to connect depends on your ISP, the local access number you use and how many people are already online.  Once you're logged in, the game will tell you what speed you connected at and immediately load the list of hosted games.  From there, you can enter a game (assuming it's not full or is having technical problems, which does occur from time to time) or host your own game.  It is recommended that dial-up users do not host a game of any more than two clients, which really limits the amount of fun you can have with this game.  Because of this, I recommend that all dial-up users join secure, high-quality games.  (The quality of each game is rated at the bottom of the screen.)

*Two people can play online from the same location using one PlayStation 2.  The catch is that it's split-screen only.  But if you want to have a relative or a friend by your side when going into battle, you probably won't care.

By far, this is the best dial-up friendly first-person shooter you'll find on PlayStation 2.  With huge levels, good game modes (Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, Team Deathmatch and regular Deathmatch) and the speedy jet air packs, Tribes: Aerial Assault is the kind of online game I've been waiting for.  Technologically, it's more practical than SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals, since everyone can play this game, not just broadband users.  There's no chat feature, but who cares?  Gamers aren't exactly the most talkative people.  We just want to play and have a good time. 

Gameplay: 8.5
Without a doubt, this is one of the best multiplayer games I've played all year.  You're going to love it!

Graphics: 8 
As an offline game, Tribes' graphics would be disappointing, but as an online game, they're quite impressive.  Why are they more impressive just because the game is playable online?  Because, it's not easy to have large, detailed environments in an online world, especially one where dial-up users can enter.  But the developers pulled it off.  Impressive, to say the least.

Sound: 6
There isn't a whole lot of sound in this game.  Aside from hearing you and your teammates repeat various comments after killing a foe (computer-controlled comments, that is -- there is no voice chat in this game), Tribes: Aerial Assault's sound is rather basic.  Explosions...quiet music...nothing special.

Difficulty: Medium
The single-player game becomes too hard too quickly, but that's not what this game is about.  Tribes: Aerial Assault is mainly a multiplayer game, and once you get online with it, you won't want to ever play it by yourself again!

Concept: 7.5 
Tribes: Aerial Assault doesn't exactly deserve praise for being a unique concept -- not only is it a sequel, but it is also a PC port.  However, it performs remarkably well as a console game, and Inevitable (the game's developer) did a nice job of converting the mouse and keyboard controls to the Dual-Shock 2.

Multiplayer: 9
As a game that's based entirely on multiplayer gaming, we all hoped that Tribes: Aerial Assault would deliver the goods when playing online.  And believe me -- it did!  Offline, I didn't like the game much, but once I got online...wow!  The multiplayer action sucked me in and wouldn't let me out.

Overall: 8.5
Tribes: Aerial Assault is the only game where gamers with any Internet connection can unite and kill each other in an all-out deathmatch.  If you bought the Network Adaptor, this not a game to miss.