"For land. For power. Forever". The moto of Planetside is a good description of both the story and the core gameplay of one the very first MMOFPS games ever created. As you may already know, 'MMO' stands for 'Massively Multiplayer Online'. There are quite a lot of MMORPG's out today, but Planetside brought the MMO game to the thrill and adrenaline pumping action of the FPS genre. The game is completely player versus player (PVP) and there is absolutely no AI soldiers in the game. There is three empires or armies, each boasting unique and powerful weapons. The Vanu Sovereignty (the purple colored army) are the more technologically advanced team. The New Conglomerate are the blue colored team who make use of slow, but powerful weaponry. And finally, the Terran Republic. These are the red team and they fight using high rate of fire weaponry. Gameplay As mentioned above, Planetside's gameplay is the seemingly never ending fight between players of each faction. Each team has a 'Sanctuary', which is their own island which cannot be entered or assaulted by any enemy. The rest of the world (Auraxis) map is made up from several continents. These continents are linked to each other by warpgates which have large force field type domes over them which allow players to move through them. Once these domes are entered however, enemies cannot fire their weapons, and so no fighting can occur. The goal of Planetside is simple; to capture as many bases on as many continents as possible. Enemy or nuetral bases are hacked by a single player (ideally with back up) using a hacking tool called an 'REK'. There are several bases dotted around each of the unique continents, each of which give the owning team certain upgrades or access to different technologies. There are medical facilities, technology facilities, dropship facilities and more, although admitedly, they all look alike in design inside and out. Every base is also defended by wall turrets in each corner of it's walls. These turrets can be entered by a player, or if an enemy which is detectable by radar enters the turrets feld of vision, it will auto fire on that enemy. All of the continents are pretty well designed, offering some really great battles at times, although these aren't as frequent as we'd have liked. These battles are particularly exciting when enemies find themselves fighting over a bridge with bases or towers at either end. These can be some very strategic battles, where the bridge will become a valuable asset to the team who has managed to push the enemy back from it. You start of Planetside with some Battle Points which are used to purchase certifications at a CERT terminal in either a medical facility, or a base in your teams sanctuary. You do start off with some basic skills, allowing access to the standard assault rifle, grenades and pistols, but no vehicles. Certifications include heavy assualt, medic, engineer, hacker and infiltration. Each teams heavy assault weaponry, anti armour weaponry, heavy tanks and more are different and unique to their empire, we will go into this later. The medic and engineer certs speak for themselves, they allow you to heal yourself and others (provided you carry a medic device) and the engineer can repair vehicles and the armour of you and your comrades. Hacking is another cert in this area, and simply upgrades your hacking speed for hacking bases and towers. You can also take these certs a step further by upgrading them to their advanced counterparts. Advanced meid allows you to revive dead soldiers, combat engineer lets you place small gun turrets, mines and motion detectors, and the adv. hacker lets you not only hack bases faster, but hack enemy equipments/vehicle terminals and their vehicles too. Each empire has their own set of weapons, as well as the 'Common Pool' weapons which are available to all three teams. The Terran Republic (TR) have the fast firing chaingun and cycler, the New Conglomerate (NC) has the automatic shotgun (devastating at close range) and the gauss rilfe, and the Vanu Sovereignty (VS) have the electric orb shooting lasher and a laser gun called the pulsar. Heavy tanks are also different for the empires. The TR have a Prowler, the NC a slower moving Vanguard, and the VS have a floating, strafing Magrider. You can also get heavy armoured battle suits called 'MAX'. These suits are slightly larger than standard soldiers armour and are slow moving but carry awesome firepower and a lot of armour. They are however weak against anti armour weapons like the VS Lancer, the TR Striker and the NC Pheonix. There's also several aircraft to pilot, including a fast and light craft with a chaingun, a slower rocket carrying craft, and also a dropship called a 'Galaxy' which can carry one small vehicle and a squad full of people and drop them over a base. The vehicles handle quite well and all have their own feel to them. ATV's are fast and maneuverable, and the aircraft are great for swooping past enemies and taking them out. Graphics The world of Auraxis is fairly well done, but doesn't offer as much detail as other shooters on the PC. The textures, character models, vehicles, weapons etc all look very detailed, it's just the actual design of the maps that could have been better. Bases also all look the same, and this does make every base you go into seem the same as the last. These are minor niggles though becuase you're constantly on the move accross continents and through bases. The continents look unique though, and there are snowy, grassy, swamped and rocky lava continents throughout the world. There is also some quite impressive weather effects which kick in randomly including rain, sandstorms and thunderstorms. These actually do add to the battle very very well, particularly the sandstorms. These can really reduce sight in battles and will effect your gameplay. Thunder crashes are also really loud and look good too. Particle effects are good too, especially when you see a Vanu lasher bolt scream past your ear with a bright purple/blue glow and ripping sound. All in all, Planetside is a pretty good looking game with some fantastic looking models, it's just the bases could have been a little different from each other. Sound Sound is great in Planetside, and all the weapons sound very heavy and brutal. The Jackhammer shotgun is a good example of this, as it strikes fear in any enemy who hears it blasting through the walls of their base. Vehicles sounds are pretty good, but not as good as the weapon sounds. There are also quite a lot of macro's in the game too for you to use and all sound clear and perfect for taunting your opponents corpse after you pumped him full of lead, or for warning of incomming enemy aircraft. They come in to great use when in need of a medic, or for telling allies (or any enemy that hears you) what your plan is. The theme tune to Planetside is also worth a mention, as it sounds quite epic. There is music which kicks in when you are fighting, and music for the various continents too. You can turn these off, which might help you in the game becuase sound in Planetside is crucial. Controls As this is an MMO game, you can expect to have an initially daunting array of keys to swat up. There are a lot, it's true, but they are all layed out well and quite typical for most FPS gamers. You have the standard WASD for movement, F1-F12 for quickslots and the number keys for weapon selection. All the keys can be configured to your liking, but what you have straight away should please most FPS players. Conclusion Planetside is not for everyone. It also comes with a monthly fee which can be payed by credit card or by a pre-paid gamecard. It is a game that you need to sit down and get stuck into becuase it is a deep game with a lot to learn. If you like the sound of having huge scale battles over land, sea and air all at once and you are able to spend the time to get into the game, then this could be one for you. It also requires a pretty fast PC to run the game, and although they reccomend 512mb of RAM, we say 1024mb will help you a lot more. You will also need a fast internet connection becuase this game deals with a lot of players and a lot of action. There's regular auto downloaded patches too, which are needed to play the game and these can be very large in size. You can find regular trials on the Planetside website, so you could try the game before you buy it.
I started out as everybody else back in 2003 but quickly advanced in command rankings and by the end of 2004 i was ranked #2 in the world all servers all empires. Only beaten by my good friend JeffBeefJaw :) So as an ... Read Full Review
In 2003 Sony released this ambitious MMO that puts you in the thick of futuristic warfare. Planetside puts a fully functional FPS game that has a lot of elements of an RPG, and surprisingly enough manages to pull it off ... Read Full Review
