PlanetSide Review from a Hard Core player.
Planetside has the winning combination of massive battles, hard core action, strategy, teamwork, and the best character persistancy of any other FPS developed and published by Soney Online Entertainment.
PlanetSide takes place on the world of Auraxis where three empires duke it our for the control of large land masses called continents. (To give you an idea of the scale of these Continents, it would take 15-20 minuites to walk from one end to another on some of the larget ones.) The three empires, The VS, NC, and TR all have unique empire specific weapons and vehicles. The VS weaponry uses laser and electic orbs, The NC weapons pack the most per per punch, but limited range. The TR weapons are fast firing full auto machine guns. In adition to the empire specific weaponry there is also common pool weaponry wich any empire can use. There are different classes of armor you can use, each having more invintory room and armor, but reducing the movement speed. The heaviest armor is called MAX armor which has guns mounted on it for AA, AV, and AI. All of them empire specific.
To give you a quick taste of the vehicles available.
ATV: Fast transportation, with 3 models to chose from. One fitted with a machine gun, another with a rocket launcher, and another one that has claking abilities.
Lightning: Basic tank with light armor, light weaonry and only room for the driver.
Mossie: Light scout aircraft, fited with radar and machine gun.
Reaver: Assault Aircraft, fitted with rockets and machine guns.
Ground Transport: There are 2 basic ground transport vehicles, One fited with machine guns holding 5 passangers, another larger one fited with light tank cannons holding 8 passanges, the driver, and 2 MAX's In addition to the 2 common pool transport vehicles there is a varient for each empire.
Main Battle Tank: Each empire has thir own MBT which is the backbone of the Armor. Carring 1 driver and up to 2 gunners these are very deadly.
BFR: The recent addition to PlanatSide has caused some conterversy among PS players, but the BFR now finds its place in the battlefield as the heaviest armor unit, packing the most firepower, and again is empire specific.
Air Support: Air Support include a Vehicle Transport Aircraft, A troop transport, and a bomber.
Ground Suppot: Ground Support Includes a Teleportation Device, and a Mobile Spawn Point Vehicle.
PlanetSide focuses on team play much more than other games. Being a new player you won't get very far without your squad. You start off with around 7 cert points and battle rank 1. Vising the in game virtual training areas and doing the training missions can get you to battle rank 4. This gives you enough certs to learn the certifications you will need to fight among the ever incresing population of very skilled veteren players. You will spend your certifications on weapons, vehicels, armor, and support equiptment. Once you spend your certs on that item, you will have access to it forever, or untill you unlearn it and try something new.
One of the key elements to this game is the Outfits, (AKA Clans/Guilds) The game has support for in game outfits, somewhat like World of Warcraft. Being its on a persistant word, and the 3 servers can each hold a large number of people this aproach is possible. Once you start playing planetside join a squad, and ask around for a good outfit. Most outfits are willing to train new members, so it should be easy to find one. Once in an outfit you will start playing planetside the way its ment to be played. When looking for an outfit, choose it carefully, many are no good. Some good signs is: A website, Active forums, Active players, and the use of teamspeak or ventrillo. Outfits will sometimes ally with outher outfits and join an out of game alliance with large voice chat servers for coordination between the outfits.
Once you advance through the ranks you may want to considder learning some support equiptment such as Medic, Engeneer, or Hacker.
To each role there are 2 levels, basic and advanced.
Basic med gives you the ability to heal yourself and other friendly troops, advanced gives you the ability to revive friendly troops. And simmilar benefits for the Hacker and Engeneer.
Unlike Other games like BF2 you can preform all 3 roles if you are willing to spend your precious certifications on it. You can also customize your inventory to have whatever you want in it. For example my certifications include Advanced Medic, Engeneer, Heavy Assault, Renforced Armor, Special Assault, And Air Cavalry. My squad members always know im there for them when they are wounded or near death, and i know they are there for me when enemy armor comes, or we need to roll ground vehicles.
The Servers are company owned, which means they are just about always up, and players hacking is not a problem. The servers are seperate from eachother, meaning of you make a character on Emerald, you cant go and use him on Werner. Each player has a sort of attachment to their server and empire. Playing day and night on such a massive scale, its easy to forget that you really do have a life other than planetside.
The players in planetside range from the uncommen very unskilled to the more commen ub3r 1773 pwnz0rz players who are at the highest rank and will easily own you when you first log in.
Lag is an issue, but with the Client side hit detection, unless you have 300+ your not going to have much of a problem. There are some players that intentionaly make themsleves lag to increase thier random movements which in known as warping.
The Graphics are decent. For a game that is no older the graphics are great. However they do not compare to BF2, FEAR, Doom3 or Quake4. Many users are forced to turn their graphics settings on low or medium low as PlanetSide is a system hog. I reccomend no less than 2.8 P4 1 GIG of ram, and a AGP 8X video card with 128+ DDR memory. DSL or Cable is also a must.
Once you really get intot he game there will be people complaining about this empire being too easy, and that empire weapon is bad, etc.. this does make it less enjoyable while playing, and has made me log off the game for a few minuites with a burning hatred towards my enemies. The quick rule of thumb is that if you have a poor system play VS/NC as they seem easier, and it will help balance out the fact that your FPS stinks. If you have a decent PC and want to play hard core join the TR, where its harder, and without your squad you arnt living long unless you very skilled. The rest of the gameplay is balenced perfectly, with the great teamplay and outfit organization, and battles that blow away anything on the market, and even in development its really a sight to behold. With a maximum of 400 players fighting over a base it can be very intense and a littile laggy. if your do get lag, there are always smaller battles that are just as important, or even more important than the large ones. Whatever your taste, there will be a battle to fit it.
The sound effects are good, but like the Graphics they dont compare to the new games. The music is also very good, but can slow down preformance, and many players turn it off.
The bigest downfall of this game in my opinion is the steep monthly fee. For somone who has bought the game, and the expansion pack, and the $13 a month montly fee for over a year, i can tell you, it adds up. Unlike most FPS games where you buy the game then forget about it, every month you have to pay your cash. However they do continue to develop the game, so its not all to waste. But to the normal FPS player, this makes the game a no buyer. However there are 7-10-30 day trials you can get, and after giving that a try chances are you will be hooked on it.
Overall I rate the game 9.1 for its unique gameplay, its massive battles, wonderfull teamwork elemnts, and being downright good fun. Its graphics and sound take a back seat, where the value doesnt appear to be good to a onlooker, but once you like the game your willing to pay it.
I rated the dificulty hard due to the ammount of veteren players that know the game inside out, but if you stick with your squad you can make out.
The learning curve should read 'never ending'. After playing over a year im still far from the best, and being totaly PvP you never know what the eney will think up next. learning the basic parts of the game will take you 4-10+ hours depending on whether you join an Outfit, and after months of playing you will still attend your outfits traning operations and sit there saying. "I never knew that."
personally i have spent a few thousand hours playing PlanetSide, and its all been well worth it.
Being a totaly PvP online game the Classification is obviously a Great Multiplayer.
-TheSniperSteve
The Black Widow Company TR Emerald
Here is some extra information that you may find usefull.
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PlanetSide 7 day Trial
The 7 day free trial has been opened up again for anyone who wants to sample the game, or if you're an ex player and want to see the changes that have been made. You will need to make a new SOE station name - you cant use this offer with old characters if you've played PlanetSide before.
What's PlanetSide? Watch this video: http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/PSMovies/PS_AD_LARGE.wmv.
Next, get hold of a free 7 day trial CD key from: http://cmt.ubisoft.fr/planetside_pcgamer/.
And a complete download (1.6gb!!) using this installer: http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/psinstall.exe.
You'll find an great FAQ about this trial and PlanetSide here: http://www.marcopolo.me.uk/PSFAQ.html.
PlanetSide seems to have turned a corner over the past few months - it's become a whole lot of fun again!
Enjoy.
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