Planetside Review (no fat)

Game Description

Planetside is perhaps one of the best online first person shooters ever made. What makes it a different from other FPS's is the strong accent the developers have put into team work. The idea is to take your weapons and blast everything that moves apart from yourselves. Basically, Planetside is a 'capture the flag' game, where enemy bases and facilities are the flags.

PlanetSide Gameplay

Since the idea behind the game is that of a fierce battle between three empires over the planet, it's only natural that the first step to be made is joining one of these empires. Each comes with its strong and week points. In PlanetSide everybody is equally powerful, and vulnerable, depending on the weapons the players have.

Battlefield experience is used to gain new veteran ranks that will bring you certificate points (one for each rank). Based on the certificate points the players can unlock new weapons, armor, abilities and skills etc. The same way players can accumulate "grief" points if they injure or kill team members in combat that will lead to the loss of weapon access. The different skills a player can take on makes the game even better. Thus, according to the player's abilities, he can choose to specialize in different fields, leading to endless combinations inside teams.

PlanetSide Implants

Another interesting option is that of implants. Each player, when gaining a certain rank, can use up to three ability implants at the same time. These implants are used to aim better, run faster, transform stamina into health etc. They can be changed at anytime provided you find an implant terminal on the bases.

PlanetSide Comrades

The game is addressed strictly to team players and therefore playing on your own will lead to an early death. From the very beginning each player must find a group of players - or squad - to join. Preferably, these squads should be made of 10, differently skilled players.

Depending on how you perform on the battlefield, you can be asked to join an outfit. Outfits are made of players specialized in the same thing and make it easier for players to join squads and even call for backup when other ways are not available.

The downside of the squad system is that once a player leaves the game, he will automatically loose his squad. When he reenters the game the options are not the brightest: he can either search for his squad around the virtual world, made of 10 continents, or join a new squad. Yet the game features a 'friends' list, that makes it easier to see weather the players you know or even teamed with are online or not. The voice-chat is just great in this regard and makes team work much easier, and natural at the same time.

PlanetSide The Empires

The Terran Republic believes in the strength of numbers. They use larger numbers to overcome the enemy and their weapons fire faster and some vehicles can carry two gunners. Terran squads should be formed of as many members as possible.

The New Conglomerate’s weapons fire slower but with greater fire power. Close quarters fans are best fitted in NC squads since their weapons don't do pretty well at distant targets.

The Vanu Sovereignty troops have none of the above advantages but they possess very strong armors and also have the ability to move cross water, making them the most mobile option.

Planetside Graphics and Sound

The atmosphere of Planetside tops most of the other online FPS's, with very believable and diverse sceneries and truly adequate sound. The impressive density of weapons involved in the game, from machine guns to heavy tanks and fighter planes will please the most the owners of surround sound systems. Nevertheless, even headphones users will benefit from an intense sound experience that combined with the visual effects creates a unique immersive value.

Planetside Technical Support

The game comes with the 52 pages manual in both printed version and PDF format in the name of Technical Support

Planetside Summing Up

The developers are working hard to eliminate any remaining bugs and crash reasons and also to implement two new vehicles (the Liberator and the Sky Guard) and another continent as we speak. But even without these upgrades and despite its natural few downsides (some lag, crash-to-desktops when the situation really becomes hot on the battlefield etc.), Planetside is a great online game that CAN and surely will give you quite an addiction. It is pure and simple fun!

Planetside Price

The game package itself is worth $19.99 and cannot be played as a stand alone. With the first 30 days free of cost, the subscription fee is $12.99 monthly.