Planetside Review
Played on:
Windows
When Sony announced Planetside a few years ago, people didn't know what to think. A massive multiplayer first person shooter? People were understandably pretty skeptical, but Sony has managed to put together a really fun game. The learning curve is tough compared to most action games, and there is no real lasting effect of your own accomplishments, but it's a hell of a ride while you are on it.
Planetside offers a huge battlefield where you can run around just like in a sci-fi FPS, killing enemies left and right. But there are also bases that must be captured, resources to be collected, and an army of vehicles to be driven or piloted. Think Tribes 2, but put 3 sides and a thousand players onto one server, add a bunch of vehicles and weapons, and then make it all a persistent world.
The engine used in Planetside is quite impressive; while the game is a hog, it does seamlessly go between highly detailed indoor and large outdoor areas. On top of that, each of the game's ten continents are huge, with several whole bases (complete with towers that surround installations) on each one. Combine all this with the ability to show a ton of players on the screen at once without too bad of a frame rate hit, and this game will start to dazzle you.
Much like other massive multiplayer games, Planetside's graphics aren't initially too impressive. When you get into a heated battle with a hundred other players and notice the gameplay is still running pretty smoothly - that is when you will understand just how well it was set up. Then again, you might not even think about the frame rate, because the gameplay sucks you in; you might completely forget everything but getting that capture or killing off attackers left and right.
I tested the game on the machine listed above as well as an Athlon XP 2100+ with 512MB PC2700 DDR memory and an ATI Radeon 8500LE. On the Athlon, game was only really smooth in 800x600, but that suited me fine; the first 30 seconds on a new continent were pretty difficult, as the game was still loading up data, but after that it was pretty good. On a more powerful machine, most of these hiccups are gone.
There are some major problems, though; servers will be overcome with fits of multiple-second lag. For a MMORPG, this isn't that bad of an issue, but in an action game, it's completely unacceptable. When this starts happening, I just log off - the game ceases to be any fun when it takes ten seconds to reload your gun. Every once in a while the frame rate will just dip inexplicably for me, screwing up the mouse-based controls and making the game unplayable. It's not terribly common, and this only seems to happen when I've cranked up the FSAA or the detail/resolution.
Sony has already posted a couple of patches for Planetside - for now they are just fixing bugs in both the client and server. Overall, things are mostly fairly stable so far aside from the lag mentioned above. While the servers have come down a few times and I have gotten the very occasional crash, it has been about 95% gameplay since I started playing.
Planetside is a complicated game, especially for a newbie; those who have only played a bit of Counter-Strike aren't going to know where to begin. The game includes a bunch of help and tutorials, which can get you through the interface; too bad they don't really help the player to understand how base captures and continent control really work. The manual is mostly useless in my opinion; the weapon and vehicle descriptions tell you little about how the equipment actually handles. That's what the in-game shooting ranges and vehicle practice areas, which are immensely helpful, are for.
The game includes a whole map interface that allows you to see where the action is across the whole world - it also allows you to easily locate other players in your squad. I found a few bits of the interface a bit clunky, and the HUD windows are somewhat bulky and cumbersome to use. Still, it only takes a couple of hours to get used to it all.
Planetside's controls and action are a decidedly FPS-style affair - even though you do gain experience points and "Battle Ranks" (levels), these only allow you to use certain equipment and vehicles - they do not automatically make you more effective with them. The same goes for your health and armor; while some suits or vehicles will always give you more protection than others, being a higher Battle Rank doesn't make you arbitrarily tougher to kill.
Planetside's graphics range from somewhat dull (base interiors) to absolutely brilliant (huge battles with a hundred players at once). The continents you will fight on include large bodies of water, hills, trees, and other natural phenomena. Here's one game where visibility is generally always decent at best; nighttime does make it a bit tougher to see, but it's not the pitch black that some games force upon you.
The player and weapon models are all pretty nice, although for the three sides, I find the Vanu and New Conglomerate colors to be just a bit too similar. Still, the models have a full range of motion, and actually look in place in the alien landscape. The vehicles are kind of chunky and angular, but they get the job done just fine. The game's ability to show a bunch of them at once makes up for any complaints about too-few polygons.
The human bases that scatter the terrain all use very similar textures and they all look alike. There are also only a few types of floorplans for all of the game's dozens of bases, which is one area that Sony could have put more time into. Even going across the world, the bases still all look very similar, and the smaller towers are almost identical to each other.
The special effects in Planetside are somewhat spartan, but they still look fine - this is important in a game on this kind of scale. The skies are quite pretty and animated, but there's nothing really special going on up there. Immersion is nice, but once you get into the gameplay, you might find yourself turning the eye candy like this off.
The game even looks decent at low detail settings, and these settings will help to keep a stable frame rate going. And we all know that after the ooh-ah, you're going to want a smooth game while shooting people. That's right; even on the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, 1GB DDR, Radeon 9500 Pro machine I reviewed this game on, I turned the detail down in order to maintain 50 frames per second or more.
As mentioned before, the best way to describe Planetside is by comparing it to Tribes 2 with more of everything, thousands of players at once, and the ability to lose and gain control of bases. And the comparison is not unfounded, either - the last game that Planetside producer Dave Georgeson worked on? Tribes 2.
Many of the weapons you get are variations on your standard formula: pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, and grenade launcher. If that was it, then this would be a bland, dull game. But engineer-types can lay down turrets and mines, pilots can fly fighter planes, and drivers can use several tank, ATV, and buggy variants. Put all of this together in one battlefield, and it elevates team-based action to a new level - far beyond Counter-Strike.
But what happens if you don't really like first person shooters? Well, one of the major things one can do in Planetside is hack; this is how players take control of enemy bases. The hacker will be working while the grunts protect him or her. There's also medic and engineer professions, and squads commonly need full-time drivers or pilots to carry them around or set up impromptu bases. Now for anyone that absolutely despises a first person view, this game probably isn't for you - the game does have a third person mode, but there is no crosshair and no vertical aiming. It is fine for driving, and maybe even flying to an extent, but any on-foot operations pretty much require the first-person view.
In Planetside, you gain Battle experience points for killing enemies and being a part of base captures. Squad leaders get a separate type of experience called Command experience points, which is a separate bar for all players - gaining Command ranks give you access to some nice tools for leading a squad. This is a very unique system that naturally selects good leaders; better leaders will gain more Command ranks and will have better tools at their disposal.
So, how does gaining Battle Ranks actually affect your character? They give you points that you can spend on Certifications - these allow you to equip certain weapons, armor types, and vehicles. No matter what certifications you have, you can always be a passenger or a gunner in the multi-person vehicles, but only the certified people will be able to do the flying or driving. The game also allows you to "unlearn" certifications instantly, with the only cost being time; you can only unlearn one certification every 24 hours. The upside to all this is that you won't have to remake your character if you find that you dislike the certifications you have.
The motivation to get more Battle Ranks comes when your squad needs versatile players. If you can go to an equipment terminal and completely change your role in an instant, then your value to the squad goes way up. For this reason, players who are happy with all their certifications will still be fighting for a couple more Battle Ranks - you never know when your squad's Galaxy pilot decides to log out.
Planetside is at its best when there are a ton of players all going at it, fighting to gain (or regain) control of a specific point. The whole area between each team's spawn points becomes a huge battlefield, with a combination of small arms, vehicle, and artillery fire going on at once. Returning to the action after a death is pretty painless, which can be made easier if someone on your side deploys a mobile base.
Sony has of course promised updates to the game in the way of free content addition, the usual patches, and retail expansion packs. They've already posted info about upcoming content like the Liberator Bomber and the Skyguard anti-aircraft vehicle. If they can keep up new content like this every month or two, then I'll be happy. Otherwise, the question has to be asked: why am I paying $13 a month to play a first person shooter? Aren't those supposed to be free when played online?
That's a tricky question to ask, because Planetside does offer some things that other games don't. First, "free" first person shooters just means that other players who have the computers and internet bandwidth to spare are running servers - you are at the whim of the admins who run the server you are playing on.
Anyone who's played internet games for a while knows what happens when a jittery server administrator decides to force his ego on players - kicks and bans start happening. With Planetside, though the game has a consistent system for punishing "grief" players, and while there has been no word of any cheats yet, they will come. It remains to be seen whether Sony is truly serious about stopping cheats.
Getting several friends onto a public server all at once in other FPS games isn't always easy - at least, not if you want a good server to play on. And what happens if you want to have a 40-on-40 clan match? Other FPS games don't support the amount of players required to make this happen. Of course, those looking for a private clan match where random players can't get involved won't be too happy with Planetside. Still, two opposing outfits can wage an impressive war on each other the way it is here.
Is the promise of content updates and the ability to all play on one server worth it then? Well, that's up to you. Planetside does offer a gameplay experience that you simply can't get with other FPS games so far, and while the learning curve is steep compared to other action games, it's well worth it in my opinion.
I am a bit unsure of the lasting appeal in Planetside; while one can certainly join an outfit and become a battle-hardened veteran alongside buddies day in and day out, there is no equipment to obtain and no lasting control to be had long-term. Hardcore MMORPG players might wind up bored of the game, what with no permanent advancement or unique items to have. On the other side, dedicated FPS players might be frustrated by a game that doesn't particularly do much to pit high-skill outfits together - there is no environment for a clan match.
For this reason, it seems to me that Planetside is best played in relatively short stints. The public-server environment will get a bit tiresome for those shooter players who are tired of "pubs", and MMORPG players may find this to be more of a break from a MMORPG that allows more robust character advancement. This dilemma is nothing new for game developers that have tried to cross-breed two seemingly mismatched genres. In this case, however, players can stop paying for the game when they tire of it - something Sony obviously doesn't want you to do. Sony will want you to keep paying month after month, and Planetside will need new gameplay regularly to keep most players' attention. Let's hope Sony can deliver.
The sound effects in Planetside are a bit disappointing; while they are varied and unique, they lack any real oomph. Even the largest artillery shots in the game just don't sound very intimidating, and the small arms fire effects get only worse from there. Planetside does offer quite a few voice commands, most of which can get old kind of quickly.
The game did ship with Voice conferencing support, although I would have liked to see more advanced options for outputting the voice chat to the sound card of my choice - I have two sound cards specifically for voice chat in games. I was able to choose the sound card to record from, though, so at least there's that. The music here is almost completely forgettable in my opinion; it just didn't feel right for the game and it got in the way of hearing important game sounds. I eventually turned all the music off.
Planetside is a mostly-successful fusion of MMORPG and first person shooter gameplay. You'll need a pretty hefty machine to run it well, and server problems will interrupt the fun once in a while. The action is not always constant or perfect, but a big battle here is a unique experience that you just can't get in another FPS. Planetside may not entertain you for years like MMORPGs try to do, but it will be a blast for at least a month.
