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Excellent Start, In Need of Work

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 14
Date: May 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am another beta tester, and with the actual release not far away now, I decided to write a review to inform those looking into such a game.

Planetside is fun, alot of fun, the world is huge, and when I say huge we're talking hundreds of square kilometers. Weapons are varied, the vehicles are excellent, music is superb. There is no game comparable in size to this, when you have hundreds of players in one location things get delightfully chaotic. Fighting for a bridge, it starts with shooting missiles across, then the air vehicles come in, you have Reavers, Galaxies, Mosquitos all doing fly by's, then the ground reinforcements come in, and you have to work your way across the bridge, using vehicles for cover, as air vehicles drop stealths behind enemy lines to cause confusion.

What could make such a great game earn a mediocre rating?

First, the lag. Some people don't know what lag really is, it's more than just freezing and not being able to shoot, it's when data flow through your internet connection slows considerably, and is unable to keep up. There is always lag, as long as there is over 1000 people in a server. It may not be very noticeable, but inventory switching, guns switching becomes slow and sometimes just doesn't happen. Alot of times hundreds of players get disconnected at once. A problem since the game uses "auto save" and sometimes you loose battle ranks, kills, etc.

Cheapness is a major problem. For example, the Engineer Class is cheap beyond recognition. They are allowed to plant gun sentry turrets and proximity mines. What these engineers do is go behind the fighting, and plant sentries on the other sides of doors, and in grassy areas. Well, four hours later, you can walk up, open a door, and boom dead. They get the kill, and you'll be left private messaging them with threats.

Glitches are a problem. Sometimes they work in favor. Like when a team will invade a base, and basically own it. Well, sometimes the game glitches up, and you can see enemy Cloakers, and they will be standing still. Well yes, it was funny for us, but when you're in that situation...it's just not.

Well I could complain more, but that's the only major problems, and for 50 bucks the game would be worth it. But, for a monthly fee it's not, because chances are in a month the game will become boring, and it really doesn't excel as an RPG or a FPS.

Valiant effort Sony, but for what you're asking in return, it just simply doesn't work out to being very fair.

Very Fun at times, but can be very boring

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Having played the Beta and the retail version (for a short while) I discovered that planetside can be very fun, but very boring. The game is "plagued" by stability and lag issues. The servers are down often, the patches are annoying and at times, even with a DSL line, there is serious lag. When capturing a base that's a hotspot, you cant effectively assist the capture because your target jumps from lag. The only way you can kill a person at times like these are explosives or firing wildly, hoping to hit. When trying to get in a squad, the most common thing you will type and see is "/b (broadcasts) BR __(whatever battle rank you are which are similar to levels) *Certifications go here* LFS (short for Looking for Squad)". Very frequently you are standing around in a six man squad, looking for a galaxy pilot (transport). I had to wait 30 min for one. However, on the the bright side of things, when you get an experienced squad going with a CR (command rank, ranks earned for leading a squad) 1+, the experience is like none other. When lag isn't a problem and your teammates aren't, this game is 5 stars. ... (note, i still think the fun experiences outway these problems enough to give it a 8.5). ... I would recommend this game for people with time, and money, to blow. And of course, people who are willing to wait 30 minutes to have a great time.

Unstable, Lousy Technical Support, certainly Massive

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In theory, PS could be a great game. The squad system is finely tuned, the social aspect of the game is great, and it's ripe with potential and possibility to keep a player hooked.

However, my experience with PlanetSide was inundated with crashes and bugs. I once spawned as a wall. Drops to the desktop and forced reboots were frequent, often only 20 minutes of play in between. My hard drive is still trying to recover I think. At one point you could get stuck in a spawn tube, then they fixed it, then they broke it again.

Worse - the technical support basically won't pay any attention to you unless offer your problem in the right "format", basically digging around for log files (which PlanetSide sometimes doesn't generate) and posting them up - and even then they usually just add you to their ever growing list of "information". Complaining about this lack of service online will get your posts deleted or your account cancelled (the only response I ever got from Sony was to tell me I was being inappropriate).

For those who don't have to deal with the bugs, it's a fine a game. I wouldn't recommend taking the risk or supporting a beta with a $13/mo fee.

A great game....for a great system

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Graphics-The graphics are middle of the pack. You can turn them up very high but your framerate will go down

Sound- Best music for a game I have heard yet.

Gameplay- They are adding new content all the time. Massive battles, all you want in a FPS.

Cons- Framerate issues. Don't listen to the recommended 512mb RAM, the game uses at least 800mb RAM. I played it with 256mb RAM and in a massive battle my framerates would be sub 10. With all graphics on low. For XP users you don't have to purchase the game. Go to their website and you can download the game, get 30 days free and subscribe from that point. Also a 7-day Free Trial at Fileplanet.

Planet Sized Problems

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: October 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Planetside for the PC is first person shooter where you wage war for territory and enemy bases in futuristic alien worlds. Planetside can ONLY be played online; there is no offline mode. No practice mode offline either and this is really disappointing. Then you need to pay a game fee! If you bought this game retail it comes with a 30 days free play, after that you have to pay a subscription fee ($12/month) if you wish to continue playing! Planetside is not for the casual gamer, because the game offers so many options: you can be a medic, engineer, pilot, assault soldier, heavy assualt, sniper, spy and more! You can choose from three different factions and they all of similar soldier types but feel a bit different. You'll be shooting with weapons found in most FPS like the shotguns, rocket launcher, machine guns, pistols, sniper rifle, energy weapons and some neat gadgets. The alien worlds (earth-like) are humongus! Even your base is huge and is easy to get yourself lost and confused. Running on foot takes forever, so you need to ride vehicles to travel faster to battles. If you don't have a vehicles you can ride a shuttle which arrives every 5 minutes! or use a warp gate. The battles are very awesome seeing 50+ players having a real war: lasers, bullets and missles flying everywhere! The real problem begins with "LAG", even if you have a powerful PC with cable internet, it LAGS like heck! Then there is game crashes...this game is so glitchy and full of bugs that they keep making the game crash (even with patches)! Lastly, the game feels repeatative because the battles NEVER end! When you take over an enemy base you are then supposed to defend it and then the enemy comes after you! There is NO ending, no victory screen or FMV, no stats to give you satisfaction. So after a short while the never-ending battles seem pointless: completely ruining the game experience.

Pros:
+tons of options
+cools weapons
+excellent graphics
+excellent sound effects
+excellent music
+huge battles
+huge worlds

Cons:
-no offline gameplay
-no single player game mode
-tons of game crashes
-tons of strange glitches
-tons of LAG
-waiting 5 mintues to ride a shuttle
-easy to get lost
-complicated interface
-battles never end
-game becomes pointless
-paying $12 a month to
play a glitchy, crash-happy game

Excellent ,but lacking in areas

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Planetside starts out very confusing. The first day that I played of it was boring. Once I figured out the basics, no help to the rather dumb offline help, it was all good.

Lets face it, this is not an RPG based on role playing. The more killing you do, they cooler your armor looks , with no effect to how much damage it absorbs, and how many new things you can do. There is not stregnth, agility, dexterity, etc., like found in most typical RPGs.

Not a pilot? The flight model in the game is a hover-style so most everyone can fly the planes. The downside, however, is not barrel rolls, no cool stunt flying, and no good evasive manuvers.

At this point, they are releasing patch after patch, but not so much as to improve the game, only fix the errors. The DEV team has a good outline of what is to come, but I think they could have fixed the little problems before putting it out on discs.

Enough, you say!
*Great game if you play a lot.
*No such thing as 'instant action'.. You must learn how to find it.
*Get recommended requirements, trust me, it will lag otherwise.
*Unless you like Quake/Half-life/Unreal then this game is not for you.

Pros:
*Big battles
*Risk - like strategy
*Entertaining

Cons:
*Laggy at times
*Buggy in places
*Takes some time to find action

Remember, the cons of this game can be fixed easily and it will not remain this way forever. Thanks

Defend the spawn tubes!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Here's the short version.

The game is truly addictive. Even with all the bugs, crashes to desktop, warm reboots, and all the other associated problems, you will find yourself coming back to this game again and again. This game will make you feel powerful and 10 minutes later you'll be screaming at the monitor over a wacky death.

After having just finished my 1st week trial subscription (each full game comes with a special code, give it to your friends to try out for a week free) I have some lucid thoughts to put down here for anyone interested. The planet Auraxis is colonized by the enormous Terran Republic, but after the wormhole that transported this group here collapses the main populace soon begins to break apart into 3 separate factions. The Terran Republic (TR) loyalists, the New Conglomerate (NC), which is a group of revolutionaries that want freedom from the TR, and the Vanu Sovereignty (VS) that have embraced the technologies of an ancient race who have left thier artifacts behind. Because of the Vanu technology there is no permanent death here on Auraxis. You are basically reconstructed with nanites in a cloning tube where you can feel free to rejoin battle at any time over several different continents each with thier own terrain differences and climates.

You begin at Battle Rank 1 (BR) and after training on the various weapons and discovering new systems you gain exp. Each new BR you achieve gives you Certification Points, which you can spend on several different options, like being able to drive certain tanks or aircraft, or to better customize yourself to infantry work. In addition to this you can gain Command Ranks, which give you the ability to organize and direct offense and defense on a truly global scale. Command Rank is much harder to achieve though, so by and large the average player you'll find concentrates almost solely on BR. If you don't like what you're certified in (you can't fly a plane to save your life or die remarkably quick in infantry positions) no worries, you're given the option to "forget" certain skill and apply them to new ones.

Combat often gets chaotic, and as your skills improve you can deal out more harsh damage on the battlefield. There's nothing more gratifying than getting kills in this game, and the harder the kill it is the more exp. you get. As such battles get *very* big really quick as the experience points pour in. To describe the game itself though I'd have to say that it's a mixture of Team Fortress Classic, combined with a little bit of Deus Ex, and further mixed up with some Battlefield 1942. It's definitely unique and that's it's biggest draw.

As for the problems, I won't lie. The game has terrible bug issues...the worst I've come across in my week's trial subscription were crashes to desktop. Those are annoyingly frequent (and due to some terribly bad luck) usually at a time when I need to be in the game the most. Other times the game will freeze without warning, requiring you to reboot. And still other times consoles don't work right, or weapons don't load up correctly. Sometimes you respawn not in a cloning chamber like you're supposed to, but in water, where you drown and die again.

This game is made for a certain kind of game player. If you love First Person Shooters like Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, or Battlefield 1942, you will love this game. If you liked Deus Ex you will probably like this game. If you like the above games but are over the age of 30 and don't like getting spanked regularly by highstrung 15 year olds with the gift of agility, you will hate this game, but you'll keep playing it, probably cursing the whole time as I did. There's also some imbalance in the game...actually there's one GIANT imbalance in the game. The VS Lasher, that faction's "special" weapon is overwhelmingly too powerful. So if you subscribe and join the VS you'll find conquests to be less challenging than you would with the TR or NC, save for nights when they're actually organized to do something.

Someday I'll buy the full version of Planetside...it's a really entertaining (and ludicrously enfuriating at the same time) romp from SOE. You may want to wait a month or two for the worst of the bugs to get worked out, but if you can't wait that long I can't blame you.

My My My

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well, for a laggy game, you will love it with the right rig. Have at least 640 RAM, and a decent CPU, vid card isnt too much of a bother, hell i puld it off on an MX420, so you get my point. The team combat is amazing, and I mean, it is worth the 13 dollars a month, and I know there are kids out there, like me, who do not have a credit card, and don't feel like asking "mommy and daddy" for a card number, there is a game card which pays for 90 days! Get it if you want to play! That is all I have to say, except, GET THIS GAME! AND I WILL SEE YOU ON THE BATTLEFIELD!

-Durchii in game

Absolutely the Best MMORPG !!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Words cannot describe the fun you will have playing this awesome game. You can be one of 3 groups of thought. The New Conglomerate,the Vanu and the Terian. Each have multi-weapons,multi-vechs and multi- other characteristic both common,and unique for each group.

The are 10 continents....huge..vase. Each continent has numerous Facilities that you or your Squad or Outfit can capture.

Consequently,everytime log off,then back on,depending on how long you have played,the Continent Ownership could be completley different. Maybe the Vanu,or Teran own the continent and Facilities now.

As you accomplish you missions,you get BEP (Battle Experence) or CEP (Command Experience) which gets you Certification Points to purchase expertise in a multitude of disciplines...like Assault,Heavy Assault,AirSupport,Ground Support etc....

You can have up to 4 Characters each specilazied to do particular things...

Get this game!!! You willnot stop playing it once you do.
Each time you play the game you can have a completely different experience.

Ferrari Chassis racing in circles

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: May 27, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Planetside has a LOT Of potential. I played it in beta and I had a lot of fun zipping through the different strategy possibilities and still have many possibilities left. That said, I don't think I would play this game for more than a month. The game never changes. As another person observed, you really only have 3 types of battles: tower battles and open field battles tend to be short and one-sided where numbers carry the day. Base seizures are the most common type of battle. This is the single biggest problem with Planetside IMO. The vast majority of xp you get will be taking bases from the other side. Not killing enemies, but taking bases. And the problem is that there is no similar xp to be gained defending bases. As a result, nobody wants to defend. They just take turns capturing each other's bases and harvesting xp. So there are no big D-Day or Gettysburg type battles. Most battles are American Tanks vs. Republican Guard battles. Unless the designers fix the way the game is played, the game will have limited replay value. Fortunately, it would be easy for them to create new base types, new scenarios, etc. They should play Team Fortress or Counterstrike for a while to get some ideas for scenarios beyond 'Capture The Flag'.

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