PlanetSide

"A wonderful game with slightly high system requirements"

Quick Description:
Planetside is a great game because it appeals to two types of online players; the RPG people who like gaining experience in battle to ''level up'' and improve their skills, and the FPS people who just like shooting up enemies with large guns. It offers a lot of different ways to get into the action, and a lot of ways to develop your character. The possibilities are indeed endless. The only qualm I have about this game is that you need a really high-end system to play it properly, but it's starting to not be a problem since you can't even get a computer with less than 512MB of RAM anymore.

Gameplay: 10/10 - A million things to do, places to go, and ways to get there.
Here's how a typical Planetside game session will go: You'll drop into the game at your faction's Sanctuary, which is basically a secure continent that enemies can never enter. From here people group up into Squads to go out, fight the enemy, and capture bases. Squads are organized groups of up to 10 players, one of those being the squad leader who makes plans and gives orders. In the Sanctuary there are equipment terminals, where you can stock up on weaponry before you head out, and certification terminals, where you can purchase certifications which allow you to use bigger and badder weapons, armor, and vehicles. You earn points to spend on ''certs'' as you gain levels, otherwise known as Battle Ranks. To aid you in your decisions, there is a Virtual Reality training area, which allows you to test out weapons and vehicles without having to certify in them. Of course, you can always give up a cert and get your points back if you decide you don't like it; Planetside is a game for the indecisive. The limited amount of cert points you can get will encourage you to specialize in a certain area. This is good for squads, since a group of players each having their own specialty which they are very good at is better than a group of players who can all do the same variety of things and are not very good at them. One person might be a vehicle driver for transporting the squad, a few might be cloakers who can slip past enemies unnoticed, and a few more might have the big guns for blasting away at enemies. Anyway, you'll probably wind up joining a squad at the Sanctuary; once the squad has a respectable amount of people, and the squad leader has looked at the map and decided where to go, you're off. The first and easiest way to get there is via the HART, which is a giant dropship that lands at the Sanctuary every 10 minutes and can drop you anywhere in the world. There is a disadvantage to this; you can't take any vehicles with you, so once you arrive, you have only the weapons you brought with you. Another option is to go by the Warp Gates. Step into one and you're transported to the matching gate on another continent. You can bring any kind of vehicle with you, but you might have to hop through several warp gates to reach your final destination. There are several different kinds of vehicles, all carrying various numbers of people. You only need the certification to drive/fly a vehicle; anyone can hop in and be a gunner or just a passenger. Some vehicles are big enough for a whole squad, and one (the gigantic Galaxy transport) can carry another vehicle with it as well! Once your squad is on the destination continent, you can proceed with the main objective of the game: Capturing bases. There are two ways to do this; the way you'll be using is dependent on which base you're capturing. Once the base is ''hacked'', you might have to hold it for 15 minutes; if an enemy slips past you, he can cancel your base capture by re-hacking it. Once the 15 minutes is up, the base is yours. You also might have to deliver a special object to a neighboring base, Capture the Flag style, within 15 minutes. If you are successful, you'll probably stick around for a while to make sure the base is secure, then move on to another base. If you lose one too many times, the squad will likely either disband or go somewhere else, seeing that going on would be futile. There are always other bases to capture! There are a myriad of other little things that I haven't mentioned here, but you get the basic idea.

Graphics: 8/10 - Very realistic, but memory-intensive.
The graphics in this game are awesome; each continent has a different ''theme''. There are jungles, deserts, freezing snowscapes, and even a volcano! The weapons, armor, vehicles, and even the player models, all look ''realistic'' (or what would be realistic for an alien planet in the future). The weather looks especially cool; you can have rain, snow, or fog, and all of this runs on a complete simulated weather system. You can track the moving weather fronts and cloud cover on the world map. However, these nifty graphics come at a price; often, the loading of graphics lags the game down so badly that it just freezes in place for half a minute or two. Forget the ''recommended'' system requirements, you need at least a 2GHz processor, a 64MB graphics card, 1GB of RAM (preferably more), and a high-speed cable connection to properly enjoy this game. Good thing you can always turn down the graphics settings for slightly less stuttering; I found that turning off the ''Detail Web'' made a big difference in speed and a small difference in visuals.

Sound: 10/10 - It fits right in.
All the sounds in this game are fantastic; the weapons sound really cool, and the vehicles are even better. In addition, the music provides great atmosphere, with different tunes for traveling on different continents, hacking a base, combat with enemies, victory, loss, gaining a battle rank, etc.; and they're different for each empire. The music isn't really intrusive; half the time you don't even notice it, not even when it changes. It's just ''there'', and it fits perfectly every time. What I especially like are the voice macros; with the press of three keys, you can make your character give a jolly wave and say ''Hi there!'', make an A-Okay symbol with his/her hand and say ''Great shot!'', or put out his/her arm and say ''Stop!''. The voice macro keys are very intuitive; you press the V key for Voice, then two other keys based on what you want to say. For instance, if you want to say ''Defend the Generator!'', press D for Defend, then G for Generator. If you want to warn your friends of a cloaked enemy, press W for Warning, then C for Cloaker. Menus appear through all of this, so even if you forget, you can quickly press the right key.

Replayability: 10/10 - It just keeps getting better.
You know how I said that there were two ways of capturing bases? The second way was added just a few days ago. The Planetside team is constantly working to fix bugs and introduce new features that help to keep the game alive. Not that it needs any help! No matter where you go in Planetside, there's always something to do; squads to join, experience to earn, enemies to kill, vehicles to drive, terminals to hack, bases to capture. The war never ends!

Final Score: 9/10 - A game worth paying a monthly fee for.

Additional Info:
Planetside comes with a free 30-day trial period (which is admittedly confusing to activate; you have to buy a month, then cancel it before the trial period is up). Or, if you're really pressed for cash, there's a completely free 7-day trial available on FilePlanet; however, I wouldn't recommend it as it's only 7 days and it's a whopping 1.4GB file.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/03