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Game Review: Planetside 2 (video)
In this video (with transcript), we review Planetside 2, a new MMOFPS game from Sony Online Entertainment. The game is a true first-person shooter, using its MMO nature to bring a persistent world into play, with battles sometimes involving hundreds of players, and it does so without trying to shoe-horn in ill-fitting MMORPG tropes like questing, story development, or insurmountable gear disparities. The combat favors relative realism (you won't be rocket jumping around, and nobody gets to be Rambo), but it's mixed with vehicle combat in a way that manages to be entertaining without being unfair. Planetside 2 is free to play, using microtransactions to support itself. It wisely avoids selling gear you can't acquire in-game (aside from cosmetic stuff), and doesn't require purchases to be competitive. Hit the link below to see/read our review.
So what does the rootkit that it installs do?
How much is ridiculous? I played it for a few hours at the weekend, but didn't look at upgrading. There's so much to do that I didn't feel like I really scratched the surface. Once I figure out what play styles I prefer I'd maybe spend some money on it. Considering it's free to play, I'd probably be happy to spend up to around 30GBP. When I've played true free-to-play games before I've spent money as a thankyou to the developers. When games that I've already bought ask me to spend money to unlock stuff (I'm looking at you Dirt 2), I simply say FUCK YOU and refuse to buy any more games in that series..
which is totally what she said
"...or insurmountable gear disparities."
A lot of people are whining about how PlanetSide 2 is strictly P2W (pay to win), but it really isn't. You can do just fine with the default kits, granted, it takes a long time to unlock some of the cooler stuff, but it fits the MMO model just fine. The advantages gained from purchases unlocks is very insubstantial. Anyone else who tells you otherwise has no idea how to play the game properly. I've seen entire outfits of free to play players that stand as proof that you do not need to spend a dime to "win".
until you go to upgrade anything and it all costs money, ridiculous amounts of money.
No, you get certs as you gain xp. New weapons require certs or station cash. The average cost for a new weapon is $6.00. The cert points are higher which a casual player can gain enough after a week or two to get a new weapon. Then, certs can also be used to enhance your class, weapon, or vehicle. You cannot spend station cash to upgrade a vehicle beyond unlocking a weapon.
a great game shackled with a horrible 'pay for every little piece of functionality' mode.
Again you do not need to spend any money to play the game and unlock weapons or buy the enhancements. You have an option to pay cash to unlock weapons but in no way are you required to spend any money at all. Cert points are required no matter what and have to be earned by playing the game.
The hardest thing about PS2 is getting past the first 15 minutes.
You make a character, pick a faction, then get dropped into battle. Active battle. You have a near 100% chance of dying as soon as you land. Enemy players will be looking for the drop pods and will instantly target and kill you. You then will be shown a map with places you can respawn. If you run outside, you have about an 95% chance of dying instantly.
It is very unforgiving if you are used to playing other MMOs.
Are you on crack? The game is free to play. After playing it for a few hours at the weekend I can safely say that tactics matter way more than equipment. Get into a MAX suit and you'll still be taken out in seconds if you don't know what you're doing yet (ahem).
which is totally what she said
Having played Planetside 1 from beta (sill have cd's!) and for a few years after launch, a lot of the people I used to play that with were pretty excited about planetside 2, until we actually got to play it. The summary about it was pretty much this:
Everything you hated about planetside 1? We took it out.
Everything you liked about planetside 1? We dropped most of that too!
Things you thought were missing from Planetside 1? We put some of those in.
This one feels like pretty much a large map rip-off of all the other fps's out on the scene now, and I've taken to calling it Planetfieldfall2: modern agenda.
Graphics are pretty good, maps are still huge, but all the things that would make us get 20-30 people together to storm around and kick some butt together are gone. Thanks for nothing and you won't be getting any cash from me.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
The people responsible for that trojan incident aren't the same people that worked on this game. Actually, the PS2 devs have been pretty responsive to the community and relativly candid.
That's entirely not true.
Most of the important upgrades cannot be bought with real money and only the in game certifications which cannot be obtained for real money.
The class skills, the weapon upgrades, the vehicle upgrades are all certification only. You absolutely cannot pay real money to get them.
Want to be able to drop C4? Want that all imporant dogfighting chassis for your striek fighter? That 12x zoom scope for your sniper rifle?
You can't buy any of that with real money. You have to grind certifications for that (read: xp/levels.)
What you can buy with real money (and certifications)
- New weapons can be bought with money or certifications, however, a in most cases the new weapons are more or less side grades or more specalized.
- Cosmetic skins for your vehicles / characters
- XP boosts
So far I've found on the weapons, while yes, you can buy them with real money they're decidedly not necessary, and it doesn't take long to buy the few you really want with just in game currency. So far the only thing I've spent real money on was a new weapon for my medic class, and a few skins for the max / tank. Everything else has come, quite easily from just in game certifications. Upgrade the stock stuff a little (can only be done with in game currency) and use that to get the credits for other stuff you want.
Yes, if you want to unlock -everything- it's going to take a while, but really it's not necessary, even if the completionist in me wants to unlock everything.
Total amount I've spent on the game so far: $10, far from a huge money sink.
A few weeks? I'm on 1100 certs after a week of (intensive) playing. On a good night when playing in a platoon capping points you easily grab 100/150 certs. Also keep in mind that when unlocking better weapons and the likes and customizing your classes to your liking you will get more effective and gain certs faster.
I'm not sure how you got modded +3 for this inane post, but congrats on spewing so much disinformation.
For those unaware of how Planetside 2's RMT (Real-Money Transactions) work, there are only two things you can actually buy that involve real money:
1. New guns (whether for infantry or vehicles)
2. Cosmetic stuff
All of the new guns can also be unlocked using in-game certifications. Note that NONE of their upgrades can be unlocked with real money. You pay money to unlock a gun, but then if you want to specialize into it, you'll need to use the in-game certifications that you earn while playing.
Cosmetic stuff can't be unlocked for in-game certs, but seeing as cosmetics don't actually confer an advantage, it really doesn't matter.
Money won't make you good at this game. It can give you a wider range of options more quickly, but it won't make you better than other players. Planetside 2 isn't a money sink unless you want it to be.
^^ This 100 times over.
I've been playing the game a lot and love it. Real money will buy you some weapon upgrades sooner rather then having to wait to build up the cert points to buy them. Even then the weapon upgrades for ground troops aren't worth it. Weapon upgrades for ground and flying vehicles are a help but again no real money is even needed to get them. You can not buy upgrades to your current weapons using real money. This can only be done from playing the game and earning cert points.
There are pure cosmetic items that can only be bought using real money. These are just funny decals or cooler looking armor and camouflage.
The 105 Zephyr gun from the Liberty says Hi.
So does the Additional Burster for the Burster max.
The T-9 Carv S, which is in all ways a direct upgrade of the T9 Carv you start with as a heavy....
In fact there is a rather large room full of weapons that have sprouted arms and mouths saying "Over here! You haven't seen me yet!"
I've been around. I have had so many highs like getting a 2600 and playing Space Invaders one Christmas, booting up Lemmings for the first time on my Amiga, beating Kid Icarus on my NES, rescuing the princess in Link to the Past on the SNES, blowing people up in Doom with three other people sitting next to me, slaying Dragons for the first time in Everquest with 50 people, toppling enemy mechs with a few other players in Chromehounds, and now finally being in a squad of soldiers, being led by a platoon leader across an alien world with thousands of other soldiers made up of different outfits that consist of multiple platoons. All tasked with taking specific objectives. Blinding the enemy installations with smoke grenades and turning on your IR vision and sneaking around taking people out. Jumping into a huge flying whale of an airship that can carry over a dozen people. Being flown over a distant enemy base to drop out onto the roof and storming into buildings. Leaping over obstacles and into the air with your jet pack and over 5 enemy guys who dont see you. You look over the ledge and drop a grande onto them racking up the kills. You secure the base. Load up and move to another. All with real voice coms chatting back and forth warning of mines, and enemy armor.
Not only is this one of the best looking games I've ever seen, it can give you one of the most epic war moments you will ever experience at this time. Two dozen troopers running over a hilltop flanked by tanks as your air support swoops down ahead of you to soften up the line. IT IS THAT EPIC.
The free part makes this a no brainer to try at the very least. I would hate to see someone pass by the opportunity. It is one of gamings greats.
No, I don't work for Sony. But I love this game. A lot. Try it! We need you!
Disagree. I play with a 4 year old Core2Quad 2ghz processor and a 550Ti and I get a reasonable frame rate in every situation. Both are considered budget gaming at this point. I roll with about 200+ people a night during prime time, and we class with groups even larger than us. The frame rate remains stable. You don't need a monster to play this game, certainly not by todays standards.
Steam tells me I've played Planetside 2 for 72 hours. In general, it's a valid review that covers a lot of good points, despite noticing that the reviewer's player was obviously low-level.
Some that I would add however, is:
a) The game does not offer a comfortable intro to the brand-new player, it will probably spawn you into instant death and there are a lot of things to figure out. The flipside is much of the reason for that is depth.
b) It's not so vital to play with actual friends, but rather a good squad. When you join the game look at the squad tab and go through them looking for someone using voice comms and setting waypoints on the map. Provided I do look for one, I will usually find an enjoyable squad and that is despite playing at off-peak hours. Playing without a decent squad is very tiresome, lonesome, has no direction and you'll find yourself wondering what to do. Playing with a good squad is the opposite and the trouble is keeping up!
c) Unless I missed it, he didn't mention that there are 3 factions (hence the 3 colours demonstrating control on the map screen) and they are not quite symmetric. The reviewer is playing as Vanu which is the only one that has that alien-ish theme with ultra futuristic uniforms and laser type weapons. The other two are more conventional. Each faction's weapons and vehicles have attributes with that factions trend e.g. one faction has lower damage per projectile but higher rate of fire, another faction the opposite.
d) He's a bit harsh implying individual skill doesn't matter. Your l33t skillz might not be quite so obvious to everyone, you're unlikely to "pwn" everyone quite so hard with ridiculous k/d ratios. But the game is balanced pretty well so skilled fraggers will have higher k/d and certainly will make a difference, all else being equal - it's just that you cannot solely rely on your skills and will also need teamplay.
e) I think this is also where the reviewer goes wrong saying that it's hard to feel you are contributing. In an okay squad it's actually very easy and the game gives you congratulatory messages and experience point rewards making it very clear. Players are generous with the "thank you" voice command. There's also a lot more variety in the ways you can contribute than any game I can think of. Maybe you're not actually any good at FPS shooting, but maybe you'll be good at tank tactics, dogfighting, support roles like engineer or medic, infiltrating and hacking, or simply ferrying people around.
f) Agreeing with the reviewer and contradicting some other posters, I'm having difficulty finding a need to put real money into this game. I've spent about half the cost of a typical new game so far, and all of that was a splurge because I felt I should contribute given the hours I've gotten from the game. Sure you could spend a lot of money but there's really no need to. Aside from a couple of vehicle items, anything items to buy where to experience-point cost is high thus viable for real-money, they're sidegrades more for preference, like trading short-range raw damage for longer range accuracy. A complete set would cost a ton of money, but you don't want a complete set and anyway you can get everything with enough experience points so if you stick with the game you can be finding yourself picking up rare-use options for no money.
g) There is no other game where you can experience the epic, massive battles that this game can offer. If that is what you are looking for - you can also easily avoid those and go running around with a small or moderately sized squad.
God forbid you actually trust people to use their own money the way they want to, rather than tell them they're the village idiot for enjoying something you don't.
You're telling me that allowing people to play the game for free, then to make their own decision whether they want to put money into it, is vampirism? You'd rather pay $50 or more up front for a game you've only seen through advertising or reviews? What if it sucks? You're out $50 and you never play the game again. Here, if the game sucks, you're out $0. It gives the company incentive to make a good game, because they have to do more than get your foot in the door - they have to keep you around and make you happy. And it means they don't throw as much $$ behind bullshit piracy suits, because they can't claim they're losing money to piracy when their game is free. Everyone claims piracy is the result of a broken business model, then attacks the industry when they update their business model.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Good news then! Its free to play and you do not need to give them a cent to play!
That is the problem I have with micro transactions in games, there is NOTHING micro about it. You can play for free... you just will die a lot unable to kill others because your gun does half the damage. If your lucky.
It's really not that bad, without paying for anything I consistently have a KD Ratio over 1:1. I don't find myself getting rocked by pro players either, the starter guns are just fine.
"Free" in this context means hidden, convoluted costs. It doesn't mean free. It's only "free" for you because others pay for the stuff. That's obvious, right?
And some of these will buy a LOT. It's essentially uncapped, they can easily spend more than 60$. Which is the model, which is why it's taking off. Not because "ohh boo hoo, stuff costs money" more like "fuck yeah, this shit MAKES money, and if we do it like this we can make even MORE money". Just because you may not be personally addicted doesn't mean you haven't adopted the narrative of turning that upside down just nicely. Sure, some people pay more than average for it, and they enable you to have a quick 1 hour splash over the weekend, but that doesn't mean you actually have to give it any serious thought before or after you defended it, does it? Nah, it's fun and you played with your new car, so it's super coo. Just chillax - they're not vampires because they haven't bitten you personally, or not that hard at least. It totally checks out! Nevermind the shambling zombies in their basement, or the bulging purses... "those servers cost money". You say that like they're running a fucking hospital or something... if I didn't need my pseudo anger to rant I'd laugh my ass off right now xD
I'd rather abolish lottery completely, even though IF I ever played it I would know what I'm getting into; because the people it's geared towards enticing generally don't. You can call me a fascist now, I don't give a fuck. I see what I see, the nature of the beast is evil, and a few heart-touching anecdotes (or fucking lame ones for that matter) don't mean squat in the face of having eyes, a brain and basic math skills.
And then there is the whole thing that in the crazy world I envision, you pay for a well defined product/service, not an arbitrary license of whateverness. I know I'm alone on this but I couldn't give a fuck. Just like it was evil of Microsoft to make several editions of their OS which differ in nothing but registry settings basically: they were all capable of the same stuff, just throttled in various ways so to speak -- I am extremely simplifying it but the point remains the same. It's bullshit, it's to make pricing more opaque and arbitrary, that's the goal and it's justified with whatever or even not at all.
It's more at the end of the spectrum where, say, astrology or healing cancer by stashing money into envelopes reside - than at the end where you buy 1$ for one bread and 2$ for two breads, or maybe 2.50$ for three breads because it's a special. It's just not honest business and not even trying to be, it's rather how Las Vegas operates. And if you can't see that then fuck you; you're a gullible fool at best and a cowardly enabler at worst. You're also a dime a dozen.
It is NOT done because they just can't find another way to give gamers the awesome games they crave, even though they'd actually earn more money in other jobs they'd like more... this stuff is calculated. And most game companies have plenty of time for that because so much they otherwise do is completely cookie-cutter. You might say that's where they actually focus attention and innovation, not so much in, you know, actual gameplay, but in how to bait and hook people more efficiently and more cheaply, how to market and manipulate. But then again you'd have to pay some attention to what is actually going on and apply the reasoning of someone, say, older than 12, instead of blindly defending something because you enjoy it. (Instead of proving you're not doing that, you kinda just dug yourself deeper, you know.)
They can dictate random prices for virtual goods whatever because people gobble it up, so they do. Not because "servers cost money" yadda yadda, but simply because people don't mind being manipulated that way on their way to their next fix. That's fine, because I don't mind that they don't mind, they and their handlers can go fuck themselves.
You know that South Park episode where old people keep calling in and telling a shameless piece of shit sh
Honestly I got half way through there and I can't bear to read the rest of you're crazy pseudo-anger fueled rant. You're acting like people are too dumb to see how this works. They can see it. If they want to spend money on in-game purchases, so be it. Those that are spending a lot of money on this type of thing obviously have a lot of money to burn. And it's up to them how they want to spend it. It's not like a lottery or gambling service where poor people spend what little they have left over from alcohol and tobacco in the hopes that they'll win millions.
Even the ones that do spend money on this probably aren't spending much more in a year than they would have spent in on a WoW subscription - assuming that's what you classify as a "well defined product/service"?
Read a little more. I agree that this stuff is "calculated", etc, but I am completely fine with it when the up front game is free. It's when they charge you for both the original game and the content that I get really pissed off. When it's free to play, you spend as much as you want to spend, and you're not as "locked in" as if you'd bought a $60 game or a year's subscription to something.
which is totally what she said
BS, play the game, the paid weapons do not offer a distinct advantage over the free ones except the rocket launcher for the flying vehicles in which case you have to give up extra after burner to fit them. This game is very balanced to the point where even though I have money i'm not going to bother buying weapons because they don't offer an advantage.