Reviewed: June 18, 2003
Reviewed by: John Carswell

Publisher
Sony Online Enteratinment

Developer
Sony Online Enteratinment

Released: May 19, 2003
Genre: Online/FPS
Players: Online
ESRB: Teen

9
9
8
8
9.0

System Requirements

Your goal in PlanetSide is simple enough: conquer the world for your Empire. The world in question is a series of islands with bases and towers scattered along them. As each base is conquered by your Empire, that base gives connected friendly bases special abilities (aircraft repair, faster respawning, etc.) and your Empire takes one step towards owning that island. Once that occurs, not only are your bases at their strongest, but enemy Empires have limited routes of entry, making your hold over the island all the more powerful.

Based around teamwork, players are encouraged to join Squads and Outfits. Squads are the smaller units made of up to ten players while Outfits are massive gatherings of players. The main draw of joining a Squad is the added XP. As a squad member, you receive a small amount of experience for each kill your squad member’s score. Also, as a member of a team, your chances of capturing an enemy base (and grabbing the sizable XP bonuses that come along with it) are greatly increased.

Outfits are ideal for those who like the idea of multiple Squads working in unison and give greater abilities to its commanders. This system works very well since it allows community-oriented players to enjoy the comradery of an outfit while solo-players are free to join and quit squads as they see fit. However, do not mistake PlanetSide’s community with those found in MMORPG’s. PS is clearly focused on action so little has been done to encourage out-of-battle socialization.

Entering the world of PlanetSide, you are a blank slate with only a few Certification Points to your name. Arrows then lead you to the training grounds where you not only gain basic knowledge on how to use various weapons and vehicles, but also gain your first experience points (XP). As these XP amass, they earn you more Certification Points (CP), which you can then cash in for various skills. For instance, if you want to become a pilot, you would go to a certification terminal and trade in 3 CP for Mosquito certification. From then on, you’ll be able to acquire Mosquitoes from vehicle pads and pilot them. Certain skills have two levels of certification to allow for greater abilities and should you ever feel that you’ve chosen a skill that does not suit you needs, simply “unlearn” it try something else.

Your choice of skills is quiet varied and few will leave you feeling left out of the action. For starters, no squad is complete without a hacker since they are needed to gain control of enemy buildings as well as grab nearby equipment and health terminals. For clearing out any enemies in your way and protecting the control terminal, there are a vast number of combat units. Most prevalent are foot soldiers that—depending on their Empire—come in many different flavors.

While all Empires have access to certain basic weapons, the real power is found in Empire-specific weaponry. For instance, the Terrain’s have a mini-gun capable of spitting huge amounts of led that not only can bring down other foot soldiers but—when using armor-piercing bullets—are effective against mechanized units. Each Empire has their own arsenal of unique weapons to endure that each Empire must learn and exploit their own strengths.

Also key to any defensive or offensive operation is the “Max”. These mechanized units are armor-laden powerhouses that play a vital role at the front line of any conflict. Equipped with different load-outs, MAXes are capable of bringing down enemy aircraft, decimating enemy vehicle, and can be absolutely deadly against soft targets. While they are usually slow and awkward, MAXes have a few abilities beyond their pure brute force that make them indispensable. Firstly, a MAX can launch into a run that leaves ground troops in the dust and can make them viable members of caravan militias.

Secondly, each Empire's MAX has an empire-specific ability. The Terran's use a "locking" technique that effectively turns a MAX into a stationary turret, the New Conglomerate use shielding technology, and the Vanu Sovereignty the use jump jets that allows their MAXes a brief moment of unprecedented maneuverability. Of course, these come with a price: while running, a MAX is unable to fire, a "locked" MAX has a severely limited ability to turn, and both Shields and Jump Jets run off of quickly-depleted (but rechargeable) energy cells.

Of course, these come with a price: while running, a MAX is unable to fire and when locked, their ability to turn is severely limited. While these walking tanks may sound over-powered, in reality they are something of a chore to handle and many feel “disconnected” from the action. In the end, this means that it requires a relatively unique player to pilot a MAX so their numbers are low enough to keep them from controlling the world.

Vehicles are one of PlanetSide’s major draws and people looking for vehicular combat will not be disappointed. From massive tanks to nimble dune buggies, PS offers a wide variety of ground transportation. Better yet, many units have positions for multiple players. Manning the main cannon of a tank while coordinating with your driver and machine gunner is an exhilarating experience and once the three of you learn to work as a team, there is very little that can stand in your way.

Other types of vehicles might not be as powerful as a tank but prove useful in other ways. A great example of this is the Wraith, which—should you be wearing stealth armor—can cloak, allowing hackers to assess the situation before their squad makes its move. Although sadly infrequent, a convoy of vehicular units is an awesome site and--should they be heading to attack one of your bases—cause for panic.

Air units also play a major role in PS and are the fuel behind my PS addiction. There’s nothing quite like zipping over a forest and seeing an enemy tower under heavy attack slowly emerge over the top of the trees while bullets and laser beams fly around you. Mosquitoes are the smaller of PS’s two aircraft and are largely for scouting. The Reavers are a deadly mix of machineguns and missiles. Aside from engaging in dog fights, air units are instrumental in hunting down enemy AMSes (mobile respawn bases), running reconnaissance, providing early warnings for base-hacking crews and taking down MAXes that might otherwise feel safe in their thick armor.

Playing the support roles are the engineer and medic. Capable of healing foot troops as well as themselves, a good medic is one of the most valuable units in any squad. Since defenders will generally find themselves bottled into a few key rooms, a medic or two can keep everyone alive thusly avoiding time-consuming respawns. At higher levels of certification, a medic is even capable of bringing incapacitated units back to full health. The engineer is also indispensable and can repair everything from broken turrets to crippled tanks. After gaining a second certification, an engineer becomes one-person defensive team as they can lay down mines and small turrets.

Communication in PlanetSide is surprisingly simple and well tweaked. Using a small, movable chat window, players are able to chat with people in their area, their squad, their outfit and so on through either backslash commands or on-screen toggles. For those intense moments when typing would be unwise, a wide array of quick voice macros are at the player’s disposal. These macros range from the obvious, “Help!” to more specific, “Repair our turrets”. Further adding to your options is full-out voice chat. So far my experience with voice chat has been shaky at best since how clear communication is depends on the host’s connection. More often than not I only received choppy messages that were indecipherable.

So what does all of this add up to? Well, the training/tutorial really does an excellent job of familiarizing you with the basics. Once you’re ready, PS allows you to quickly teleport to “hot spots” and since the game automatically flags you as looking for a squad, you’ll quickly find other players to teach you the finer points out on the battlefield. The combat in PS is excellently executed; in fact, I’d say that it provides some of the best online action I’ve experienced. There is just something riveting about knowing you and your team are part of a larger battle, and when a small confrontation turns into a fight of forty-plus players with tanks, jeeps, and aircraft, I found myself glued to the screen.

Unfortunately, for every moment you spend in combat, you’ll spend three times that traveling or standing around. There’s not much to do during these moments except chat or hope that an enemy comes along. While looking for a squad it’s not too bad, but when you are stuck babysitting a hacked base, the minutes drag on. Future development plans will allow enemy units to respawn in hacked bases (which could help a great deal) but at the time of this review “down times” in the field are frequent and mind-numbingly dull.

Aside from the hanging around, PlanetSide still has a ways to go before reaching its full potential. For instance, to help counter the threat of air units, PS includes an Anti-Aircraft MAX. Unfortunately, they are so limited in their abilities that should you happen to be in one while there are no aircraft about, you’re pretty much out of business. Another unit in need of tweaking is the DropShip pilot. Despite the fact that they are key to any major attack, DropShip pilots find themselves spending so much time landing and then running to the action, they end up missing out on XP. The result is that few veterans bother with DropShip certification so they’ve become somewhat rare.

This effect has also occurred with medics and engineers. While their roles in a balanced squad are obvious, their execution in PlanetSide is less than perfect. So long as the target that one is attempting to heal or repair is stationary, everything is fine; however, once that target is in motion the medic or engineer lacks any quick way of saying “Stop, I’m trying to heal you!” The result is that in the thick of battle their position can be one of futility and frustration. Again, this leads to people simply dropping these skills, leaving PlanetSide short of these highly-useful units.

Another and more universal problem is the slow down one can encounter. I couldn’t begin to count the times I was approaching a busy base only to have PlanetSide’s frames-per-second drop to almost zero for five or six seconds before speeding back up. Aside from being disorienting, this can cause obvious problems should you also be under fire at the same time. However, in defense of Sony I have seen a marked improvement in this area over time so hopefully it will soon become a thing of the past.

Anyone who has played MMOGs extensively can attest to the fact that it’s what the developers do after launch that can make or break a game. To the developer’s credit, so far they seem to avoid drastic changes and instead favor slowly tweaking the game to addresses various balancing issues.

Another brilliant innovation is Sony's new "All Access Pass" for gamers who enjoy a multi-dimensional gaming experience. For one low price of $21.99 you can play any Sony online games you already own or any new ones you might buy in the future, even if those games are on the PlayStation 2 or the Mac.

PlanetSide will also continue to grow in scope and variety through a number of free, downloadable additions. Already promised are a three-occupancy bomber, “The Liberator”, and a mobile anti-aircraft unit, “The SkyGuard”. Given my experience, the bomber will add greatly to game and increase the usefulness current anti-air units. The SkyGuard’s could help encourage the creation of caravans who are otherwise highly susceptible to air attacks. Should this trend of new vehicles continue over the next year and should we see additions to PS in other areas, PS should continue to be a fresh and exciting experience.

I’d strongly recommend that FPS fans give it a shot. At the very least, PS is a quality FPS. At its best, PlanetSide takes a staple genre and breaths new life into it while delivering an adrenaline rush rarely found in the virtual world.