Finally, the return of Planetside is almost here with a
launch date set for late November. Since the original, MMOs have almost
exclusively been RPGs. But now Sony Online Entertainment (SoE) has revived
Planetside on an even greater scale and with a free to play model.
It was easy to miss the first the game, which was somewhat
ahead of its time when MMOs were still niche. The technology back then could
only handle a few hundred players on the same server. Now the battle for
Auraxis has been expanded to thousands of players per server, each fighting for
one of three factions.
The Terran Republic is the official government of Auraxis,
providing law and order, but labelled a dictatorship by their opponents. The
rebels known as the New Conglomerate are a rag-tag bunch of fighters with
backing of industrial giants. And the Vanu Sovereignty who don’t care for the
politics of Auraxis, but instead are focused on finding and utilising the alien
artefacts scattered across the planet.
Currently the Beta is still expanding to include all the
elements of the final release. At present the majority of the game assets are
available to use. With almost all classes, weapons and unlocks being used in
the Beta war.
Most importantly the FPS gameplay is solid. Each of the
weapons has its own feel that comes from the various elements that define it,
such as damage and recoil. The five classes have access to different primary
weapons. Infiltrators utilise a deadly mix of a stealth suit and sniper rifles
whereas the Heavy Assault carries a powerful light machine gun and anti-armour
rocket launcher.
All classes have a personal shield which will regenerate out
of combat. Any damage to your health bar has to be patched up by a friendly
medic, or by spending resource on medi-packs. Going into battle with both
filled makes you an incredibly tough target. Fire-fights are often won by the
most accurate shooter as it can take whole clips to take out opponents. It adds
a real sense of franticness and desperation to every encounter. Of course if
you get flanked you’ll need good reactions to recover.
Anyone who has played a Battlefield title will feel right at
home. Vehicles are the lifeblood of any offensive action. There are several
land and air vehicles accessible to each faction, with core vehicles shared
between them. Battles are often won with the simple Sunderer. An armoured
personnel carrier with two turrets; it has neither the punch nor speed of other
vehicles. But it acts as a spawn point for all players who are part of your
group, as well as letting you resupply ammunition and swap class. They are the
linchpin of any assault; their value usually means they are parked in dense
cover to protect them while troops pour out.
When battles get underway, they quickly reach an epic scale
as the map alerts all players to the conflict. You soon find yourself fighting
amongst armies over key objectives. In
one session, I found myself swept up in a two hour battle for a bridge linking
facilities. We were outgunned by the tanks on their side, with no tanks of our
own to return fire. Instead we brought a lot of Heavy Assault, running between
the large support struts that provided cover. The bridge quickly became an
alley full of rockets, their engineers unable to cope with the incoming fire.
Sadly we were still outnumbered and unable to push forward off the bridge.
The stalemate was broken by a change in the enemy tactics. Suddenly our forward squads were being picked
off in cover. Their Infiltrators had stealthed in behind our positions while
Light Assault troops had jet packed on top of the structure, reigning down fire
from their vantage point. It wasn’t long before our position was broken. We
were pushed back to our spawn point, and their armoured superiority meant it
was only a matter of time before the facility fell. Having lost the battle, it
was clear that Planetside 2 was going to distinguish itself in the FPS market.
Not only because of its scale, but the fact strategy plays an important role.
Planning you actions and acting as a team is the key to victory.
So far I only have one complaint; however it’s a fairly big
one. The game doesn’t explain itself. Currently there aren’t any tutorials, so
working out how to play beyond point gun and pull trigger has meant searching
the internet for answers. The most important part of the game is teaming up
with others, which can be simply done by pressing ‘p’ to bring up the party
menu. It’s simple and clearly labelled in the key bindings, but you’re unlikely
to stumble across it by searching through the menu. Any new player will quickly
have a long list of questions they need answers too.
There are a lot of menu screens with many options. All are
very functional with little clutter, but your first half an hour will be best
spent understanding them. Hopefully the final release will have tutorials
included to explain the basics. If SoE want the game to be a success, they need
to remove this large barrier to entry so new players can quickly get into
battle.
