Mr. Poppinfresh' Planetside Re-review
posted at 3:00 AM on Thursday, January 15th, 2004
| Publisher |
| Sony Online Entertainment |
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| System Requirements: |
32MB D3d Video Card
256 MB RAM
1.0 GHz processor
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| |
| Reviewed Using: |
Althon 2700
1 GB RAM
GeForce 256MB |
While I had read about its existence some months before, my first experience with what would become a legion of fluff pieces about Planetside came from the saddest of sources: reading PC Gamer in an airport. While it is quite usual, even expected for those guys to verbally fellate anything that has been predicted to ship with two pixels and some explosions (note: preferably breast pixels), this particular piece went above and beyond the call of duty, receiving the kind of toungebath normally reserved for Barbara Walters interviews. The game could stop the ravages of time, halt global warming, and put a chicken in every pot; online.
The letdown that followed was not unexpected.
Hey, don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the Planetside beta. Sure, it was a memory hog par excellance, and was run by the people SOE made sit at the kiddy table at staff picnics, but for the most part it could be described as a competent team shooter with an added component of tactical goodness.
Just not, you know, fifteen bucks a month worth of it. Which is why not too many people were playing.
The recent Core Combat expansion pack did little to absolve the feeling, one normally associated with used car salesmen, lawyers, and Interplay: that of having been asked to fork over a lot of money for something that was kinda-sorta-ok. Sure, some of the modules are cool, and the Flail artillery puts the tent back in the proverbial pants with this one-shot-kills-anything paincannon and immortal armor plating, but the whole thing seemed to have been implemented by a dev team that had come up with something really cool while tripping on peyote, wiped off half their whiteboard by accident, then spent the next morning tearfully trying to piece their brilliant-but-passed moment back together in the midst of a truly epic hangover. Mandatory modules installed just to access the new equipment? Underground areas of little to no strategic value? Weapons that can only be reloaded under excruciatingly narrow circumstances?
Good job, guys; I can tell they're only hiring the best in creative talent these days.
Cue the Battlefield Concentration Initiative and 30-day free trial, and you have a concerted effort by the evil overlords at Sony to get people into their game. As a proponent of these trials, I gave it a shot.
It should be noted that since then, the dev team has been proposing new ways to change the game for the better; with the recent balance pass seeming to have gone off without too huge of a fuckup (except for the Terran Republic faction, which by all accounts has been cornholed beyond all comprehension of anal solidarity), the masses are in an open frame of mind. Some of these ideas are very interesting (Continental Capitols), while others are so bad you almost wish they'd go score some more peyote (Defensive Bubbles).
Not surprisingly, many of these upgrades involve making Core Combat more useful, so someone will actually buy the damn thing. I'm not surprised, of course; if I had any sense of consumer dignity left, I wouldn't be playing these stupid games to begin with.
So, what's Planetside like, all these many months later? Setting aside the Terran Republic's newfound status as the dumpster baby, the factions have approached some semblance of balance; the Vanu Sovereignty is quite a bit more capable than it was before, and the New Conglomerate are as overpowered as ever. There are the usual host of balance issues, hotly contested on messageboards that read like a cross between a special education class and a community messageboard in a Beirut kosher deli circa 1987. The developers appear to be developing a reflexive hatred of their own special frothing jackals, as well they should. People who drive over people in Magriders ('Magmowers') are routinely derided as being the sorts of gentlemen who enjoy the company of other gentlemen a tad too much.
In other words, par for the course in an MMOG.
That said, the game contains a surprising amount of pure, unadulterated amusement, thereby automatically setting it apart from its RPG brethren. This is a game that had not forgotten it is a game, where there is a little button you can press to be instantly taken to a fight, where ten minutes in a VR room gives you your first two levels for free. Whether you're launching orbital strikes with your Command Rank 5 ninja stealther, armor-busting a tank column in your Reaver, T-boning some hapless infantry in your shiny Prowler, or just shooting some guy in the face with your monstrously overpowered Jackhammer, the game contains dozens of ways to go out and kill people in an environment that doesn't know the meaning of Trammel, downtime, consent, SoW Plz, or roleplaying.
Or, as Rasputin put it so eloquently, whilst piloting a Liberator bomber as I used the bomb sights to drop hot exploding death on an unfortunate Lodestar tank transport as it struggled, whale-like, for altitude:
"This game is fucking FUN!"
Which is why I took my thirty-day trial account and signed it up for a month's worth of play. That, and shooting people is cathartic.
Gameplay 4.5/5
Minor balance issues don't stop this from being a fun game.
Aesthetics 4/5
Considering the number of people on screen, amazing.
Sounds 4/5
Servicible, sometimes interesting. Built-in voice chat sucks ass.
Value 3/5
Still not sure its worth the monthly fee over the long haul.
The Verdict 4.5/5
It's worth downloading the trial.
Come discuss the craptacularity of the Pounder MAX in our forums.
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