So, with Planetside 2 just out, what is everyone's take on the game?
I'm fairly impressed with the game's ability to make you feel like you're in a big war. I'm sure there's been quite a bit of testing done to get the scale of the map and density of outposts just right. The result is that you will often advance with other allies, while battles rage around you and overhead. And I have ended up in far more satisfying team efforts than on the much smaller maps of Battlefield games. After finally figuering out I needed an upgrade to make Sunderers into a mobile spawnpoint, I was giddy with pride as I parked one next to a biolab and watched a constant stream of players spawn and pour into the base, succesfully taking it over.
But I do have some gripes. Times of heavy lag are not unexpected in such a large open world with so many players, but are nonetheless frustrating. Capturing bases can turn into cool tense battles, but may also just consist of several minutes sitting on the cap point and waiting for the progress bar to fill. I get that the defenders should have some time to spawn and defend at the base, but it's still boring, and frustrating if an enemy spawns and shoots you in the last few moments.
Still, the above are minor gripes compared to the greatest concern I have, which will probably affect my long term interests in this game: The guns and gunplay are boring and uninspired. Despite the far-future setting, the handling of weapons is spunkgargleweewee at its finest and then some. The guns are classified under the usual catagories (Assault Rife, Sniper Rifle, LMG), with no interesting abilities that current-day guns do not have. The Vanu Sovereignity, which I've played the most, is the high-tech fraction that uses energy weapons, but they handle pretty much the same as projectile weapons except that they trade 'bullet drop' for 'damage drop'.
Worse, unlike in spunkgargleweewee where I can at least tell the guns apart and sometimes look forward to unlocking a cool looking new one, all the guns look the same. Oh, the designers did a good job in giving each faction's guns a nice unique look, but at the expense that all the weapons of a given faction require a microscope to tell apart. I can't even tell the LMG apart from the Carabines, not helped by the fact that LMGs have a clip size only slightly larger than a rifle's, in exchange for being far easier to handle on the move than a Battlefield 3 LMG. Which means the differences between the various weapon classes are about as big as the differences between weapons in a single class in a spunkgargleweewee Considering that 'unlock new weapons' is the main driving force of the level up system and the cash shot, I doubt if I'm going to care long enough.
I'm fairly impressed with the game's ability to make you feel like you're in a big war. I'm sure there's been quite a bit of testing done to get the scale of the map and density of outposts just right. The result is that you will often advance with other allies, while battles rage around you and overhead. And I have ended up in far more satisfying team efforts than on the much smaller maps of Battlefield games. After finally figuering out I needed an upgrade to make Sunderers into a mobile spawnpoint, I was giddy with pride as I parked one next to a biolab and watched a constant stream of players spawn and pour into the base, succesfully taking it over.
But I do have some gripes. Times of heavy lag are not unexpected in such a large open world with so many players, but are nonetheless frustrating. Capturing bases can turn into cool tense battles, but may also just consist of several minutes sitting on the cap point and waiting for the progress bar to fill. I get that the defenders should have some time to spawn and defend at the base, but it's still boring, and frustrating if an enemy spawns and shoots you in the last few moments.
Still, the above are minor gripes compared to the greatest concern I have, which will probably affect my long term interests in this game: The guns and gunplay are boring and uninspired. Despite the far-future setting, the handling of weapons is spunkgargleweewee at its finest and then some. The guns are classified under the usual catagories (Assault Rife, Sniper Rifle, LMG), with no interesting abilities that current-day guns do not have. The Vanu Sovereignity, which I've played the most, is the high-tech fraction that uses energy weapons, but they handle pretty much the same as projectile weapons except that they trade 'bullet drop' for 'damage drop'.
Worse, unlike in spunkgargleweewee where I can at least tell the guns apart and sometimes look forward to unlocking a cool looking new one, all the guns look the same. Oh, the designers did a good job in giving each faction's guns a nice unique look, but at the expense that all the weapons of a given faction require a microscope to tell apart. I can't even tell the LMG apart from the Carabines, not helped by the fact that LMGs have a clip size only slightly larger than a rifle's, in exchange for being far easier to handle on the move than a Battlefield 3 LMG. Which means the differences between the various weapon classes are about as big as the differences between weapons in a single class in a spunkgargleweewee Considering that 'unlock new weapons' is the main driving force of the level up system and the cash shot, I doubt if I'm going to care long enough.
