Impossibly huge in scope and scale. I can't believe that it's a free game. The fact that it's an MMO astounds me. Nowhere do I see the slightest gameplay sacrifices because of it, even though the game can support literally thousands of players in a server. This game is a gameplay gem, and a technical masterpiece. There just isn't anything else like it.

(Forewarning; I apologize for the inevitable slaughter of my format by Metacritic, huge walls of text are the only option :c) The PROS:

+The game has the largest battles to be found in any game, ever. Barring very special cases in certain strategy games (Namely, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and Total War) you will never see larger battles. It simply dwarves all contemporary games in sheer scale.

+Many of the mechanics from the original game (PlanetSide) have been completely revamped and/or replaced. It is no longer a chore to play. In fact, the gameplay is VASTLY improved, featuring full hitboxes, well-defined class roles and strategic thought simply not present before. Quite simply, its a blast

+The futuristic setting is very interesting visually and audibly. The lighting, draw distances, shadows and SFX are stunning. I especially enjoy when you fight at night, as it is one of the only modern games where the dark of night is... dark. I have a feeling you will enjoy looking at the immense star and moonscapes in awe, they're spectacular.

+ The game is Free to Play! In case you didn't know, "F2P" means "Free to Play"; Huzzuah! + There are three teams per server, as opposed to the regular two-sided fights that are the norm. This introduces an interesting dynamic with three-sided battles. Extremely fun.

+ While the factions share several things in common, notably certain vehicles and the classes, they each have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses that give you incentive to play as all three. While the lore is not particularly strong (This is an MMO after all), I suspect you will choose your first faction based on their backstory. I prefer the Vanu, being a transhumanist scum in real life.

+As goes naturally with the large player counts, the maps are enormous; expect to travel in various gunships and APC's more than on foot when trying to get from place-to-place.

The CONS:

- My primary concern with the game is the system requirements; you will require a very powerful rig to run the game at a level of 30 FPS or higher. Lower-end computers or older ones will have some problems, most notably in the larger battles. I had no problems with this, as I very recently constructed my own computer with high-end parts, but for the majority of people performance will be a factor.

- There are quite a few bugs and glitches int he game as-is; friendly tanks running you over push you into geometry, muzzle flash sometimes continues even when not firing,You spawn from a "slanted" perspective... You know, pretty typical stuff.

- Game-enders; Every now and then, you will have a CATASTROPHIC crash that may require you to disable/reset your router and modem, or at least restart your computer. These are very infrequent (I've had it happen once) but keep this in mind.

-There are some balancing issues, most relating to the MAX quasi-class/mech and to the power of air vehicles/Anti-Air weaponry.

- The "Certification" system in the game allows you to purchase weapons and other gear/perks with in-game experience. You "buy" them with things called "Certs" (Short for certifications) which are earned in gameplay for doing essentially everything. The number of Certs you need to buy some things (Notably weapons) is huge, and you earn them very slowly. I place huge emphasis on "slowly" . You can, optionally, circumvent this problem by directly buying things with real money through microtransactions, or buying a $15/month subscription (Which isn't mandatory in any way!) to increase the rate at which you earn things.

- I mentioned the lighting effects, particle effects and such earlier? Those are great, but the actual TEXTURES in the game are not particularly good, on-par with the industry standard five years ago. This is for the sake of game performance, a necessary evil, but it is still a definite weakness.

-Tutorials are very weak, you are simply thrust into the game for lack of a better term. I suggest watching youtube videos to get a grasp of the game before you play

CONCLUSION:

PlanetSide 2 is FILLED with great times to be had if you have a decent computer, all for the low, low price of $0. Keep in mind the game is somewhat hindered graphically and in terms of performance by the large player counts and huge maps, but simultaneously remember the good vastly outweighs the bad!

It gets an 8/10 - The game is superb with several minor problems and one somewhat big one. I expect the developers will support the game for years to come, so I will likely amend my score to 9/10 in the future as the performance is boosted and the bigs patched. You have nothing to lose by downloading it, just do it!… Expand

After issues starting the game, all the text was bugged and saying ##ui and i had seach for a fix... i tried to fix and crash. reboot and fix the text issue and crash again... so loaded and play for about 5 minutes and find there is no guide or idea whats going on, then it crashed again
in total i played for another hour and decided its boring, graphics are average to poor and gameplay is like bf3 with no excitement.
The only saving grace is its free and been an online game there might be some large updates which make the game interesting.
Back to BF3 for me… Expand

the only part of the development team that brought there a game was the art team game looks great but every other part of the design is flawed. after spending a month with this game i feel i would have to wright a 7 page essay for you to truly get across the depth of the flaws that scar this game and will keep it from lasting for more then 6 months the game may be "free to play" but this game is not worth your time because its not worth my time. were only in the world for so long play a game that can respect that.… Expand

Planetside 2 is not your typical CoD or BF shooter game. It has a steep, but satisfying learning curve. It does well on bringing large scale fights to the battlefield. This game is about team play, so don't think you can come in and solo everything. The game does face bugs, balancing, and optimization issues; however, they should be addressed shortly.

The TTK or "time to kill" is absurdly low; 0.49 for most guns. That's crazy for a laggy game like Planetside 2. If you don't discover the person first then you'll be dead. There isn't any time to react. This is what brings Planetside 2 down. Not to mention the fact that using the Auto Join Squad feature puts you in squads that clans use who then proceed to kick you from said squad. Crappy UI mechanics also bring Planetside 2 down.… Expand

This game is far from being completed and will likely be added to for years. What they have already is amazing, and they are constantly patching and adding more stuff. If you are not working with a group, the game is not the same honestly. If you have a full platoon of 48 people all working together? Oh my god the feeling is unmatched. The feeling of turning the tide of a major battle involving hundreds of players? It is amazing! Orders are given and things get done and it is one of the most rewarding feelings I have ever had in any game ever. The game still needs a ton of work, but it is getting better daily. It is also free to play so really, there is no reason not to try it.… Expand

Has great potential but the gun play is completely lack luster, the skill ceiling is incredibly low, and if you want to win just get a tank and spawn camp capture points before moving with the zerg to do more of the same, at the same time the other factions will be doing this elsewhere on the map. If the game was less focused on vehicles and more focused on infantry combat then it would be a step in the right direction, but as it stands at the moment the game is fun for about a week then you realise it completely lacks any depth or skill. A shame, I had high hopes for this game. Oh; I also forgot there is no anti-cheat, and if you do get banned you just make a new account and change your ip, that is right they ip ban you, oh dear as if anybody who doesn't drool on themselves can't get past an ip ban :/… Expand

A brilliant game at it's core with potential unlike any other. But as with all games, they're only as good as their worst. In Planetside 2's case, this is the controls, gun accuracy, SoE's illegal billing department, laughable iron crosshairs that miss like the gun of your barrel is bent, abundant vehicle HP and overall balance between the three different factions. As it was with P1, Terran is still the most overplayed faction to date with no xp consequences, allowing the one with an advantage achieve even greater boosts through zerging tactics. But one of the flaws that stands out the most to me is the Terran guns. All of them have an insane rate of fire which either brings out two frequent scenarios: 1. Your gun shoots so fast to the point that the server cannot keep up and 2-4 of your bullets will not be affected by the initial recoil, leaving a gun that would normally not be able to hit anything past 3 yards suddenly gain the accuracy of a sniper rifle. Or. 2. Your gun shoots so fast that the proper amount of bullets is either increased or lessened, often with a rubber-band effect, causing a yoyo effect in one's DPS. Stack these along with the constant overall lag with hitboxes and hackers (which is to be expected in a game such as PS2) and your shooting experience will be ruined most of the time. Going back to balancement, in the beta, MAX units could effectively take down aircrafts with dual AA gun attachments if they came too close or didn't spontaneously move. What did they do to resort this? Remove the weapon completely from the entire beta, relaunch a 80% hamstered version into the release and only allow 1 per arm which you'll now have to purchase for an insane amount of in-game money. All because of a whining community on the forums, crying that their ultralight scouting airplane got shot down as it was flying a few meters above enemy towers. The situation is currently much the same, Sunderers for example, a transport/spawn vehicle require roughly 6-8 rocketlauncher hits before dying and it has no weakspots, be it rear or flank. A heavy assault unit can only carry 4-5 rockets at a time (with upgrades which also require you to pay for) which means if you happen to run into an enemy Sunderer, you will not be able to take it down without an ammo-refill, even with no opposition. The game is poorly thought through&executed and even more poorly managed. Even so I hope one day they will actually confront these issues and iron them out, not just leave them to fester like in P1 but alas, SoE has not gained the reputation of being massive incompetent cu nts for nothing. R.I.P, PS2.… Expand

Really loved this game when it first came out. The persistent world, the graphics and I found it ran smoothly. However, it felt repetitive, without a sense of finale. The gunplay doesn't match up to other FPS I enjoy. Also not a huge fan of the credit of monetization model. I did purchase some weapons to give some support to the devs and for free or however much you want to pay the game is great value.… Expand

At first glance, Planetside 2 looks like what FPS fans would describe as a perfect FPS. Heaps of guns, huge maps, people running everywhere, vehicles and just generally massive scale warfare. Sadly, it is far from it, it could have been, but isn't. Planetside 2 is a game plagued with bugs that haven't been fixed, pay to win business model, especially when it comes to vehicles, optimization easily the worst I have ever seen (20-30 fps on my high end machine with every setting on dead low), disgusting textures (1997ish textures on low, impossible to play it higher), hackers everywhere with no solid attempt to overcome them (even though it is impossible to get rid of them in a F2P shooter so why bother i guess), awfully confusing UI, so bad that it actually causes performance issues, horrifically slow progression (after playing 70 hours I have unlocked 1 weapon which is the cheapest ones). Balance is pretty bad, players will never be able to be a pilot without spending money to unlock the must have items for the aircraft, and tanks can be improved as the default machine gun that most of the vehicles have are god awful. The price of the items are ridiculous, as usual with all free to play games, $15 subscriptions basically get you nothing and guns are like $7-10 dollars. Seriously, has any company actually tried selling their products at an acceptable price? Perhaps they would be more successful if they catered to people who aren't rich or have no sense of value with currency.

Planetside 2 could have easily been that amazing MMO-FPS game that fans are really wanting, but with all these horrible issues that still haven't been fixed, or even improved upon after I returned to playing Planetside 2, I am quite skeptical that this game will ever be worth your time.… Expand

Perfect thrilling game! You only must learn to fight in this game and then everything will be all right. For a newbie this game will be difficult but when you fight together with your brothers-in-arm, when you step by step will study how to win the enemy then you will receive a lot of pleasure playing this game.

NEW PLAYERS: There ARE tutorials on the game's website. They are terrifically helpful. Anyway, this game is certainly not for casual gamers. It is intense, complicated, and most importantly, requires strong teamwork skills. Also, a mic is practically a must. The graphics, while colorful, are very low res in the environment, though player models look decent., and the lighting is beautiful at times. The controls are playable, though players seem to have a slower movement speed than in most FPSes out there. This is compensated by vehicular movement and combat, which can take place at blistering speeds, especially air combat. The most stand-out feature of this game is that it is first and foremost a strategy game played at the FPS level. While you can certainly run around aimlessly shooting bad guys, that behavior is very unlikely to aid in victory. I have been in 48-player platoons as the platoon leader, ordering squads around and reading the map while trying to determine the most tactically advantageous strategy for my platoon to take to secure its objective, and had a blast. Most people follow orders well; it is not like Call-of-Duty, where no one works together and mics stay silent. It is closer to Battlefield, but with way more consistency and no time limits or spawn limits - in other words, supremely tactical. It is not about how many kills you get, it's about whether or not you can successfully attack or defend a position against enemy forces. ******* For those concerned with the micro-transaction method: Of course people who put money into the game are going to have small advantages. The game is free to players, but it certainly was not to the developers. Games don't come out of thin air, and they have to make their money somewhere. I have no problem ponying up some dough to say thank you to the game studio, and neither should anyone else. Show some gratitude with your wallet. *******… Expand

Great game that will continue to get better! Love it...while there are a few bugs that need some ironing out, this game has a bright future ahead of itself.

Not the best game, but definitely the most fun game. Actually I take that back, it's the best game.

Where is the 9.5 rating? I'll take away .5 for somewhat limited meta-game and vehicle options at release; however this is coming as the devs stated.

Massive battles.. nothing like it. All PC gamers need to give their time/money to this fantastic game.

Planetside 2 is the best MMO of the last 5 years, it is very fun and pretty and addictive, if your PC can run it I highly recommend it (I use a midrange CPU from 3 years ago and a midrange video card I bought in 2012 and I run the game on Ultra just fine)

I'm not sure where the anger comes with regard to difficulty yes, if you try to charge out of your spawn room when you're alone and 2 platoons are capturing your base you are going to have a bad time, that's how the game works, you're supposed to spawn elsewhere if you get overrun. Also, the cash shop is very reasonable given that the game is totally free to download and all weapons can be earned through gameplay. Many of the most powerful and widely used weapons, like the CARV and the SAW and MBT HEAT rounds are available by default: the SAW and HEAT Rounds in particlar have only become more popular with successive patches. There's no conspiracy by SOE to make default guns worthless… Expand

The biggest problem with Planetside 2 though is that is commits the cardinal sin of free to play games. Players that pay have a marked advantage over those who don't. Earning enough free credits for basic upgrades is agonizingly slow. If you want to play, expect to pony up some cash up front or be left in the dust.

Now to cover the other problems. Its poorly optimized. The servers aren't very good. The game looks bland on max settings. The controls aren't very tight. I've put in about 12 hours now, and every battle ends up being the exact same thing, one team corralling the other team in their base. There's no hope of a mass break out or of winning, yet the game can drag on for hours on end. The lack of any kind of tutorial is frustrating and will surely turn away casual players in droves the first time they're dropped into the middle of an active combat zone.

Players that participated in the beta are at a clear advantage with their knowledge of the maps and classes. New players are mere cannon fodder, which would be fine except for the fact that the learning curve is made steeper by the fact that those players that invested money in the game have an even bigger advantage.

Yes, the scale is impressive, but when it comes to balance and pure fun, Battlefield 3 has it beat hands down. For pure multi-player joy, CoD: Black Ops II is a much better and polished product with moments of grin inducing mayhem. And for those of you PC guys with an Xbox 360, Halo 4 multiplayer stomps PS2.

The game just feels low budget and generic. PS2 would have greatly benefitted if they had simply charged for the game up front instead of nickle and diming players.… Expand

Planetside 2 falls short of Planetside 1 in about every category, but it's still a lot of fun and the best recent shooter out there. Be advised it's poorly optimized at the moment with some netcode issues, but hopefully when those are ironed out it will be fun for everyone.

Their customer service team is responsive and fast. Haven't run into any obvious hackers yet.

Game is basically chinese grind fest. Amount playtime required to unlock even crappiest upgrades is horrendous. Game lacks auto balance, anti-cheat software and has somewhat unbalanced factions. In servers 3 sides means 1 is getting ass handed by 2 factions. So even when you get exp bonus those are worthless experience is not equivalent to bonuses you get by controlling large area of map. Game is just ripoff from working first person shooters like battlefields doesn't really add anything new to genre.… Expand

An MMO-shooter, which is good concept, but needs to be thought out more. Imagine playing WoW, but instead of starting at lvl 1 and going through questing zones and learning your class, you start at lvl 20, and are dropped into BattleGrounds and told "figure it out" while all the veterans farm you for points. And this is the beginning, middle, and end of the game. I played this game for about 4-5 hours, disliking it the whole time, but I assumed that I just hadn't found the delicious chocolate center inside this harsh, unwelcoming game. But once I realized that there was no such center, I stopped playing. So try it, it's free, but you better play with friends on skype/vent who know what's going on, or you'll be lost, confused, and free food for all the other people on skype/vent.… Expand

Promising game by SOE, maps are huge and battles have an epic feel to it (when during peak hrs). Graphics are beautiful but overall the game is marred by the following:
1) poor tutorial - after creating character game throws player into battle immediately without allowing them to even bind keys or figure out what to do.
2) bugs - flickering screen, falling thru the maps.
3) sloppy cheat detection and policing by GMs - well-known aimbot hackers are able to keep playing to ruin the game even after being reported in game and outside of game via support tickets. 4) overpriced cash shop items - 7 USD for a gun that is single class only, single character. 5 USD for a weapon skin. To earn some essential weapons (like anti air missiles or rocket pods) normally in game, need over 50hrs of playtime on average.… Expand

Best FPS i've played in a long time. Do you like large open maps? Ok, how about an entire planet?? So much better than Battlefield games, and its FREE. Totally worth at least trying it out.

If you like being frustrated and annoyed, play this game. If your sadomasochistic, spend money on this game. What I find most frustrating is the huge potential of this game, SOE just doesn't have what it takes to make this game into what it could have been, it's a shame really. I have been playing and waiting for it to deliver since the game first came out, but I have given up on PS2 and SOE.

I find it amusing the people giving this game low scores are crying it is too hard or you need to spend hours getting the 'good' weapons. I have been playing this game for a while now and still haven't spent a cent and manage to more than hold my own. If you came from a COD background then this game is definitely too hard for you it involves tactics and skill. Battlefield players will feel much more at home and the depth of customisation is a breath of fresh air in this game genre. The large scale battles and varying roles you can play make for some great extended gaming sessions and unique battles. Having a mike is essential as there is no time to type and noone pays attention to the typers anyhow. The only issue is the same as with most other online games gen i jerkoffs who think they are gods gift polluting the airwaves with their ridiculous dribble.… Expand

Where to even begin? Well, it's buggy, laggy, poorly optimized, and completely imbalanced.

"Oh, it's got it's problems, sure," the other reviews say. "But it's all worth it for the huge glorious battles!" Those don't happen. Sure, you'll have ~100 people one one side of the battle, attacking in a giant convoy of vehicles. And they'll dominate the half a dozen brave souls who try to defend, rather than joining their attacking teammates. Who are on another continent. Because enemy numbers are lower there.

See, the whole "huge world" thing sounds good on paper, but in actuality it just encourages most people to take the path of least resistance. Battles are always lopsided, and the attackers always win because they have more people.

Now, ignoring all that, let's assume for the moment that this is actually a good game, rather than a bad game. A good game does deserve to be paid for, even if it's a free-to-play that borders on pay-to-win. However, Planetside 2 goes far beyond pay-to-win; it's more like "pay-a-substantial-amount-to-be-good-at-a-single-class-or-vehicle."

In short: complete garbage with no redeeming characteristics. I have nothing good to say about this game.… Expand

No other game quite like it, 2000 players on a seamless continent makes for some amazing massive battles which can sometimes last for hours. On top of that the game is free, of course there is a cash shop, but all weapons can be earned through gameplay and are made to be 'sidegrades' rather than just power increases.

It can take a while to get a handle of it, there's a lot to take in and finding out where you need to go on such massive continents can sometimes be difficult for new players. It all pays off though, well worth a download.… Expand

Free to play alone sells this game, but add to it high production values, massive maps, huge player counts, one of the most complex perk upgrade systems in any game i've seen, good graphics... the only real weak spot of the game is floaty controls but other than that, it's a must have for any PC gamer.

AS a PS1 player it wasn't hard for me to get into PS2, and its by far a better game from the get go. The game runs pretty smooth for me and its got to be one of the most beautiful games to date, especially for how many players can be active at one time. It tops all multiplayer games in epicness. Its got its issues, but what new game doesn't, especially in the mmo department. The vehicles could be better but I feel I cannot judge them as you have to unlock so much potential which leaves me to this: I would rate it a 10/10 if it weren't for the FTP system. I think this game should have had a price tag and FTP system for cosmetics, but the unlocks take far to long to unlock and I'm not a fan of spending cash on items I don't even know if I will like. But for the base free game, spend a few dollars and you can have a butt load of fun in battles larger than anything you will see in that **** COD game.… Expand

Let's get straight to the point here. PS2 isn't even remotely close to a finished product. As things stand, it's effectively a large scale FPS sandbox in which the primary objective appears to be kill farming. Territorial control is currently borderline meaningless, resources (used to acquire vehicles and consumables) are sufficiently plentiful as to mean you're unlikely to run out, and the need to actually work as a team (as opposed to merely being in the same place as other players) is entirely non-existent. Chuck in the lack of any sort of sense of victory and defeat beyond one's own deaths and the overall feeling that comes along with PS2 is one of "why am I doing this?". So, why give it 5/10 and not a lower mark? Well, it's got potential, and in terms of development SOE have done the "hard bit", so with a bit of effort on SOE's part PS2 could turn into something decidedly compelling and unique over time.… Expand

This game is massively overrated, this game is rushed as hell, giving the devs less time to weave out the massive imbalances and bugs. The RPGs are equivalent to Nerf Water guns, the Max is unfair to play as and against, players are complete **** it's just a mess. Though the maps are nice, and what is does well, it does really well, not to mention it's a guilty pleasure.

Never played PlanetSide but heard wonderful things about it. Gave this a try while seeking something to replace Tribes Ascend. Needless to say the game did not live up to the hype. The gorgeous sprawling environments do not make up for a complete and utter lack of direction as it pertains to basic objectives within the game. Having logged a few hours I can say with reasonable certainty that I have no idea who is on what team, why they're all shooting at each other, or even if we are winning. Confusion of this level is only compounded by the terrible vehicle controls, counterintuitive interfaces at terminals, and frustrating lack of instruction regarding basic class advantages and disadvantages. I have no doubt that all of this will see its way into a future patch (should the game survive long enough) but one has to wonder why PlanetSide 2 was released at all as it is so obviously unfinished.… Expand

I had low expectations for this game because it was free to play. First impressions were 'damn this is hard...'. There's a steep learning curve and no tutorial as such, just jump in and fight to survive. And I died a lot. My next reaction was the indoor environments are kinda bland, although outdoors it's quite picturesque. I reckon I need better graphics card than the GTX 260 SLI I have to enjoy this game. Another thing is that there is no engaging storyline that I've grown to expect from these sort of FPS games. You are just dropped into the action and left to deal with it. However where this game outstrips every other sort of FPS in terms of scale. The maps are huge and battles can involve 2 to 100 individual units, from infantry to heavy armour, to air all in the scene at once. This is a phenomenal technical achievement. Additionally the squad command facilities are better than those I've seen in previous games. As a result stories form organically, and battle scenes that would be scripted in a COD game, evolve in Planetside out of the natural process where a group of humans have to complete an objective, defined by their platoon leader, like defend a base or capture a point. There's massive potential here for more to explored in terms of player coordinated squad based gameplay and Planetside has barely scratched the surface but has given us a taste of what things could be like.… Expand

Gameplay wise the game is great. Sure there may be some balance issues especially concerning the infantry vs vehicles part, but in general it plays very nicely. Battles lasting through day and night cycles are something I've personally enjoyed the most. But there are some problems not related to the gameplay itself that prevent the game from being truly good. The first one is the last of ANY tutorial, lack of ANY explanation of what all the icons means, lack of ANY objective information for the player which left me simply disoriented for first few hours. Sure, once you figure it out, the game becomes much better, but seriously I'm probably not the only one with this problem considering a very small subset of players who actually follows the objectives rather than mindlessly shoot each other. The second, and in my opinion - much more important - issue is the F2P model. The game was being advertised as not being Pay2Win game, which after a couple of hours becomes an obvious lie. Everything in game starting with abilities, weapons, mods, vehicle stuff, cosmetics, etc. is unlocked with a single currency you gain while playing the game. Now the problem is that on average you make about 25-30 credits per hour (about 1 credit per 4 kills) and upgrading a single perk to max level costs about 1500 credits - that's about 60 hours of gameplay for one perk on a single class on a single character. New weapon? No problem, 700-1000 credits + 200 credits for the mods. As you can see fully unlocking a single class takes about an eternity. This means that you end up buying weapons for 7-9$ each which is yet another misunderstood implementation of the MICROtransactions model. If this was a $60 priced title it would score at least 8 (because of the lack of initial tutorial and some game balance issues), but thanks to the greedy, falsely advertised payment model the rating does down to 3.… Expand

This is the best free FPS I have ever played. If your looking for a shooter and your tired of COD and BF3 you should definitely give this game a try. : )

Sorry but having to pay $7 for a single weapon for a single class that doesn't even look unique but is only a complete copy design-wise just isn't acceptable.

I read the first negative review I saw (from bi0mech81) and quite frankly everything the said has no bearing... Im sorry your terrible at playing a average difficulty FPS/MMO but the game cant help you there. Snipers are not a real problem, go heavy and thrown on a shield expose them and kill them. Tanks are what they are for power... they cost an ingame currency to buy to keep players from repeatedly spawning tanks to use. If you spawn in the middle of tank fight as a new person, SPAWN ELSEWHERE since it is actually impossible to have a spawn point ONLY in a battle as every team has a "safe zone" area so you cant be "pushed off" the map. This game is HUGE with thousands of players in a map, if a medic could heal a heavy and keep him alive under fire the game would be incredibly imbalanced. As a medic healing will ALWAYS get you xp if you sustain it to do the other player any good just flashing them a quick heal with your heal gun doesnt help them and hence wont reward you. When I started this game I did spawn into a battle and died a few times but quickly figured most things out. To start my game I went with a heavy player since they have a large clip and a shield to further increase tanking ability. The game is incredibly fun and open, the weapon/armor/vehicles can all be customized with different attachment etc to a depth even better than battlefield. There is a learning curve, it took me probably 3 hours or so to get all of the major gameplay aspects down and I would consider myself an average FPS guy, far from expert. Part of the beauty of a game like this is the sheer numbers required to make big differences in the game, sometimes in a large battle you will get killed with little you can do to prevent it (save hiding) just due to the number of crosshairs pointing back at your large group of soldiers assaulting a particular location. No single player of any skill level can capture a defended zone by himself because the game is so big everything significant will require a sustained effort from many individuals and that makes this game a hell of alot of fun in my opinion.… Expand

This game is a ripoff of the Battlefield franchise if it was to be turned into a MMO. You can get the MMO feeling every second you play this game. This game suffers from low production quality and poor optimization. Also I personally believe that the mircotransaction system is extremely tedious and annoying. I would rather pay the 110$ I payed for BF3 (+ premium) than waste my precious time on a game that is a huge uninspired world that has no goal and purpose to exist.… Expand

This game is a fun Free 2 Play game and will cost you nothing to experience battles that range across a huge continents. At first this game was really addicting, but on the second day of playing it dawned on me to stop.... I will explain why later. The game is like the Battlefield series, but on a grander scale. Which immediately stood out for me. The game is free and will cost you nothing to get into. Also the range of weapons and modifications and upgrades are huge. But, after about 8 hours of game-play is became apparent to me that this game is the pinnacle of Pay-2-Win concept games. In order to progress and upgrade your character (Which at starting your weapons and abilities are so crappy.) You need to earn what is called cert points. This is fine and okay. But, what SOE decided to do with these cert points is beyond me besides an attempt to push you to buy Cash Points. After 8+ Hours of play time I only accumulated about.. 80 Cert points. ALL upgrades require cert points... so there are NO weapons that can be gained otherwise. So in 8 hours I get 80 cert points... 10 points per hour and each item/gun costs about 500-1000+ cert points... do the math. You will find yourself constantly being killed by high level players who payed to win to get the best weapons and upgrades. Progression is horribly slow and such a grind if you intend on playing without paying. The game is playable and fun, the graphics are 'Meh' at most and still suck up a lot of GPU juice. But, I can't have fun in a game no matter how fun it is in a Pay-2-Win environment. I also wont spent 2-3 weeks of playing nothing but Planetside 2 like a job just to buy 2-3 weapons or upgrades. Making you eager to pay money to buy cash points just to speed things up.… Expand

I wanted to like the game but, sadly, it comes short at a bit of points. 1st up, you will die. A LOT. VERY EASY.
2nd, snipers will kill you. A LOT. VERY EASY. This is very annoying as it seems a lot of players do nothing but sit on roofs and shoot at everything that moves, meaning that as soon as you walk outside of a building, you're a dead man. One of the gazillion enemy snipers will 1 shot you.

There is hardly any strafing as you won't hit anything without aiming and when you aim you move really slow and can't strafe.

Something else annoying is that you walk quite a lot to get to the fight, provided a sniper doesn't kill you on the way there, and then die in 2 seconds.… Expand

I'd give the game a 7.5 out of 10 just because the game seems rushed and unfinished. It has a lot of potential later on, but I don't see the game doing very well unless they start working hard to fix the numerous problems in the game. From ridiculously poor optimization, bugs, lack of a tutorial, borderline pay2win, no story or lore to dig into for your factions, it makes this game hard to recommend to anyone in it's current state.… Expand

Planetside 2 is an FPS MMO. And right from the get-go the player is thrown into a conflict on a huge map that is divided up in sectors. Each sector offers the team he plays for (there are three teams to choose from, each with a different look) an advantage and the player is tasked, along with everyone else to either hold or capture a sector with the use of six different play-able classes and several vehicles that can be spawned. There is an item store but it seems that so far, all of the items can be unlocked by simply playing the game. I've never played anything like this before but I could best describe it as Battlefield 2142 meets APB: Reloaded and not just because they're both exciting games but also because they're rather buggy. Planetside 2 can be horribly laggy, flickering screens will force you to quit the game and start it up again and you'll find other people rubberbanding all over the place . The launch wasn't exactly easy either but Sony fixed the problem and it seems like EU players can play now. There are plenty of people on-line and there is more teamwork going on than I would have expected from a free MMO despite people still learning the ropes. This is one of the few times that I genuinly like a free-to-play game and I think it might have a future if they get to work on the performance issues and graphical glitches. If you're an FPS fan and love large scale combat and vehicles, you'll want to check out PlanetSide 2. Just don't expect a tutorial or storyline. The former doesn't exist and the latter is restricted to an extremely brief story told after you create a new character. As I have quit playing the game due to its highly repetitive nature, dwindling server populations (rendering certain continents completely unplayable) and Sony's lack of response to these issues I have lowered the score to 5 (from 8). Planetside 2 was a good idea but it was poorly executed. All that awaits now are server mergers and eventually, cancellation.… Expand

4/10 - has potential but is just frustrating. No orientation or clear objective, nothing to acclimatize the player to the controls or HUD, just pick a class and shoot things. Less than thirty seconds after entering the game for the very first time I was shot by a level 30+ player I couldn't see. In fact I spent the majority of my two hours in-game in a near-rage being killed by higher-level players with better equipment who I couldn't even touch because starter equipment I had did as much damage as a water pistol. Constantly re-spawning and dying is not my idea of fun, thanks.… Expand

The PS2 isn't to bad for a F2P. Graphics are... ok could be better but whatever and they are doing pretty good with bug fixes. Big battles are pretty fun I have to say. I do hope they change a few things. Sometimes it just feels like you just zerg areas and why not they don't really reward you for defending a point. Why would you defend a point other than to just shoot enemies. Now if lets say point A would give you the ability to spawn air craft (like the 1st PlanetSide) unlike now when you can do it from day one. I think maybe the battles would be more... meaningful? Or maybe just boasts like extra ammo or faster travel speeds? Also the constant Nerf to items (IE hill climb which I don't know if its broken or a Nerf to he honest) Yes I know it happens but they should refund cert if that do major changes like this. Maybe I'm just not a F2P kinda gamer. But for a F2P game it's a good time with friends.… Expand

Before you even start playing this game, bear in mind this is a pay to win game. Sure, you *can* obtain everything in game (that's not cosmetic) by experience points (and therefore certification points). But it would take you an immeasurable amount of time to do it. Second, lag, lag LAG. Enemies will teleport around while they fight you, so sometimes it's pointless as you get pummeled out of nowhere (yes I got 22mbps fiber). Queues - sometimes the queues will get bugged and you'll be waiting all night, though to be fair you won't have to wait for queues for the most part. Don't let me get started on flying vehicles. Noobs - not to blame them, there is barely any guide on where to go at the beginning of the game, so most seem to be lost and you rarely get coordinated mass assaults of the sorts. Weapons - the weapons are just retarded. Using default snipers is just rage inducing, I know about leading the crosshair and bullet fall, but it's very hard to hit people. Sniper sway... All in all the thing that pisses me off is all of the huge advantages paid characters will have (pay to win model) and the rage inducing gameplay. I know it's a successful model for Sony and they wouldn't have it other way, but I wonder if they could do something like Valve's Dota, where you win by skill, not upgrades - you only get cosmetic paid upgrades. You may like or hate it, so by all means give it a try. Then decide- it's "free to play" after all.… Expand

Great idea, poor execution. Overall, it's not a bad game, and it's pretty fun to play (but only if you have friends to play it with -- playing solo is significantly less entertaining due to how the game is structured). It is HUGELY demanding on your PC, even high-end gaming rigs like my own still sometimes struggle handling this game (not due to lack of PC power, but rather due to lack of optimization in the game itself). I'm the type of person who enjoys options and variety -- sometimes I feel like playing an engineer type, sometimes a medic, etc. But in PS2 you would need to shell out HUNDREDS of dollars in order to have "decent" gear for your characters. Focusing on a single character with a focused skill(s) would be expensive by itself, but you can forget about having multiple characters and any sort of variety in your options without shelling out cash. They have definitely gone as far as they could when it comes to milking players for their money. However, the battles in this game can be very huge, intense and downright amazing at times. But expect yourself to pay, either in huge amounts of invested time, or huge amounts of invested cash, in order to really experience this game to it's full potential.… Expand

This is a great concept. poorly implemented. Pay to win feel but that's typical of F2P shooters. Biggest complaint is that battles are too large. Great idea in large scale battles, but cutting the maps into a 4th of their size would make combat more consistent. Instead you get a long period of firefights followed by monotonous base capturing without resistance because the other team is off doing something else. Capturing bases also feels way too long sometimes, my whole team stood at an enemy free base to capture it. Took 15mins of us standing around. The shooter mechanics are cool, but some of the classes feel strange. Only the heavy assault and medic feels right, all the others feel underpowered and the Max is way too beefy. Definitely worth a try, and I love how ambitious the developers were. Still, Blacklight and even Tribes:Ascend are better, albeit less original, F2P FPS games.… Expand

Free-to-play and MMOs are not my thing. I'm not able to invest much time in the game to get all the fancy stuff. And I do not want to spend money on the fancy stuff either. The game is not for casual gamers who want to shoot stuff for an hour or two and who do not like to get ripped apart by players who can invest more time. You always depend on finding an organised group so you have at least some effect on the battle. The massive scale of the battle makes you feel insignificant unless your team does everything right. Finding such a team is hard and unexperienced/casual players are more likely to get kicked from a well organised squad. And there is no real objective - no goal to achieve for casual gamers other than to fight for sectors and resources. Capturing an entire continent takes days. So this game is not for me. And I hope, the Battlefield series will continue to offer me a better home.… Expand

Incredibly addictive. Just as I thought I'd finally "grown up" and stopped playing PC games for good, Planetside 2 comes out and I find myself completely immersed in the gameplay. This game takes advantage of my decent PC hardware, so I am able to max out all settings and WOW the game really does look incredibly beautiful. At night, playing as Vanu, I see my empire mates' tank shells fly and they cast a blinding bright light that itself casts shadows as it wheezes by. I do have a deep concern about this game, though, which is why I've lowered my score from 10 to 8. It's addictive today, it'll be addictive tomorrow, .. but unlike some other sci-fi MMOs like, say, EVE Online, Planetside 2 really has absolutely no depth. There's no point in the chaotic fighting, except to just fight. After seeing my empire capture entire continents now four or five times since the game's launch (this review comes just a week or to after launch) I'm certain I'm going to get bored by the fact that there really is no point. Capturing a continent gets you bonus spending "money" for vehicles and aircraft, but there's no other real point. There's certainly no real story; I've come across a couple hack story ideas (some from Sony) on forums and blogs but there really is no story within the game, you're just out there fighting and respawning, ad nauseum.

There's also no real point in which empire you choose other than favorite music and colors. They're all pretty much the same. Oh, there are variations in vehicle speeds and power, but Sony played it very safe here on the balancing act and trying to keep all factions equal.

The shooter side of the game is solid, if sometimes a little bit plastic. Usually not, but sometimes I feel like I'm using a toy gun from Wal-mart. Sometimes the sound is weak and damage effect is light. The sniper rifle and the shotgun, for example, have no oomph, I suppose the sound engineers must not have very good speakers because I have studio monitors and these feel thin.

Overall, this is a fun game and being free it's definitely worth a shot. I would compare it best to Tribes: Ascend but on a much, much larger map scale in a persistent universe of equally absent meaning.… Expand

Most of the people that gave this game a poor score have not a PC that manages to run it properly. This is a fact. You need a high-end machine to appreciate this awesome MMOFPS to whom I can't find any real lack, a part a bit of lacking content. Its gameplay is fun and immersive and it just needs more development. Since it is fullt free to play I cannot give it anything less than a top score.

The concept of this game blew me away, I couldn't imagine such a great idea! The Graphics are so impressive, the World is so big and there are so many players. The gameplay is great aswell, it's similiar to a lot of other games out there but when that gameplay meets that big scale, then it just... Dies, litteraly dies. I hate running for 5 to 10 minutes just to get killed when I even get to the fight. The big World and the gameplay doesn't really fit, if you love to fight. Oh, and about those fights, then the classes you can play are so unbalanced, it's crazy. I know they all got some pros and cons which is good, but it isn't balanced enough. The conclusion: It's a game with great potential, putting all those great aspects together, but not all those great Things fit together, which is sad, when I really want to love the game.… Expand

You play for 4 hours to capture or defend a base, next day its lost again. yes the battles are epic but it all seems so pointless. Air dominates, spawn camping gets frustrating. pay 2 win scheme. it was fun for a week but i'll be moving on to games with actual progress

Pros: Free. Graphics. Scale. Vehicles. Teamwork. Base designs.
Cons: Repetitive. Guns. Lag. Lots of traveling. Pay 2 Win. Pointless.

To sum it up... this game is a lot of fun if you just want to login to shoot other people and try to find the next big battle. It would be more rewarding if trying to level up wasn't so painfully slow. Also, the gun mechanics feel terrible. With the terrible recoil every gun has in combination with lag, you'd be lucky if 5% of your shots landed on your target. Luckily, this game is free and looks amazing... and when you actually have a large group that communicates and knows what they are doing the game is much more enjoyable.… Expand

Yeah this game is pretty overhyped. It was a poor choice to take on such extreme graphics for a F2P game. It looks great, but runs like trash. The scaling in reduction of graphical settings is subpar at best. This leaves anyone with a mid to entry level gaming rig excluded from enjoying this game. The gameplay is a whole different story. The map is a **** giving you so much information you cant process what is going on. There is no clear objective as to where you should be headed or going unless you are in a squad and receiving orders from another player. The scale of the game is questionable at best. The game draws heavily from the Battlefield series, but fails to deliver a controled mechanism for preventing an all out **** to occur. I have found myself kill spawned over and over and over. I have found myself spawning in a group of friendlies only to be pinned down by superior enemy forces. There really is no protection or passive base defenses. Aside from this the battles can last for hours, or dare I say days? This kind of scaling isnt fun for the average gamers, if you cant sit down and accomplish something significant in a 30-60 minute period, than the game development has been designed to accomodate a niche group of hardcore players. All in all Planetside 2 really has some potential for further development. The scale of the game and the sheer rigorous pacing of the game will turn many players off.… Expand

Planetside 2 is a very good game. the graphics are phenomenal, the controls feel tight and the sheer scale of the game is just astonishing. it's like playing 30 battlefield 3 matches at once in an area part of a gigantic continent in the world of Auraxis. The hit detection is also remarkable and the gunplay is very tight which would make any FPS fan squeal with joy. But since the game requires a lot of teamwork, i felt that finding friends could've been more simpler. Also, the game feels a bit unfinished, for example, the "Basic training" tutorial videos should've been part of the game instead of being only on their youtube channel which is inconvenient because the game is very complex and it makes you think that the developers were just lazy and didn't think about the newcomers for Planetside 2. But overall, Planetside 2 is an uncut diamond, it's not perfect and it feels a bit unfinished but if the developers shape it and polish it, then everyone will see the real beauty of Planetside 2.… Expand

If you have a good gaming PC that can handle the rendering of hundreds of players and like shooters like Battlefield 3 you owe yourself to play this game. I am completely 100% addicted to it and thing this game is a one of a kind experience.

I was extremely excited for planetside 2 after hearing so many great things about it and watching all the videos, after playing it for roughly 10 hours excitement turned into disappointment. First thing players will notice is the massive scale of the game, 3 huge continents with hundreds of players battling over bases is amazing, the graphics are also quality and will require a powerful rig to even play the game at medium settings, but in the gameplay is where the game falls short. For starters there is no tutorial, the game already has a steep learning curve and the lack of help is enough to turn players off from the get go. The mouse sensitivity is way to high and even after turning it all the way down makes it difficult to aim, since it requires persistent aiming rather than COD style twitch aiming, the poor hit detection, shoddy animations and the fact that you have to hit a player 10-15 times to kill them makes the game extremely annoying and takes away the fun that could be had with it. The guns also feel floaty and seem like they do very little damage. The developers also claim this is a free to play game which is not true, players that pay have a clear advantage over non-paying players as they can buy better guns, gear and armor and those that subscribe have bonus perks like extra xp and cert points; which is the games currency. Playing without paying could take a huge amount of time to unlock a new gun or even weapon attachments making the game even less fun. The game could have been brilliant, the scope is massive and unseen before, giving the player land and air vehicles, skills, huge amount of customizable weapons and objectives. But going up against players that shed money is frustrating considering they are much better equipped than you are. If you are curious to find out for yourself i recommend trying it considering the game is free to download, but if you are after a solid team based shooter for a one off payment giving you everything at your disposal, stick to battlefield 3.

Pros:
+ massive scale with hundreds of players
+ massive maps with heaps of bases to fight over
+ looks amazing on a powerful machine
+ large amount of weapons, vehicles and items Cons:
- play to win
- very slow gameplay
- frustrating aiming and shoddy hit detection
- lack of tutorial and steep learning curve will turn off gamers
- takes too long to unlock gear without paying
- weak gun play and weapons feel wake and similar… Expand

If you are a CoD child, dont bother. You will die a lot, and will whine and cry, because you are used to no-skill tiny corridor shooters.

If you like larger size games, vehicle gameplay and tactics, this is the game for you. Children who are easily frustrated and think they are 'super leet' need not apply. Read the negative reviews here to see how idiotic you have to be to dislike the game. Basically every bad review is a butthurt 12 year old.… Expand

The core gameplay is fun, albeit with a few annoyances. The epic scale with smooth gameplay is very impressive. The game is addicting and causes time to fly by.

Pros: Massive scale, very fun, extremely team oriented. VOIP communication is critical for tactical gameplay. Play the way you want. Support classes are totally viable. Air combat is amazingly fun.

Cons: The business model. Free to play, but takes 6 months at 25 hours a week to max just one infantry and one vehicle. Subscribers who have bought a few weapons and boosts can do that in 3 weeks. Costs maybe $50 + $15 a month. Simply put, infrequent free players are going to be at a disadvantage. The game is definitely designed to sucker people into buying station cash. I have already spent $180 on the game and have a moderate advantage over new players, but hopefully that advantage will fade after 6 months or so.

The graphics do not appear to be state of the art because the ultra setting was removed from the game at the very end of beta due to stability issues. The game is not multithreaded, which is a big problem for people with slower CPUs or even high end AMD CPUs. i5 and i7 CPUs are required to have satisfactory framerates on high settings. CPU clock speed directly affects framerates (GPU not so much), so overclockers benefit a lot.

The annoyances to which I was refering are the invulnerable shield spawn locations where stalemate battles may continue for often 30 minutes at a time. I find these annoying and they are the epitome of spawning camping. You can literally die 20 times in 5 minutes to spawn camping. Some people like this, but I hate it.… Expand

I love the concept of the game but the implementation is sorely lacking. First and most important for any online game. LAG. The game is just lag ridden. I understand there is always going to be some lag in games but when I can play Battlefield 3 on ultra with no lag, I should at least be able to play PlanetSide 2 on low with no lag. NOPE. It is a great concept, an ongoing war between 3 factions. It is like a futuristic ARMA without going overboard on the realism. If not for the lag I would rate the game much higher. As it is, it is almost unplayable if you are interested in actually aiming.… Expand

I'm giving this game a 10 to counter balance all the scorers who have given it a 0 cause their machines suck. That being said in reality this game is a solid 8, it has its faults, and can be glitchy at times, but if you are an FPS fan you will get an experience in PS2 that no other game in this generation will be able to touch. It is also NOT pay to win, some the the upgrades in the planes may be a little OP or need a tune, but this isn't anywhere close to being pay to win, so Ignore those idiots as well. Plus how can you give a 0 to something that is FREAKING FREE!… Expand

At times Planetside 2 feels like the best game I've played in a long time, but then all the little and not always so little things kick sand in my eyes reminding me why I also sometimes hate the damned game so much. I've been playing PS2 since closed beta.

People who like combined arms tactics and large fights with infantry, vehicles and air will most likely like this game if there computers can handle the stress, that said PS2 is not a light game, to run the game properly with high settings in all fights even those ~2000 player ones at 30fps or more, you'll need a proper i5/i7 system coupled with a descent graphics card HD7xxx series or GTX6xx series.

Being a MMOFPS it means the game is in a constant state of development, more content is being added, old content revamped redone. Stuff removed, or just plain moved around, stats tweaked. Weapons nerfed, others boosted, and so on. This is the stuff that might annoy the non MMO crowd who came for the FPS part and who might not be used to stuff being in a constant state of flux.

Each update adds, stuff, changes stuff and fixes bugs, adds new ones, changes old bugs into new ones, etc. So yea be in a MMO mindset and don't expect stuff to be ever constant and you might enjoy the game a lot. And as always in MMO's the community/players are the true content of the game, no NPC fights (yet) in the game so everyone and every vehicle you fight is another human being somewhere on the globe.… Expand

This game has a great premise, but unless you wanna shell out money in the cash shop, you'll never get anywhere... I'm all for pay2play, but not pay2win. Plus, getting team killed by frustrated beginners or douchey vets its a pain in the ass; and don't even get me started on the lag... It's not horrible... but it feels like a game thats still in beta.

Piece of go play Quake Live. Still mostly waiting around to capture ****ty barrier and "restricted area" Gameplay is dull and repetitive.

I've now played Planetside 2 since release and have come to a conclusion.
Planetside 2 sucks.
Its not your regular sucking though, its an accumulation of issues that makes this game unenjoyable, tedious and down right rotten at times.
The decisions by the staff are mind bogglingly stupid and don't seem to take into account a long term picture of the game but rather short-term profit min-maxing.
I would not recommend buying anything from the store as half of the gear and items are broken or will/have been changed since release. As an example, lock-on launchers from the store have been changed to not be able to be dumb-fired anymore, destroying any sense of utility they previously held.
Horns for vehicles were recently added for ~6$ a pop as a "micro transaction", funny thing is they don't even work when you equip them.
The game is a total mess, its full of hackers, lag, draw-distance exploits, bugs, and crashes. The game should have been released in a year.
Not to mention there isn't even anything to do in the game beyond shooting dudes in the face while running.
The gameplay is so incredibly basic that even Battlefield 2 had more variety to it than Planetside 2 does. Spawn, cap a base, move on, cap another base, get rolled by the zerg, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, log out, repeat next day.
Once the novelty of seeing 100 tanks wears off the game is nothing more than Call Of Duty with vehicles (badly controlling vehicles).
There are a thousand things wrong with the game, at the very basic level, and I could go on forever, but the conclusion is simply this: It sucks, and its not going to get better.… Expand

Large battles featuring up to 2000 players per continent and is a complete blast, never had so much fun with an online FPS in my whole gaming-life PlanetSide 2 is awesometacular

It's fun. But be warned: you need a RIG to play this. On low settings with a good PC you'll still be at 20-30 fps. If your PC is outdated don't bother. The minimum requirements for this are not even close. ...As far as the game, It's just TDM. There's nothing really epic about it. --It'll feel epic at first. Give it a week though.

Uninspired levels, horrid sound, boring bland weapons, lag lag lag lag and altogether wasted untapped potential that is just a few of the things that planetside 2 suffers from. Don't waste you're time with this atrocity until the developers pull up their pants, sew their heads back on, lace up their work boots and realise that just because you make it free it doesn't mean that you can spoon feed people crap and that you actually still have to make an effort...… Expand

approach with caution.
Not a bad fps, but its got faults. Its very zergtastic, you wont often get into big battles, people just endlessly zerg undefended bases. And whilst there is supposedly pop control, there is no population balance on continents, meaning that each continent tends to eb dominated by one faction.
Air is stupidly overpowered, and ground based AA is pathetic. And cert prices for weapons is very very steep. It is bordering on P2W.

However, if you can get a decent infantry battle going on in a Tech/amp/biolab or such, then this game shines. but endemic hacks is ruining it right now, speed hacks, wall hacks, aimbots....and no anti-hack program to stop it.

Couldbe a great game, but SOE need to get a handle on balance and hacks asap.… Expand

I would like this game. If it wasn't so much pay to win. Say, you want a gun so you play for 5 hours straight and then you get it (only if you play good) BUT if you have the money, you buy expensive credits and get the gun instantly. Game should be called Pay 2 Winside 2

As of now, i have played it for about 6-7 hours. I like the graphics, i like the big maps. What i dont like is the gameplay and the difficulty. I was trown into the game with absolutely NO idea what to do. I ran around trying to find people to shoot, did not find anyone because i did not even know where my teammates where. When i finally found someone to kill, i got some points and immidiatly went to buy and air vehicle, which took me about 10 minutes to find a place to buy it, and then crash into the ground a second later. Overall, i like the idea, but the fact that it is so very hard to know what to do, i found a game that just trew me into the unknown… Expand

It is a shame that it is released too quickly, you can definitely spot a lot of thing that are wrong with the game at this point, but whatever the case, i feel like this game deserves to do well, i wasn't sure if an FPS and MMO mixed together would work, but i was luckily very wrong, it's so good,

Many other reviews will have more detail on the maps (huge), lack of goals (none), mouse sensitivity (need a gamepad or game-mouse, standard mouse will be too sensitive), graphics (high settings for me, looks fine, the grey-blue hue planet is not great, I much prefer the green/desert one, but not bad either way, would prefer forests and lakes myself for a smaller map size). And it has to get a 6 simply because it is free to play, and is fun for an hour or 2 at a time. Although it is free, in actuality you will need to spend money to do well at it, or be prepared to grind for days and days to get upgrades. The question is, I've paid for items in other MMOs, so would I pay for anything here? No, not at this time. If a future version came out that had the following, I would, but for now, it's the lack of these the make the game passive only: 1) Goal setting on a map scale. For example, an omnipresent general says I need 10 teams of 10 players to take this goal now, hit X to join. Once you start, the opposite omnipresent general tells his side, I need all players in sector N to close up and defend this point. This goal quest is every 15 minutes or so per sector. If I want a war feel, that means including generals making and delivering orders. 2) A fixed price that gets me everything, even if I have to build up XP in a reasonable time to unlock it all. 3) Smaller but more beautiful scenery. 4) Better MMO guild and team management, perhaps outside of the battle. 5) Better backstory. Whilst logging in, show the overall faction stats, what can be done next to increase faction reputation, how many are doing it, and how to join. (for example, if we take sector X, we get a 5% bonus to blah). 6) lastly, Item upgrades for XP and for how many specific quests (points 1 & 5) you join. With all these, I think we'd have a great game that I would pay for, but for now, I'll enjoy my f2p hour a day.… Expand

Key points ~ It's a shooter, and a persistent world. You can play any class at any time and optimize as you see fit . It has ground vehicle/infantry/aircraft mixture. It is a strategy game, caveat being it's largely MMO shooter based .. so can tend be be fairly random as to it's nature. Sometimes this emergence is fun, sometimes it's frustrating and defeating.

This is not a pay to win game. This is not a free to play game either in a sense of fairness, there are basic weapons you will want to buy.

this is a grind game, so in the initial start for instance very few .. very very few have even optimized a single class the way they see fit. You have to grindand even a scope may take you a couple hours to work toward. Advatage unanimously goes to the game whales, this means people paying money will be better off buying farmed characters than paying for gold (I don't recommend either the game is actually fun). The most disconcerting thing in this game is the sheer rockface of farming that ust happen to achieve, it is likely to create a very selective player base .. which has nothng to do with "what" type of game they prefer .. but what a couple hoursof your freetime a night will profit an average player.

This game is a descendent of tanarus and then planetside 1 both of which came out over 10 years ago.
The strategy and fun is still there even while farming for weapon upgrades ect. But the whales will have a significant advantage maybe 20% over the new guy .

I give this game an 7- 8 (going with 8 for now under benefit of doubt) for 2 reasons mainly ~ too many indistinguishable hacks/glitches, and 2 much farming. Otherwise I would give this game a 9 for it's creative / sandboxy feel and gameplay. This is also a very difficult game, in the sense a new player is going to have a rough time trying to get their feet in~ which is fine. But because it's bot farmy and difficult I think 2 strikes will not attract new players .. but rather only game abuses.… Expand

I hate it when I see people try to compare games like this to black ops or halo. We live in an age where people want to be great at a game from the start, instead of investing time into a game that requires some skill. I wonder what these people would have rated such classic games such as Team Fortress Classic, which had such a high skill curve that beginners would be demolished for a couple of weeks before learning some of the more difficult ways of moving around. When I first started playing I was so happy that the game lacked the super accurate Iron Sights of COD, that the scale of the game was massive, and that each faction was unique. Sure, there isn't a great tutorial, and at first the game is can be confusing and frustrating. After an hour or two of playing, you will quickly figure out where you should be, and get the gist of the classes. Pay to win exists to an extent in this game, but skill really will triumph in most cases. With any game of this scale, you can only expect it to improve with time, and SEO has stated mentioned some plans for the future. As it stands now, the game is a solid 8 and it looks to improve. Don't listen to the naysayers, the game offers a lot of good reasons to play, and as people get it better, it will only continue to offer a great MMOFPS experience.… Expand

its fun if you pay for better things but if you want to play a balanced F2P this is not your game its gameplay is unbalanced, graphics are ok, this game is boring and unbalanced, this game had a chance for it to be good but its not, most f2p's arnt anyway, wait till survarium or warface

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Anyone who rated this below a seven simply didn't bother to put the time into it. It badly needs a tutorial, which is why this didn't hit a perfect ten, but for chrissakes, PLAY a game before you damn it. Besides, there are tutorial vids that it shoves in your face in the gorram launcher but hell, I've been playing since before those, and it only took me about a half hour to figure everything out. Stop pissing yourselves and wrecking the score on an awesome game. Out.… Expand

My journey with this game started with frustration, I've installed game from Steam, wanted to fly, but joystick didn't work back then.. I came back few months later, and... everything worked great. I don't play a lot games, and I didn't play multi-player except for Starcraft 2 which was uber frustrating. But. after 80+ hours of play I can say that Planetside 2 is unique and very addictive With great number of classes, vehicles, tactics, and ways to develop your character gameplay is one of the best I've seen in my whole life. So, play, play, play and see you on the The Crown shouting "your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" … Expand

Excellent free 2 play game. Factions (and overall gameplay) are extremely well balanced . Skill always wins over $$. Graphics and performance are good. Epic scale. This is my favorite hardcore mp shooter on the market. Well worth learning how to play if you are up for a challenge.

For me, this game is frustrating, not fun, and essentially pointless. I suppose part of the problem is the learning curve. You start out just thrown into the map somewhere, with no clear assistance in figuring out where you should go, what you should do, why you should be doing it, or how to succeed. In my experience, I just ran towards some apparent objective getting murdered over and over again. Either that, or I just ran around the humongous map with no one at all anywhere near me. The whole experience was just terrible. I pored several hours into this, but just couldn't find the motivation to stick it out to see if things would get better.… Expand

Countless bugs, almost no friend/foe ID unless you mouse over for 5 seconds, so by that time, if it was a foe, you are dead. Also, you die in 3 hits unless your armor is built up. Another free to play, free to die, pay to win, pay to survive game. Don't waste your time on this one.

This game is free to play as a spectator, If you want to help your team or be anything other than cannon fodder then you have to spend money. I was looking for a game to play that I wouldn't mind paying some money for a couple extras, but, being defenseless and building my char around my credit card, terrible.

In a genre that doesn't see an awful lot of games (good ones at that) Planetside 2 sure is a fresh breath of air for me. The choice to go Free 2 Play certainly doesn't hurt the playercount on the large continental maps that SOE have coughed up.

Visually the game has the potential to be great - On par with many modern day shooter if applied a few tweaks to unlock the "Ultra Settings".


The gameplay (the most important aspect of course) is great. Once you join an Outfit (clan) in the game and start playing in groups, you'll really see where PS2 shines. Planning coordinated strikes using a large selection of vehicles and capture (back) bases that are critical to your advance on the enemy.

There is still plenty of room for improvement - continents that aren't "square" shaped being one of my bigger gripes (and the complete lack of water on the playable battlefield), bugs in the marketplace module of the game and various launch day bugs that will hopefully be squashed soon enough.

Final Verdict: 9

Because the game is rather unique in its presentation, it has a dedicated dev team backing it and it shows great potential if nurtured - this may well become the single largest MMOFPS on the market in its lifespan.… Expand

I have no clue what people are talking about this is the best f2p game of all time no questions asked. Play it on a decent pc then come back complaining. There are no lag or bugs or whatnot people are complaining about.

I would like Planetside 2 alot but theres one problem the damn P2W (Pay 2 win) style of gameplay.

Many of you might say it's not a P2W game but in reality it is P2W game because they made collecting in-game money really slow and weapons costs way too lot that you can buy by in-game money.
Also i found that theres some huge balance problems that in some faction have lots of players and other don't on server where you are playing.

About the P2W thing ithat those don't by weapons and items for real money it takes very long to get them unlike people that buys weapons and items for real money they can get really good stuff on low lever that helps alot.
For example, if there 2 players on 1 VS 1 and both low level players on same class, the other guy have the basic weapons and items that you can get from start of the game and other guy buys weapons and items for real money from start, the guy that buys weapons and items for real money owns the guy that don't buy weapons and items for real money unlike the other guy with starting weapons and items don't have any chance to kill that guy.
So it force you buy weapons and items for real money to win 1 VS 1 fights other then that you need always have 1-3 teammates with you even fights turn out be 2-4 vs 1.

But there was something good about this game and that was 2000 players each server, really big maps, really good looking graphics for F2P game, Controlls are almost perfect.

Also not forget that sometimes the server balance is so bad you end up fighting like 20 enemys at same time own base where is only 2-5 own team mates and sometimes you and up fighting all 20 enemys alone.

After i found Planetside 2 be alot pay 2 win style of game then i just stoped playing it and not waste of my time for collecting in-game money that you can collets very long time for single weapon.… Expand

If you are a new player, go google some tutorials and look on the website before hopping into the action.

Now, Planetside 2 is an AMAZING MMOFPS IF you have the machine to run it, if not, then I feel bad because you are missing the most wonderful modern gaming experience today. Even if playing alone, the breathtaking large-scale battles are extremely enjoyable to participate in, and the customization allows you to modify your character to your own playstyle. DOWNLOAD NOW… Expand

Planetside 2 is a game that has unbelievable polish for what is a free game. while i admit that it has lag issues and bugs there are moments in this game that are absolutely spectacular. Plus its FREE so go play it for yourself

Been playing this game since the early beta. It has come a long way since then. Optimization is still a must but my god is this game fun. Solid gun mechanics (nearly perfect ttk), great environments, fun vehicles, and excellent team play. Nothing seems severely imbalanced. The outfit (clan) functionality is excellent and the inbuilt voip makes coordination very easy. First game I've seen that people are actually working together efficiently. Once you witness a tank column of 20 rolling through a ravine while you are perched on top looking across the battlefield cloaked as an infiltrator you will realize that no other fps really compares. Landmark achievement. I'm worried that it's high learning curve might scare some people off so please give it a chance and support the game. We need more epic games like this.… Expand

COMPACT REVIEW FOR TLDR: Planetside 2 will not run on 'standard' systems easily. Planetside 2 is everything that it said it is (FPS,MMO,RPG,Free Roam,Very Customizable,Huge Battles). It is free so try it, and don't downgrade it because your system is not up to date. It is made to play with groups of buddies, but fun either way. The Graphics are awesome. The game is not played for story. It is 100% pvp. There are tanks, apcs, atv, and futuristic aircraft you can fly + more. SOE is not amazing, but these devs are funny and put time into what they do. I have only given 3 or so games a 9/10 in my life, this game is one of them.… Expand

Planetside 2 is an ambitious FPS. Unfortunately it suffers from a high system requirements (don't even bother unless you have a 64 bit OS), laggy servers and unfriendly user interface. The lack of tutorials will hobble new players and the demanding system requirements will hamper your gameplay. If you do have a 64 bit OS on the other hand, it is fun...when the servers work. If you have a 32 bit OS, avoid.… Expand

I used to think Battlefield 3 was bad, wait till you play Planetside 2, you can’t even compare the two as Battlefield 3 is miles ahead of this piece of garbage. Gameplay sucks, there is not much gameplay here it’s a big spam fest where supposedly 100s of players are working as part of a team to attack a base, there is no team work involved its everyone for themselves as a so called platoontoon leader screams down the microphone saying how he will kick those who do not follow orders and on top of that its pay to win, its a huge cert grind where all the weapons are overpriced and it takes you weeks to unlock a single weapon without spending any money on XP boosts. Graphics suck,yes they suck nothing new here plenty of other games have better graphics than this game even in 2004 doom 3, half life 2 had better graphics and lower system requirements than this. The community sucks, on the forums you see people “talking about the game” when they barely hit 20 hours in gameplay, I spent 600+ hours on this and regret it all especially now as soon as you begin climbing the leader boards every player you kill starts reporting you and telling their whole outfit to report you accusing you of cheating and making other false accusations when they barely play the game at all. I regret getting suckered into this game with the false advertising, because frankly this game is pointless to play there is no sense of achievement there is no metagame, all you do is run to capture a base which the opposing faction captures 10 minutes later, so you repeat the same thing all the time, as sony thought that grinding certs in order to unlock weapons would be a brilliant metagame. Feels like I’ve been to hell and back.Thank heaven there is Battlefield 3 it sure felt like a huge relief returning to a traditional shooter such as Battlefield 3, where I pay money for a finished product. Not this free to pay monstrosity that is attempting to sucker in the Average Joes money so that they buy a new weapon, yes last point to make, every single base, every single weapon, it all looks exactly the same. What did you expect from a pay to win lazy developer to give you? Better spend your money on a traditional retail game, even Black Ops 2 is money better spent. Never again will I spend money in a free to play cash cow.… Expand

I can give everyone the straight dope here in a few in a brief summary. I played continuously for a couple weeks or so and got up to about lvl 20 so I know the game mechanics well. I was absolutely blown away with P2 initially. It was almost everything I ever wanted in an FPS and seemed to fulfill all the promise of PC gaming. It ran fine(mostly), looked great and had all the large scale conflict and tactics a hardcore ,high-skill ceiling, pc game should. I will tell you what killed it. I knew these two things would eventually be a problem from the outset and they were. Number one: The conflict is meaningless as there is NOTHING at stake for gaining/losing your territory. Sure the fight is fun but for how long when there's absolutely no payoff. A war of this scale without any reward in the offing makes no sense and kills any long term enjoyment. Problem 2: P2 caters to the newer gen Ritalin children who can't comprehend the value of earning a kill in-game and so anybody can get the drop on you at anytime and 1 automatic burst later your dead. You'll spend most of your time in this game dying and trying to get back into the fight. The whole point of the game feels like it revolves around dying. It's absolutely horrendous and ridiculous. By having two hit-points you eliminate 75% of any skill or tactics the conflicts here have. If you had time in a firefight to utilize terrain and tactics the conflicts would be fierce and meaningful as they are in other games that allow for some damage. Instead you just zerg around the map dying and spawning until you outzerg the zergers. Even the heavy's vaporize under minimal fire. I just don't get it. Twice the hitpoints, and it soon becomes apparent who is the more skillful opponent and who deserves to control the battlefield. Why devs don't get this is beyond me and I don't feel like returning to this game even though they'll probably address my first issue. This fantastic game is utterly ruined because you can't sustain any damage. Just like all the other mainstream shooters Ritalin kids thrive on. I don't know who to blame so I jokingly pick on the Ritalin kids. Ridiculous, I'm done.… Expand

Planetside 2 is a game that showed great promise. 2000 player servers in a FPS game seems too good to be true, and this game appears to have done just that. However, once past the first impression, you cant really ignore the game's problems. Unbearable fps (15 fps on a gaming rig, really?) means you will be looking at a slideshow most of the time. Terrible balance, 50 vs 5 players is common here. The spawn rooms seem just thrown on the map, and many times only one exist which means it will be well camped. They also seem to be designed to be easily camped. Sometimes the spawn place will be so far from any place of tactical value, that defending a base is virtually impossible. Even something as simple as the colours can work against you here. The game's bluish buildings means the blue and violet teams are well camouflaged compared with the red team, which in addition has a lot of red minimap icons obscuring the (wait for it) red enemy indicators. But ultimately it is the lack of reward that ruins this game for me. When waiting 10 minutes to capture a region with seemingly no enemy players whatsoever , I can't help to feel bored and useless, because , after all, I am. The game does not reward teamplay, it is not balanced when it comes to vehicles, it is not balanced map-wise,It runs worse then the latest games with much, much worse graphics, it is full of bugs, and it takes a very, very long time to do anything useful, or fun, or, most of the time, neither. As one PS2 developer put it, when talking about the game's poor framerate: "If you hear someone saying it's easy, have them show you their game with hundreds of people and dozens of vehicles within a single 100 meter firefight. I'd happily accept their advice. *grin* ".… Expand

My rig can play all the F2P games with no issues, except for this game. The FPS is so bad I could not be bothered to finish the training level. Optimization for this game is typical for many PC titles very poor as usual.

The game is fun none the less but has fllaws.. Graphics: + Phsyx is in this game (but currently turned off) + The environment and changing of day and night is a nice touch - blurry/low res areas - Not really something special compared to other games but due to the size of the planet... its good Gameplay: + The game is a nice futuristic game and plays out well and is much more exciting than halo 4
+ It really draws you into the war feeling since there is a lot going on
+ Vehicles are fun and useful
+ You can upgrade basically anything you want to and use the classes you like the best or all of them
- When you are cornered the game feels like a repetitive camp fest where the other team wont back off and you continuously die BUT if you spawn elsewhere there isn't really any helping the team fight at all.
- bugs, bugs , bugs, bugs, and more bugs... Some people with lag or bad computers teleport and go through walls... some people can be looking 1 way on your screen and actually be looking at you on yours.

Sounds:
+ Nice in game music (AT TIMES)
+ Have their own sounds for guns
- You can randomly hear people talk on their mic that aren't in your squad - Not really the best "killed by" screen..

Other:
+ You can buy skins, etc. to pimp out your characters/vehicles
- You can buy weapons, etc. instead of saving up to purchase them with in game currency so in a way it's too easy for some to have much better weapons.

The game is fun, new, frustrating at times, and buggy. Basically it evens out although it still needs some polishing and the performance isn't really the best I've seen but that's okay since it just came out.… Expand

What a joke at the dumb reviewers saying this game is way better than any battlefield or any other fps game out there.. and giving this game a 10 out of 10. If you think a broken, bland, pointless, game like planetside 2 is better than any other mutliplayer shooter out there then you have either never played 1 single damn game besides this, are 10 years old, or you have the worst taste in gaming that I have ever seen. About the game, all i can really say is, devs dont have the common sense to help out newbies so people get turned away from the game so less player base, and HOW can anyone say this is a better game than battlefield when all you do in this game is capture 1 base at a time with unbalanced classes and vehicles and you do nothing else.... at least in battlefield you can play many different game types, play with friends, better control of vehicles, more rewarding system, better scaling, just about everything is better in Battlefield besides the map is bigger in PS2.... BOOHOO… Expand

Great potential, that unfortunately falls flat. The graphics aren't amazing, but that's not surprising considering the scale they were going for. The biggest problem I have with this game is how much the game mechanics encouraging Team Killing. Seeing your supposed allies killing Sunderers (Mobile Spawn Points) so they can deploy one of their own in it's place in order to collect the exp just ruins any enjoyment I had in the game.… Expand

An addicting and and pleasant surprise to the MMO genre in short. The impressive draw distance coupled with impressive graphical fidelity for such a massive game does give the good impression of a massive, persistent open world. While the landscape and locations are decently varied from location to location somewhat less care was given to player assets such as weapons and vehicles. Roughly half of the vehicles available to each race are the same as the ones available to the others. As well as the vast majority of the weapons are shamelessly visual copy and pastes with very minor changes if any at all, only having changes in their stats. Despite this each race has a unique look and style that works for them. The game play is the old tried and true class based multi-player first person shooter. Each class has their own special abilities and equipment that can be upgraded using "certs". This is where the balance issues start to glare at you. Acquiring certs is paced like dragging a 1000 pound bag of sand down an endless road through 2 feet of snow, stopping every ten miles to receive a dollar to put towards a million dollar sleigh to help you pull the bag faster. What I'm trying to say is that it's a free to play game, but it's pay to win. The people who choose to invest in the game will stand head and shoulders above those who actually want a free to play game. This obvious issue turns certain players into bullet sponges while leaving others as glass tissues on the battlefield. While you're given bonuses for investing larger amounts in the game, the cost of weapons in the game probably lies between 6 and 7 dollars on average. Given that there are hundreds of things to buy, and certs and spent money don't carry over to other characters you create, this is a huge problem. I might be focusing a lot on this, but it really is a glaring issue. If you can find the time to acquire enough certs however you'll find a functional and enjoyable FPS that offers massive battles on a scale that we haven't seen in games since the total war franchise. The levels are laid out on a honeycomb gird that shows territories that are fought over by the three factions. The levels have varying terrain with strong holds and towns dotting the landscape. There's a unique feel to each of the continents you fight on, and each base type have a different strategy required to take control. While the actual bases and building are going to start to seem familiar to frequent players it's the area around the bases that creates a new and distinct feel at each location. A strange bit of poor design, being a little richer due to better environmental design. Overall, I give PlanetSide 2 a 7 out of 10.… Expand

Unoptimized beta. Bugs.
Don't get me wrong, every software has bugs but how can you release a game in beta stage? I sank into the ground 3 times for less than 1 hour. Just an example of what kind of bugs you will come across.
I like the idea of the game I'm looking forward to play it but please, Sony... Before you release a game make sure doesn't have at least trivial bugs.