Planetside 2, first impressions

First and foremost, I haven't played as much as I would like of this game. Still I was able to get a few short impressions of it. And yes, I plan on delve deeper on it. And hopefully improve, because I'm awful bad at this game!

So from what I've seen of the game, what can I say? Well, and as usually the first impact are the graphics. And this game is actually gorgeous. Mind that I don't play at full detail, nor near it, but still this game manages to bring graphics to an high level. And since this is a first person shooter game, it's even greater. And the game actually runs smooth. Plus for graphics and performance.

Gameplay is also good and expected from these sort of games. If you like first person shooter games, and like the Battlefield series or others of the same sort, then you will probably love Planetside 2. The biggest difference between this one and those other titles, of the same sort, is the persistent aspect of the game, since being an MMO everything is ongoing with no end of match from score or time.

The world is set on 3 huge continents, and players can pick from 3 different factions, and each faction will fight for dominance over sectors on each continent. Getting to action is really done fast with a few clicks on map and players are placed in the middle of the heat. Otherwise, players can always opt to trace a little back, and bring up some heavy guns like a tank or a aircraft. Yeah, you can roam around the game shooting things up on air. It's a nice touch and I enjoyed watching some fighters going on skirmishes sometimes. 

The game is all around what the players do, what they capture, what they defend. So anything that happens on the game, is human made. There are no NPC's (at least I haven't seen any) nor mobs to kill nor quests. Just action, endless action, and lots of players to kill or be killed by.

It's a very good thing SOE made this game free to play. And the way I see it's made, it really is free to play. I don't see any limitation imposed to non-subscribers. At least from what I've played. Anything that was on store could be purchased either by getting some station cash (the games currency for shop) or eventually unlocked while playing. There are some sort of currency that can be either used to unlock new abilities for character or saved to buy later a better gun. I also don't know how the store weapons affect the game, if they unbalance it or not.

But there were some flaws on this game, at least some stuff I didn't like. First and foremost, there is a very short and brief tutorial, and most of the information on each screen is a bit sparse. I know that there isn't much to know, it's just aim and shoot, but for instance I was having serious issues trying to distinguish foe from friends. The UI rarely would point me to what was enemy to me, so I would have to rely on what I saw on screen and make a quick judgement on the armor the other player was using. So sometimes friendly fire would happen.

Another issue, was the awful aircraft control. I can't recall the keys, all I can say is that the first time I got one, 10 seconds later I crashed it on the ground. Why? The E key, which is the use key, if you by mistake use it while on aircraft, you get kicked out. And if that wasn't bad, steering of the aircraft was far from perfect. I guess I'm used to control aircraft with the mouse for direction, and there well all I can say it was nigh on impossible to steer. The second time I tried the ship, most of the time I was upside down... It was a really bad control system. I think it used A and D for spinning the ship or something, can't recall, it was just bad... But I assume we can can reprogram keys. So I have to check that option out.

On the other hand, tank control is great and it's great fun to be on the turret side and shoot everything that moves.

Finally, I'm horrible bad at it, so bad I'm thinking on deleting my toon and start it over again, since my kill/death ratio is just plain horrible.

This post is just a short fast first impressions of what I've seen in the game. First person shooter, persistent world, plenty of vehicles to use, lots of action, and free to play. First person shooters will probably like it. And since it's free to play, why not give it a go?