PlanetSide 2

 PC
User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1356 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 800 out of 1356
  2. Mixed: 281 out of 1356
  3. Negative: 275 out of 1356

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  1. AidanM
    May 26, 2013
    4
    What are the good things? Well, no one buys their way in like in most F2Ps, and the class system is pretty good. The rest is sketchy at best. It is I guess supposed to be a little like Battlefield where you join a squad to complete an objective, but that objective never works. Your squad mostly attacks the tanks (which can spawn way too cheaply) and die, go the wrong way and die or justWhat are the good things? Well, no one buys their way in like in most F2Ps, and the class system is pretty good. The rest is sketchy at best. It is I guess supposed to be a little like Battlefield where you join a squad to complete an objective, but that objective never works. Your squad mostly attacks the tanks (which can spawn way too cheaply) and die, go the wrong way and die or just suck and die. The reason? There is way too much going on for the game's own good. I get they were trying to stay away from the conventional FPS where one man wins a war, but when 2500 players from three teams are fighting all the battles are are air strikes and kamikazes and nothing ever gets done. Picture MW with unlimited Harrier Strikes. The concept of huge scale war makes sense, but doing it in badly organized squads doesn't work. And don't try doing anything by yourself, getting nice weapons or rewards for anything is impossible.… Expand
  2. Saratosa75
    Mar 5, 2013
    4
    Pointlessly overcomplicated Noob killing fest. Let's start, that my experience on online shooters ranges from the early-early Desert Combat games, all the way to BF3. I'm not really into the MMORPG, but for this review, doesn't need any.
    So, let's start with the positives. I like the idea. I like the ambitious effort and pushing the envelope to make online shooters progress to new,    Pointlessly overcomplicated Noob killing fest. Let's start, that my experience on online shooters ranges from the early-early Desert Combat games, all the way to BF3. I'm not really into the MMORPG, but for this review, doesn't need any.
    So, let's start with the positives. I like the idea. I like the ambitious effort and pushing the envelope to make online shooters progress to new, uncharted territories. I like the idea of giant battlefields and mixture of doing different things at once. I also like the seems to be endless upgrades and making the players progress somewhere, let that be new weapons, outfits, vehicles and higher ranks. All these are all present but a diamond in a rough form in Planetside 2. Here comes my rant. I can understand the fact, that after a while everyone gets a grip of what is going on and how to read the map and figure out how to upgrade etc. But I'm afraid, it may be too late by then, since the immediate impression will turn off many, before they would start become interesting. Lacking any tutorials, or perhaps off-line maps with bots would help a lot. Almost all games we play including shooters- has some sort of an introduction into the mechanics and/or a walk through in real-time (not youtube videos!) In other words The game is making every newbie UNWELCOME. 1. Sign up; choose your passwords; pick a class; pick a side
    2. Get dropped into the battlezone and get shot dead.
    3. Try different things; run around the map; be confused about many things, get shot dead within a few minutes. 4. Rinse and repeat step 2 and 3 for a while. ...
    Problems right off from the first impression: I. The mini map is utterly confusing and pointlessly over complicated to a point, where it isn't even functioning as a map. Congested and displaying all sorts of stuff not really useful, or just simply too much. I'm not sure if it can be customized or not, I haven't found the option yet, which I would assume most newbie neither. II. The whole design of the large deployment map. I'm trying to figure out, if there are any differences between the middle; the corners and between, regarding what buildings/terrain/objectives variations there are, but after 9-10 hours of gameplay, it all looks like a photoshop pattern of basically repeating features and buildings. Actually, giving in a thought, they could have used 1/4 of the size of the maps, since it doesn't really matter when you get dropped into the fight zone, you know exactly what buildings you gonna find and you just gonna follow to find the power generators and the capture points. There isn't a memorable location, since you won't be able to memorize much, but you will know exactly what is what. III. Upgrades. There seems to be unlimited number of upgrades, but they all seem to be unreachable for those, who doesn't want to spend a bucket load of money. I leave that right there.
    IV. Balance. Many game in similar category gives the players the chance to familiarize themselves with the game, so they usually give the option of servers, based on experience level. We could have novice, intermediate and pro servers, just for this purpose. They could have made the game, that a newbie could enjoy a pro-server, but count on being the cannon fodder, but perhaps reward his bravery by making him gain exp. points faster, than on a noob server. Same deal in reverse. Pro player joining with high hopes of mass murdering the noobs, would end up not gaining much, perhaps revoke their super-duper maxed out equipment and make them fight with the basic given weapon and outfit. Or perhaps "ship" the pro players to a new planet or continent, where they face off similar high-level pro players. But no. Instead pro players seem to be mass-r.ping the newbies to gain more exp. points. Basically the game rewards those, who rather play like bullies, while leaving the newcomer in the dust. It may sound fun, if you got the equipment, but eventually it will destroy the game on the long run. Why? Because new people won't be joining, and old pro-players may just move on to whatever newer game come out in the near future. Eventually the servers will be abandoned to a point, where you gonna have these giant maps and only 10-20 people playing instead of 100. V. No real rewards. Weapons, outfits, masks, optics, extra ammo all sounds great, but what's the point? You gonna be doing the same thing with them over and over! What happened to rewards given to teams? Or what about giving rewards for platoons and factions, who conquered half of the map? What's good about having 3/4 of the map conquered compared to only half or 1/4 of it? Nothing. There should be team/platoon/squad based experiences given. How about a tactical nuke, or ability to call in airstrikes, indirect/direct artillery or orbital strike? Just some ideas. As of right now, this game is still just a newbie-hostile beta test, with missing objectives and limited real feel of progress.    … Expand
  3. NevNav
    May 30, 2013
    4
    Free to play pay to win

    Air vehicles are useless since 80 of the servers are running with max.s with unlocked Anti air guns , Really poor optimised cant run well on my i5 2500k & 6970 radeon Sides are unbalanced as hell Red guys are the best since they have most fastest fire rate Blue guys weapons hit hard but have high recoil & slow rpm making them worst in game . Draw    Free to play pay to win

    Air vehicles are useless since 80 of the servers are running with max.s with unlocked Anti air guns ,
    Really poor optimised cant run well on my i5 2500k & 6970 radeon Sides are unbalanced as hell Red guys are the best since they have most fastest fire rate Blue guys weapons hit hard but have high recoil & slow rpm making them worst in game .

    Draw distance kills this game Flew bomber plane with 3 seats and unlocked some nice stuff to it AA cannon at the rear is useless against skilled fighter pilots and you are just free score Draw distance comes into play when flying you see enemy AA max when you are like 50 meters away from him and he can see you from 200-300 meters away GG rly .

    TLDR Overrated game pay to win unbalanced was fun for the first 20-30 hours.    … Expand
  4. veterator
    Jun 5, 2013
    4
    I would love to like the game more, but I feel like the more chances I give them to address the issues that bug me the more I am let down.

    A few things to note about the game off the bat: 1) Hit detection is client side. 2) The game is HEAVILY CPU bound. 3) It is free to play, and you could theoretically play without paying anything..but that would take ages. 4) Most vehicle    I would love to like the game more, but I feel like the more chances I give them to address the issues that bug me the more I am let down.

    A few things to note about the game off the bat:

    1) Hit detection is client side.
    2) The game is HEAVILY CPU bound.
    3) It is free to play, and you could theoretically play without paying anything..but that would take ages.
    4) Most vehicle weaponry costs 700 station cash (7 USD if you buy it straight up with no station cash sales).
    5) There are 3 factions, yet only two of them have any kind of face representing them on the dev team and one of the factions is heavily favored in the dev team.

    So going down the list.

    1) Hit detection being client side means the game has had droves of cheaters exploit that fact, and they have a hard time dealing with them. They have GMs announce their presence when they login so people can get cheaters dealt with a little faster, but these GMs are sporadic at best. And you have to either remember their name or hope you can scroll back to get it when you run into a cheater. Admittedly the cheating has gotten less rampant, but anytime there's a "special" XP event they come out of the woodwork and the GMs are never to be seen.

    On the topic of cheaters, there are players who exploit the game or exploit the spirit of the EULA, get banned for a week or two...but get to keep all of their ill gotten XP with a slap on the wrist. Many of them being pretty well known players. You'll notice a few of them were BR 100 (max level) weeks, maybe months ahead of the everyone else. With whacked out stats that seem impossible as hell on their stats page. SOE claims to not condone this behavior, yet it does nothing to discourage aside from a week long ban.....it's a stupid policy and just asks for people to abuse it.

    2) CPU Bound performance, Intel CPUs are the favored here. You want a higher clock speed rather than more cores as this game does not utilize cores very well. And often you will find your performance has dropped each game update. GPU matters, but not as much as it should.

    3) & 4)

    If you were to buy station cash right now to pay for something in game, it'd be 1 dollar for 100 station cash. They have deals where you can get double or triple station cash meaning 1 dollar would be 2x100 or 3x100. Or deals with places like Walmart where a 15 dollar game card 2000 station cash (20 dollar equiv) and can be doubled or tripled on the special deal events. But their prices normally are 7 dollars for any weapon worth having generally. Aesthetic items go from 100 to 2000 (different colored pistols being the highest priced item atm).

    There are membership subscriptions, XP boosters, and many other things to buy for the game. All to speed up your XP gain which means more certs. Which certs are used to upgrade or buy weaponry. You can not buy aesthetic items with certs. It is much more time efficient to buy the weaponry with station cash that you buy on one of the 2x or 3x deals and use the certs to upgrade stuff only.

    I will say I am a little under $100 bucks into the game at this point, and I used 2x/3x deals to buy the majority of it and bought a lot of my items in bundles or on daily deals (half off regular price for the day) to stretch out what I got. But on average I'm still paying 2-3 dollars per item.

    Now this wouldn't be so incredibly bad IF the items were not constantly screwed around with and nerfed to make room for the "new" guns to come out to get people to buy it for the latest and greatest.

    This is probably the primary reason I feel like the game is a sham right now, because they have to sell items to keep the doors open...so instead of making new interesting items, they keep reducing the effectiveness of existing weapons and pumping out similar items with old mechanics but better numbers.

    I'd say I easily have 40 dollars worth of weaponry that I don't even bother trying to use because it's pointless to even waste time with it since they've ruined it. I will direct your attention to any HE turret, not only did they lengthen it's reload time to crazy times, but they also lowered it's ability to damage to vehicles and players significantly since the game has been released. You are better off using any other turret than the HE unless you are shooting from super far off at infantry. There are plenty of examples in every weapon type of this game where items were just made completely useless through constant intentional and unintentional nerfs.

    5) It won't be a popular subject, but I play TR. I see that VS and NC are represented quite vocally on the dev team, NC especially with Higby. I'll just leave it at that, but I recommend picking NC if you want to be kept happy.

    I am reviewing this the day Game Update 10 was released. I am not a happy player or customer with the direction this game is going and how slow they are to address things.    … Expand
  5. EvilxFish
    Nov 9, 2013
    4
    I have nothing against games that are free to play in fact I quite like them, however I would appreciate it if they said pay to win instead of free to play when that is the case, Planetside2 is an example of pay to win. Yes items are obtainable via game play if you have 100 years to spare... You are fighting to achieve nothing, you can't win your contribution doesn't matter because thereI have nothing against games that are free to play in fact I quite like them, however I would appreciate it if they said pay to win instead of free to play when that is the case, Planetside2 is an example of pay to win. Yes items are obtainable via game play if you have 100 years to spare... You are fighting to achieve nothing, you can't win your contribution doesn't matter because there is no goal there is no aim just shooting, anything you capture would have swapped hands by the time you log back on again. So yeh mindless shooting without achieving anything this game is simply for those who like shooting.… Expand
  6. DogFacedGod
    Nov 21, 2012
    3
    Bugs, screen flickering, graphical distortions and lag issues make this an horrible experience. This game feels rushed and unfinished which seems strange because of the lengthy beta.

    I will try it out again over a month i think. Maybe after some patching up these issues will be resolved.
  7. Dethstar
    Jun 17, 2013
    3
    I am not sure if it is my failure or there's but I had technical issues with this game across several machines which I never resolved. This had the effect of having a rather basic looking graphical experience.

    In terms of the game play I never understood what the fuss was about. Extremely mediocre. Personally, I found it extremely buggy, poorly supported and not worth the effort    I am not sure if it is my failure or there's but I had technical issues with this game across several machines which I never resolved. This had the effect of having a rather basic looking graphical experience.

    In terms of the game play I never understood what the fuss was about. Extremely mediocre.

    Personally, I found it extremely buggy, poorly supported and not worth the effort to work through the bugs because the game is just not good enough.    … Expand
  8. OhRly
    Dec 2, 2012
    3
    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.
  9. AlienSpaceBats
    Jun 19, 2013
    3
    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. My experience of the game consisted of being killed by massively over-levelled players with better equipment who I couldn't even touch because starter equipment I had did as much damage as a water pistol. Constantly4/10 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. My experience of the game consisted of being killed by massively over-levelled 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
  10. AwesomeDave
    Feb 4, 2013
    3
    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.
  11. Erazor
    Jul 2, 2014
    3
    I didn't really like this game so I'll just focus on the bad points in order of most annoyances.
    1) Big **** mindless open world pvp, strategy and tactic is hard to pull off when you need either 100 people cooperating or your up agaisn't 100 enemies. Just so very mindless unless you hit low populated areas. 2) Certs are extremely slowly rewarded, frustrating stuck with starter weapons and    I didn't really like this game so I'll just focus on the bad points in order of most annoyances.
    1) Big **** mindless open world pvp, strategy and tactic is hard to pull off when you need either 100 people cooperating or your up agaisn't 100 enemies. Just so very mindless unless you hit low populated areas. 2) Certs are extremely slowly rewarded, frustrating stuck with starter weapons and bored. 3) Pay2FastTrack game (another form of P2W) want to try lots of things and have fun? If you could Pay $60 to unlock everything (likes a normal game) that would be an absolute bargain in PS2, but you know they are greedy. 4) Yes it's a large scale game, but those graphics are ugly as hell, nothing stands out its just dull unless you are flying. 5) Overall ok game to start with but how you play you realise there are better games out there to play instead, on a side note Sony will kill H1Z1 if it has anything like a PS2 item shop.    … Expand
  12. Heresticus
    Dec 17, 2012
    3
    Planet Side 2 is a "free-to-play" but "pay-to-win" game which is so far away from entertaining me. A huge sized map with no enemies around, sucking game mechanics, bad spawn locations, buggy graphics and horrible fun factor make the game unplayable for me. You can give it a try like me; I tried it and gave it 3/10.
  13. YB1980
    Dec 10, 2012
    3
    Massively overrated. If your not being killed or run-over by your own team-mates, your either running to a fight and generally one-shotted by enemy players that you could have been unloading a whole clip into their head. Either that or they are lag jumpping around. I have a high end PC and i find the graphics for this disappointing. If you get in a good fight of 50 to 150+ it can beMassively overrated. If your not being killed or run-over by your own team-mates, your either running to a fight and generally one-shotted by enemy players that you could have been unloading a whole clip into their head. Either that or they are lag jumpping around. I have a high end PC and i find the graphics for this disappointing. If you get in a good fight of 50 to 150+ it can be interesting but thats all this game is, an endless fight over buildings nothing else… Expand
  14. CrispyOats93
    Nov 21, 2012
    3
    Had great potential. Seems to have very bad optimization for Amd processors. Very low frame rates and game looks blurry even with settings maxed.
    I'm sure that it's a decent game, but it is unplayable on a mid range desktop.
  15. vonDogg
    Dec 11, 2012
    3
    Planetside 2, some mix Massive shooter with RPG (?), in my opinion idea this game is great and underdone.
    On the + : Big maps, vehicles, graphic (not bad textures for that big game maps), re-spawn protect (!),
    On the - : Fight and flight too much arcade style, where is RPG system (?), after 40 min. is boring
  16. Ohams
    Dec 15, 2012
    3
    New player experience is horrible in this game. No tutorial, no training grounds, nothing. You just spawn in the middle of a warzone having no idea what the objectives are or how to achieve them. While you try to figure out how the game works you keep getting killed over and over. Worst first impression ever. For me, this is indicative of an unfinished product. Uninstalled after 20New player experience is horrible in this game. No tutorial, no training grounds, nothing. You just spawn in the middle of a warzone having no idea what the objectives are or how to achieve them. While you try to figure out how the game works you keep getting killed over and over. Worst first impression ever. For me, this is indicative of an unfinished product. Uninstalled after 20 minutes. I'll check back when it's a complete game and not a torso.… Expand
  17. Zael
    Jan 9, 2013
    3
    This game looks good; that's about the only good thing about it. There's no backstory or reason why these factions are fighting each other. There's a 30 second intro video and then you get dropped into battle. The first couple hours of me playing was me trying to look for a fight (playing at midnight) and when I did, I instantly got killed. High learning curve. Also, in a fight, you'llThis game looks good; that's about the only good thing about it. There's no backstory or reason why these factions are fighting each other. There's a 30 second intro video and then you get dropped into battle. The first couple hours of me playing was me trying to look for a fight (playing at midnight) and when I did, I instantly got killed. High learning curve. Also, in a fight, you'll mostly be trying to get outside of your base because there's constant spawn camping. I REALLY REALLY tried to enjoy this game, but I couldn't. There's nothing to pull you in. This game isn't necessarily hard; it's more annoying or frustrating.… Expand
  18. Duskspark
    Mar 25, 2013
    3
    Planetside 2 is one of those games that drops you in the battlefield without any experience or knowledge over what to do and how to do it. You're often wondering where the action is going on, and when it's there you're powerless. I had to give it a three because, for a free to play game, it looks stunning, but it's a dead hamster hidden in a beautiful box.
  19. indigni
    Mar 3, 2013
    3
    Sadly my review will mostly echo the main criticisms I've seen on here of the game. The learning curve is relatively steep, and though you won't generally get endlessly flamed by your teammates (one individual's failure, on average, can be a drop in the bucket given the sheer scale of combat in the game), unless you are EXTREMELY dedicated and or very very good, don't expect to beSadly my review will mostly echo the main criticisms I've seen on here of the game. The learning curve is relatively steep, and though you won't generally get endlessly flamed by your teammates (one individual's failure, on average, can be a drop in the bucket given the sheer scale of combat in the game), unless you are EXTREMELY dedicated and or very very good, don't expect to be upgrading your character's certs with any sort of regularity without dropping some cash on the game. I had some extra Station Cash from my EQ2 F2p days and dropped them on some starting guns, but even that small initially boost was not enough to alleviate the utter curbstompering I experienced at the hands of the most modestly geared opponents. Add to that the insanely high system reqs (to be expected when there's a couple hundred people in one warzone), and you have a very frustrating gaming experience with very, very little payout in terms of seeing your "character" progress.… Expand
  20. Brosman
    May 11, 2013
    3
    I played this game for four hours and this game is insanely overrated. Have fun figuring out what to do given the fact that if your new the servers population doesnt give a sh*t about you. I couldnt even find enemys in my four hour game time do to the fact i kept getting team killed by players who just thought it was hilarious to spawn kill all of thier team mates coming out of theI played this game for four hours and this game is insanely overrated. Have fun figuring out what to do given the fact that if your new the servers population doesnt give a sh*t about you. I couldnt even find enemys in my four hour game time do to the fact i kept getting team killed by players who just thought it was hilarious to spawn kill all of thier team mates coming out of the teleporters. There is little to no weapon balance as begginer players will get destroyed ans stand no chance until the rank up and your crazy if you want me to play for 12+ hours to just be on even ground. So overall if your not a fan already, ignore this garbage.… Expand
  21. EagleClawSan
    Apr 7, 2013
    3
    When I first started playing this game I actually enjoyed it. However, I started quite late and after a while I started to find this one of the most frustrating and unfair first person shooters I have ever played. New players are thrown into a battle as a level 1 and are mostly against lever 20s, not to mention the countless level 40s and even level 70s. They have much better weapons thanWhen I first started playing this game I actually enjoyed it. However, I started quite late and after a while I started to find this one of the most frustrating and unfair first person shooters I have ever played. New players are thrown into a battle as a level 1 and are mostly against lever 20s, not to mention the countless level 40s and even level 70s. They have much better weapons than you and even if you get the first shot you can almost bet your life that if they start shooting back its over. They also have better armour. The snipers in this game are ridiculous, yielding very powerful semi-automatics at a higher level. Eventually I found myself aiming to get one kill for every spawn in a battle because it was inevitable that either I will get shot to pieces by an experienced player or picked off instantly by a sniper.

    Even if you're good at first person shooters don't expect that you will do just as well in this game. I guarantee that when you experience your first battle you'll be instantly killed with a few shots from a more experienced player with a much better gun than you. I stopped playing after I realised I was only re-spawning to be killed again. This game is unfair, unrewarding, frustrating and simply not fun. As other people have said, it's just a complete mess.    … Expand
  22. Powerzzz
    Jun 5, 2013
    3
    Loads of potential crippled by the engines inability to address multi core CPU's, hyper-threading or use more than 50% of your GPU. DirectX 9.................

    This game has so much potential that gets gimped at every turn because of the poor choice of engine development. As it sits currently you will be netting about 30 fps in a firefight on two GTX780's in SLI and a I7 overclocked to    Loads of potential crippled by the engines inability to address multi core CPU's, hyper-threading or use more than 50% of your GPU. DirectX 9.................

    This game has so much potential that gets gimped at every turn because of the poor choice of engine development. As it sits currently you will be netting about 30 fps in a firefight on two GTX780's in SLI and a I7 overclocked to 5 GHZ. The total lack of any game optimization, it's inability to properly address multui core CPU's or perform hyper-threading, or take advantage of multi GPU setups really hinder the games play-ability and overall enjoyment level.

    The game is solid, the devs are working tirelessly on balance issues but the core looming issue has gone unaddressed for so long i now have to believe it is simply technologically impossible for this game to ever play at acceptable fluid frame rates for a modern day gamer. It really really puts a sour taste in most gamers mouths that can become too large of a pill to swallow.

    If you value your frame rate, have a 120 hz monitor or own high end hardware this game is not for you, you wont last long before the frustration sends you packing back to your old friend because 30 FPS were simply to painful to bear with for more than a few hours.    … Expand
  23. ivhon
    Jun 22, 2013
    3
    Game came out and was pretty solid out of the gate. In the last two months (writing this in June 2013), the development staff has made a ton of stupid decisions that have butchered what could have been a great game.

    The Creative Director, Matt Higby, came out last week talking about why he's instating these inane "gameplay rules" and the necessity of them, but the changes show nothing    Game came out and was pretty solid out of the gate. In the last two months (writing this in June 2013), the development staff has made a ton of stupid decisions that have butchered what could have been a great game.

    The Creative Director, Matt Higby, came out last week talking about why he's instating these inane "gameplay rules" and the necessity of them, but the changes show nothing but a lack of imagination and critical thought.

    While in minor cases, they listen to the community at large, they seem to ignore what the playerbase is asking for a majority of the time. As time goes on, it becomes more and more apparent that this is just a money grab and not even remotely F2P.

    The game becomes more P2W with every update and gets less fun to play every day. I'm sorry I spent a dime on this game and I hope others will think twice before they do.    … Expand
  24. MajorC99
    May 25, 2014
    3
    This game has been broken for me and I have not been able to play it for several months, the gameplay is decent, but the lag in unbearable and the issues that come with it are not worth the effort.
  25. Cosmonaut42
    Mar 27, 2014
    3
    I sincerely hope this game is a joke. The lack of balance here is ridiculous, and the free to play model here is so pay-to-win that it's fairly impossible to win without a significant amount of players who have payed for the game. In fact, it's difficult to win without a decent amount of people on your team at all. The game is a total steamroll, and a luck based one at that, for the amountI sincerely hope this game is a joke. The lack of balance here is ridiculous, and the free to play model here is so pay-to-win that it's fairly impossible to win without a significant amount of players who have payed for the game. In fact, it's difficult to win without a decent amount of people on your team at all. The game is a total steamroll, and a luck based one at that, for the amount of players on your team is totally random. The lack of killcam promotes camping, and there's no strategy required once you've found a corner to spam from. The entire game feels unfinished and soulless, only play this if you're a call of duty fan with no regard for well-crafted game design.… Expand
  26. Grimfalcon
    Dec 18, 2013
    3
    The game started off fantastic but like any SOE game, SOE's habit of ruining a good thing through updates has happened once more. Balance is horrid, updates are nearly always lopsided adding almost absurd advantages/disadvantages for factions, vehicles or weaponry.

    While that's to be expected perhaps with any SOE game, given that the game relies on a certification point system that is    The game started off fantastic but like any SOE game, SOE's habit of ruining a good thing through updates has happened once more. Balance is horrid, updates are nearly always lopsided adding almost absurd advantages/disadvantages for factions, vehicles or weaponry.

    While that's to be expected perhaps with any SOE game, given that the game relies on a certification point system that is earned over time, it's infuriating to spend your precious certs on items, vehicles or classes only to have those choices irrevocably nerfed or broken without any way to get a refund on the certification points you spent.

    The ability to refund/re-certify has been on their development plan for far over a year at this point but continues to be pushed off while huge, untested and bug-ridden patches are put out in odd succession.

    Let alone that the game itself has 3 continents, each in a different stage of development making the game lopsided and uneven, the game suffers horribly from a fourth faction issue (where you can make alts for each faction and swap immediately to whatever faction is winning) has been a known issue since launch and unfixed despite that it makes the game a contest of who can swap to the winning side first.

    Avoid at all costs. The game is now in a stale development cycle as SOE looks to launch it on PS4 and the latest update (PU2) has once again brought the servers down for the last 2-3 days.    … Expand
  27. FunOrNot
    Feb 23, 2014
    3
    Heard about this from a friend. 'Yeah its more fun if you have some friends to play with.' he said. Little did I know how right he was. If there's one thing I've learned over the years its that the phrase "If its too good to be true, it probably is." and this phrase fits PlanetSide 2 PERFECTLY. Most of the information on the official website is half lies, outdated information, or flat outHeard about this from a friend. 'Yeah its more fun if you have some friends to play with.' he said. Little did I know how right he was. If there's one thing I've learned over the years its that the phrase "If its too good to be true, it probably is." and this phrase fits PlanetSide 2 PERFECTLY. Most of the information on the official website is half lies, outdated information, or flat out lies.

    For example:

    "PlanetSide 2 features incredible continent maps with dozens of square kilometers of seamless gameplay space; every inch of which is hand-crafted, contestable space. With the territorial control meta-game, landmass has intrinsic value."

    The continents' layouts are about as bland as can be. Yet another victim of "symmetry = balance" as if planets are supposedly symmetrical in nature. In reality its more of copy pasted a third of a continent then rotated and add some unique name. Literally. The same mountain you just past there's another two more somewhere. They honestly thought that because of the size you wouldn't notice it. Its noticeable. Most of the special points (such as biolabs or domes or whatever they call it) are exactly the same as they are on other continents. Just a different tileset. Then there's the 'massive' part of the game. It states there can be up to 1000's of players in a battle. Remember: the players are spread out over these large continents. So the actual saturation of players is fairly low except at one or two points.

    "...PlanetSide 2 battles can last for days or even weeks, and finally taking control of the base means it's yours until someone can take it back. Working strategically as a team to capture key tactical positions such as power plants and ammo depots have long-lasting effects that can shift the tide of battle. Victory requires strategic teamwork and a quick trigger finger to survive the massive battles."

    Do they mean the war for the continent or the battle for a territory? The territorial battles could last anywhere from about 3 minutes (its just you sitting around waiting praying some resistance) to a couple of hours (very rare). The amp stations (power plants), bio-domes and tank factories (I forget their names) don't do as much as the site makes you want to believe. The only incentive you have to capturing these are: 1.) you get more experience for capturing it. 2.) Each of these special points gives you a mediocre bonus: the bio-domes add a really minor regeneration to your health, the tank factories allow you to acquire main battle tanks outside of your warpgate and the amp stations increase the time it takes for a turret to overheat by about 1 second or so (when if you pause for a couple of seconds just before you overheat you'll be fine). I believe they don't even stack.

    Then we have the supposed 'victory'.

    So after running around capping one point after another for some experience and certs, you get the continent capped. Victory right? Wrong. You don't even get a message let alone any sort of reward. There's absolutely no reason why you should hold a point or cap a point except for experience for capping it. The only thing you get for completely capturing a continent is a puny cost decrease to aircraft, infantry stuff, or vehicles (a whole 10% or 15%!). That's it. Not even an anti-climatic "your empire has captured the continent of ___." No experience reward, no congratulations, no climatic battle. Then as soon as you leave the enemy empire you now warpgated just captures the territory back.

    What they don't tell you:

    - It takes you an absurdly long time to get any of the 1000 cert weapons (upwards of 1 month) without paying for a subscription. Once you hit battle about rank 37, it takes literally ages to get to the next rank without a subscription.

    - The guns are absurdly overpriced (normal guns are about (US)$5.75 (or is it 7.50) for a 500 or 250 cert one and ~$10.00 for a 1000 cert one. Then for the golden guns they're $20.00 or so. Remember: 100 SC = $1.00.

    - Everyone says its "Not pay-to-win" they are correct in one way: you pay, but you can't win (there's no victory objectives outside of capture a point move on to the next). You start off horribly ill equipped compared to people who've been playing and need months to get better equipped.

    - It is horribly optimised. Expect frame rates of less than 15 in big battles or even moderate battles with anything less than a mid-range PC.

    - You WILL be killed every 10 or so deaths by an infiltrator with an SMG that decloaks behind you and kills you in about 3.2 seconds.

    - You CAN/WILL be sniped by an enemy you cant even render!

    -- The verdict --
    The fun really dies out after you screw around for a little while then only becomes fun with friends. Just don't expect to meet many here. The community is full of trolls and immature kids (LOTS of 10yr olds).

    NOTICE:
    Player experience will vary greatly. Try it yourself. Just don't spend a dime until you know you like it and will play it for a long time.    … Expand
  28. mweagle
    Nov 13, 2014
    3
    They way this game creates frustration is like no equal. Overrated as hell because it's free and "big" but in fact, if you look past your generic fanboy-review and the free-ness, it is nothing worth playing.
    Okey, first one thing, Yes, it's free. But that doesn't justify it's lack of core FPS mechanics.
    Hitreg is worse than BF4. You need to predict where the opponent is about to go,    They way this game creates frustration is like no equal. Overrated as hell because it's free and "big" but in fact, if you look past your generic fanboy-review and the free-ness, it is nothing worth playing.
    Okey, first one thing, Yes, it's free. But that doesn't justify it's lack of core FPS mechanics.

    Hitreg is worse than BF4. You need to predict where the opponent is about to go, since you will only hit him if you shoot 1 meter in front of him. Same with vehicles. And if you manage to hit them, there is a chance of not doing any damage at all. This is especially viable for splash damage (tank shells). The standard tankshell has less damage than a frag grenade, which says all about the balance.

    Spawning near battles you like is often not possible, which makes it very very annoying to start.
    Unlocks are incredibly slow. You earn Certs, which can be cashed in for unlocks. But if you want to play as tank driver, pilot AND one class of infantry, it easily takes you a month to get some noticable upgrades.

    Gameplaywise it's not that bad. The game has decent FPS and decent graphics for a free game (this is justified by it's freeness). The big problem is that zerg-style wins. Bad hitreg and extremely slow character actions (switching gadget=>guns makes you be useless for at least 2 seconds since the gun doesn't fire immidiately) kills the pace and rewards camping like no other. Being aggressive with a few is "outplayed" by a group of zerg-noobs who can hardly weild a gun.

    If you are completely new to FPS games, it's a decent start, but for anyone who can aim and has a form of brain, this will be pure torture.    … Expand
  29. us4
    Dec 20, 2014
    3
    Short description of the game:
    Planetside 2 is, or at least seems to be a big FPS MMO - Right now there are 4 very big maps with different settings to play on. You choose from 3 different factions, that lack any major describtion and differ in appearance and minor stat variation in weapons/ vehicles. Similar to battlefield it offers different classes and vehicles of course. Each class    Short description of the game:
    Planetside 2 is, or at least seems to be a big FPS MMO - Right now there are 4 very big maps with different settings to play on. You choose from 3 different factions, that lack any major describtion and differ in appearance and minor stat variation in weapons/ vehicles. Similar to battlefield it offers different classes and vehicles of course. Each class feels different to play with and certainly serve its purpose, like medics, engs, stealthy sniper, light and heavy troops and such named MAX units, kind of a walker armor suit with big guns. Furthermore there are a few ground vehicles (e.g. a jeep, 2 different tanks) and some aircrafts. You have access to all classes and all vehicles from the beginning.

    On the 4 big maps the factions fight for different outposts and bases. if you participate on such fights, you get XP and such named certs, an ingame currency. also you can purchase a second currency called station cash with real money, that allows you to purchase gear without actually playing the game.

    Getting started:
    The game offers a very tiny tutorial (that sadly showed to be buggy for me). It explains how to move, how to switch classes, how to conquer a generator (the purpose of this is not explained) and how to spawn vehicles.

    When you completed this tut, the game throws you more or less into the next best battle without explaining anything anymore. It more or less leaves you there and you have no idea what the objectives are or what to do in general at all. This, and the fact that you get farmed badly because of disorientation does certainly leave a sour taste for many newbies. It goes so far, that i would say, it has a destructive impact on more sensitive peeps. at no point, when i started playing this game, it gave you the feeling of getting challanged to learn it. Its just the insane lack of important informations that any newbie has to find out by himself.

    After acclimatisation, getting better, gearing up:
    After you got used to both controls and actually know what to do, you will try to both increase your skill and gear of course. While skill is certainly something totally dependand on the player, getting gear just for specialization or to be suited for certain situations (anti-air, anti-tank, long-range, mid-range, house-to-house-fight) leaves you moaning in best case. Most weapons and other stuff can either be unlocked by purchasing it with ingame currency (certs) or with real money. Most weapons, including for the single classes and the vehicles, cost about 1000 certs or 7 dollars. at the end you are facing an insane grind or you open generously your wallet. and here i say, that at some point the game compels you to buy stuff with real money, since you will face that the grind is so insane. to provide an example: over 24 hours playtime i managed to get 490 certs. so if you dont have the time to play this game for like 30 hours per week, you will hardly get anything new on midterm. and you should consider, there is plently of stuff to purchase. some guys on planetside forums and also on metacritic say, its about 5000 certs minimum to be geared and specialized more or less decently in one class without any vehicle upgrades. for me that would mean like 240 hours of playtime. thats plain insane and makes it quite understandable why there is a good bunch of people who call this game p2w.

    General gameplay:
    first you certainly get overwhelmed how big those maps are. and you would think there are many things to explore and to fight. thats not totally true at the end. many bases and outposts are simply copy/pasted. it didnt bother me that much, but you will have your Deja Vus. the main thing you will do is to defend or to attack this outposts. if you hold an outposts some will give advantages like beeing able to spawn vehicles. fighting or defending this outposts is plain attrition warfare. dont expect much tactical deepness at all. independant of the map: this fact makes the game highly repetetive. either you outnumber the enemy or the enemy outnumbers you. plain and simple. at some point i just was like "seriously? again? *sigh*" ...

    the most sever problem of the gameplay is, that you dont feel like you get rewarded. most rewards from defending or conquering an outpost just feel insignificant considering the insane prices of everything. and that leaves at least me without any long term motivation.

    Conclusion:
    FPS MMO with big maps, a bit old fashioned graphics with hardly any varity gameplay wise. Many interesting weapons and gear that require insane grind or real money purchase. Very limited long-term motivation at least for me due to different issues.    … Expand
  30. unc0nn3ct3d
    Jul 19, 2020
    3
    What an absolutely terrible experience to have as a gamer. In order to have 1 moment of fun you will need to endure dozens if not hundreds of frustrating and miserable experiences being farmed or griefed by other players. The inbalance between the factions is insane, especially when it comes to vehicles and it honestly feels liek the community is 30% cheaters by the amount of times IWhat an absolutely terrible experience to have as a gamer. In order to have 1 moment of fun you will need to endure dozens if not hundreds of frustrating and miserable experiences being farmed or griefed by other players. The inbalance between the factions is insane, especially when it comes to vehicles and it honestly feels liek the community is 30% cheaters by the amount of times I have died to someone doing a backflip in their harasser and scoring headshots at 200 yards. It saddens me beyond belief how much time I have sunk into this game just to end almost every session with a feeling of loathing and anger.… Expand
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Awards & Rankings

26
#26 Best PC Game of 2012
13
#13 Most Discussed PC Game of 2012
45
#45 Most Shared PC Game of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 42 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 42
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 42
  3. Negative: 0 out of 42
  1. Armchair Empire
    May 10, 2013
    75
    The shooter fundamentals are all there. The visuals are great but the progression just doesn't seem to deliver any payoff for players outside of the hardcore. It's not quite as much of a shameless cash grab as something out of Zynga, but it definitely sours the experience.
    Read full review
  2. Everyeye.it
    Feb 19, 2013
    90
    Planetside 2 is a good free-to-play, strong functional and very funny, which does not envy anything to the founders of the first-person shooter genre.
    Read full review
  3. PC Master (Greece)
    Feb 4, 2013
    89
    It might look overly complicated, but PlanetSide 2 is nothing more than your average class-based, objective-oriented competitive FPS. What makes it stand apart from other F2P games (aside from the huge servers, of course) is the co-operation factor with other players. [February 2013]
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