PlanetSide Critic Reviews

Forget hiking up to the woods for a rain-drenched, cattle-scattering game of paintball. Just hook yourself into PlanetSide for a measly $12.95 per month fee and you can feast on round-the-clock galactic virtual warfare with hundreds of faceless gamers worldwide.

Seamless play and staggering detail make this quite possibly the most ambitious online action game to date.

The intensity of the battles draws the players in, but the ability to improve your avatar...keeps you coming back for more.

There's little doubt that I've failed to sufficiently convey the sheer enormity of this game.

Now here’s the clever thing – there are three sides fighting for the planet Auraxis but the battle is worldwide. It’s not the simple small arenas of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress, nor is it the enormous maps but frustratingly futile team versus team of Tribes 2.

Even when the game gets stymied by some bad gameplay, I enjoy myself. The strength of the game lies in the squadding, and the still heavily social environment, even though you're dedicated to killing people left and right.

Online FPS fans who like the heat of tactical team action will really dig the constant squad-level action of PlanetSide.

The highest complement I can pay PlanetSide is by saying that I’m addicted... At its best, PlanetSide takes a staple genre and breaths new life into it while delivering an adrenaline rush rarely found in the virtual world.

Value is largely subjective, but PlanetSide does offer numerous perks that you won't find in other games: fast servers, no cheating, larger battles (much larger) with more strategy, more socialization, and a system that makes it extremely easy to meet and play with friends.

PlanetSide's exciting mix of action and strategy is a breath of fresh FPS air.

While PlanetSide isn't a perfect experience, and will be in development for the life cycle of the product (as most decent online games tend to be), it is nonetheless and addictive, frantic and rewarding experience for gamers that enjoy action peppered with some "RPG lite" elements.

To those willing to pay, however, the reward is one of the deepest and most exciting combat games ever. The hacking, the engineering, the raw firefights, the chaos of vehicular combat - all of these elements are but minor ingredients in the eats-like-a-meal stew that’s PlanetSide.

I have not had this much fun in years playing a MMO anything and I highly recommend this title as a must have if you’re a fan of the genre.

While the average base capture can be pretty repetitive, there are huge difficult battles every so often that are more fun than anything, and these will keep me coming back for awhile.

The action is not always constant or perfect, but a big battle here is a unique experience that you just can't get in another FPS.

It’s by no means revolutionary but it’s hard to complain when you can’t stop playing and that’s what successful online games are all about. If you’re a FPS fan and have always wanted to jump into a massively multiplayer world, then landing on PlanetSide is a good way to start.

Vehicles, weapons, bases, and factions are all inter-woven into a system of balanced and sophisticated combat, even if it does feel like fighting for fighting’s sake.

Manages to deliver an addictive experience that is at times incredibly exhilarating and fun.

My rants aside, PlanetSide offers up a fun, 24/7 battle royal over giant continents with lots of toys that will delight FPS players of all skill levels, and with a free downloadable trial version of the game, you can give it a test drive for yourself.

If you've grown accustomed to 16 on 16 battles in other shooters, nothing, we repeat, nothing, will prepare you for combat in Planetside.