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Planetside

	Author: Chris Massey Article Type: PC Game Review Publication Date: 9/25/2003 Developer: Sony Online Entertainment Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment Related Categories: Science Fiction, First Person Shooter, Tactical, Online or Multi-Player

It's an FPS...or is it?

Planetside, the new massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG) from Sony Online Entertainment, takes the online shooter off a small server and smacks it onto a massive, dedicated server, much like servers for Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Actually, Planetside is an MMORPG, aiming to mix the fast-paced fun of online shooters with the advancement and massive scale of the online role-playing game.

Planetside is set during an unoriginal, futuristic time period and revolves around a conflict between three warring factions - the Terran Republic, the Vanu Sovereignty and the New Conglomerate. Each side has a different look (mainly color) to its troops and its vehicles, all of them colorful and sporting a bright, happy, futuristic design instead of something out of a Gibson novel. Planetside at its roots, is a shooter, but there's a lot under the hood that makes the game much more than that. Considering that a monthly fee is involved, just like EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot or any number of other MMORPGs, this is a good thing.

Loading up.	Load screen.

One big footprint...

This is a huge shooter. Planetside ships on 3 CDs, all nestled semi-snug in a fold-out cardboard sleeve. Thankfully, once installed, Planetside doesn't require a CD in the drive, so at least there's no need to deal with the floppy packaging and lose the contents. Installation, other than taking quite a while, was painless, and my Planetside folder weighs in at a hefty 2.7 gigabytes.

Unfortunately, Planetside is buggy. Readers with passing familiarity with MMORPGs are aware that virtually every game in the genre had bugs included in its launch. Having bugs in the tutorial is troubling, though. When the game first arrived on my doorstep, I was able to finish the first and second training missions (of which there are many - this is a complex shooter). On the third training mission, however, the one that teachers players how to use vehicles, I would always get hung up at a point toward the end of the mission, and I could never get the narrator to continue his tutorial. Recently, though, after a patch, I couldn't even play that mission. The mission loads, I'm able to see the mission environment for just a second, then it would crash to the desktop. I've had other lock-ups and hang-ups as well, but for the most part the game runs smoothly enough. However, I'd really like to finish the training one day in the near future. If my skills are any indication, I could use it.

Broken Tutorials...and a Book

At least the manual works. I can't offer much insight into the tutorials, beyond the first two, though both of them, and the half of the 3rd tutorial that I've seen, are well done and informative. The manual is also well done and informative. For an FPS manual, it's quite in-depth, largely because of the complexity of Planetside. It's not as easy to pick up the game and dive into it like most players can with Battlefield 1942 or Unreal Tournament. Learning the game takes some work, and some extended play, and even some early boredom and perplexity. Apparently the developers knew this and endeavored to cover quite a bit of ground in the manual.

Single continent drop screen.	Waiting for dropship to depart.