Hardly a Review: Planetside 2

Planetside 2 is one of those games that scratches an itch you didn’t even know you had. Let’s face it everything it offers has already been done before in one form or another, so why should you care? Well citizens, it’s a lot like Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pies, the result is far greater than the sum of it’s parts. Allow me to elaborate.

Planetside 2 dubs itself an MMOFPS, and whilst it is not the first game in this genre, it’s certainly the first one to truly earn the title “massive.” Each server supports up to 2000 people at any one time, and whilst that may seem like a low number for MMO’s I can assure you I have never once had a problem logging into my chosen server. It also holds true to it’s title of FPS, whilst contemporaries like Firefall try to exist within the realms of a recognisable MMORPG, Planetside 2 comes at the genre from a completely different angle. Instead, it chose games such as Battlefield 3 as it’s starting point’ and indeed it plays very much like Battlefield 3... if you force-fed the maps steroids.

Hardly a Review: Firefall

So I've been on a bit of an MMO binge this past week, it’s been the penultimate open beta weekend for Firefall, so I finally managed to get a good look at the game. If you follow my twitter then you’ll know I've been trying to get my hands on it for the longest time, and I have to say, what little I've seen of it in the past 48 hours impresses me. Before we got any further, let me put this out there, this review is based on my very first impressions of the game, I don’t claim to know the game in intimate detail, I don’t claim that anything I talk about will be in the final release of the game, and I don’t claim my experiences will be the same as yours. If you disagree with what I have to say, or want to bitch at me, send it all care of Nosh cos I don’t give a good goddamn. Right, now that’s out of the way, to the review!

So the story behind the game, essentially we’re in the distant future where the world has solved it’s clean energy problems with the discovery of a new element called Crystite. That’s right folks, no shale gas here, if you’re gonna do it do it right. However, during the testing of an FTL drive powered by Crystite something goes wrong, and the resulting catastrophe (known as the Firefall) releases a tear in the fabric of spacetime known as the melding. This mutates wildlife and renders a lot of the planet uninhabitable, and also led an alien race known as the Chosen to Earth, where they launch an invasion. Wow... I mean only an idiot thinks shale gas is a good idea, but it never released some crazy alien race on us. Anyway that leads to the start of the game where your gang of mercenaries allies with what's left of Earth's government to force back the invasion and save the day.

Gotham City Cost Cutters

Gotham City Imposters is a great game. Honestly, it’s something I can play with the same religiosity as I play Team Fortress 2. It’s also just gone free to play this week, so you have absolutely no excuse not to play it yourselves. However, this sudden move towards the free to play model has got me thinking. What inspired the move, and are free to play games always inherently successful?

My first thought of the free to play model has to be the way it has shaped the MMORPG world. Since World of Warcraft essentially has a monopoly on the genre (you can disagree with me, but that don’t change the facts) other MMO’s with a subscription based payment model just haven’t been able to survive. Heck, the first question anyone asks when they hear an upcoming title will come with a subscription is: “How long do you think until they’re forced to make it free to play?” I should know, often those words are coming out of my mouth. A subscription based MMO going free to play, is often a sign that not enough people are playing the game to make it profitable, which as far as I’m concerned is never a good sign. It reeks of a last ditch effort to get people through the door and playing their game before they must inevitably resort to shelving it.