The creators of Planetside have given Planetside a sort of RPG twist to it. Your character will level up and gain Battle Experience Points (BEP). Earn enough of these points (each base capture can give your character up to 5,000 BEP) and you will receive a Battle Ranking. With each new Battle Ranking, your character receives a certification point, which is used to unlock new weapons and vehicles. Certification points are excellent because are used to get anything you want, if the amount of your certification points matches that of the certification. It may sound confusing, but basically if you want to fly a Reaver aircraft, you would need 4 certifications. To become a Medic, you would need 3. When you first begin the game as a new character, you are automatically given 4 certification points to use for whatever you want. Choose wisely!
Planetside�s large outdoor environments make vehicles practically a necessity. Thankfully, the game features a great variety of vehicles for everyone�s tastes. If you think you have what it takes to have large-scale dogfights, you can grab a Reaver or Mosquito aircraft. This game supports ground combat, with small tanks such as the Vanguard or Magrider. Commanders of squads can have transportation for their troops, with vehicles like the Deliverer, Galaxy and the Sunderer. These vehicles come with enough seats to easily seat a squad, and gunner seats are available for added protection. Vehicles can add considerable variety to a large-scale battle, as tanks lob missiles back and forth and fighter aircraft deliver destruction from above.
One thing I really appreciate is the fact that you can steal any weapon in the game, even enemy weapons. Of course, to use these weapons you need the certification that supports their equivalent weapon. It is even possible to steal enemy rides. If a careless enemy leaves his vehicle lying around, it is possible to jack it, but it requires hacking. The best part of being a weapon/vehicle thief is watching the enemy die by their own vehicle/weapon. That never ceases to amuse me.
It�s hard to describe the best parts of Planetside, because to get the complete picture you must experience them first-hand. Just imagine 200 people per team fighting over one base. That�s 600 people! Factor in the different variety of weapons available (shotguns, rocket launchers and assault rifles) and the different vehicles that are available in the game. Now imagine that you are with a group of fighters underneath a bridge. Your team is trying to advance to the base, and they need some cover fire. You break out your assault shotgun and pound away at a dozen incoming troops. Suddenly you are shot, and you must retreat to the underside of the bridge for cover. Oh, watch out for snipers on the ridge to the east! You look around; you are surrounded by enemy tanks and soldiers advancing to your position. Suddenly you see a friendly Liberator aircraft drop an assortment of bombs all around the perimeter. As the enemies are distracted, your team runs through the battlefield and uses the trees for cover as you fire at the enemies, wiping them all off the map. You are safe, for now.
The key bindings of Planetside are so resourceful that you probably won�t even need to reconfigure them. Other PC games that involve aircraft can get pretty sloppy when it comes to a triumphant control scheme, but Planetside�s flight model feels natural. Some people may assume that commanding an entire squad would be difficult, but this just isn�t the case for this game. With the simple press of a button or with a key command, you can switch between different types of chat (ex. Squad chat or Local chat) to remedy the combat situation. Controlling your character is quite simple, and if there isn�t a key mapping that you like, it is always possible to change it. The game can be played in third-person, but I don�t believe it�s feasible to run-and-gun from this perspective. The third-person view might be helpful to some for flying and possibly driving, but I don�t recommend going into combat in this view. I frequently switch to this perspective to look at my suit�s colors (your suit gains more of a certain color as your character gains certain Battle Ranks). Overall, Planetside provides one of the best examples of how first-person shooters should be controlled.
As great as Planetside�s gameplay is, one has to wonder about the longevity of the game. Sure, you can get several months of fresh gameplay out of this package before the whole thing becomes stale, but wouldn�t it be great if there were more to the gameplay than just capture-the-base? Sony has been assuring players that more gameplay variety will be incorporated in the future, and I am definitely excited about that. But will they be able to save this game before everyone decides to leave the game? I bought the game in May and the servers were full of people; thousands per server. It seems like the number of people playing Planetside is slowly diminishing, but new players are coming in as well to take their place. Still, the population of most servers took a fall sometime around late June; ironically that is around 30 days after the game�s launch.