Recent reviews by Yitch

Tried X3 years ago. Hated the tedium. Walked away.

Since then, I’ve tried just about every other space game.
EVE is 99 percent boring, 1 percent panic. Too social, too expensive.
Elite looks great but has no purpose.
Star Citizen is still just a tech demo.
Space Engineers is a brilliant builder that never becomes the strategy game it promises.

A few years back, I bought X4. IMMEDIATELY refunded it. The UI, AI, and controls were a mess.
Tried again recently. Glad I did. It’s finally a real stable game. And it’s good.

You can play however you want. Builder, pirate, admiral, trader.
You make a real impact on the universe.
This is EVE without the RL politics, and a Star Citizen that actually works as a game.

The UI and controls are still awkward. Weirdly, using a throttle and stick here makes things worse. The devs need to study how other games do things.

But Egosoft pulled it off. Respect.

I've been playing this free-to-play game for approximately five years, and even though the game has gone through a development drought these past two years, it still feels as fresh and exciting as it did when I first started.

I am not going to do a game review here, I just want to quickly tell you why I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to play an action-packed, combined-arms massive multiplayer FPS game.

The gameplay is the definition of epic. I cannot tell you how many times I have just stood still during a hard battle to look around at the sheer insanity going on around me. Over there is a massive footzerg of light and heavy assaults attacking entrenched armor, above is squadron of fighter planes intercepting incoming cargo planes filled with enemy reinforcements and all around, artillery is raining down from an enemy player base -- when blammo! The base explodes in what looks like a nuclear strike.

Though there are some parallels with EA's Battlefield games, there is nothing like the Planetside 2 combined arms (planes, armor, mechs, engineers, medics, snipers, assault class) experience when the server is filled with players and there are hundreds battling for territory. In big battles, the sounds are deafening and environment lethal. Expect to die often -- respawns are relatively quick and you can get back into action rapidly.


The game is not pay to win in my opinion. Subscribing simply allows you to rank up and purchase equipment at a much faster rate than going the free route. I highly suggest subscribing: it's really worth it. I played 3 years before I got my first character fully maxed out...my next character took only 8 months with a subscription. Some find ranking a grind, but I found that I was having so much fun playing, I didn't even notice it.

The current direction of the game is (finally) good and we will see much more content this year. The real strength of the game is in squad/platoon play and the very first big modification for 2020 will see exciting new content for players that enjoy playing together as a cohesive team.

Quick tips to enjoy this game:
- don't play solo: join a squad. in the long term join an outfit.
- the initial weapons you get are excellent, any "certs" you initially get should be spent on improving your survivability.
- be aggressive and learn to aim for the head.

If you have never played, or if it's been a while since you fought in Planetside...come and check it out!