Recent reviews by SniperCzar

My account for this game predates its Steam listing and is closing in on 12 years old. This is a simulation style FPS that scratches my collectible card game itch. You'll want to get all the newest tools and think about building new styles of decks (mechs) even when you're not actively playing. You can toss together something extremely weird and only situationally useful, then relish in the visible confusion it causes ordinary players when you still manage to smack them around with it.

In terms of playtime, PlanetSide 2 is in rare company. I've spent thousands of hours in games like Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005), Halo PC. Crysis 1/Wars, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3. Looking back I've always been a huge fan of vehicle play and objective based gameplay. If you go into PlanetSide 2 thinking you'll push an objective on foot or blast your way around the front lines in a tank or fighter in any way that you individually will make a meaningful difference, you're wrong. You are at the mercy of the map, and the map is cruel. Part of the problem of an MMOFPS is that no matter how effective you are as an infantry or vehicle player, there will always be someone with the skill to wipe the floor with you or an organized squad with the sheer numbers to bring you down. Other games allow you to switch servers when things get too tough or frustrating, but this game rarely has more than two main lanes to push (except during primetime when a second map is well populated). Some players will rotate characters to one of the other two main factions but this isn't a good option for a casual player without a lot of unlocks or friends to play with on those other factions. Unless you choose to log out or change up your play you can't get away from a bad situation.

In practice, this makes PlanetSide 2 more of a sandbox than any of the other games I've mentioned. Your faction may get double teamed for an hour making progress impossible, but there is zero long term consequence as a brand new map will open up an hour later. It won't take long to burn out from fun, massive fights when they start to stagnate into a WWI field charging simulator or blow out into a 100 armor piece steamroll. The best fights are wonderfully chaotic, but even the best chaos doesn't stick around for long and long term satisfaction comes from setting and achieving your own goals. Lock down *this* airspace. Take out *that* spawnpoint. Start a big fight here, at your favorite base. Drive around blowing up tanks with a full squad on ATVs or fly over airdropping a demolitions team or three right on top of an armor pile. Build a base with a few friends and start bringing down orbital artillery. There's nothing you can't achieve with enough numbers or creativity. What feels powerful for one player is downright oppressive with a coordinated group so don't leave teamwork only for your enemies.

From an infantry perspective, classes are very well balanced and each role feels uniquely different.
Light Assault: Fly around with a jetpack, using vertical movement to flank and bombard enemies
Heavy Assault: Maximum survivability with a rechargeable overshield, rocket launcher, and large capacity LMGs
Combat Medic: Keep health and shields topped off, support front line pushes and repeatedly revive fallen allies. Can even area rez (revive grenades are amazing).
Engineer: Medic, but for vehicles. Drops ammo refills for infantry. Jack of all trades that can also deploy mines, manned turrets, auto turrets, barriers, etc.
Infiltrator: Assassin/recon class with active cloak. Can generally annoy players at range with sniper rifles in outside spaces without cover, but more effective in close using knives/pisols/SMGs along with cloaking and motion detection radar capabilities.
MAX: Hybrid infantry/vehicle class. Iron man exosuit that costs a large amount of vehicle resources and gives a choice of anti infantry, anti armor, and/or anti air weapons along with a heavy damage resist

Infantry weapon balance is also very good overall with no P2W here. Every weapon (other than gimmicks like the firework or snowball gun) is unlockable with in game currency. Weapons feel like sidegrades and you will die because your enemy had a situation better suited to his weapon or better tactics in getting the drop on you, not because he paid money for xyz weapon.

Doesn't take long to spec out a specific class or vehicle you want to use to be competitive, maybe 10 or 20 hours for a casual player. Paid players grind XP faster and can pull vehicles more often, but at the rate a casual player will change up loadouts it's not much of a difference. The worst case wait for a heavy vehicle is 9 minutes, most vehicles are more like 5-6 and if you're making any effort to stay safe and alive in your element (ground vs ground, air vs air) it isn't a problem. It can get pretty annoying when a good air player hunts down your armor and flies away but it's not a paid vs free issue.

Vehicle balance has always been a bit of a problem. Anything can kill a spawnpoint vehicle. Tank gunners are a deterrent to air but not a hard counter. Having large groups of air or armor greatly increases their survivability and while most infantry have the ability to keep some sort of explosives or anti armor option with a regular loadout, bringing AA has a large opportunity cost and coordinating AA just makes the swarm spawn or fly elsewhere rather than actually face some kind of meaningful defeat. Armor at least moves slowly enough that destroying a few costs time and resources for the attackers. It doesn't help that air dogfighting is one of the hardest skills in the game to learn so you're unlikely to see a group of good pilots respond to an area since they're likely air exclusive players already in the sky and fighting elsewhere.

Implants and ASP (prestige) are the worst grinds in the game, but mostly give new flexibility to playstyles rather than upgrading existing ones. The highest grind implants tend to be quality of life enhancements like short range IR vision, auto spotting positions of attacking vehicles, infantry mine immunity, easier gunner spawning for squad vehicle play, and replacing health with extra shield.

Free to play and low system requirements makes this game very easy to try out, and being an MMOFPS where the basic objective is just to run and gun means it's a great choice for 4-10 new players to hop on together as a squad for an organized game night. Solo players picking it up will have better luck finding a patient friend/squad leader or joining an outfit (equivalent to an MMORPG guild). I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who likes 2005-2015 Battlefield style squad/objective based gameplay with lots of vehicles. Once again, never be afraid to change up your fight or playstyle constantly if it's not going well, because enough skill or numbers in the hands of your enemy can make anything fun start to feel awful.

See you planetside, soldiers!