Gameplay part deux

Forever war

As an MMO, it's kind of misleading to call PlanetSide a persistent world. Granted, it tracks your stats and the servers are up 24/7. But there's nothing persistent about any given server, which is constantly in a state of flux. Just as you can never step into the same river twice, you can never log onto the same PlanetSide server twice. An hour ago, your faction had this continent locked up. Now the other two factions are fighting over it and your cohorts are nowhere to be seen. There’s no sense of persistence to the geography, which consists of roiling patches of land changing hands willy-nilly.

Observation post

HART takeoff

Crater lake

Once you've earned a few battle ranks and have the points to try out enough different hardware to give yourself some variety, there's not much point in advancement. And no one ever wins or loses, which is a staple of online multiplayer action games that are played in discrete matches. There are no higher levels or better spells or improved weapons to chase. This is just war without end, at once bigger and more pointless than any other action game. You play PlanetSide as a series of short-term goals that ultimately don't amount to a hill of beans. And you pay $12.99 a month to do it.

Soldier’s stories

But the trade-off is that PlanetSide puts you in situations you won't find in other games. There are all kinds of different warfare here: frontal assault, raids, supply runs through hostile territory, cloaked infiltration, battles of attrition, flankings, rooting resistance out of the mountains, bottling up reinforcements, ambushes, air-to-air battles, and so forth.

You'll stumble across little skirmishes, you'll die stupid deaths, you'll enjoy some fantastic moments of glory, and you'll witness some impressive scenes: a handful of Galaxy transports swooping in over a hotly contested base, bringing reinforcements just when you were about to give up; sneaking up on a Harasser and a Reaver taking swipes at each other like a cat and a blue jay, getting a kill on the Harasser because he’s busy watching the Reaver, which waggles itself in salute before flying on; sneaking through a base to scout for an assault and stumbling into an enemy soldier who just spawned into what he thought was a safe distance from the front; finding the other faction’s cloaked respawn point and finally shutting it down; the hum of a dozen vehicles and their drivers milling around a newly captured location while everyone chats about where to attack before saddling up and moving on, at which point you’re in the middle of a big army advancing on its next target. At this point, the downtime in PlanetSide isn’t a drawback, but a delicious instance of anticipation.

No swimming in the lava

Two moon junction

Grounded Galaxy

These are the reasons you’ll play. Not to reach Battle Rank 10, not to control Hossin or Searhus, not to earn enough certification points to get Advanced Hacking, not to bring greater glory to the New Conglomerate in their struggle against the Vanu and Terrans, and certainly not to enjoy state-of-the-art graphics and AI. You play to plug yourself into these little vignettes. In this regard, PlanetSide is like no other game you’ve ever played. And it works.