My review of PS

[TekDragon]

Well it seems alot of sites are giving their reviews of PS. The first thing i think of is "What the hell are they smoking"? Then i wonder "How much did SOE pay them?".

Not being a professional game reviewer i dont know all the nuances of reviewing. However, i do have the benifit of having played just about every MM game released including another MMFPS (10six). I also have the benifit of having played FPS games for a long time including Tribes, Tribes 2, Unreal Tournament, Quake 2 & 3, Half Life, and some BF1942 (at a friends place).

I also know a little bit about reviewing. I know that you cant look at a game and go "Oooh thats purty, ill give it a 9!". I also know you cant compare it completely to another game that is somewhat like it. The best way i could see to review this game was to break it into small sections relating to the first person shooter field, massively multiplayer field, and finally: the fun factor.


FPS ASPECTS

Concept: Good. I love the concept of the game. Gives some spirit to the world. Too bad storyline doesnt seem to be a priority for the dev team.

Weaponry: Sub par. Relatively few weapons split over 3 factions. For a MMFPS game this is pathetic. The weapons also lack variety. My 6 year old neice could think up cooler weapons. Hell, why didnt they just hire someone from the Tribes team to help them think up some inspired weaponry?

Fighting mechanics: Sub par. Emphasis on weapon firing cones over skill. Very little movement related combat. Any newb with a 2 minute discussion on how to fire in bursts will be a pro at fighting. No shot location mechanics is another step backward. To **completely** knock out twitch and skill fighting is a huge step backwards for a FPS. Even BF1942 had more twitch fighting involved, and its even more realistic than PS.

Vehicles: above par. The variety is good and they each serve a purpose. Driving mechanics need some work but overall this field is a good bit above average for FPS games. I especially enjoy the basilisk and i ph34r the reavers.

Graphics: average. The graphics are pretty, no doubt. But AC2 had better graphics and so will Star Wars Galaxies. Plenty of other games have graphics just as good as this, if not better. The weapon explosion effects are poor and almost made me give this section a sub par rating. However, the scenery is pretty enough to bring it up to average.

Content at release: Sub par. Uninspired, cookie cutter weaponry split across 3 factions. 5 bases. Thats it. The only thing going for the content was the vehicles.. but even that amount is small compared to what it could/should be for a MMFPS.


MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ASPECTS

Communication: average. Other MM games have done better, others have done worse. The voice chat feature is the only thing that keeps it from sinking into sub par.

Player interaction: sub par. The tools to organize outfits (one of the key features going for the game) are lacking, greatly. There is no way to see the equipment for your men and there is no way to organize them into sub squads and assign roles from there.

Latency issues: average to above par. Coming from a guy that played UO when it first came out I can say this game doesnt have much lag. But when you look at other MM games that have 20 to 30 times more stuff running through the server with the same amount of lag you get the feeling that not much of your 13$ is going to the server bill.

Content after release: So far, terrible. All weve seen so far is patches that fix bugs that should of been fixed in beta. And patches that then fix the bugs that come from the previous patches. The only thing weve gotten besides that is the "promise" of some new vehicles and a basic pencil drawing of what one of them will look like.

FINALLY

Initial Fun Factor: Good. Despite the fact that the game is sub par in almost every category theres still the attraction that comes from being in a large scale battle with other players.

Lasting Fun Factor: Poor, but largely unknown. Unfortunaltey, ive already gotten bored with capping the same base over and over. Every day that goes by I play less and less on my nephew's PC. On the other hand, my college buddies still link up every night to play CTF on Blood Gulch in Halo. Who knows though, maybe SOE will pull their heads out of there ass and give the game some content.

OVERALL SCORE
6.5-7.0

An ok game that had great potential but was cut short with abysmal content and flaky combat mechanics.