Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Diving in headfirst, I noted that there are a number of smaller objective points that can be captured for your empire surrounding the main base. Capturing those points will make capping the main base much easier, but as I quickly learned, you still see a lot of combat surrounding these as well.

The idea is that you can take a smaller squad behind enemy lines to capture and shore up defenses that you’re going to want in place once your larger army moves in to cap the main base. That sounds like some fairly simple stuff on paper, but bear in mind that you’re dodging tanks, air strikes, suppressive turret or sniper fire, and whatever else the enemy forces are throwing at you in the meantime.

If you can survive all of that delicious chaos long enough to capture these smaller objectives, the benefit for you team is that you’ll basically be shortening the amount of time it takes to capture the enemy base. To the bottom left of the screen you can see the capture status for each one of the empires, represented as small progress bars. The more you fill your bar by capturing these smaller objectives, the greater your overall capture advantage.

What that ultimately means is that once you’re ready for a full scale assault on the main base, you’ll be able to capture it far more easily. In the short term, however, it will also open up new spawn points that place you directly in the middle of the hot zone rather than having to fight your way in each and every time you take a dirt nap.

Spawning vehicles has a different fee associated with each type, and what you’re able to spawn will depend on which types you’ve worked to unlock. Air vehicles were a heck of a lot of fun, and the standard keyboard controls felt pretty natural. In fact, think about swimming in any other MMO and the controls are basically the same here. Planetside 2 will also support the use of flight sticks, so I suspect there will be a lot of players who focus on advancing their flight powers to match their prowess.

That’s one of the main strengths of PS2s persistence; instead of simply being a massive shooter, it caters to multiple types of players or the ability to fulfill various. Given the vast landscape players will be battling over, it provides plenty of opportunity for the more tactically minded to truly shine even if they don’t have the fastest FPS reaction times. The territorial control will also provide a much richer social experience than you’d find in just about any other shooter on the market.

Sure, the game is bound to attract plenty of players on both the winners and whiners side of the CoD spectrum, but I tend to think that’s a good thing. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the pace of gameplay changes once you start seeing larger, or more organized teams scampering around the map.

In the meantime, we enjoyed our time with Planetside 2 and are eager to experience more. It also impressed us enough that it’s snagged one of our coveted Best of E3 nominations for Best of Show. While we still have plenty more to see and do at E3 this week, Planetside 2 kicked things off on a high note, and is every bit worthy of the nomination.

For more on Planetside 2 check out the E3 2012 trailer and keep an eye on our Planetside 2 portal.