PlanetSide 2: PlayStation 4 Beta Impressions

The F2P shooter will be hitting the PlayStation 4 later this year.

Ladies and gentlemen, I come before you an honest individual prefacing this examination for the closed beta of PlanetSide 2 on the PlayStation 4: I'm biased. Years of playing different games on a range of consoles have led me to prefer a particular setup when I run first-person shooters. I'm not going to touch PC/console wars by any stretch, but I'll admit when I play on console, genre of preference is definitely not first-person shooter.

Bias and wrist injuries aside, I was surprised to hear that many were very interested in hearing about PS2 for PS4 (and we're sorry for any confusion with acronyms, but it's just so easy). It's safe to say that there's a lot the release on PS4 should deliver, and for someone who hasn't experienced the full gamut that PS2 has to offer, I may be able to provide a fresh—albeit limited—viewpoint on where the game stands before full release on the PS4.

The weakest point for the beta is the population for the servers. Warping around between the different continents just finding people to fight with was time-consuming. The majority of times I "instant actioned" I landed in the middle of a misty field with a gun and leaves to punch holes in.

That left me free reign over experimenting with guns and vehicles, the latter of the two made it much easier to see more explosive kamikaze action, if you get what I mean.


Five seconds before terminal kamikaze here.

Controls are pretty smooth, but flying a ship with two analog sticks is a new endeavour for many and will likely take a lot of time for players to get familiar with. The horizon doesn't help much either, making trees (at least where I played) nearly invisible until they're close enough to turn hazardous for your health. It didn't seem like the controls—whether player or ship—needed any kind of tweaking, but other aspects of the game certainly did, like this missing button action.

Some options tended to suddenly cease function and other actions weren't available at times (instant action would self-disable). There wasn't an apparent reason for the madness other than being under the massive "beta" label. It was nothing game-breaking, but other first-persons have had more successful betas than this, to be honest.

But...after the glitches, the empty servers (save for one epic battle), the masochistic flying, the control-movement hurdle (which I forgot about during play), and the fact that it is a beta—it's still fun.  I still enjoyed jumping into the middle of the base and checking out what weapons I could play with and level exploration. It's a beta and that's expected. There's some polish due here before we see a crowd flock to PS2 on the PS4, but people will be able to enjoy this shooter on its new platform soon.

PlanetSide 2 is slated to launch on the PlayStation 4 later this year. Register for the closed beta here.


Follow Jeffery Wright on Twitter @WrightJeffD

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