Alz

If I wanted to take a time warp back to decade old gameplay I'd play... well I'd play almost every other MMO, but as far as shooters are concerned, I'd probably go play some classic shooters from the 90s or turn of the century.

Traditional MMO combat doesn't get ragged on because most other MMOs aren't really improving it either, but when you make an MMO based on another super popular and continuously evolving genre like shooters, (or other genres) you better make the gameplay at least come close to keeping up with the new standards of the genre.

Either way, the review won't change more than .5 after the re-review.

Tweens are a big business today? They've always been a HUGE business because they're so easily to manipulate into wanting to buy products. You could say that about a lot of demographics, but with tweens, you have the chance for rapid growth with their following of fads because their friends like X or Y product and now they must have it regardless of what they thought about it beforehand.

It's only a matter of time until some tween targeted MMO becomes the "it" game. It'll probably mostly be focused on social activities. A Myspace on wheels, you could say with some addictive features like most other MMOs to keep them playing.

That said, I've seen enough weirdos in games like Free Realms already. It literally took me 10 minutes playing with my niece to walk into some town center and see someone talking about sex. But hey, at least How to Catch a Predator has a chance to turn into a more entertaining show.

It's cool and all that he wants to make deeper and more graphically impressive browser games, but don't they realize all of these moms, grandmas, and really bored, but non-gamer young women and men are only playing because they're ridiculously simple and kill time? (And addictive) If you actually go about adding some gameplay depth to a browser based game, then you won't gain the interest of the majority of people who play those games. Also, the more impressive you make the game look, the more overwhelming it gets for those non-gamer players.

Much like Fallen Earth, the combat is YEARS behind current standards in gaming.

Will these developers just give up on mimicking fast-paced action games? Just stick with the classic MMO formula and stop failing.

Really? I've heard more bad things than good from beta players including myself. Not to mention the current professional review average is 77%.

FPS games are my type of game more so than MMOs except when I'm addicted to one, but this game just too... average, too generic to really grab me. It's the kind of FPS I like with massive teamwork focused battles, but it really doesn't deliver on the gameplay itself. Plus, most reviews are finally explaining to people that the game may as well not even have a 256 player mode as the way the game is designed defeats the purpose of even having that large player count.

This game probably isn't going to sell well. If you factor in the PS3s rather low attach rate for first-party games and that it's also going up against other triple A games from the end of last year and the huge games rolling out this quarter, it really doesn't look too good.

The only reason I would buy this game would be because I needed something to hold me over until Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I don't think $60 is worth two months of play time.

It's kind of a trade off. Questing caused a lot problems, but it also removed as many as it caused.

For one thing, questing KILLS exploration, which is my true love of playing an MMO. Exploring is fantastic. Some day you may decide, "You know what? I'm going to go ALL the way through the forest I usually kill monsters in on safe side of. On your long journey of running through increasingly numerous and more difficult monsters, you end up passing through a giant desert with huge monsters patrolling along with bandit camps. You keep going until you stumble upon some giant pyramid like temple. Should you go in? It could just be for looks. It might just be another area to grind mobs in. It could have mobs capable of one shotting you. It may have giant demons filled throughout. It may have a world boss at the bottom. Who knows what loot you could get or if you'll even survive.

That's what I miss about older MMOs. The sense of exploration and the large lands, which you may or may not even ever have to go to. There's no point in exploring in a quest based game. EVERY SINGLE AREA in the game will have a quest which will eventually send you there at one point or another. The areas are all designed for various quests. Sure, WoW had plenty of things to explore, but... that's because those areas were shipped in an unfinished state, waiting for right content patch or expansion to open it.

Another problem questing caused was essentially killing off group focused play, which at one point was the cornerstone of MMOs. On the other hand, you no longer have to waste your time searching for a group and exploring to find an obscure area without much traffic safe to settle down to grind. I guess this comes down to preference.

Questing also makes the MMO... completely pointless until end game. In most MMOs these days, you aren't even considered to be actually playing the MMO until you're at the max level. Where as before, leveling was as much the actual MMO experience as it was at max level going after the hardest bosses.

Of course, quests do provide more story for the player even if it's as simple as going to kill 10 rats. More NPC interaction regardless of whether it's for a quest or not is always a good step for getting involved in a world. However, one problem with that is that the story is no longer centered around the world itself, it's centered around you. You're no longer just a resident of some world who makes his own choices on whether or not he wants to be some warrior hero, trader or just a bystander as the world makes its story around you. You are the story in quest based MMOs. You're the big hero at every step you take and with every quest you complete whether that's really the character you're making or not.

Sure, I probably wouldn't want to go back to the days of EQ, UO or AC, but you can't help but admire their capacity to make a truly believable world to live in. I only get the sense that I'm just playing a video game out of most current MMOs.

I absolutely would never let my kid play this game without the chat restrictions. I played this game with my niece and within a few seconds someone in this crowd of players in town starts talking about sex.

Planetside is great... until you get bored, which seems to happen to a lot of people. It seems that the burnout point inevitably came for a lot of people including myself who played the game. There's almost no one who will deny how much fun the game is, but you just can't help but eventually lose interest after a few months or maybe a year.

Then there's of course the not so beloved expansions that keep people from coming back because they say it's just not the same anymore. Then again, I guess that happens a lot to SOE MMOs.

You'll never be able to shoot 256 people. The maps are separated to where a number of squads fight an equal number of squads over objectives from beginning to end. See what happens in the 256 player maps when it's the final push and you respawn in the center of the map. It's framerate ownage until you travel to the objectives you need to defend.

The lag is rare, but lag spikes do occur occasionally. Either way, the features and combat are kind of basic, which isn't a bad thing, but when you realize how massive the battles truely aren't, at least not in a way you'll ever see going after your set objectives with your squad, the basic gameplay/features really don't make up for it. Also, the vehicles are limited and rather lame. That's a major disappointment.