And another thing – visually portraying a weapon’s character is only half the story. Animators must stimulate that most nebulous of concepts too: game feel. How does the player feel holding the weapon? Of course, there’re additional aspects at play: the weapon’s appearance, its fire rate and sound design, for instance. These aspects exist in harmony with weapon reload animations creating a tactile sensation for the player. If a firearm’s reload animation doesn’t match the rest of its design elements, then game feel is lost, and player satisfaction gone.

So, without further ado, here are fifteen totally awesome reload animations, ranging from rapid in-and-outs for breakneck gunplay, to stately, tactical, detailed reloads, with unnecessarily inefficient but visually epic flamboyance stuffed in-between.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Wearing its retro-future 80s action clichés firmly on its sleeve is Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Playing as Cyber Commando Sergeant Rex Colt, himself a tongue-in-cheek homage to Terminator-esque half-man half-machines, gave animators plenty of wiggle room for flashiness. There’re excessive exaggerations in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s reload animation; movements are wide and freewheeling, shotguns unnecessarily spin mid-air before cartridges are coin flipped down the barrel in carefree volition, providing both visual ostentation and information for players of Sergeant Colt’s robotic strength and precision. In short, they’re totally unrealistic, eye-popping attention-grabbers.

Daybreak Studios has been suffering the worst of these DDoS attacks that hacker groups such as the Lixard Squad keep initiating recently, and now, it seems like their servers are under fire once again. Lizard Squad, the notorious hacking group, is claiming responsibility for DDoS attacks on game servers for Planetside 2, Everquest, H1Z1, and more.

Daybreak has been suffering from these attacks since last year, back when the studio was still called Sony Online Entertainment; last week, one of the perpetrators of those attacks was convicted, but managed to avoid jailtime, prompting Daybreak CEO John Smedley to claim that he would be ‘going after him.’

To be fair, Smedley’s sentiments were well justified- the regular DDoS attacks would be reason enough for him to feel that way, but the problems go beyond just that. For instance, this was the hacker who issued a bomb thread against Smedley’s flight, and had it grounded.

Unfortunately, Smedley’s remarks are what seem to have caused the current round of DDoS attacks on Lizard Squad servers. Smedley took to Twitter to confirm that the issue was being looked into.

Hopefully they get things running again.

Anyone who uses Twitter no longer has to wonder what Matthew Higby thinks about Bungie’s policy when it comes to the Taken King DLC for Destiny. Who is Matthew Higby you ask? He’s a former developer for Planetside 2 and now that his game has officially launched, he couldn’t hold his tongue anymore when it came to his feelings about that $40 price tag and the promise of VIP treatment when it came to the Taken King.

Higby took to Twitter to say “A REAL MMOFPS experience on the PS4 and no bull—  $40 DLCs to worry about now or ever? Too good to be true? Check out #PS2onPS4 today!” He also wasn’t ashamed to continue down that path, further throwing a bit of shade at Destiny and Bungie. One user responded back to him asking if he could “quote him” on that. Higby replied that he has always preferred the free to play model over games that charge a great deal of money for DLC.

The developer pointed out that when you’re talking about a game that uses the F2P model, you aren’t forcing people to pay more money every six months in order to “stick with friends.” At some point, the developer seemed to realize that his tweet could look like a member of the Planetside 2 team was directly taking aim at Destiny and he pointed out that he no longer works on the game or for Daybreak. He added that he was now just some guy stating his opinion.

Planetside 2 went live for the PS4 earlier this week. It should probably be pointed out that the game almost immediately reported severe issues with its European servers so not everything is rosey in F2P land either just yet.

Continuing Sony’s network woes, it seems that Daybreak Game Company’s Planetside – which launched yesterday for PS4 worldwide – has had its servers offline for the past 12 hours or so in Europe.

A “PSN Store purchasing issue” struck both North American and European servers, taking the game offline but the former was fixed a few hours later. As of now however, the European servers are still down. Director of development Andy Sites simply re-stated on Twitter that the team is, “Still working to resolve the #ps2onps2 EU server issue and will post another update in a few hours. Again, we apologize for the downtime.”

Not exactly the smoothest start for the free to play shooter which was originally supposed to launch in November 2013 and seen numerous delays since then. However, given the numerous other games which see online issues at launch (Halo: The Master Chief Collection, The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited on consoles, etc.) it’s to be expected at this point.

Daybreak Game Company’s Planetside 2 is finally available to download for free on the PS4 through the PlayStation Store.

The free to play shooter has been in development for the current gen console for what seems like forever – it was originally slated to launch alongside the PS4 in November 2013 but saw significant delays. You’ll require up to 10.7 GB of hard disk space for installing the game and given the regular updates, some additional space will be required for those as well.

Players can also sign up for various membership plans to avail of different benefits, ranging from £11.99 for one month to £79.99 for 12 months.

Planetside 2 is still fairly active on the PC side. Players recently set a world record for most number of players in a first person shooter battle this past January when 1158 combatants took party. Will the PS4 version see as much enthusiasm? Stay tuned in the coming months to find out.

Sony has announced that Daybreak Game Company’s free to play online shooter Planetside 2 will be releasing on June 23rd for the PS4 in North America and Europe. Director of development Andy Sites said that the developer has “put a lot of effort into streamlining and improving the feature set” so PS4 players have “the ultimate massive-scale, FPS gaming experience.

“We’ve also incorporated some unique features that are currently exclusive to the PS4 version, which for example, include the new battle map, Koltyr. We will continue to further improve and enhance the gameplay experience after launch as well. In the weeks and months following the release on June 23, players can look forward to frequent game updates, which will include deeper features, holiday events and content, new in-game marketplace items and much, much more.”

Planetside 2 has been in development for the PS4 for a long time. It was actually meant to launch alongside the console in late 2013 but was delayed for polish reasons. What are your thoughts on the game finally launching? Let us know in the comments.

Luckily, not every control was that difficult to figure out. I was able to figure out how to aim and shoot the gun and activate my jet pack without much problems. The jet pack was especially a nice touch in order to get over buildings or in order to get away from people who were firing at me quickly. Of course, I didn’t have to use it many times, because there really weren’t that many people on the servers whenever I logged into Planetside 2. The very first time I got into the game, it took me 15 minutes before I found anyone to go up against.

"When I finally did run into a team of my own faction, it was really fun to realize that I was running with a pack. Teaming up, when going up against another faction is as fun as the game hints at, especially considering that teammates can give you extra health so you can get up and keep fighting if you have been taken down."

Obviously, when you’re talking about a closed beta, there are going to be a limited number of people to square off against. Another possible reason the wide open spaces that weren’t filled by too many players is because this is supposed to be somewhat of an open world. The beta allows you to jump from one world to another whenever you’d like. Once the player is in these worlds, there are bases and machinery you are supposed to be able to capture. With this wide open world, and so few people actually on the servers, I was able to run around for quite a while all alone.

Eventually I apparently got on a server that actually allowed me to see another human being, or whatever faction they were supposed to be with. Planetside 2 seems to want to remind people of Destiny and that goes all the way to the factions I was able to choose from at the beginning of the game. The problem with this is that there wasn’t really a name for those factions. There are plenty of ways in which the different factions look different, but those ways don’t really hold up when you are actually in the midst of the battle. The inability to tell the difference between your friends and your enemies at a single glance is an even bigger problem thanks to a feature I’m sure the Planetside 2 developers thought was a great addition. You can get hurt by friendly fire, which means that even if you open fire on someone else you find in the game and they get hurt, it doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be opening fire on them.

This feature brings realism, but also brings quite a bit of annoyance for those who are brand new to the build. One has to wonder if the closed beta will find that people being able to shoot their friends, especially when there are more people on the servers is something that will eventually go away. At the very least, one of the things that the company should change would be just how easy it is to figure out who is an enemy when you run into someone coming around the corner.

When I finally did run into a team of my own faction, it was really fun to realize that I was running with a pack. Teaming up, when going up against another faction is as fun as the game hints at, especially considering that teammates can give you extra health so you can get up and keep fighting if you have been taken down. Of course, at least in the beta, the reason for your team up is less than obvious. There are a number of different bases I was apparently supposed to be capturing, one piece at a time, but there was very little indication or information as to why this is the case.

"PlanetSide 2 on the PS4 definitely has potential, but still, the closed beta leaves quite a bit to be desired if for no other reason than there just isn’t enough action."

Exactly how to capture something also wasn’t incredibly clear. Sometimes this was simply because the text that was meant to show just how much something had been captured was so small it was hard to read. Other times, I thought I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do in order to actually get the building or the piece of machinery changed over to my side. The same can be said for having to fix something that had been damaged by the enemy. I did what the game was telling me to do, but I wasn’t getting the result I thought I would.

In the end, that could sum up my experience in Planetside 2 as a whole. The game doesn’t stand out from a rather crowded FPS field at first glance. There are some things that make the game something that would be worth playing when it finally comes out as a full game. Certainly having a massive world to play on, in fact a number of different open worlds make the game something that feels new and different longer than something like Destiny, which only has a few worlds. The different vehicles on Planetside 2, only a few of which I was able to figure out how to access and play with makes the game intriguing as well.

PlanetSide 2 on the PS4 definitely has potential, but still, the closed beta leaves quite a bit to be desired if for no other reason than there just isn’t enough action. Even when I hit the very helpful “instant action” button, I still found myself searching large amounts of terrain for someone to shoot. This makes it hard to get a good feel for what’s wrong and what exactly is right with the game.

Sony’s efforts to bring free to play titles like Planetside 2 isn’t just an effort to expand its game selection. Given the significant growth in the business with games like Warframe and War Thunder available on consoles, senior account executive Sarah Thompson spoke at a GDC Panel (via Gamespot) about the company making it an important part of its businss.

“We’re really looking at this as a significant part of our digital business. I think that it’s going to be a really a big chunk of our revenues in the next few years; 3-5 years. And it’s already growing at amazing rates that are really quite surprising.”

The success has surprised Sony considerably. “So we think that’s great news. I think that it is really stabilizing the business. And I think it’s future-proofing us. I think that it’s really taking us into where we need to be as a company. As a company, we do fully believe in free-to-play.”

What’s your take on it? Let us know in the comments.

After Sony Online Entertainment was purchased by Columbus Nova, leading to rebranding itself as the Daybreak Game Company, several resignations have taken place amid company-wide restructuring. One of those resignations is that of PlanetSide 2 creative director Matt Higby who wrote about it on the sub-Reddit for the franchise.

“Working on PlanetSide 2 has been the absolute highlight of my career, but after four years working on the game, it’s time for a change. This is a move I’ve been considering for a while now, and the reorganization provided the right opportunity for me to exit.

“PlanetSide 2 is in great hands, with terrific people who honestly care about the game and the players. I can’t stress this enough, the folks working on every aspect of the game, developers, marketing, community are talented, hard working people who care more than you can imagine – I’m fully confident they’re going to do an amazing job on the next leg of the journey.”

You can read more about the goings-on of PlanetSide 2 over on r/Planetside and let us know what you think of this news in the comments.

In the wake of the very odd, and exceptionally questionable moves that Sony have been making recently, John Smedley has taken to Twitter to answer a number of questions that have been put to him by an understandably confused consumer base.

Following the acquisition of SOE, now re-branded as Daybreak Game Company (which is a horrible name), Smedley first took to Twitter to make three key points. He said,

“1) All our games are still up and will continue to be despite our new name.
2) Yes, we want to bring our games to Xbox One in addition to PS4.
3) Station Cash doesn’t change at all (though we will be rebranding it soon here).”

In reply to a user asking if anything would change for those that had “all access subscriptions” he said “nothing at all changes”. When a fan asked if “H1Z1, Planetside 2 etc” were no longer owned by Sony, he said “they came with us”. He went on to say that they’re “still making H1Z1 🙂 nothing’s changing.”

So while little is changing for SOE gamers, this is a strange move to make in the current gaming market.

[Source]