Introduction

I'm not an online gamer but this game sucked me in for the first few weeks and I've found myself coming back to play with friends. It's a slick, optimised and addictive game with tight, responsive gameplay.

The machine that goes ping!

What sets this apart from other battle royale games is its unique ping system. This system makes it easy to flawlessly communicate with teammates. You can warn them of enemies, alert them to guns they might have missed and let them know you're defending an area. Each character also has dialogue that can alert you and your teammates to things that have happened such as: 'Open supply bin!' When pinging an open bin so you're aware that someone has been there before you. The ping system makes the game appealing as it makes the game accessible for those who don't like to use mics or those who don't have them.

We've got a team...

There were 8 characters originally with 2 that had to be unlocked. A new character recently joined the game with the launch of the battle pass. Each character handles a little different with their abilities. A future update will also give bigger characters a little extra kill time.

Characters are fun and dynamic and well designed in an artistic sense though some backstory would be nice, possibly in the form of unlocks at certain intervals just to make the player connect with their main a bit more.

A game of risk and reward...

Games load in quick and you're on the ground in less than a minute. The map is highlighted in places to indicate where the best loot is so it becomes a gamble to go to these highly infested areas and then battle for the best weapons. Do you chance dying quickly for a chance at some of the best loot or do you land somewhere quiet and make your way across the map in the hope of finding decent loot for the final showdown should you make it?

These questions can change up the pace of the game but unfortunately can also result in the better players having the better gear in the game and gear makes all the difference. A player without armour is easily destroyed if they're surprised and a blue armoured player is going to struggle against a purple armoured enemy in a firefight if their skill is evenly matched.

And this boils down to the problem with most battle royale games. While there is room for lots of incredible acrobatics (and thus skill) in this game with its lack of fall damage, ziplines, scrambling, sliding mechanics and a character who can zipline with a special ability some firefights come down to luck. Who has the better gear?

Thus, this game can be a challenge to get into. It isn't user-friendly if you run into an organised group and often death is quick when this happens. Which is ok because you can load in quick and you can be revived if your team survives but the skill ceiling is constantly rising as people who play this primarily optimise their gameplay. It isn't for the faint of heart.

Gimme loot!

This leads to another downside of the game. It's free so it is loaded with microtransactions. And once again they're behind lootboxes. They're all cosmetic which is wonderful but they're based on chance which is a real problem with microtransactions. It comes down to probability to get new lines, banners, titles, weapon skins, character skin etc and it is a slow slog to level up and gain only 3 new things, some of which can be a currency to build these cosmetics. Once again, this isn't a problem in itself but the fact that it can be so slow and arduous to level up makes it feel like a grind. You can use a currency to build these cosmetics but it comes at a slow trickle.

For a free game, I would be more than happy to pay a dollar to have a gun skin I want. Or a character skin. But I can't pay just for the chance because I think that's insulting to the consumer. That's not exciting for me. Even when you get a pack for levelling up you might not get anything for the character you've been playing as for the last hour. I'm sure this is intentional, to urge the player to keep playing to hopefully get something for their character but it still feels wrong. Microtransactions are fine if they're done right but I don't think they are done right in this game. Even the battle pass has to be bought with coins, you can't just pay ten bucks to nab it. Why is beyond me.

People argue that cosmetics aren't everything but it is nice to personalise your character and make them your own. It makes the gaming experience more personal and reflective.

Final word...

Overall this is a slick and well-polished free-to-play game that is a blast to play with friends. The ping system is ingenious and the characters are diverse and offer unique special powers to change up the game. If gameplay is all you're after then this game is a perfect battle royale crossed with a hero shooter game but if you like to feel rewarded and as if you're progressing then you're going to stagnate after a while as the rewards aren't worth it.

Apex Legends is a game with stunning graphics and incredible, innovative movement used and improved upon from the Titanfall franchise. This game has an incredible esports scene further more popularized by the transfer of multiple Call of Duty: Warzone streamers switch to Apex Legends due to the staleness state the game was in. The designs for skins are beautiful - both character skins and weapon skins - and the LTMs are unique. However, something along the line got screwed up and money triumpt all other incentives to improve the game.

To start, in season 3, the battlepass (which is $10) had skins of the rare catagory that changed the whole design. To give some background context, common skins changes the color in various sections of the skin, rare skins change various parts of the skin to be 'pattern colored', epic skins have moving patterns, and legendary skins change the shape of the skin. Battlepass skins were catagorized as rare while changing the look of the skin completely instead of just adding a 'unique' pattern. However that has changed as of late and they've gone back to just using 'unique' patterns.

Second, they've promised they would make skins from collection events, battlepass, and launch bundles exclusive. However, they've started to break this promise bringing back launch bundle skins and collection event skins, reselling them for a increased profit as the playerbase has increased drastically in a year.

There's a bunch of other things that I could nit pick about, but I love this game, and even though I shit on it, I still love it. I just believe that EA has ruined a large aspect of the game, being the skins and exclusivity surrounding them, and wish I could continue giving my money to them for new, exclusive skins rather than skins that I know won't be exclusive and everyone will have them at one point or another.

When the Battle Royale genre came to market, I played a couple of them. After PUBG, which I found fun for a while, but eventually bored me, Apex Legends hit the scene and it was an amazing experience.

In Apex Legends, you start in a team (with friends or random people) and choose a character and class. Each class has its own starting layout and proficiencies and, depending on the play style, can really make the difference between winning or losing.

An epic cutscene plays in which you are dropped from a plane, and while descending, you can choose where on the map to land. On your drop, you can also see the spread out other players, so you can determine somewhat how close they are going to be. After landing, you can explore a giant map in search of new weapons, enemies and gear.

Every so often, the playable area gets smaller and running into other players will be more likely by the minute. The tension is great and with each passing second, the chance for victory or annihilation gets closer. In the end, the combat arena is not bigger than a living room in a house and the combat en tension rises to a whole new level. It is them or you.

Apex Legends looks great. The huge map, the forests, the water, character models and color pallet, it is beautiful to look at. For me, the way the game looks, really enhanced my experience and made me choose this game over other Battle Royale games in the genre.

In terms of sound, the game is also outstanding. The glorious battle music at the start, the ambient, threatening tracks when exploring the map, it is just great.

The overall atmosphere of the game feels like a whole crowd of fans and supporters is watching. It has some sort of “Super Bowl vibe” if that makes sense. Sure, players who have been eliminated can watch you struggle (or die) but most move on to another game, which makes sense. Still, Apex Legends has this appeal.

I really liked the overall setting of the game. The action, the constant alertness of your surroundings, finding cool stuff, the adrenaline rush combat when you turn around a corner and the enemy is standing there, and one time, I even won the match with my team and I felt like a God.

The game is, of course, most fun to play with friends and the coordination and teamwork is just great. You are playing a video game, but it feels like you are in the army.

My only personal problem with Battle Royale games like this, is that you find a lot of cool stuff, get one-shotted in the head, and the game is over. This has nothing to do with the game, it is just how it is played, but I always get a little bumped out over building up something cool and strong, and then lose it all in a second.

Overall, I think Apex Legends is a great game and I would recommend it to everyone.