So, looking at my day to day life I have come to realize I just have more time to write and put out better content if I put these blog posts out on Mondays instead of Sundays, so I am changing up my schedule a bit there.

So, as of writing this blog entry the game Apex Legends has been out for exactly one week now and I feel as though I’ve played it enough now to give my views on the game.  This game has completely blown up over the past week and has not dropped from the top spot on twitch all week.  A spot previously held almost entirely by Fortnite.  Last night Shroud alone had more viewers than all of the streamers on Fortnite, with him hitting 130k and Fortnite sitting only at 125k.  To top it all off, there was absolutely no announcement about what this game was or anything beforehand.  Last Monday they just had a stream and said, hey this is a game we made have fun.  At first, I thought they game was just being hyped up because it was so new, and that is why I wanted to spend more time playing it and see what happened with the game over the week before I went to write a review.  I will preface this review with the fact that the only other shooters I have ever played have been Overwatch and Fortnite.

 The first thing I noticed about this game playing it was that it runs very smoothly for a game that was just released.  I haven’t noticed any real lag spikes or any real fps dropping.  The only time I noticed any real drop in frames is during Bangalore’s ultimate.  Other than that, though the game runs as well as I would want it to.  The only other real issue on this front then is the issues they are having with servers.  I have a feeling that they did not expect this game to be as popular as it is and therefore just didn’t plan to support as many players as they have seen so far.  The server will crash a few times a night when I am playing, usually just when you are returning back to the lobby, but sometimes when you are in the middle of a game.  I hope that this will be the first issue that they try to fix because that is the only thing that is drastically affecting the gameplay currently.  Also, a smaller bug being that the voice can be kind of wonky and doesn’t always work.  Most of the time though I am playing with people I know, and we are just using discord to talk anyway so has not been a real issue for me personally.  And in all honesty this game is actually ok to play without any voice communication if you have to due to their ping system.

The ping system is something that once you have used it you really will want in just about every multiplayer game that there is out there.  You can ping locations, enemies, items, objects, and just about anything else you could think of.  The ping system I feel like is so well laid out that if you wanted to you really could play this game well with random teammates without any real issues.  That is one reason I think this game will continue to just do really well, it just makes working as a team that much easier.

The movement options in this games make it a very fast paced game and you really aren’t going to spend much time just sitting in one place.  Matches typically don’t last more than 10-15 minutes and it is rare that I feel like the game is going too slowly.  You really can’t let down your guard for a second in this game and I think that makes this a great game.  There are times in other Battle Royale games where it feels like you are doing nothing but looting and running around but I just don’t experience that as much in this game.  Part of the reason might be because it is a much smaller map than other games and you only have 60 people.

For the most part the guns in this game all feel fairly well balanced.  Yeah, there are a few that you really aren’t going to use unless you have nothing else at the time but for the most part, they all feel good to use.  I enjoy the wide variety of guns in this game also because it really allows you to play the game however you want to.  Personally, I’m pretty terrible when it comes to mid-range combat so I will usually run shotgun/smg and a sniper.    It all really depends on how you want to play, and I like having the options there if I am wanting to try something different.  There have been very few games where I felt like I couldn’t find the weapons that I wanted to use.  The harder part is finding the attachments for your guns but even this is really not that bad.  Overall the looting in this game feels nice, and inventory management is streamlined also.

Looking at the cosmetics in the game so far, they are mostly a little underwhelming currently.  This could be mostly because the game just released, and they didn’t have the budge to make better cosmetics but there are a few good ones.  I do think their “featured” skins in the shop are a bit overpriced for what they are, but you don’t have to actually spend money to get anything in this game.  Every time you level up you get another apex pack which give you three random cosmetics.  There is no chance of getting duplicates and they lay out very clearly the chances of getting certain rarities in packs.  As well as promising a legendary every 30 packs.  Is this the best system, no not really, but it does give you the chance to earn everything for just playing the game which is a breath of fresh air.

Lastly, and I think the most important part of this game, is the different legends that are available to play.  This is what I believe puts this game above the other Battle Royale games out there.  Just giving you the option to play a character that just advances your play style can make the game that much more enjoyable.  This is one option I feel like they will be able to continue to expand in the future and add in more legends to spice up the game from time to time.  They are different enough that they do let you play how you want but not overpowered enough to completely change the outcome of the game.  In the end it feels like this is a much more skill-based game and it is good to see that they didn’t try to make it too crazy with abilities.

This was just my overview of the game so far.  I may revisit this game once they start to add more to it, like other modes, or a battle pass.  For the time being that is all I have to say about the game.  Until next week.

-TheGuildmage