Modern Combat 5 Battle Royale (PC) Review

 

Modern Combat 5: Blackout is a popular Shooter game on Mobile devices. The game also got a Battle Royale mode, which we are going to look at today and thankfully also a PC-version (Otherwise I certainly wouldn't have reviewed it). Modern Combat 5's developer and publisher is a company called Gameloft, which has focused on developing either mobile ports for games of other companies or their own franchises, which are often being accused of copying popular franchises (which doesn't seem far fetched). 

Modern Combat 5 is one of their few games, which was also ported to PC, unfortunately they didn't put much effort into it. The visuals haven't been improved and look really hideous on PC. Even most 20 year old true PC-games look much better in my opinion. The whole graphics engine just looks washed out, blurry and rough around all edges. The texture quality is also in the best case hugely disappointing.

MC5 also got a story mode (Short campaign, that is severely limited by its mobile origin. Presentation and gameplay are subpar for a PC game) and various other Multiplayer modes (Probably the best part of MC5 and still suffers of sluggish gameplay and huge P2W problems), but I will really focus on the BR mode in this review.

Modern Combat 5 is a First Person Shooter and one of the aspects I disliked the most about the game is the UI. It does give you all the information (like your minimap, the weapons and items), but it is all still arranged like in the mobile version. There is no need for a symbol of the Run, shoot or grenade activity, since you are simply going to press a button on the keyboard or the mouse instead of using a touchscreen. The UI is therefore unnecessarily filled up with big useless symbols.

The gameplay of MC5 doesn't feel great, but at least it isn't completely stiff or broken. Movement is not as fluent as in a COD game or Apex Legends for example and sometimes a bit clunky, but it gets the job done well enough. The camera actually works well with the mouse, so they at least implemented this aspect well. Most BR games have usually 1 or 2 aspects, that differentiate them from the rest of the crowd. MC5 on the other hand doesn't do anything remarkable or really interesting, that could persuade players to give the game a chance. One might point out, that it also doesn't deliver any completely terrible gameplay ideas, but i would not share that line of argumentation. The foundation of the game might be acceptable, but it is way too bland to justify a recommendation or a positive judgement. Not screwing up in a major way isn't enough to earn a praise. I rather play a game, that has a couple of significant flaws, but at least some elements that are enjoyable and worth playing for. MC5 BR is limited to a solo mode, so you can't even play with friends.

A weird gameplay aspect is also the lack of a jump button. I don't remember having played any BR game, in which you couldn't jump. It certainly may not be the most important action, but it feels weird to lack that mobility option.

The weapon selection is pretty small. There are pistols, SMGs, ARs, Shotguns and Semiautomatic Snipers in the game. There is  nothing to surprising. Pistols are rather weak, as they should be. SMGs and ARs are actually feeling a bit to similar and there is no real difference in their range. The Snipers however are a bit too strong in my opinion. Since they are semiautomatic, there is no reloading after every shot and they do a lot of damage. A headshot for example is always lethal and even against level 3 armour it doesn't take more than 3 or 4 hits to put the player down. Since some areas of the map have a lot of open space, the snipers are essentially mandatory to win the match. I would have preferred a better balancing of the weaponpool. What i however have to praise is the weapon customization. There are multiple attachments like scopes, grips, magazine sizes, single vs burst shots etc. for every weapon. If the rest of the game was as extensive and satisfactory as this area, than MC5 BR would look a lot differently. The itempool consists of health packs, adrenalin boosts, grenades and landmines for example (so the usual stuff).

The map is actually one of the better aspects of MC5 Battle Royale. The POIs (Large scientific institute in the middle of the map, harbour in the east, airport in the southwest and villages in the south- and northeast and a couple of smaller building blocks all around) are pretty diverse and scattered well across the map. Unfortunately there are also a few too many unoccupied empty areas on the map, that because of the lack of cover turn into a sniper's paradise. The hills around the institute for example have practically no cover elements and make it difficult to traverse this place without being an easy target. The majority of buildings in the game are also way too empty and only have 3 or 4 different versions, that keep repeating. Nonetheless I thought the map was despite its shortcoming probably one of the strongest aspects of the game.

There are also a couple of annoying bugs and glitches in the game. Sometimes if a player receives too many shots in a short amount of time, he will get invisible for a second, which is quite disturbing, since you don't know whether he died or is still shooting (I experienced the glitch both for enemies, who died and those who survived and won the gunfight). Sometimes I got stuck into the environment for no reason and one time my game crashed out of the blue (one might say this happens in other BR games too, but I would point out that it shouldn't).

Even more annoying than these game-related glitches is the massive amount of cheaters and hackers in the game. I hear that this can also be an issue in regular Multiplayer, but I found the amount of cheating players to be extraordinarily high in comparison to all other BR games  I played (Even in Warzone I experienced far fewer hackers). In a handful of hours I saw players using auto-aim, wall-hacks (where they identified idle players behind a wall in an upstairs floor and shoot them through the wall) and one time a player teleported 20 meters to the side multiple times after I shot him. The saddest thing is, that some of these hackers still managed to lose their games, but this can be no excuse for allowing something like this to happen. I have heard from other players, that there is no anti-cheat system whatsoever in the game and hackers only get banned for a very short time, after they have been reported by multiple players. The developers seem to not want to displease the cheaters, since they could be potential paying customers...

 

Pro:

- Gunplay essentially works

- Extensive weapon customization

- Map is for the most part decently designed

 

Contra:

- Really hideous visuals

- Bad UI

- Gameplay is too stale

- Weaponpool a bit unbalanced (Snipers too strong)

(- Solo only)

- Annoying Glitches

- Way to many Cheaters and Hackers

 

Result:

Every competitive game, that isn't completely broken, can be fun in some way or another. The same is the case with Modern Combat 5 Battle Royale. If you eliminate a couple of other players or win a match, it can be entertaining for a short time, but that doesn't make MC5 a good game. The visuals are an insult even to people playing on a Potato-PC and the cheater situation is a mess. The gameplay is stale, but at least not broken in any major way. Since you can't even play with friends in a squad, I wouldn't recommend this game to anybody. There are worse games out there, but MC5 BR is still not worth a try.

4/10