All-Time Battle (PC) Review

 

All-Time Battle advertised itself as a Battle Royale game, so I thought despite the negative reception to give it a try. Maybe it would be better than Battle Royale Survival or Royale Island Showdown. Turns out I was wrong in nearly all regards.

Let's start with the good. The Cel-Shading Visuals are actually not ugly and the maps  do look decent (character models however are pretty atrocious block creatures, that are supposed to resemble humans). There is even a variety of different maps (Wild West map, Desert Airport, Asian garden complex and futuristic city) and the maps are filled with nice details.

Everything else in the game however is really terrible. Movement feels completely off. You character will still move, even if you stopped pressing a button for second or two. The gunplay and hit detection are also completely random and imprecise. You can stand still and shoot 5 bullets straight onto the target, but only 2 will count as actual hits...

There are huge P2W elements in this game. Players start matches with their loadout weapons. Default players only get a shitty pistol, while paying players can get way better equipment for high prices with real money. This whole game just seems to be a monetization scheme for the developers (After insane amounts of grinding this awful game, you could also simply unlock decent weapons, but I wouldn't wish that even to my worst enemy).

Because of the out of the question awful gameplay and P2W elements, there are no real players left in the game. But don't be afraid, there are super retarded bots in the game. You thought the bots in other games are awful and weird, you have seen nothing yet. The bots in this game will without pausing randomly shoot in the air and environment, even if nobody is anywhere around them. If you get to close however, they will start to aim-bot since the rules of the awful hit detection don't apply to them (Bots btw also start with good weapons into the match...).

The game gets advertised in the Steamstore by having a Battle Royale mode and various multiplayer modes. Don't believe these lies. There is only a Team Deathmatch mode here and it isn't really a TDM, but a retarded bot vs human mode.

If you want to find anything else aside the visuals in this game, that is not ported straight out of hell, it would be the loading screen texts. These texts will randomly start to insult the players, which is even a bit funny and therefore way more entertaining than anything else in this game.

 

Pro:

- Nice visuals

- Decent maps

 

Contra:

- Awful movement

- Disastrous gunplay

- Massive P2W issues

- Lack of content/Lies by the Devs

- Completely retarded bots

 

Result:

For the love of god, please don't play this game. I have recently been very critical about the very unfinished and unfun looking Element Battle Royale (Review coming soon in a different article). In Comparison to All-Time Battle, Element nearly looks like a decent game... Don't play this game! Don't install this game! Don't think about this game!

1.5/10

We Were Here (PS4) Review

 

We Were Here is the first part of a coop puzzle adventure series. In the first weeks of February the game was given away for free in order to promote the franchise. I did try it out and want to summarize some of my impressions in a short review for this game.

The main aspect of the game is the cooperation between two players (either friends or strangers) in order to solve puzzles. The story and presentation are rather minimalistic. The intro and outro 'cutscenes' for example are just animated slideshows. Two players get lost and separated in an abandoned castle, where they were trying to escape a snow storm. I will not spoiler any of the puzzles/riddles since they are the reason to play the game. What I can point out however is, that both players have different perspectives on every riddle. One player is the explorer, who is usually in the middle of the 'puzzle-action', whereas the other player is the librarian, who has to decode clues and notes to support the other person. The catch is that both players only see their own perspective and they have to use voice chat in order to explain the other player what they are seeing and how their clues might be interconnected.

The process of talking to the other player and trying to figure out the riddles is the main catch and fun point of the game. Some of the puzzles have a time-limit, but most are just about figuring out what you have to do.

The riddles and the coop aspect were done really well and I truly enjoyed my time playing with a friend. I also still enjoyed our second playthrough, when we switched roles. After that point however the game will lose a lot of its appeal (to be fair most puzzles games are simply not meant to be played in rapid succession). The short length of the game of 1-2 hours even for the first playthrough are something to be aware of. After you know what you are doing, the game could probably be beaten in around 20-30 minutes.

The visuals of the game are not that great (Textures are mostly on a PS3 level), but that is certainly not the reason to play We Were Here. The castle insides however were designed well and did give the immersion of being in an abandoned castle, from which you have to escape. The controls work well, which admittedly isn't so hard with the limited gameplay options. I appreciated the option to open private lobbies in order to play with a friend, but playing with strangers in public lobbies could also be fun (In public lobbies you need to use a walkie-talkie to communicate with each other and you can't speak simultaneously).

 

Pro:

- Great Coop feature

- Riddles/ Puzzles done well

- Replayability through second perspective

- Immersive abandoned castle atmosphere

- Free in February

 

Contra:

- Too short (only 1-2 hours)

- Minimal presentation; dated visuals

- Story didn't use the potential

 

Result:

Overall I really enjoyed We Were Here as free coop puzzle game. The short length of the game however would certainly prevent me from investing more than 5-10 Euro/Dollar for it. Visuals, presentation and gameplay are rather minimalistic, but they were certainly not the priority on this game anyway. The riddles were done well, it just should have been at least 4-5 more. The premise of the story was also pretty interesting, but they didn't really utilize the potential in my opinion. I would still recommend the game, especially for free.

7/10

Hit N'Rush (PC) Review

 

Hit N'Rush is a newly released Battle Royale game, that is in a really early 'Early Access' stadium. The game has been open for public between 18-23.2.2021 and after that been put back into a test-status. This means that the game is playable only for 2 hours every week, in which all players can login and review the updates of the developers. Hit N'Rush is supposed to re-release in April 2021 with a big update. The question now is, what makes Hit N'Rush interesting and worth writing about? (Critics would simply claim, that I am reviewing every BR game in existence, but that is provably wrong. It is at most 99% of them).

Hit N'Rush brings some interesting new concepts to the BR genre. There is for one the Jetpack with which every player starts into a match. This is a really cool feature and it seems to work well. It is neither too overpowered, since you always need to balance the direction you want to jump in and how much of the Jetpack energy you want to use, but it is useful for traversing the map and positioning in combat encounters (The Jetpacks also have a forward boost, that reminded me a lot of the exo suits from COD Advanced Warfare). I definitely like this gameplay element.

The other big unique element are the domes (save points). After some time there will be a 2 mins warning timer, that signals the players to get into the domes to survive an attack. There are usually 3-5 different domes to choose from and all players outside of the domes will get killed. After that the match will continue as normal. There is no circle/ reduction of the playable areas outside of these dome moments. The domes also have a second function. They can bring back killed teammates. An eliminated team member will become a ghost, as long as his mate is still alive obviously, and can follow his teammate around the map. If the alive player and the ghost are together in a dome during the attack, than the ghost will be revived.

As I mentioned Hit N'Rush is still in a very early status, so most areas still need a lot of polish. The gameplay foundation and concept however are very solid. Gunplay and movement already work pretty well and the dome concept really offers something new to the genre. That is much better than the other way around, because it is easier to polish a fun game, than make a polished game fun.

The weapon selection is decent. The default weapon is an automatic pistol, which probably stands out in comparison to most other games, where you either start with a weak single shot pistol or no weapon at all. I like the automatic pistol however. The other weapons are Shotguns, Snipers, SMGs, ARs and a LMG (aka the usual stuff). The game could definitely require some special weapon to stand out more, but the weapons in the game all seem to work well.

Some of the areas, that still need polish, are the visuals, the sound and the map. The graphics engine is okay, but the Devs definitely still need to improve the texture quality to prevent the finished game from looking under average. The map looks good and I like the layout of the island and the different environmental elements (Desert part, forest part and mountainous areas) and POIs. It is however still important to fill these POIs with more life. At the moment they feel very empty, since most buildings have no elements in them and there are no objects or weapons to be found.

Weapons and Healing objects need to instead be collected from alien treasure containers, which are protected by PVE monsters. These monsters as a PVE element are a nice addition, but at the moment they are a bit too weak. You obviously don't want them to be too strong either, but at the moment it was, in my opinion, too easy to dodge all their incoming attacks.

Sound effects for weapons are pretty decent. You should probably still improve them a bit, but I would likely be satisfied enough with the status quo. I would consider replacing or improving the sound effect of the Jetpack, since players are going to hear it a lot during the matches and it sounds a bit like a leaf vacuum. At the moment there also some flickering sound effects (especially at the beginning of the match, but sometimes also later on), they are not pleasant for the ears and should be eliminated. The main menu soundtrack is pretty good.

The main menu in general is pretty well done already. It gives you a good overview where everything is and the customizability options are also pretty good (Only annoying thing is that you can not move your mouse while changing the controls or you will have to reconfigure the camera to the mouse... I would suggest to simply remove the option to rebutton the camera movement).

The lobby size is currently 24 players and there is only a Duo mode playable. The map would certainly be big enough to increase the amount of players to something between 30 and 50, but I understand why they wanted to start with a small size and it also works well enough with 24. What they however should definitely improve is the queue. At the moment there is no indication how many players are searching and how long it is gonna take to get into a lobby (The queue also seems to cancel itself after around 10 minutes). Many players will probably lose patience after not finding a lobby for a while, but the situation could obviously change if the game gets a full release. I would however suggest letting players into the pregame lobby much earlier than currently is the case (where you need a nearly full lobby to enter the pregame lobby), because it is a better way to kill time than looking at the main menu screen. The pregame lobby is also still very rough and consists only of coloured blocks, which look rather hideous and unfinished. This is probably not a priority, but should also not be too difficult to improve.

There are obviously still a good amount of glitches and technical issues in the game (like clipping through objects; the mentioned sound bugs; self-canceling queues; I also had a glitch, where my weapon wouldn't stop shooting till I switched to a different weapon, but than I couldn't shoot at all anymore...), but I am optimistic that most of them should get ironed out in a couple of months. 

 

Result:

Overall I liked Hit N'Rush. The dome concept really changes the way this Battle Royale game is being played and the Jetpacks are also a cool idea. Movement and Gunplay already work pretty well and the map shows promise, but most other things in the game are still pretty rough. If they would release the game like this right now without any further improvements, than I would probably rate it 5.75/10. I am however very optimistic, that they will keep polishing and improving the game, so that this game definitely has the potential to get into the 6-8/10 category.

5.75/10

Magnificent 5 (PC) Review

 

Magnificent 5 is a Wild West Battle Royale, which sounds pretty cool in concept. The gameplay is also decent, but like some of the other less known BR games it lacks a player base. Occasionally there are a handful of players online, but most of the time it is either 0 or 1. The game is the Battle Royale version of the PVE Survival game New Frontier, which itself is the renamed version of Wild West Online (There are a lot of controversies behind the developer Free Reign Entertainment and especially their founder Sergey Titov. Titov was involved in creating games like The WarZ, Falling Skies, Last Man Standing and Wild West Online. These games are mostly not even really terrible, but they all have in common that they get pushed out way too early, they include clear P2W elements and they all get abandoned without warning, after they milked their playerbase dry. In some cases these games even got re-released without any changes as 'new' games under different names. The WarZ turned to Infestation Survivor Stories and Wild West Online to The New Frontier).

As I mentioned the gameplay of Magnificent 5 is pretty decent and is the closest to something like a BR version of Red Dead Redemption we are gonna get (Apparently a BR mode named Gun Rush has been added to Red Dead Redemption 2, but it seems to be much smaller scale and without a real BR map). That being said, it is still a very large gap to the gameplay of the Red Dead games. The game can be played in either third or first person view. By default, weapons are being used in first person and riding is being handled in third person, but players can freely switch between both.

The weapons (Rifles and Revolvers) fit the setting well. So far I only saw Pistols, Shotguns and Repeater-Rifles (semi Snipers) in the game, but there are also supposed to be real Snipers. Weapon variety isn't so large, but the setting certainly also limits this (SMGs or ARs would simply be unrealistic and unfair in the Wild West). The gunplay is slower in this game than most others, but that is somewhat accurate for the weapon technology of the time. Gameplay in general/movement is also a bit slower than in most BRs (except for Mortal Royale of course). Downed players will actually lie on the ground like they have been eliminated (they can still be revived by teammates at this point), but you actually need to shoot their corpse again, so that it turns into a gravestone. This is certainly something to get used to, since in others games there is clear visual difference between being downed and being eliminated, not so in Magnificent 5.

Every player starts the match with a horse, which seems appropriate for a Cowboy. Mounted combat is possible and certainly makes the hunt for other players more thrilling. The riding works well in general. Players will also need their horses, if they want to explore the huge map. (The western cities, Saloons, Sheriff offices etc. look nice) Apart from killing players, the main goal is to explore the beautiful map and find some treasure chests to collect. The map is really one of the highlights and porting it over from The new Frontier was good move. There are many different places to explore and a good variety of different elements, that represent the setting well.

There are no Solo or Duo modes, but instead only a 5 people Squad mode (hence the name Magnificent 5) with up to 100 players (good luck with that!). To start a match there are at least 5 Squads required (they however don't have to be filled up completely, so 5 players could theoretically be enough). Most times you will not find anybody and sit for hours in queues. The first time I actually managed to find a lobby my game crashed after the loading screen... Thankfully there are still some dedicated players out there, who occasionally queue in. With their help I got into some matches (Still important to note, that some of them just play for grinding and not to play competitively). If you want to play, than you should definitely either check the Steam Charts or a Discord-channel, because you will otherwise very likely only waste your time.

The visuals of Magnificent 5 are totally okay. They are not comparable to those of the best games in the genre, but they certainly look better than that of most of the trashier BR games out there. Sound effects are decent and fit the setting.

 

Pro:

- Beautiful and large Wild West map

- Setting has been captured well (horses, cities, weapons etc.)

- Gameplay is overall decent

(- Riding works well)

(- Choice between First and Third person perspective)

 

Contra:

- Slow gameplay

- Lack of a playerbase

(- Smaller weaponselection)

(- Squads only)

(- Controversial developer)

 

Result:

Magnificent 5 is special in the sense, that is the only real Wild West Battle Royale game worth talking about (we are simply going to pretend, that Red West Royale doesn't exist). It captures the atmosphere of the scenario pretty well and it has a gorgeous prairie map. While the gameplay may be realistic, it still fells to slow and heavy in comparison to others. Furthermore, it is difficult to even play the game, because there are so few players out there. I would still recommend trying out the game, because it is definitely not a bad game and it has a cool Wild West atmosphere to offer.

5.5/10