Apex Legends

8.0
8.0 score
[Editors rating (8.0)] = (TheGearHunt) score (8.0)/10


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Editor rating: 8.0 / 10
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Apex Legends Review Facts

Are you looking for a great battle royale game that ISN'T Fortnite? Need something that has a little more of a unique flavor in what your options are? Apex Legends will give you that and more. From weapons and armor that upgrade in a variety of ways to unique abilities across a group of unique characters, this game has you covered. The fact of the matter is after those two ideas, there should be little need to wonder if this game is great. After all, there are a lot of battle royale games out there, but most of them are not as good as they could be. Maybe with more competition out there, they'll get better and raise the standard for the genre, but this one really has raised the bar.

Editor's Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Fast-paced action
  • Plenty of upgrades
  • Unique character abilities
  • Beautiful graphics
  • Good source of competition
Cons
  • Squad play-only

Visuals

As before mentioned, the graphics are beautiful. The character designs make each character stand out in their own ways and the territories are multi-tiered so that all types of players can have their own chance to shine. From the buildings to trees, even the rocks are designed to be pleasing to the eyes and the light variants from shadow to bright sunlight flows nicely. One can only wonder just how long Respawn Entertainment worked on just the visuals for this game before getting EA to publish it.
The cell shaded graphics are intense and satisfying in both gameplay and in the cinematics, we have seen displaying the characters. It can be difficult to decipher what to expect when going into a game through the commercials, but the game delivered in ways that were greatly admired. Cell shading is also not a style that usually leaves a realistic feel, and in games like this can leave some feeling disappointed. After all, we have come to expect a sort of Borderlands level of appearance, so when we took a look and truthfully found it to be easily as good or even better we were left feeling rather impressed.
A lot of detail went into this game to give it a mix of both realism and a sort of ‘looking at a painting’ type of feeling. You can see minor details from how the dirt and damage seem to have gathered on characters and items alike, but the slightly harder edges leave you feeling like you are looking more at a 3D painted poster or card. This gives leeway for toys, card games and more to be offered based on the game without any of it looking out of place. This is not an easy task for game artists to pull off, and we can see those who worked on this game definitely did.

Audio

Apex Legends has no soundtrack to speak of. When a player sets foot into the actual meat of the game, there is no background music. In a battle royale game, though, one shouldn't want to have music going to dampen your ability to hear the various other sounds one would need to hear to survive. From gunshots to footsteps to teammates call-outs, music would only make the game harder and take away the "stress" of a survival situation. All-in-all, the sound effects are wonderful, and the lack of music definitely helps the atmosphere of the gameplay.
Outside of the gameplay area, you are given the music that it lacks in the world. This is to say, you are not left in total silence as you load up, choose your character or modify other elements. You also get to hear music in the lobby area if you wish while you wait for the battle to start out. You might be wondering if the music takes away from the atmosphere, but in truth, it doesn’t. If anything, it keeps that battle, winner takes all, element and puts a great soundtrack to it. The scores are well thought out, if not short. What many do not realize is that creating a soundtrack that loops without leaving you feeling hanging is hardly an easy task. This was done beautifully and none of it will leave you wanting to mute your TV between rounds. If you play and don’t note the tracks when you pop it in, we would suggest checking it out on YouTube, since a few players have done the awesomeness of setting it up as a single track to listen to on their channels. It certainly left us feeling ready to jump into the game and prepare our character for a good fight.

Gameplay

As was said, the gameplay is fast-paced. Once you get your character selected, a squad put together, and drop into the world, you have to scramble to get equipment, weapons, and ammunition. This is not always as easy as it sounds, as you may have to fight your way to get what you need, sometimes against opponents that are better equipped than you are. Once you have what you need, though, now it's time to take your squad to the top of the board by eliminating all other squads. The game even tracks who has the most kills in the round and openly proclaims who the kill leader is. When someone else becomes the kill leader, a voice tells you that a new kill leader has been named, great for helping a player adjust their play-style to be able to avoid or take out the leader. And if you die, don't worry, as long as your squad is still alive there is a way for them to get you back on the field.

Narrative

Most battle royale games have little in narrative or story, but that isn't such a bad thing. Players have little time to gather lore or listen to snippets of story. Between dodging gunfire, setting ambushes, staying within the ever-present ring, and keeping the squad alive, a story would only complicate matters and take away from the rousing battles that a player will face once on the field of battle. Story? Who needs it with this, grab and gun and carve your story out for yourself!
This game does, however, have some backstory if you care to delve deeper and relocate its entrance into the world of gamers. The characters are all considered ‘Champions’ according to the background story, but they all know that once on the battlegrounds they are all on equal footing. They have to group up to survive and find the equipment they need. The personalities are shown in quite a colorful fashion. The commercial gives each a memorable part to play as they talk about how they ended up there or show them interacting together. While this really can’t be seen too well in actual gameplay, the story element is left for the players to decide as they create their groups and meet head on to try and be at the top by the end, and just like the story explained- only one can ever truly come out on top. After all, the game is a ‘kill or be killed’ scenario, leaving little room for anything else.

Theme

Apex Legends is a battle royale game, which means plenty of combat and exploration into the map. To find equipment, which is randomly strewn about, one must explore the area, all the while watching your teammate's backs as they are supposed to watch yours. To call it a war game would definitely be an insult because most people will think of the Call of Duty franchise when the war genre is mentioned. This game in no way is like that. Playing a first-person shooter with sci-fi elements that pushes you closer and closer to other players to cause shoot-outs and ambushes is nothing like the story-driven battle sequences of a Call of Duty game. Of course, there are people out there that will bring up the fact that the aforementioned Call of Duty games DO have online multiplayer that is sort of like a battle royale game, but those have a story mode, and such is a major focus for those games. While the story to those are usually quite good and set the pace for the main game, Apex Legends has no need for such things to set the pace, let the other players do that. Let the action drive you to further want to be the last squad standing!

Multiplayer

This game has NO single player option; thus, it is online and massively multiplayer. Honestly, even when Respawn Entertainment puts out a solo mode of gameplay (Which they've hinted at doing in a future update), Apex Legends will still be massively multiplayer. There is no way to have a game like this where there is only one player to be had. How could there be? Honestly, with how driven the game is on equipment, characters, scenery, and upgrades, inserting AI characters that try to run around and act like other players would not work. More likely those AI 'players' would end up just rampaging after the actual human player and ignore each other until after the prime target was taken out. Instead, having a game like this, with no AI enemies running about, means that Respawn can focus more on adding in more equipment and playable characters, which is always a plus.

Online Play

As is the case with all battle royale games, Apex Legends is only able to be played online. There is just no real way to play a game like this any other way unless you go out and go play paintball or airsoft with a large group of people. Trying to set it out as an offline battle would take away in the end, and truthfully can’t be done on any single console or even via computer, because you would need more controllers and screen space than would be available. Some online games are just not intended to be played offline from the start, and this is definitely one of those.

Replayability

Seeing as there is no story to play through and all the items in the game are randomly placed about, there is no need to wonder if this game has replayability. Even considering the fact that no two games will ever mirror each other, that makes this game even more exciting. Add in any and all updates that will be released in the future, including new modes of play, and this game will have serious replay value. Youtube even has a channel where players can send their clips in and the best are published into a montage of the greatest moments in the game. Not too bad, really, and maybe one day this game will rise up to be a true contender in the e-sports category. As a mass player, it can easily be summed up as ‘what were you expecting to play through?’ when someone asks this question of you. If it wasn’t worth playing multiple times, then it wasn’t worth playing from the start. Of course, we can hope they add more characters through downloadable content- just to keep things new and interesting. New content is a must have for any game of this genre.

Price

Apex Legends is completely free-to-play, though you CAN buy in-game currency if that's your thing. Many hours of battles for the honest price of $0.00, who can ask for more? Download the game, load the game, grab a squad and get on the road to becoming the last ones standing! Of course, if you do want to grab online currency or bonus weapons for yourself to give you a boost over the rest, you can purchase the coins through Amazon starting at $10 for 1000 of them. Not bad, considering most online games give you less for more as far as in-game currency goes.

Key Features

-Sci-fi characters
-Fast-paced
-Free-to-play
-High replayability

Bottom Line

So, here we are, at the bottom line on this game. After much research, Apex Legends shows SO much promise to be the best in the battle royale genre of video games. Between costing nothing to get your hands on, having an endless number of possibilities, being massively multiplayer and having visuals that are very easy on the eyes, who wouldn't want to get their hands on this game? Of course, players need to practice and learn the fundamentals of the game before expecting to get to be one of the last ones standing, but it also depends on luck, ultimately. Were you, the player, able to drop in at the right location to get the best loot and were you able to get there and get ready for combat before other people? These are key things to think about. So again, looking for a great battle royale that is in the first-person perspective? Look no farther than Apex Legends, folks, and enjoy!