Recent reviews by Daniel Envy

What makes Rematch so magnetic is how it puts every move — a pass, a tackle, a curved shot — in your hands. There are no aim assists or easy magnetization of passes. Instead, skill, timing, and precision reign supreme, which makes landing those perfect maneuvers supremely satisfying.

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The Meta Strategies That Thrive in the Arena

Here are some go-to strategies making waves in the Rematch community:
• Wall Play & Alley-Oops: Players use the walls just like extra teammates — launching angled passes or rebounding shots to set up surprise volleys or bypass defenders.
• Team Passing to Draw Pressure: Sharing the ball early can manipulate defensive behavior — opponents often retreat after being beaten a few times, opening the field later.
• Misdirection & Fake Shots: Shooting at the wall above the net to trick goalkeepers, then collecting the rebound for an open chance — it’s a cheeky, effective opener in lower-rank play.


Why It Sticks — And Why It Matters

By focusing on hand-crafted mechanics, physicality, and tactical savvy, Rematch has carved its own niche — a soccer game that rewards real player ingenuity and quick thinking more than star rosters or automatic assists. Its developer even believes it’s become irreplaceable for fans of the genre.

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Bottom Line

Rematch is an electrifying spin on football. It’s equally inviting and demanding, rewarding teamwork, mental tricks, and fluid adaptability. Bounce passes off walls, fake a shot into glory, swap roles mid-match — it’s clever, chaotic fun. Whether you’re a solo dribbler turned team player, or a tactician seeking that smart alley-oop, there’s always something new to explore.

In-depth review and my personal experience — The Finals

Quick verdict: The Finals is a wild, physics-first arena shooter that turns every match into a miniature action movie — demolition, improvisation, and frantic gunplay baked into one. It’s not trying to be Call of Duty; it’s trying to be the game where you blast a hole through a wall, rappel through it, drop a healing beam, and then watch the arena collapse behind you while the crowd (and obnoxious host commentary) eats it up. It mostly succeeds.

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Why Embark Studios’ background matters

Embark Studios was founded and staffed in large part by veterans from DICE and other teams who worked on large-scale, physics-heavy shooters (Battlefield being the headline example). That pedigree shows in every design decision: maps built around destructibility, an emphasis on emergent player creativity, and weapons/gadgets that interact with the world in non-trivial ways. The team clearly designed systems to encourage improvisation — not just scripted moments — which is why the game’s physics/destruction plumbing feels deliberate instead of tacked-on.

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What makes The Finals mechanically unique
• Fully interactive/destructible arenas. Walls, floors and cover are gameplay resources you can create and remove; the map is a toolbox. This shifts tactical priorities — flanking can mean “blow a hole here” as much as “sneak around.”
• Game-show framing + spectacle. The meta layer (hosts, holographic crowd, televised presentation) makes destruction feel like a performance; it’s both UI and theme.
• Multi-team modes and varied objectives. Matches aren’t just team deathmatch — multiple teams can compete, and modes like Cashout / Quick Cash force different risk/reward choices than the standard FPS loop.

These three factors combine into emergent moments you won’t see in a run-of-the-mill shooter: entire strategies can hinge on making new sightlines or denying a platform by leveling it.

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The three weight classes (light / medium / heavy) — short primer

The Finals separates players into Light, Medium, and Heavy builds. Each weight class changes your base HP, movement, and the gadget/specialization pool you can access. That means class choice isn’t just cosmetic: it determines your role, utility, and how you approach an arena.

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Why the Medium build is such a satisfying playstyle (and why you — a Medium main — should love it)

Medium is the “utility soldier” archetype: the jack-of-most-trades that anchors fights, holds midrange, and provides team support without being a slow tank or a fragile scout. It’s great for players who like to flex between fragging, objective play, and support.

Core strengths
• Versatility. Mediums have access to balanced assault rifles and mid-range guns that perform well at different engagement distances; they’re not pigeonholed to one niche. (Meta weapons like the AKM, FAMAS, FCAR and seasonal meta choices often populate Medium loadouts.)
• Team utility. Medium specializations/gadgets include Healing Beam, Defibrillator (hands-free rez options), Guardian Turret, jump pads, and mines. These give you the ability to heal/revive teammates, fortify choke points, and shape engagements, which is massive in objective-focused modes. Guides and meta write-ups consistently place Medium as the most adaptable support/combat hybrid.
• Balanced mobility/health. You can engage, take a hit, and still reposition — unlike Light (too frail) or Heavy (too slow). That makes Medium ideal for midmap control and clutch plays.

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Game modes — why Quick Cash (and others) stand out

Modes like Quick Cash and Cashout layer economy and timing over pure kills. Quick Cash is faster, higher-octane, and forces split-second decisions about when to extract vs. gamble for more money. This creates a different loop than standard FPS objective modes: you’re making tactical decisions about loot and risk in a destructible playground — and that meta is a breath of fresh air compared to the typical run-and-gun or objective-hold formulas in other AAA shooters. Players often praise Quick Cash for its pacing and the varied strategic options it encourages.

Compared to Call of Duty or similar large franchises:
• The Finals sells interactive environments and emergent physics over rigid maps and scripted sightlines. Where CoD emphasizes tight gunfeel and standardized map control, The Finals encourages players to make the map into what they need it to be. That divergence produces cooler, more unpredictable plays — and sometimes chaos — in each match.

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Rough edges & caveats
• Meta and balance flux. Weapons and gadgets get tweaked frequently; what’s optimal can change season-to-season. Follow community resources if you want to keep your Medium loadout optimal.
• Server/performance issues (at launch). The game had teething problems with server load at release and occasional bugs — remember this is the same studio still iterating on its multiplayer backend. Updates have improved things, but occasional balancing bumps and LTM experiments are frequent.
• Learning curve. The destruction and gadget depth means new players can be overwhelmed; it rewards experimentation. If you like to tinker with builds (you do, as a Medium main), that’s a feature; if you want simple, predictable gameplay, it can feel noisy.

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Final thoughts — who should play it?
• Play if you love: emergent sandbox moments, creative tactics, hybrid support-combat roles, and the joy of watching a map crumble under your strategy. Medium mains will find a sweet spot between fragging and team utility.
• Maybe skip if you prefer: strictly balanced, predictable map play where destruction isn’t a major factor (some competitive players prefer the stability of CoD-style maps).

Bottom line: The Finals is one of the more original FPS entries in recent years — not because it reinvented gunplay, but because it married solid shooting with a living, destructible stage and a playful showman’s outer skin. If you main Medium, you’re in a prime position to enjoy the game’s best moments: you frag, you enable, and you reshape the fight in real time. That combo is uniquely satisfying, and — most importantly — it makes every match feel like your own highlight reel.

smash

This is the best game ever...