Recent reviews by thresherwood

Apex Legends, to me, is the best shooter royale out on the market right now by a pretty large margin. I'm not really into the shooter genre in general, so when this game captured my attention so heavily I was pleasantly surprised.

One of the best features of this game is the movement system. It's really fast, slick, and you bounce around just enough that you feel really fast and flexbile, but not fast enough that gunplay gets too difficult to keep up with. There's still slower paced, more campy action to be found if you want to slow down and take it easy. Although sliding into 3 people with a shotgun is usually more fun.

On top of this, the legend system keeps every game fresh, since you're able to pick a completely new playstyle ever single game. Want to lay traps and watch as people from the campfire you've set up in the ring? Doable. Want to run in with a speed boost and hit crazy double jumps and fly around? Doable. Want to phase in and out, swing around on a grapple, do mad surveilence? All doable. For only having 15(?)ish legends, the variation feels really good. There's a lot of small nuance between each character, so there's a really high skill ceiling and many opportunities for skill expression. I will say that some legends feel way better than other ones, but Respawn has been buffing and adjusting accordingly and keeping a pretty decent eye out. The "lower tier" legends are all also very playable and you can see success on any of them if you put the time in.

The maps are pretty solid as well, with 1 of them not in rotation as I'm writing this review. Olympus is this bigger scale, more open map with smaller nodes of action that tend to be really busy. The introduction of cars are well done too, as there's a proper trade off for using one. It still doesn't really tackle the big issue of getting third partied, but I think that's just a permanent feature of any battle royale game. World's Edge is fun too, although I'm less sold on it than Olympus. It's spread out as well, but has a lot of verticality and tight corridors for some fun action. King's Canyon, the one not available at the moment, is the OG map, and of course, holds a special place in my heart. It's still personally my favorite, with all of it's problems, but I think between the three maps there's a really good feeling of distinction between them all. I dislike none of them, but I also think they're all very different in how you play out each game.

Gunplay feels tight and rewarding as well. Each gun feels useable and "meta", although some are very clearly gated by getting good attachments or hop-ups. Each gun feels pretty unique and everyone has a favorite set up they like to use, although being flexible between games is important. I really like the sci-fi aesthetic and I think the guns fit in well.

The final thing I was gonna touch on is the monetization model. It sucks. I understand it's a GaaS, ultimately free, yeah yeah, but this game is expensive if you want to get some good cosmetics. Of course, it's all optional, and it doesn't affect gameplay, but I'm still not a fan at how expensive everything is and how obviously predatory it can be at times, especially the pre fix season 7 battle pass and the loot box system in general. Ultimately, just a sign of the times. But an inexcusable one at that.

I really recommend giving this game a shot, it's super fun and you wont regret trying out a game or two.