Последние обзоры Robert N. Adams

The changes to the Battle Pass payment (real money instead of coins, no way to earn the next Battle Pass by playing) has killed any desire for myself or my friends to play the game. Combine this with rampant hackers in ranked, leavers in pubs, and a hiliarously low 20 Hz tickrate and I'm effectively done with this game. The Battle Pass change was the straw that broke the camel's back.

For context, I played Apex Legends since Day 1. Stopped playing just before Season 1 released, got back into the game around Season 11 or 12. I have only ever bought one or two Battle Passes at most. The coins earned from each Battle Pass allowed me to purchase the next one. It kept me engaged. Occasionally, I would purchase a cosmetic I really liked for myself or my friends. I am absolutely against subscriptions or recurring payments where possible, but I have less of an issue with the occasional one-time purchase.

Seeing the normalization of $15, $20, or more for a single character skin is atrocious and Apex is one of the worst offenders. I would not even think about buying cool skins for $1–$5, but $5–$20 is an absolutely insane price range in my opinion. And then they have the audacity to effectively double the price of the Battle Pass (granted, while slightly increasing its content) and require you to purchase it every 1.5 months. Insane.

Apex was fun because it was a good shooter that you could jump into in a minute or two and play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. It had great fundamental mechanics and was generally decently balanced, at least from my non-competitive perspective. EA raked in billions — billions! — from this game, and yet they failed to meaningfully reinvest any of that money into improving the longstanding issues such as the low tick rate, missing footstep sounds, hackers, etc.

Goodbye Apex, it was fun while it lasted. I'm hoping that EA will come to its senses and actually fix things, but I don't think that will happen.

P.S. Make sure to not fall for the "door in the face technique" (Google it!). EA will be "reasonable" and reduce the price of the Battle Pass or only require a $10 payment for both splits of the Battle Pass. Do not give in unless they totally reverse their decision to charge real money for Battle Passes and restore the ability to earn and use Apex Coins to purchase subsequent passes!

Duck Detective is an adorable detective game that absolutely oozes with charm. The mechanics of figuring out a case are fun, although they can sometimes devolve into trial and error.

My only major complaint is that this game can be over far too quickly — I beat it in just under 2 hours. You should expect to spend 1.5–4 hours on a single playthrough depending on how quickly you can solve the puzzles.

The Cycle: Frontier is an "extraction shooter" — a game very much in the style of Escape from Tarkov. I went into this game hoping to find an interesting experience, but I'm sorry to say that it is brought down by poor design decisions and unbalanced gameplay.

tl;dr: This game, in its current state, is probably not worth your time. Here's why:

• Tiered gear games some fights unwinnable. Many games have loot of varying quality. You can win a game of Apex Legends with a half-equipped white P2020 and blue Shields if you have skill. That doesn't matter in The Cycle. The TTK (Time To Kill) is so absurdly high that having better gear is more important than precision shooting and superior positioning. Players with superior gear (and I'm talking like one tier higher than yours) will simply tank your damage and mow you down with an LMG you haven't unlocked yet.
  
• Teamed-up squads and solo players are in the same queue. As a corollary to the previous point, squads of 2–3 players and solo players are all mixed in the same games. You can win a 1v2, 1v3, or even 1v4 in some games if you play smart. That's virtually impossible here unless you have superior equipment.
  
• Random drop points make completing Jobs and Missions unnecessarily difficult. Need to be at the Waterfall Labs? Too bad, your random drop point is in the Swamps. Hope you like running across the entire map! Otherwise, you can just extract with nothing and try again, hoping that you don't get killed while carrying items you need to put into a Dead Drop.
  
• Random Extraction Points are frustrating, too. Adding to the problem with random start points, the Extraction Points are also randomized. Why you cannot leave at any available launch pad is beyond me. This removes all possible strategy from the game — it is one of several randomized factors that makes your chances of success more dependent on luck rather than on strategy.
  
• Joining games in progress does not work well for this style of game. The Cycle: Frontier plays like a weird hybrid of a round-based shooter and an MMO. When you join into a game, you're likely connecting to a server that already has players on it with areas that have already been looted. This doesn't make for a level playing ground. The biggest issue of all, however, is that players can immediately kill you as soon as your Drop Pod lands, and you have virtually no chance to prepare or fight back.
  
• Melee is borderline useless. I have seen 80-year-old grandmas swing a purse faster than you can swing your knife. Miss a swing? Congratulations, you're dead — your character apparently needs 3 seconds to recover from the exhaustion of swinging his arm.
  
• Movement feels slow and clunky. It feels like you're moving through molasses all the time. Drink a fifth of vodka and try to play Gears of War with your feet and you'll have a good idea of what the movement feels like. Apparently my character suffers from terrible back pain, too, because he had to LOUDLY GRUNT every time he climbs up a ledge.
  
• Poor sound design makes it difficult to tell where sounds are coming from. Get within a mile of broken glass or rocks and you'll make an incredibly loud noise when you step on it. It's not always easy to tell where the locations that will trigger these sounds are, and it's difficult to tell if it's you making the noise or another nearby player.
  
• World geometry is broken and buggy in many places. For a game that has had several betas, there are still an awful lot of problems with getting stuck in places or clipping through objects.

Whether you succeed or fail in a game like this should come down to planning, strategy, and skill. The randomized nature of key elements, joining games in progress, and the unbalanced weapons and equipment means that your chances of success are more about luck and grinding out better gear instead of being the better player.

It took me nearly 12 hours to discover just how deeply this game is flawed. Save yourself the time and stay away from this game until the developers make more sensible design decisions.

The control scheme for this game is certainly unusual, but I actually ended up liking it. It's different from The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3, but I think it has its own unique charm. This game is well worth playing for fans of fantasy games who don't mind a challenge.

This game had more robust content at its Early Access launch that many finished games. It's challenging, but not unfair — managing stamina is key! — and it has gotten better with every update. I look forward to seeing what the finished version of this game looks like.

Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a third-person shooter with some stealth elements. I ended up checking this out with an open mind. This is not the worst shooter I've ever played, but it isn't the best, either.

Let's start with the guns: the sights don't line up properly on some weapons. It takes a second or two to switch between guns, too, and that can be annoying.

Enemies have laser-like accuracy and appear to fire bullets from their face. If an enemy's face can see even the tiniest part of your body, you can expect a hail of bullets to fly in your direction. In contrast, the enemy AI does not consistently react to nearby gunfire unless they can see you.

Evading and destroying security cameras is a key part of the game. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when a camera can and cannot see you; you are only truly safe from their view if you are far away. I have been spotted by cameras away from me and I have no idea how it could have happened.

The default difficulty setting is pretty hard. This would not be all that bad were it not for the three issues I've already mentioned: your guns are not as accurate as you'd expect, enemies are very accurate, and the security cameras do not behave in a logical way. All of these problems combined make for a frustratingly challenging game; it took me roughly two hours to beat the first level. The developer gets some credit for toning down the difficulty and adding an "easy mode" for people who can't handle the challenge.

I also want to highlight the bullet time mechanic. While it is interesting from a gameplay perspective and it's fun to use, it's activated by double-tapping a directional button. That means you will accidentally activate it more often than not; it really should have been set to a dedicated button.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an option to rebind the keys in the menu. The options menu is lacking, in general; for example, there are no proper volume sliders in the game.

As for the story, this feels somewhat like an 80's action movie told from the Palestinian perspective. Guns fire fast, ammo is abundant, and there are occasionally fantastical elements. This isn't necessarily a bad thing — the modern Call of Duty games are similar in that they, too, have over-the-top stories that occasionally feature fictional futuristic technology. That said, seeing a futuristic flying drone with lasers at the end of the first level felt like an unnecessary addition that didn't fit the tone and setting of the game.

Fursan al-Aqsa has a lot of potential as a game, but it's brought down by janky controls, inconsistent enemy AI, and finicky weapons. I ultimately believe this is not a bad first game for a developer, but you probably won't like it unless you are really interested in the story and you don't mind a seriously unforgiving game.

The controls in this game make precision shots impossible, but that's a huge part of the friend. Get some copies and play it with your friends, it's a ton of fun!

This is old-school FPS hard. I love and hate this game. Play it if you want a challenge!