We all know PlayerUnknown's Battleground, you know, I know, i'm pretty sure your parents have heard you yelling about it, however i wanted to do an honest review about this game that is everywhere, opinion is split on it with people either loving this game or hating it, so i want to do an objective review of this game and break it down to it's core, as this is a multiplayer game without story lines it won't be my usual review format instead i'll be talking about the individual aspects of the game that make up PubG, so press F frantically to cut away your parachute and spend 2 minutes deciding where to go before landing in Pochinki and lets take a look at PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
Premise
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds hence forth known as "PubG" is an online king of the hill style battle royal, where only one person/team can come out on top, it takes place on a deserted soviet era island that is filled with guns, grenades and vehicles that never work properly, coming in by plane you're dropped into the island with nothing but the shirt on your back and must scavenge immediately to find weapons and armor to attack other players to dwindle the player base down as far as you can to achieve victory.
The game is set on a large island and as such requires a carrot to force people together to fight, this is known as the blue circle, a mysterious wall of electricity that will slowly kill anyone caught in it, the longer it builds the more damage it will cause until eventually it will start taking whole portions of your life and will force you into the final circle where hiding is no longer an option and usually will be down to the last two teams/players alive, after an extended period if there's is no victor the circle will finally fully close killing everyone caught in it, so lets break down the pro's and cons of this game below.
Scavenging
As you land with nothing you first priority will always be to find a gun and some ammo, however this doesn't always come easy as the loot is confusingly randomized you may run into a giant building and final only shirts and various weapon attachments whereas someone else may run into a small shack and final an assault rifle and heavy armor.
This overall is a detriment to the game, there have been numerous rounds iv'e landed and entered these buildings and found no weapon while the person next to me has found an assault rifle, heavy armor, grenades,helmets and health items and as such it's almost near impossible to fight or escape and you'll die with no chance of survival in anyway shape or form.
However if you make it past the first scramble you will also be tasked with finding various attachments to weapons the most important of these are scopes and optics, now this is something i cannot even begin to defend you can loot entire towns without finding a scope and as most of the game takes firefights from a distance it's almost impossible to fight off someone without a 4x scope if they're more than 200 meters away regardless of what weapons you have and as such makes the game kind of broken since it doesn't matter how well you can aim, unless you're hacking the chances of you returning accurate fire from that distance is slim to known you may get lucky and tag people but that's gonna be about it.
Terrible net code and aim detection.
I've played this game a lot, nearly 400 hours worth and iv'e played a LOT of shooters in the previous 20 years, going semi professional in some of them and PubG is honestly the worst coded game iv'e ever come across, which is really strange since Unreal Engine 4 comes with pretty amazing net code out of the box, the problem is the way they've set up the shooting to try and mimic realism which does neither in any case, multiple times you will see shots connect and not register which is incredibly frustrating to people and can drive them away from the game.
The bullet physics however are another story as they don't work in tandem with hit vectors of a person your shots can end up being wildly inaccurate even according to the games own coding, for example if you're shooting someone from a distance up high and you're aimed at their chest as you shoot if they crouch the bullet will still go through their body but won't connect as the hit vector has already moved and even though there's something on the screen you're shooting dead air.
This is why many people land in towns and the infamous school as the hit detection is a lot better closer up, but still leaves a lot to be desired, i currently have hours of footage of these types of shenanigans my favorite one is shooting a guy in a car with a mini uzi and the bullets hitting everything around him including the back of the seat he's sitting in but not hitting him at all, like, not even one bullet from 10 meters, you've heard of potato aim but this takes it to a whole new level.
But it's not all bad as the server you're playing on thins out this will begin to reduce in frequency and can become quite an enjoyable experience, it's a great feeling getting a head shot from 400-500 meters away or stalking someone up a cliff and emptying a magazine into them before they have a chance to react, if i had to bottom line it i'd say do what myself and my team does, wait to engage people until the player base of the server is under 50 as the lag usually sorts itself out after some time and then you can fully enjoy the experience.
Strange glitches and bugs
I know I know, early access, EA games will have multiple bugs and glitches until they're released and some will have them long after however in PubG there are numerous glitches and bugs that could be sorted almost instantly as other games have done this before through hotfixes, however some initial bugs from the first available edition of the game are still in there things such as wonky cars, items glitching into walls and under floors, or my personal favorite, closing a door at the wrong time and getting caught in the middle of it without being able to open it, there are also things in the world like sink holes were your character will become stuck on basically nothing and be caught there for infinity.
However annoying these bugs are they're usually not game breaking apart from the being stuck thing, however it's not excusing PubG's developers who can easily fix these things as every other game has done before it it just seems kind of strange that the community at large complains about these but they never do anything about.
Inconsistent Damage
The biggest problem in PubG is the bullet damage, it is woefully inconsistent for the most part sometimes you'll shoot a guy 8 or 9 times and he'll survive, other times you'll get shot twice with the same gun and die, this down largely to armor choices and things like bullet travel and distance however sometimes you'll hit someone with a shotgun in the chest and they'll survive and shoot you with a shotgun in the foot and kill you instantly, the same goes for most things in the game insofar as inconsistency can send you into a rage when a guy with a pan hits you once and kills you after shooting him in the face with sniper rifle and doing nothing.
It's not all bad
The game, bugs and everything included does have a lot of areas to work on, but i wouldn't of got to 400 hours without enjoying it, as a team game it's awesome it can be played as a tactical shooter and opens up different avenues to have fun, for example we recently started playing "Secret Agent Man" a game mode we thought up when bored were you can only use a silenced pistol, no armor and no helmet needless to say we aren't playing to win we're playing to have fun and it works there are a myriad of things that can go hilariously wrong or hilariously right in the game oft times we'll grab motor bikes and do back flips into squads of people just to see what happens(usually doesn't go well) but the game has enough in it to offer you an your friends some fun, the biggest thing iv'e learned about this game is, if you're going to have fun all the time, stop trying to win.
The game becomes a playground when you're messing around, chasing people down with cars and flashbanging them into oblivion as you rush them with pans and crowbars can always bring laughter as well as things like waiting in a car for someone to jump in and punching them to death and even played seriously the game can be fun as well, killing an entire squad is a great feeling and then getting killed by a dropped nade from your enemies will also bring a lot of laughter, the point is here to treating this game as a polished, finished product and more as a legitimate beta test that you can enjoy with friends.
So what's the verdict?
PlayerUnknowns battlegrounds is a laggy buggy messy fun as hell nonsense shooter that's worth your money, however it's only as fun as you make it, if you're a serious player and treat this like a serious game you're going have these bugs become an obstacle to you and will shred your enjoyment of the game, if however you're like me now who just plays for fun with friends it's always enjoyable to jump on for a few rounds and a couple of laughs, even though the dev team is a little bit rookie and doesn't know how to respond to players concerns properly they're still pushing out content and attempting to make things better every patch day and they are making it better, when it was first release this game was a god damn nightmare of bugs and endless nonsense but in it's current stage even though it's not ready to go to market as a finish product it's getting there.
The game is easily picked up by people who have had any experience in shooters and can be rather tactical in points I myself prefer to stay in large towns and use the terrain and buildings to outsmart people or force them to reveal themselves while some people enjoy large open areas shooting people at a distance, the main point i'm making here is that it has something for everyone, even if it doesn't always work out properly you can find enjoyment in the game for your play style and you will get hundreds of hours of wonky buggy fun for you an your friends. .
I want to just add a little side not here that this is probably my first "negative" kind of review of a game but I want to stress that I don't want people to take my word for it and make your decision based on my opinion, please if you're interested in this game go and buy it and play it first, i can't stress this enough that influencing people for or against games is not what i'm about.