PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
Winner winner chicken dinner, or simply fowl?
You know the drill, right? 100 players dropped onto a huge map, all weapons and items must be scavenged, only one player or squad (depending on your game mode) can be left standing. Fortnite may be the game making a billion pounds a day (or something), but this is the one that first succeeded and inspired all the copycats.
It must be said that rather than a dashing young trendsetter, PUBG nowadays comes across as a retired soldier who, while still fit, has been left rapidly aged and haggard by their experiences. The PC Early Access roots are painfully obvious. The graphics are rather basic, textures can take several seconds to load at the start of a match, and framerate hitches are common (the worst of which, to be fair, are pre-match).
The control scheme, too, is indicative of a developer unfamiliar with the expectations of PS4 players. You must hold rather than tap r to reload, for example, while u switches between third- and first-person perspectives rather than throwing grenades (which must be equipped in place of another weapon). Most jarring of all, in either perspective, holding p focuses the aiming reticule while tapping it brings up the first-person ADS view. It takes a bit of getting used to.
Still, once you’ve adjusted to it all, it’s very easy to see why so many
IT BECOMES A TENSE GAME OF CAT-ANDMOUSE WITH DOZENS OF OTHER PLAYERS.
people have found themselves addicted. There’s no denying that, due to the random placement of items, success or failure in the first few minutes can rely on luck more than you’d like. Once you have some half-decent gear, though, it becomes a tense game of cat-andmouse with dozens of other players.
Cowering in one building at a time, moving only when the play area shrinks, is a valid tactic. So too is constantly moving toward the centre of the map, gambling that you can move from cover to cover effectively enough to avoid being sniped. Or perhaps you prefer to identify prime loot drops, then lie in wait for your next unsuspecting victim to try and nab them. It’s up to you.
The formula’s as compelling as ever, and the execution is (mostly) brilliant. The bottom line though, is that this is 2019, and PUBG is rapidly falling behind the competition it spawned.