THE FINALS PLAYTEST - Do this if you can't access it!
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THE FINALS (Reviewed)
Developer: Embark Studios
Publisher: Embark Studios
Released: Oct 26, 2023 (Beta Access)
Price: Free to Play
It's no surprise that THE FINALS PLAYTEST has hit top ten most played games on Steam this week (October). The game is a free-to-play gameshow PvP battler in which competitors fight in arenas to gather the most cash and be crowned victor; it's fast-paced, engrossing, and most importantly, enjoyable, at least when winning.
It doesn't sound like much at first, until you discover that this is one of the best games if you like destructible worlds, where you may blast holes in ceilings and floors, causing the upper floors to crumble and collapse on top of everyone and everything below them. While attempting to derail your opponent's chances of victory by keeping them away from deposit boxes and cash boxes. But even though this game is quite popular right now, there are a few things that need to be addressed.
No access to the Playtest?
Do this simple thing on the store page website for PC users
Enter the "Console" section.
Type "RequestPlaytestAccess()" and select "Request Access"
This will bypass the issue a lot of players experience when trying to get into playtests on Steam. So keep this in mind if you ever do find yourself running into this issue.
Issues
It feels a bit one sided at times
The game features several different characters, each with its unique set of skills and advantages and disadvantages in certain areas and benefiting them in games.
Light builds have low health but move quick and can grapple around the map, making it difficult for a Medium or Heavy build to keep up, but easier to kill if caught out.
They have faster reloads and other advantages that allow them stay in the fight longer, whereas a Heavy only has access to LMGs and heavy weapons, restricting their engage time and drastically their reload times making it hard to deal with.
Heavy builds perform best in melee because they can one shot Lights and Mediums and two shot Heavies, which is ridiculous and unbalanced because you could land an entire magazine and not kill them, while having no way to react after the initial engage because there are no off-hand swords and weapons. You start with one weapon and a plethora of equipment and grenades to move around and remain alive.
I noticed that Heavies and their Sledgehammer can effectively smash the cash out station on the Bank It game mode, effectively flying it around the map and high into the sky, making it impossible to really stop them when it's out in the open and they're all camping it from the sidelines waiting for it to tick down to grant them points.
Enabling passive healing back to full HP isn't a good feature in my opinion; it makes it difficult to take out characters when all they do is play safe and then run and hide, enabling their buddies to revive and take you on again at full HP and equipment.
No surprise here
The game took on more than it could handle on the second day of its debut, it has been up and down. You can ultimately get in, however there are several connectivity issues that prohibit individuals from playing with their friends or even connecting to specific modes, straight up to not being able to log into the server entirely.
Presentation
It's chaotic in a good way
You could be sitting inside a residence right now, attempting to deposit money into the Deposit Box. However, keep in mind that you're presumably on the second level, and the enemy team has various methods to get into the house to stop you.
They could C4 the ceiling, causing a catastrophic collapse into the first floor, or they could blast a giant hole into the side of the building with RPGs or through the ceiling, even collapsing the entire structure and sending everything flying in all directions.
Unless they use the Sledgehammer to knock the box out into the open or somewhere you can't really reach you can't camp locations. The music and narrative from the gameshow host combine to produce a highly immersive experience, and the music isn't half bad either, it's very well done.
Gameplay
It's actually quite fun while also a bit annoying
The game has a few game modes that allow you to play a few different ways. The first is a team death match mode in which you must kill players and collect their coins in Quick Game, before depositing them into boxes. Get the most and you win.
Bank it has a similar purpose, except you're going about trying to collect the current cash out station and then bringing its contents to the designated deposit spot. Then you must defend the region until it is completed, without allowing other teams to enter and hijack the current progression, which does not reset but shifts to the other team. So you could do all of the work, and another crew could come in and take it all away from you. I feel that this is a bit annoying at times, when you can't defend.
Game modes are more than that. Tournaments, ranked mode, practice, tutorials, and perhaps more things to try with in the future are available offering tons of content.
If your team wipes. Your current progress in reviving for a coin is reset, and you must wait an additional 20 seconds, which is quite irritating. If you must choose between attempting to resuscitate an ally and fleeing for your life. You also have a couple options here. You can pick up one of your allies while running. How awesome is that? Making some plays, such as with Light builds, more advantageous, particularly with their evasive moves to reposition with a better ability to revive them in cover.
Conclusion
Overall well designed game
Apart from the very frequent challenges associated with games that can't pull off something large and then having to go through server maintenance and reevaluating how much their game is actually expanding in such a short period of time.
It's coming along quite well, though I would like to see some of the exploitable bugs rectified immediately, as well as some of the characters' damage and sustainability nerfed and adjusted to better fit the game's speed and stress otherwise, you'll start to see a pretty common meta forming, where most players will choose to play one specific way because it is the best way to win almost every single time.
This concludes my views of this game; while my opinions may be met with criticism, that is what distinguishes gamers; you don't have to like the same things as others, nor do you have to agree with them. If you want to catch me on one of my streams or locate me on social media, you may do so at the following locations, I'm always playing something new.
- Pawkt
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