Apex Legends Mobile: Review

Popular multiplayer games sooner or later acquire mobile versions – either similar to computer ones or stripped down. There is already PUBG Mobile and League of Legends: Wild Rift, mobile Valorant will arrive soon. So Apex Legends Mobile has burst into the market of pocket-sized entertainment designed to take up all your free time.

You cannot download the game in the Russian App Store and Google Play, and even if you download it from a store in another country, they will not let it onto the servers: a message will appear stating that testing has not yet started in your region, although there is no testing anymore – this is a release version. I have to connect a VPN – in this case the delay becomes more than 100 ms, but I’m not used to it, I play Overwatch with the same ping without any VPN. Occasionally there are lags that disappear after a couple of seconds – in general, nothing to worry about.

The same, but not the same

The first step is to complete a tutorial, from which regular Apex Legends players will not learn anything new. You can run, jump, slide, open containers with supplies, carry two guns and attach attachments to them, aim and shoot from the hip, and so on. One of the main differences between the mobile version is the third-person view mode, which should probably appeal to fans PUBG Mobile and her clones. To avoid imbalance, players playing in first- and third-person view do not play against each other in matches – the choice must be made before searching for a lobby.

In terms of content, mobile Apex In some ways it’s inferior to the original, but in some ways it’s richer. For example, there are noticeably fewer characters – only the starting roster of eight heroes plus Octane and Fade, exclusive to mobile phones, are available. There is only one map in the battle royale – “Edge of the World”. But the modes are more varied: in addition to the standard (and rating) there are two types of team deathmatch, arenas and a shooting range with weekly challenges. In the future they plan to add not only new modes, but also exclusive maps.

The essence of the battle royale has not changed when transferred to phones and tablets. Teams of three jump out of the plane, search the area and destroy each other, escaping inside the shrinking ring. The main change, of course, is related to touch controls. I don’t play mobile shooters too often, but somehow I was able to get used to it relatively quickly, even though the screen is littered with a huge number of buttons that you sometimes accidentally press. Aiming, shooting, jumping, crouching, rolling up, reloading, abilities… Fortunately, the scheme can be changed.

Another good news is full support for gamepads. I connected the DualSense controller to the iPad via Bluetooth, and it became easier to play because I have more experience with the controller. The controls are not ideal – for example, when a character is picked up after being wounded, he starts shooting non-stop, and this can only be corrected by tapping the screen. But in general there are no serious inconveniences. Another option for those who have not learned to aim on the sensor is a gyroscope, which is enabled here in the settings and also works well. There are a huge number of sensitivity-related settings.

Something new

Regardless of the selected control, players can Gamesnotongamstop.co.uk use exclusive features that are available in the console Apex Legends No. In particular, there are visual cues for the hearing impaired – you can determine where there is shooting or someone is walking loudly. As well as automatic selection of loot – both from the floor and from boxes left by deceased participants in the match. Simply interact with the box – and all high-quality attachments suitable for your weapon are automatically attached. Because of this, sometimes you equip sights that you wouldn’t want to use, but this is the only negative. And, if this is annoying, auto-selection can be disabled with one click, without going into the menu.

Another interesting feature Apex Legends Mobile — the presence of a leveling tree for each character. The more you play as a hero, the higher your skill becomes, and along with this you are given points to purchase upgrades. Lifeline will restore more health when picking up a wounded person or will begin to add 100 shield units when performing an execution. Bangalore will see enemies through smoke when aiming. It is dangerous to get used to such bonuses – then you will return to normal Apex Legends, and there’s nothing like that there. But the idea is fun and encourages new players to play as different characters.

The game runs more or less stable. On my 8th generation iPad (released in 2020), the graphics settings were set to medium by default, but they were allowed to increase them, including increasing the frame rate. The maximum settings on such a device cannot be selected for obvious reasons.

The game does not download unnecessary data without permission – voice acting in any language other than English must be downloaded separately (Russian is also available), as well as maps for additional modes. So if you’re only interested in battle royale, you can save space.

There are some bugs – a character, for example, can say lines for no reason. It happened that Lifeline reported calling a healing drone five times per match, although I did not press the corresponding button at all.

Well, it’s impossible not to mention that the authors Apex Legends Mobile use the same technique as the creators of other mobile shooters – in the first matches only bots play against you. For ignorant beginners, this is a holiday – thinking that they are fighting with real people, they will brag to their friends about how they destroyed dozens of opponents in a match. Those who understand what is happening will be bored, and will have to play with bots for a dozen matches. The rating mode does not save you from this despondency – even there at first you will have to meet them. But sooner or later real players will start coming across, and then it will become much more fun.

Hey, pay up

In general, it turned out to be a good portable version of the shooter with its own features, and all that remains is to talk about monetization. And there’s a real problem with her. More precisely, nothing affects the gameplay here – if you just want to run and shoot, no one puts a spoke in the wheels. But those who like to dress up characters and complete challenges for cosmetic items will not be very comfortable.

First of all, the menus are confusing. To simply open dropped loot boxes, you need to make several times more clicks than you would like – they are buried in the most inconspicuous place. All sorts of “challenges” are scattered in different corners – after the next match there are a lot of notifications and you spend a lot of time collecting rewards. There are also many currencies: rookie points, season points, activity points, liquid metals, Fade tokens, points, Syndicate gold… When you get something, you have no idea what you can spend it on and whether you can do it at all.

The main scam awaits those who buy the battle pass. From the outside, everything is good and even ordinary: there is a free version of the pass, and there is a paid version, with cooler rewards; you earn experience, collect prizes, even spent currency is returned! But you start counting – and something doesn’t add up: to buy a pass you pay 799 gold coins of the Syndicate (paid currency), but they return only 750. There are no other ways to earn gold. Perhaps this is just a mistake, but it looks more like the tricks of monetization specialists.

The situation with events is not much better, although their implementation in the console version of the shooter is so-so. There are currently two events taking place in the mobile phone, and in neither of them can you buy the desired items directly. You need to spend money on loot boxes and hope that they don’t come across a stupid frame or avatar, but something of high quality, and even for your favorite character. This monetization model will probably be successful for developers, but this whole mess doesn’t give me the slightest desire to give them money.

But the new character can be unlocked for free, just like all the others. Fade is a funny hero, and it’s even a pity that in the usual Apex Legends he’s not there yet. He can rewind time back a few seconds, like Tracer in Overwatch (Titanfall 2 also had a similar skill), and there are many uses for such a skill. You can escape from grenades, you can return to cover, you can quickly react to being shot in the back – a very useful skill. And the “ult” turns opponents into invisible figures who can neither receive nor deal damage – also a great way to interrupt the enemy offensive.

The transfer of Apex Legends to mobile platforms turned out to be quite painless – the game lost almost nothing, but gained a lot. The idea of ​​leveling up characters doesn’t seem very appropriate, but the third-person view, bonus modes and audiovisual hints, which the original developers have been asking for for several years, fit in great. It’s a pity that monetization only causes negative emotions, but that’s the mobile gaming industry. We’ll have to punish the developers and give them a lower rating than the regular version!

Pros: gameplay is the same game as the original; support for gamepads and gyroscope control, as well as numerous settings, including the ability to change the touch control scheme; third-person view will attract the attention of those who are more comfortable with this mode; interesting exclusive character; Ranked mode available from release.

Cons: minor bugs; bots in the first matches are tiring; a bad monetization model that pumps money out of characters who want to dress up (even from those who bought a battle pass).