PUBG: Battlegrounds

Xbox Edition

The best busted-up, buggy, piece of garbage I've ever played. Inconsistently amazing. Super glad I got this game, but at the same time I kinda wish I never bothered. It's a mess but a mostly fun one, especially with friends.

Meh

Too many broken mechanics.

I played this one time. Got 1st place out of... 100 players or however many. If you're decent at both strategy and FPS, this game is kinda stupid. If I were going to do a massive multiplayer FPS, I'll stick to Battlefield, thank you very much.

Pretty fun to grab a drink and have a laugh with friends. Not balanced enough to be competitive, not arcade-y enough to be casual. Painstakingly random loot and people hiding in tall grass.

It's rough around the edges but this game is one of the more tense and horrifying experiences I have ever had playing video games.

Loot for 30 minutes, run across the map for 20 minutes, get shot by someone off screen in 15 seconds, repeat.

I played it for a while on my phone because it was free, but I'm not sold on the Battle Royale genre yet. I've just started playing Fortnite but I think this one is more for me. The more realistic (albeit generic) aesthetic appeals to me more, I don't want to be able to build walls instantly; I just like how this is less cartoony. I like scavenging for weapons, it can be really intense but this genre gets boring. I don't get how people play this or Fortnite constantly, but that's cool if you do.

I'm not sure why I'm not enjoying this game.

At its best it can be hilarious, fun, tense, and rewarding through solid design and a subgenre rife with emergent gameplay. At its worst the framerate drops to single digits and you get shot in the head by an M24 from a kilometer away by a streamer who plays this 8 hours a day 6 days a week and then crashes while parachuting into to your next game. +10 points for the hilarity of driving physics.

You look at this game and think wtf it looks so generic and dull and then you play it and you don't see anyone for half an hour and it's still the most intense gaming experience you've ever had