The Finals Preview: This Hunger Games Shooter-Style FPS Shows Promise But Has Major Issues

ign.com:

The Finals is a fast-paced first-person shooter that focuses on arcade-y game styles and game-show mechanics. What makes it unique is that everything, and I mean everything, can be destroyed. It’s a lot to take in, but after playing a bunch of it, all of the elements manage to work really well together when the game isn’t stuttery and buggy.

The premise of The Finals is that you’re a contestant in a virtual combat entertainment game show. You compete for fame, money, and the opportunity to get generous sponsors on your side. Developer Embark Studios has said The Finals was inspired by The Hunger Games, Gladiator, and other arena-style competitions. You can customize your own Competitor, which is pretty cool though the options are fairly limited.

The maps in The Finals matches take place in real-life locations that have dynamic time of day and weather conditions like fog and rain that are randomized each time you start a new game. I played in Monaco, a more horizontal close-quarters map, and Seoul, a vertical map with lots of height and layers to play on.

The Finals has lobbies of four teams of three vying for the most amount of money cashed in. So the only way to earn points for your team is to bank money. Throughout the map there will be Vault spawns that teams can capture. Once you unlock the cash in the Vaults you have to carry the box of cash in your hand, so whoever is carrying the cash cannot use their weapons, but does have free range of movement like climbing, ziplining, jump padding, and running.

With the box of cash in hand, you have to run it to a Cashout location where you can bank the money for your team and move up in the leaderboard. Securing the actual deposit for your team takes a long time. So you can