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In Predator: Hunting grounds, the new Illfonic game released for PC and PlayStation 4, the setting is very similar to that of the first movie in the franchise, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers: Predator and humans face each other in the jungle – in this, only the most capable will come out of the conflict alive.
The premise naturally fits the genre very well. multiplayer asymmetric, and the developer certainly learned a lot after working on Friday the 13th. As the Predator has much more movement and agility than serial killer Jason (all heavy and slow), this time the scenarios make good use of verticality, full of trees and tall buildings to create ambush opportunities, ensuring a Very different and unique rhythm for the game.
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Hunting or hunter
At its launch, Predator: Hunting grounds It features a unique game mode, where you can choose to play on the human team, which includes four soldiers, or as a solitary Predator. The good news is that both options are fun, and the bad news (you better get ready) is that you face long lines if you want to play as a Predator!
It’s really cool to hear the movie’s theme song on the main menu and during the action, but just play for 1 hour to get fed up with the song as it’s the only song on the lobby while you wait forever to play. Did it cost you to compose a few more original tracks to pack the monotonous menu? It is a good idea to put a book or cell phone aside while searching for matches to avoid falling asleep.
The pairing is horrible and it can take more than 10 minutes to play as a predator.
The game has cross play natively enabled by default on both platforms, which guarantees highly populated servers. Most of the games ran smoothly delays or clear differences in performance, especially since the macro notion of positioning is more important in shooting than microabsorption mechanics or sharp reflexes, which end up equaling who plays joystick or mouse and keyboard.
As expected, the game flows better together with friends who communicate and plan tactics in real time, but it is possible to have fun even playing with strangers, in silence, since the interface and objectives are simple and intuitive (since it complies with the main missions until reviving fallen allies). Just press and hold a button to revive your comrades, or ask the nearest soldiers for help.
Everything is more fun to play in a group with your friends.
“If he bleeds, we can kill him!”
After playing a few dozen games, the game still seemed to suffer from some balance issues, as in the overwhelming majority of games the victory was with the human team, making use of their numerical superiority to avoid giving the Predator room.
If the team walks together and doesn’t spread too far across the map, it becomes difficult for the monster to create clear killing opportunities, despite the much more interesting arsenal at hand. As a predator, you can be invisible by a very generous window of time, climb trees, walk through branches, shoot long-distance shots, and follow the movement of humans in a warm view, with aesthetics very similar to those of films.
The Predator’s powers are fun, but it still seems too weak.
When injured in combat, green blood gushes from his body, revealing his position on the map. Still, it is relatively easy to escape using the long distance jump button, which makes the monster jump higher than most buildings. Even with so many resources for Predator, in this cat and mouse game, over 80% of my games ended up with at least 1 or 2 humans who survived approximately 6 hours of online testing.
“Get to the choppa!“
A little bit Predator: Hunting grounds was to take Arnoldão’s iconic stressed phrase and make it the main goal of the games. Each round consists of a cycle of small targets, such as deploying bombs in camps, destroying certain targets, sabotaging teams, and gathering your team at an extraction point where they must find a rescue helicopter, ie “get to the choppa! “
It is in this climax of action that most deaths on all sides tend to happen, as the Predator ends up being forced to expose himself to kill the remaining players who, in turn, are forced to attempt to connect to the line rescue. Add in those hordes of AI-controlled enemy soldiers, and you’ve got a recipe ready for lots of thrills, adrenaline, and laughter.
The final battle near the helicopter is usually the coolest part of the game.
No time to bleed
Such AI-controlled soldiers appear all the time during the mission, and a kill counter rewards players who manage to exterminate more of them. Although it is a good idea to move the games around and help the Predator find the focus of the action, their execution is not the best.
It’s fun to customize your Predator or soldier with new masks and accessories.
Enemy soldiers are very, very silly! They have trouble shooting and hardly offer much resistance. They are so passive and disruptive that sometimes you can even forget they exist, and you don’t even have to worry about bleeding or conflicting while doing some missions.
The Predator, in turn, also faces some psychotechnical problems: it is not uncommon to find bugs and technical problems When you try to climb a tree, move around the branches or jump to other places. It’s a serious and irritating problem that can even lead to accidental deaths in the heat of the action, as the camera doesn’t contribute anything at the highest points on the map either.
Leveling up ensures quick and rewarding rewards.
Playing in the basic version of PlayStation 4, sometimes the frame rate per second drops, something unexpected for a highly simple and competent looking game. All these elements must be resolved in patches for the game to reach its full potential.
Questionable cost benefit
The simple act of playing and completing matches already guarantees that your profile goes up, which, in turn, is invested in loot boxes. Interestingly, the system is not yet tied to microtransactions and frankly it is better this way, considering that here we have a very expensive game. In the current phase of the game, you can collect virtual coins within the matches and buy new boxes, with an economic value, and with that you always feel progressing.
All enhancements purchased with the virtual currency are cosmetic and only serve to put other masks and uniforms on the Predator, or accessories such as eye patches, hats and face paints for soldiers. Both the predator and the soldier can be male or female, also with no impact on performance.
Lack of content and variety is the game’s big problem.
Leveling up still frees up access to new weapons and passive abilities, helping battles gain a little more variety at higher levels. Still, the impression is that the game has very little content for the amount charged at launch, around R $ 160 for a single extremely repetitive game mode.
Verdict
It would be easier to recommend and tolerate technical failures of Predator: Hunting grounds if it was a free to play monetizing just your loot boxes Cosmetics Matches are fun, but, as a nearly full-priced game, only the most ardent fans of the franchise or multiplayer Asymmetrical you should embark on this hunt.
Predator: Hunting Grounds was made available to Sony to carry out this analysis.
