The key to the battle royale genre is desire. You’re going to die, often, which means you need something to pick you back up and keep you fighting. You need to want to come out on top of the massive …
The key to the battle royale genre is desire. You’re going to die, often, which means you need something to pick you back up and keep you fighting. You need to want to come out on top of the massive scraps. And you need to feel like that’s possible too. And Battlepalooza (download from the App Store and Play Store) doesn’t quite hit either of those marks.
That’s not to say it’s a bad game, or that it’s not worth checking out. But its take on the BR genre is a clunky one, mixed with ideas from other genres that don’t quite slot into place in the way they’re meant to.
There are some pretty strong MOBA shades here in the way you play. Rather than just being able to blast anyone who wanders into your line of sight, all of your actions here have cooldown timers. Whether it’s firing your gun, using a health pack or chucking a grenade, do it once and you’re going to have to wait to do it again.
That means that every attack counts, and missing one when you’re fighting against a foe can mean you’re on the back foot for the rest of the scrap. Instead of feeling like you’re in with a chance, you’re left watching the inevitable play out.
The game is set in real-world cities, built from Google Maps data, which is pretty cool. You’ll even get extra XP for finding businesses. That XP is key to your survival – you go into the game with a loadout and toughen it up by unlocking caches. There’s no dropping in naked and trying to find the equipment you need to survive.
You pick a character before you head into the action, and there are loads of them to collect. The same goes for weapons and special moves. The XP you collect in-game opens up your moveset, and you can level up outside of play as well.
Battlepalooza wants to be a battle royale game that anyone can play, and while it eliminates the twitchy skill requirements, in doing so it makes the action feel abstract. Even in a firefight you don’t feel like you’re in the fray, just sort of alongside it.
There are definitely good ideas here, but they don’t come together to create a cohesive experience that’s going to lock you in. In the end, you’re not going to be that bothered about winning, and that’s a death sentence for a battle royale game.
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