☆ Review: H1Z1: King of the Kill "Seize Your Moment Of Glory!" ☆

H1Z1: King Of The Hill - PC

I've spent the last few days getting immersed in the video game world of H1Z1. 

A basic battle royale style shooter involving You, You and a Teammate, or You and four teammates, versus 150 plus players with everyone looking to achieve one goal. 

Be the last man standing.

I believe we all know how battle royale style games work, so there isn't any point in explaining the rules, and there really isn't anything mould-breaking, at least as far as the main part of the game is concerned, but there are some interesting aspects to H1Z1 that I found satisfying. 

The first thing I have to address is the opening music. If you aren't feeling 100% ready when you click the button to start the game, the opening theme will get you in the mood to lay waste to hundreds of players gunning after one another. Once you get the game loaded you have a few options on what you can jump into. 

After basic character naming and the like, you can change your clothing and gear to fit your personal fashion. You can venture into the crates section to view and buy (if you have the coins) crates containing weapon skins, clothing, and many other items.  However, most of us are going to want to jump right into the action.  With three options of play style, you can choose Solo, Duo, or Fives.  I spent most of my time playing Solo.

Entering the game, you find yourself in a waiting area with all the others like yourself who are desperately waiting to begin. Usually, you won't have to wait longer than a couple minutes before all of sudden you find yourself a mile high in the sky parachuting quickly to the ground below. You must quickly assess the area under you and find out where you want to drop, as well as noticing the other players landing in your area. You'll hit the ground fast and you need to quickly make your way to a building or vehicle to find yourself some weapons. 

Once you find some cover and feel safe, you can check your map and figure out where you need to go, or if you need to stay put in your area. When it comes to the map, it's an interesting design. You don't have a player marker, you only have an area marker.The map is divided into sections such as A1, C2, E5, etc. There are points of interests marked and various terrain as well. A few minutes into the match and you will see on your HUD that there is a safe area that has been marked for you, if you do not make it to this area in time, a poisonous cloud of gas will reach you and slowly kill you. I'm a bit torn on how I feel about the map. On the one hand, I think a specific player marker would be better, but I also see the appeal of the area marker.  When it gets down to the end game, and the safe zone only covers a small area, you have to use your wits to find landmarks in order to figure out where exactly you need to go before the noxious fumes choke you out.

Overall there isn't a whole lot to say about the actual gameplay, so I'll cover just a few things I noticed in my multiple rounds of play. Just like most battle royale style games, there are air drops that will drop every so often that contain higher end gear, and usually pursuing these will lead you to a firefight with other players, but they can be clutch in the late game. 

When spawning in, it is random where you will drop, but you will notice if you play a lot, you will sometimes find yourself in the same drop zones and little too much, and the weapons aren't necessarily random, they may add or take away a gun or two, but most of the time you can bet on finding the same weapons in the same places, which can get a little old after a while. 

The graphics are pretty good for an alpha, even with my lower end GPU I can run the game on a medium setting without working my computer to hard, and throughout the gameplay, everything moves pretty smoothly, I rarely experienced lag or frame skipping. I did have a couple crashes that happened randomly, but that's to be expected in an early access game, but after being released for over a year, you hope for things like that to be taken care of.

Summary:

To sum it all up, I really enjoyed playing the game, at least in small to medium amounts, it's not something I could spend hours upon hours playing due to the repetitive nature of the game, but you know what you are getting when you look into the game and they deliver what they say, a chaotic PvP experience. 

It's not the best battle royale style game, but it's still very fun and has a solid player base that can keep you entertained.

If you want your moment of glory at the top of the mountain, then H1Z1 is for you.

RATING: MELTING

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Just Falls Short Of Greatness)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)

Game Link: Steam
Dev Link: Daybreak Games

Review By: Stray

"STAY FROSTY!"