Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, jelly on a plate.
Developer Landfall clearly has a thing for wobbly limbs. Totally Accurate Battlegrounds was originally meant as an April Fool’s joke, but because of network issues it’s arrived a bit late. Knowingly, Landfall has delivered a battle royale games that’s fun thanks to its ridiculousness.
Any game that has me utter the phrase “I just killed a wizard with a hand cannon; a literal cannon that is hand-sized” is good in my book.
Fun goes a long way
About two months ago, Boss Key Productions released ‘x-treme’ early access title Radical Heights. Unfortunately, its inability to get a substantial enough player base couldn’t keep Boss Key Productions afloat. In just one day, Landfall has had a higher peak with Totally Accurate Battlegrounds than Radical Heights – about 4,000 players more than the latter has managed in its two months. It seems that making a game purely for fun can make a lot of difference.
Before joining a match in Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, you’ve first got to choose a ridiculous outfit; I’ve gone for jester late for an interview – I’ve heard that’s very in. It’s a simple process – you can also invite friends along to group up against the rest. The battleground itself is smaller than others, but that benefits the smaller number of players per match. It means the rounds are shorter, and given the aesthetics of the game, it’s a lot easier to see enemy players. Even if they’re hiding, a limb will surely be flailing somewhere it shouldn’t be.
I see you flailing away, away
The wobbly physics are the best thing about Totally Accurate Battlegrounds; any close combat fights are hilarious. When aiming to shoot, you often need a second to un-wobble so that you can aim efficiently. One of those firefights resulted in me almost taking out a team of four using that small hand-cannon, and then the surviving two of us jumping, flailing around trying to hit each other.
Totally Accurate Battlegrounds may have intended to be a simple parody of PUBG, but it’s fun enough in its own right to be more than just that. It’s far from perfect, though; it has a lot of server problems and it took 30 minutes before I actually successfully got into a working match. But when you’re actually in a match, the silliness of it means it’s perfect for those that don’t like battle royales. I doubt you’ll get as many hours out of it as others get out of PUBG, but there’s a fun few rounds by yourself or with friends, and it’s free*, so what the hell, right?
*It’s free if you download the game in the first 100 hours of it launching. By our calculations, you’ve got until Sunday, 10th June. After that, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds will set you back $4.99. But hey, can you really put a price on shooting a wizard with a hand-sized cannon? I thought not.
