the finals will be my most dissapointing game of the year, not because i had any expectations for it to be good, i actually hadn't even heard about it until2 weeks before launch when i saw some of the development team bragging about the AI voice tech they put in, which was a weird thing to brag about like "hey we were to cheap and greedy to pay for real voice actors!" like, not the flex i'd make but you do you, this put the game on my radar anyway as something to either ignore or at the v least hateplay and eventually after the game was shown off at the game awards, i decided on the latter, but the thing is is that, it was fun, actually, if you could get passed how sleazy the whole thing is, and i just can't do that because the greed here is just too obvious and far too pervasive.

the monitization is what will hit you first, it has by far the worst of it in any game i've seen, and i used to be an overwatch player, it ranges from skins, to gun skins, to turret skins, weapon charms, emotes, sprays that may or may not be ai art and even voice lines that, you guessed it, are also AI! that's not even everything the game attempts to monitise, its almost impressive just how far they went with it, the AI generated items they fully expect you to pay for hit the worst though, its just brazen on a level i'm not even fully sure i can comprehend, it's almost comedic. then there's the ai voices themselves, they wanted this to be a selling point and bragged about it in dev diaries and podcasts, somehow they thought people would find this to be the COOLEST THING EVARRRR, yeah it uh, didn't have that reaction from the public, sure some cryptobro ai shills were ecstatic about the prospect of hard working VA's being put out of the job but i saw much more anger and calls for boycotts, though weather or not that effected the games sales i don't know. it's disgutsing, immoral and i think and on top of that, it sounds like garbage, it's stiff, barely reactive and distracting, by my last hour with the game i turned it off altogether, they got greedy and it effected the quality of the game negatively, and for what, saving a little bit of VA budget? in any game this would be abhorrant, but in a game that wants to sell you these lines, it's especially disgusting, and thats a shame because if we based a review on gameplay? this game would be good.

it's a big mishmash of ps3-era mechanics, the destruction from bad company, the movement and class system from brink (the whole game feels like a spiritual successor to brink almost) , long TTK with a focus on teamwork and a disregard of things like weapon attachments and things like what you would see in the COD inspired shooters of the 10s, really the only aspects that feel super modern are the disgusting monetisation, it's a fun time, it's super dynamic with some good looking maps (it has a near future not-mirrors edge style to it) that have tons of cool movement features like the arena shooter jump pads, elevators and ziplines and the destructable environments work really well, i loved the rounds where you would have an objective in an area that can be destroyed and it would just be tossed everywhere due to explosions, one time it was near the top of the building and ended the round having fallen through every floor of the place during the fight, it really makes each round feel super different. with the objectives you have two types which are split into different modes, one is just a normal objective mode with an item you have to bring to a place and it starts a timer, though this timer can actually be used against whoever sets it up because if you play well you can steal the objective right from under whoever planted it which makes this mode, again, feel very dynamic, the big upsets and hype moments after steals made this my favourite mode. the other mode is similar but its more of a team deathmatch, with each kill giving you money you need to bank, i just didnt like this one, it felt much less fun and i disliked the risk/reward stuff a lot, i only played it a few times. there's good weapon variety too, you have a bunch of different types with things like turrets and healing guns to add to your arsonal (which ofc have monitized skins, gross!) but i stuck with the machinegun and the turret, it worked well for the defence sections and i liked the goo granade a lot, which worked very similarly to prey's goo gun, it changed the environment and made blocks/platforms that gave it an almost immersive sim vibe with how deep it could be.

one other critisism that holds this back though is the general vibe, where many of the games it crimps from have very distinct styles, weather or not they were appealing was a different story but each did have a distinct look and feel, but this game just doesn't, while i don't think this was due to ai use, it sure as hell feels it, there's no real cohesion beyond "game show" but even then it also steals from retro game aesthetics randomly and none of it really glues, it feels both tryhard and like its lacking an aesthetic, even the paid for costumes have no identity or style, it just feels like what you would get if you typed "game show shooter" into chat GPT, and considering how much AI was used for the rest of it, maybe thats what they did, the maps look nice though, at least. i cant bring myself to reccomend it though, overall, sure its fun but its also gross in ways that i don't think should ever be supported and its just so dissapointing, sure if the ethical issues don't bother you, yeah give it a try i guess, but please don't pay them money, this practice should not be supported, even in a fun game, and i hate saying this because it is really fun, but because this is the first time we have them trying to *sell us this as a selling point* and being proud of it, we have to speak out, we have to boycott and we have to make sure this doesnt happen again, sure some dev teams are too fargone, ubisoft with their AI writing, groups like the payday devs forcing it in, microsoft reportedly using ai art and tools in games in the future and even level 5 is using it in some form, but we can speak out and stop it now, if we don't then machine-made slop is all we'll get and i don't want to be involved in a future like that, if video games as a medium are to be considered art then we have to keep this anti-art garbage away from it.