Early Access Review

In modern parlance Paladins would be described as a free-to-play "hero shooter" - that is to say, an objective based, co-op only, first-person shooter where, rather than your avatar being largely defined by the gun you pick or the items and abilities you equip, they're already fully formed characters with their own unique, pre-defined abilities and specific roles.There are several modes to play, but the main thrust of the game is Siege mode, which sees two teams of five charge to the centre of a map and try to hold an objective zone. While there's a lot of nuance to the mechanics and conditions of play, the fundamentals are this - capturing an objective zone to spawn a payload earns your team one point; escorting the payload to the enemy base earns you another point; but if the opposing team manages to successfully prevent the payload from reaching their base within a set time, then they earn the point. First to four points wins the match.Characters, or "champions", technically fall into one of four different roles - front line; "tanks" made to take punishment and hold the objective - damage; made to dish out said punishment - support; primarily focused on healing - and flank; who are all about being sneaky-sneaky and harassing the enemy from behind. I say "technically", because, even though that's how they're labelled in-game, most champions can bleed into a couple of roles to varying degrees.One important thing to note is you can't change champions once the match has started. So if you're part of a terrible group of players who wouldn't know how to create a decent team composition to save their life, then you're kinda screwed and more or less have to endure a horribly unbalanced game where a team lacks any real cohesion and synergy. But to help with this to some degree are loadouts and items.Every champion has a deck of sixteen cards that are unique to them, and during your time outside of matches, you can construct your own loadout based on five of these cards which boosts the effectiveness of their abilities. Items are like temporary versions of cards that can be acquired mid game but are only applied for the duration of the match and bought with credits earned during play. And finally, there are Legendary cards, with each champion having three of these but needing to commit to one for the whole match. These are cards which apply a massive bonus to one of your abilities and can make your champ highly specialised in one aspect of performance or another. But this is where you have to be really careful, as choosing the wrong cards or items could make or break how a match goes.This is actually one of the most ingenious features of the game, I think, as it allows for a lot of strategy and means the player with the best aim or reflexes won't necessarily be the victor. In fact, one of the things I love so much about the game is how accessible it is to so many different skill levels and styles of play. If you just want to do the shooty pew-pew thing, there's plenty of characters that'll have you covered there. Maybe your aim isn't so good but you have a keen sense of timing and situational awareness, in which case healer might be the role for you. Or maybe you just like being a stonkin' great big tank throwing your weight around at the centre of it all. There's a little something for just about everyone.But the real star of the show here is the ever increasing cast of colourful, creative characters that somehow manage to all play massively differently from one another. Both the design and artwork really shines through, and is topped off with great animation and largely top-notch voice acting. There's an abundance of detail in every aspect of them, whether it's some little nicks and scuffs on the side of a firearm, or even the motions as they actually fire and are reloaded, or just the way a character moves around and performs each of their abilities, or even how they idle. There's a real sense of love and attention that's very clear to see, and that extends to every aspect of the presentation both throughout the UI and within each of the many maps as well. And, if anything, this only seems to be getting better as more and more interesting and creative content is being released with admirable and impressive regularity.As well as all the artwork (I don't think enough credit goes to the card art in particular, while I'm at it) I think special mention has to go to the audio as well. Sound is very important in this game as every single champion has their own noises, from the sounds of their abilities being activated, to their main weapon being fired, to the stomps of their feet. If you listen out to what's going on around you then there's an awful lot of information to be found just by keeping your ears open. At any given moment you'll likely be able to tell exactly who's firing, roughly what direction they're in, and probably even how far away they are. A lot of players probably aren't even consciously aware of it, but it's always there and making a huge difference, more so than just about any other game I can immediately think of.It's not all roses, though, as the game does have its fair share of problems. Personally, I think the damage feedback is desperately in need of improvement. Having the very outer edge of the screen momentarily turn a faint red hardly seems adequate in the heat of combat, and at this point I've lost track of the number of times I've died without even knowing I was being attacked in the first place. But a bigger issue than that is the matchmaking.I wouldn't go so far as to say it's broken, but I'm only a few more bad games away from calling it that. It feels like it's becoming increasingly hard to get games with consistantly matched players of equal skill, and 4-0 stomps are becoming more of a thing lately - which are never fun, no matter what side of them you're on. The rating system, on the other hand, I think at this point I can call broken. In Competitive mode, both your individual champions and your overall account ratings are awarded or docked points based on whether you win or lose, and then (presumably) used to calculate further matchmaking as it attempts to queue you up with players of equal skill. The trouble with this system is, it seems so focused on the bottom line win or lose result and has little bearing on personal preformance. As a result, you could play the best game of your life, but if you were teamed up with bad players, or someone on your team was disconnected or there were heavy lag issues, the game doesn't really care and will still deduct you for it. It's really not fun when you feel as though you're being punished regardless of your own ability or contribution, and as it stands right now, my own personal rating for both my account and many of my champions are in the toilet despite my consistant above average performances. And the worse thing is, that effect only seems to be confounded with time, as it takes multiple wins to make up the points for a single loss.Also, due to recent changes, the grind for new players seems a little rough going. Cards need to be unlocked through a random loot chest system or bought with "essense" from duplicate cards, which could take a while and doesn't exactly encourage new player experimentation. Although, to its credit, it's nowhere near being pay-to-win, and I think Hi-Rez are generally pretty reasonable, and maybe even generous, with its current financial model.I mentioned the build version at the start because this is a game that's constantly changing. It's worth pointing out this was a very different game a year ago compared to what it is today, and some or all of what I've written could be completely irrelevent a year from now, for better or worse. But if it does change, I really hope it will be for good, and that I'll still be playing it and loving it just as much then as I do now.Oh and you can ride horseys!