Tag Archives: Tactical FPS

Buried in Sand, Hand in Hand

Another long overdue update!

Having burnt myself out on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and still yearning for a relatively tactical FPS on PC that I might be able to recruit some of my friends into playing, I had caught wind of Insurgency: Sandstorm. I played the original version of Insurgency a fair bit when it was still a Source mod and really enjoyed the combination of tactical squad combat and its brutally (if not totally unrealistic) pin-point accurate ballistics model. Insurgency turned into a standalone retail product at some point but I never got around to trying that version, though it was fairly well received. Insurgency: Sandstorm is its long awaited sequel. Watching a trailer and some preview coverage on YouTube it really looked like it was shaping up to be something amazing; the type of shooter that the grognards who still cherish a return to the days of the original Ghost Recon might go all in on, and as such it’s been on my watch list for quite a while now.

“Sloppily bounding towards our objective.”

This, unfortunately, might be one of those cases of something looking notably better when viewed from afar. Entering its final early access beta, I eagerly bought Sandstorm and jumped in to play some bot matches and was immediately shocked by how janky it’s previously slick looking gameplay actually felt and, if I’m totally honest, how ugly it looked in action (mostly the character models and animations) relative to the beautiful preview footage I had seen. After playing a few matches I started to enjoy the weighty feeling movement and the deadliness of the combat, being quite a departure from any of the other FPSes I’d been playing recently and something I’d dearly missed since the good old days of America’s Army 3. Still, knowing that there was no damn way I could successfully convince any of my friends that this didn’t, in fact, totally suck, I ended up quickly uninstalling the game and considering pursuing a refund.

This was just before launch, back in December, so to give it a fairer shake (to ease my regret for not getting that refund if nothing else) I’ll probably check it out in the future after its had a little bit longer to mature. In fact, installing it to grab a few screenshots has already left me with a better impression than I had last time around, and viewing update notes leaves me believing that it’s still being improved and supported quite well. For now though, the game mostly serves to remind me that I’m still quite capable for falling victim to my own hype. I should really know better by now.

“Sandstorm’s damage model is quite brutal – a single direct hit pretty much takes care of things.”

Speaking of which, at around the same time I was randomly drawn to Conan Exiles. I honestly can’t tell you what it was that suddenly caused my interest to perk up, but I’ve always been a fan of Conan and I really liked the art style and overall conceit of the game. Seeing no real interest in playing this sort of game from any of my online crew, I generated a single player world and hopped in solo. For several intense days, including a couple of days during which I was stuck at home miserably sick, I was completely enthralled (*rim shot!*) but once I got the basic gameplay loop worked out, with a small but stable base of operations, and had seen a little bit of the world and what the game generally had to offer, I’d pretty much had my fill of what was increasingly becoming overly repetitive.

Despite abandoning the game pretty quickly, I actually really liked what I played. The graphics and overall design of the world were awesome, and the construction and tech trees were really cool. I admit, the world felt a little lonely when playing solo, but that’s on me more than the developers since it’s clearly designed to be played online. Honestly, I can easily imagine this being a game I’d have totally fallen in love with if I had played it online with a group of friends on an active, highly competitive server, not unlike the experiences I’d described in the past about my brief but memorable time with Rust (though with perhaps even more nudity!) Really, in so many ways, Conan Exiles is basically just a version of Rust with more polish and a setting that caters to my personal tastes a bit more, which is much more of a compliment than it probably sounds like it is.

“Religion and slaves, check. Game over?”

Likely, I’ll install Conan Exiles again at some point, though probably with some mods installed to make the grind of playing solo a little more tolerable, and if any of my friends ever show any interest in playing I’d jump at the opportunity to hop back in and reinstall it in a heartbeat.

Shifting over to console, I’d been tempted to look at Xbox Game Pass since I first heard about it. The original allure was unlimited access to all of Microsoft’s first party Xbox One titles, which is fairly compelling in and of itself, but they’ve continued to add more and more great content to the subscription. Of course, they cycle it in AND back out from time to time, and they don’t really announce how often things get removed, so it’s a little hard to judge exactly what else you’re getting access to at any point in the future. Even still, as long as there’s at least a couple of games you intend on playing in the future, it feels like a no-brainer. I finally signed up and jumped into my first game not too long after, though I’m still working on that one so I’ll wait to talk more about it in my next one of these updates.

There are plenty of first party games I’m excited to play though: I want to get caught up on the Gears of War games, having enjoyed the first couple. I need to play Halo 5 finally, and also at least the first Halo Wars. State of Decay 2 is still looming large in my backlog too, and I’m sure there are many more. Being more than a little bit of a “patient gamer” I do find it disappointing to see some of the 3rd party games that originally convinced me to subscribe to Game Pass already leaving before I’d had a chance to play them, but I guess that’s just a part of the package.

“Insert corporate tagline here!”

Oh, and shortly after signing up Microsoft announced Xbox Game Pass Ultimate which is more or less just a combination of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass. Even more of a no-brainer! Plus they’ve cleverly tried to tempt us to switch our accounts over by combining remaining Xbox Gold and Xbox Game Pass time for Ultimate credit. This lead to a lot of people scheming to buy up as much Xbox Gold and Xbox Game Pass time as they could before switching over to take full advantage of the generous conversion policy. A huge win for Microsoft, as they’re surely looking to lock more people into their ecosystem in advance of the release of the next Xbox console (currently dubbed Project Scarlett) in 2020.

“Traversing the ruins of our childhoods…”

One game I did complete thanks to Game Pass is The Gardens Between. I hadn’t heard of this little indie gem at all until it appeared on The Computer Game Show podcast, where it unexpectedly ended up stealing their 2018 game of the year spot. I was already intrigued by the discussion and the fact that it was supposedly a relatively quick play, but then to find out I already had it on Game Pass? Sold!

The game’s first impression, with its vibrant, whimsical, and slightly cartoony art style, is definitely very positive, but indie games with brilliant graphics are (awesomely) becoming less and less of a standout quality these days. More unique, The Gardens Between’s gameplay is something else entirely. First, despite how it might appear from screenshots and videos, this game is a puzzle game first and foremost. Your two characters automatically traverse a series of small, surrealistic stages somewhat akin to an “auto-runner”. They’ll run into obstacles of various types while trying to reach the end of the stage and your role is to try to figure out how to get them around those obstacles – to solve the puzzle, in other words.

“Trickier than it looks, I promise!”

You don’t control your characters’ movements directly, rather your control comes from forwarding and rewinding time. I once heard someone describe this as being something like Braid minus the platforming which feels pretty apt. Even though your characters will follow the same path forward as long as possible, the obstacles in the world survive your time related antics which allows you to manipulate the environment around them. For example, one of your characters runs into a raised drawbridge where they get stuck but your other character ends up near a lever that lowers the bridge a little later. You then rewind time so that the first character can then cross the now lowered bridge. As you might imagine, these scenarios can get much, much more complicated, with you needing to carefully line up objects and movements typically quite a few times per stage, often taking some real lateral thinking. It can be a bit trial and error oriented too but given the ability to rewind time those “errors” are never really all that punitive.

There is also a narrative here. Involving childhood friendship, it clearly attempts to play on some fairly universal emotions. From some reviews and impressions I’ve heard from other people the game is plenty capable of really affecting you though beyond being overall fairly charming it didn’t quite pull my heartstrings in any major way. It did leave me wondering where it was going the entire time though which was interesting in a different way though. Still, all said and done, it was a great little game that I’d recommend if you need a palate cleanser between longer games or if you just love these sorts of odd puzzle games.

More soon!

The Gardens Between shots were stolen from Google Images.

Fall Update

It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve posted one of these, hasn’t it? Well, I’ve definitely played some games in that time. If anything, it looks like I’ve been a little restless for the last few months, though in addition to everything mentioned here, I’ve also played through an entire, lengthy single player game and been working my way through another classic DOS game, both of which I’ll dedicating separate posts to soon.

“My crew about to head out on another raid.”

Continuing to play through Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds with friends, I really wanted something of a similar vein that I could play solo. I recall hearing discussion about it on some podcasts and was intrigued, but at some point more recently I stumbled upon some YouTube footage of Ghost Recon: Wildlands, and I was instantly hooked. I’ve been a fan of Ghost Recon since the early days, and while installments from Ghost Recon 2 onward have lost me more and more, it seemed like Wildlands was taking some of the best parts of those newer games and applying them to a big budget, open world shooter.

It turns out that my decision to hop into Wildlands was (mostly) a good one. While the gameplay quickly felt much more formulaic and repetitive, and a little bit more like GTA 5 with a Ghost Recon skin than Ghost Recon with an open world than I was hoping for, the main elements that drew me in remain compelling: playing dress up with the huge (though far from exhaustive, unfortunately) amount of customization options available for gearing up your character and your squad, taking that squad into whatever objectives you might want, whether the single-player campaign missions, or just randomly chasing new weapons and other upgrades, and finally, pulling off a coordinated, Tears of the Sun like stealth assault on an enemy position using silenced weapons, drones, and synchronized, long range shots.

“A quiet nighttime op suddenly heats up.”

The game world is awesome, the action, at its best, feels extremely satisfying, and the customization combined with the open world gameplay leads to a certain immersive quality that practically had me roleplaying the scenarios I’d bring my squad into. I’m 100% sure the game would have been even more enjoyable played cooperatively, but sadly none of my usual crew was very interested in checking out Wildlands for one reason or another. Even though I’ve mostly fallen off of the game by now, I’m keeping it installed for now in hopes that another one of my friends might eventually pick it up. That, and I’ve recently started watching Netflix’s Narcos, which the game seems to be undeniably inspired by, and I’ve already been feeling the urge to jump back in as a result. Wildlands definitely seems like it will be best enjoyed when viewed through the lens of that kind of on-the-ground, legally questionable operations where coordinating with “indigenous forces” is perhaps more crucial than more conventional small squad military or law enforcement direct action. While I personally rarely call on rebel support myself, there are certainly plenty of systems in place to play that way.

While it doesn’t seem like Wildlands is very popular (despite some stubborn attempts to foster an online, competitive community) reviews were generally quite positive so maybe there’s some hope for Ubisoft to justify developing a sequel. I’m sure everyone who still plays would love even more customization options, and maybe they could even throw a battle royale mode in to help boost sales the second time around. Oh, and including the PVP mode from the beginning would probably help get those numbers up too.

At around the same time my hype for World of Warcraft’s new expansion, Battle for Azeroth, was building. I decided to play a little catch up and play through the last expansion, Legion. The last time I took an extended break from WoW was just as Legion was being released, so I’d missed entire thing and really hadn’t spent any time following it. I went in more or less blind.

“The Battle for Azeroth login screen looks like something of a throwback.”

I ran my Dwarf Rogue through Legion’s single player campaign and I found the new zones and their associated storylines and quests to be quite enjoyable. I also enjoyed the whole artifact system and class hall/class quest system much more than I thought I would. That said, as a solo player, I was extremely frustrated by how much gating I encountered. Forays into dungeons and even raids for questline progression, in particular, were the worst offenders. There have always been items and recipes that you could only acquire as part of dungeon and raid drops, or deep rep grind purchases, but in Legion I found my leveling of Alchemy to be completely halted due to some of these non-solo friendly quests. This was the first time since classic I haven’t had my alchemy maxed out. I didn’t have much time to dwell on this for too long, as Battle for Azeroth came out almost as soon as I finished the core Legion campaign. This means only a few dungeons, no raids, not even any PVP (which is usually my primary activity in WoW’s endgame.)

With Battle for Azeroth, the zones are probably even better than in Legion. It impresses me how good Blizzard has gotten and how they continue to improve at world design, though I have to say that questing in World of Warcraft STILL feels a lot less compelling than games like my beloved Star Wars: The Old Republic or any number of single player RPGs. At least, outside of some vicious reputation grinding, the gating from Legion seems to be largely gone. Oh, and I need to give a shout out to the soundtrack, as this one might be the best by far, which is saying something after just playing through Legion.

The only issue that I feel strongly enough to really complain about is the change to the way the global cooldown (“GCD”) works, which I can sum up simply by saying that more (most?) abilities are now tied to the same timer, which means you can’t “spam” them out (or particular, between them) too quickly. What seems like a small change on paper can actually really change the feel of certain class specializations radically. For me, as an aggressive combat rogue, I feel like it makes combat feel noticeably clunkier, and I feel less capable as a result. I really don’t like it.

“Gulgrim, my main, hanging out wherever I abandoned him months ago. Poor guy.”

Anyway, I don’t have much more to say about BfA for now – I played through ALMOST all of the Alliance campaign, maxing my character’s level far before finishing, before getting distracted and falling off the bandwagon. I’ll definitely go back to World of Warcraft to finish the single player content and hopefully check out PVP and some of the other new systems, though for now I’m waiting to see what the upcoming 8.2 patch is going to look like.

I have to say, moving between WoW’s expansions back to back like this really serves to highlight the unfortunate cannibalistic nature of them. Warlords of Draenor’s central feature, the garrisons, were completely abandoned once Legion came out. With Battle for Azeroth, the artifacts and class halls we spent so much time leveling and working with? Abandoned. I’d really like to see expansions that change and build upon existing content in a less destructive way, personally. Maybe if expansion content were developed this way we wouldn’t need silly things like World of Warcraft Classic.

I finally feel like I’m getting close to closing this chapter of my life. While I’m still very much a fan of Warcraft and enjoy dipping back into it every couple of years, it’s the lore more than the gameplay keeping me around. With that in mind, I’m really looking forward to playing through the recently announced Warcraft 3: Reforged. I hoping that the whole generation of gamers who only know Warcraft via WoW will jump on it and enjoy it as much as I did back in 2003. I would have rather had Warcraft 4, but I’m interested nonetheless.

Back on the shooter front, me and my normal PUBG crew were definitely being tempted away from PUBG by the promise of battle royale modes in both Battlefield V and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Unfortunately, I and most of my friends were totally disappointed by the direction it seemed Battlefield V was going, and interest in that very quickly fizzled. BO4’s battle royale mode, Blackout, on the other hand, was looking fucking sick, and quite a few of us hopped into the Blackout PC beta weekend in September with most of us agreeing that it might very well take our interest away from PUBG.

“Finishing off the boss of a public event. I’ve loved this system since WAR.”

Finding myself not wanting to give up the highly polished, smooth gunplay of Call of Duty to return back to the clunky, sometimes buggy feeling mess of PUBG, I decided to dust off Destiny 2, particularly because everyone had been talking about the pre-Forsaken expansion 2.0 patch, which made a number of much-requested tweaks and balance changes. I ended up playing through the single player campaigns of both Curse of Osiris and Warmind expansions. I had fun with both despite feeling a little bit like “more of the same” campaign content. Still, that content was pretty enjoyable to begin with, and neither it or these expansions overstay their welcome with too much unnecessary grind.

The 2.0 patch made plenty of other changes to the game though, most pretty positive. I strongly dislike what they did to the infusion system, changing it from an easy, convenient way to cash in your junk gear drop to keep your favorites useful, to making it quite cost prohibitive, meaning you’ll only want to keep your absolutely favorite items upgraded, and even those, probably not too often. I know that it’s viewed as a very positive change, but I also had a very hard time getting use to the new, lower TTK (“time to kill”) in PVP. I’d often find myself rushing into situations where I’d normally survive long enough to get a kill, or pop off my super, only to get mowed down without achieving anything but an embarrassing death. It was rather demoralizing, and despite quickly realizing why it was happening, the adjustment hasn’t been easy for me.

“My poorly geared Warlock main hanging out with The Traveler.”

I fully realize I somehow never posted about my (relatively brief) time with Destiny 2 when it launched in 2017, somehow. I’ll leave the in-depth Destiny 2 analysis to the more hardcore players, but the short summary of my experience is that it’s the type of extremely polished AAA shooter experience that you’d expect from Bungie if you’re a Halo veteran, and the single player campaign and PVP modes are both quite a lot of fun. Tie that in with a loot drop system and a heavy focus on multiplayer, and it’s easy to see why people got so addicted to the franchise.

It’s far from perfect, however. I, for one, expected Destiny 2 to be more like the Destiny that Bungie was rumored to developing in the early days, rather than a polished up rehash of the first game, somehow including less of the features that kept players hooked during the later phases of that game’s life. In any case, with no investment in the first game, I feel like I got my money out of it and will be returning soon enough to play through the Forsaken campaign. With no group of friends dedicated to it (interestingly, most of friends who were hopelessly addicted to Destiny 1 bounced off Destiny 2 hard!) and no huge attachment to the endgame systems, I can’t see ever treating it more as just a fun single player campaign set in a multiplayer world at this point, however. I’m fine with that.

“Parachuting down in Blackout!”

Finally, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 launched and, as planned, I played the absolute hell out of it. Much to my surprise, Blackout mode wasn’t actually where I spent my time though. While I stand by my opinion that this new battle royale mode is quite good and a worthy addition to the franchise, I found it somehow much less forgiving than Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. In PUBG, it was always fairly easy to drop into an area and get looted up before having a conflict with the enemy, and those conflicts were usually fairly tactical when they did happen, but in Blackout I feel like I’m usually finding myself in furious engagements almost immediately, often before I’ve even found a firearm, and they often feel desperately frantic (and not in a good way.) Solo mode feels fairly good in this respect, though I much prefer playing battle royale games with a group, and squad mode feels far, far too hectic. Duos seem to be the sweetest spot to me. The biggest issue though, is that somehow the draw to hop back in and try again, especially after a terrible, frustrating loss, just isn’t there in Blackout, while being one of the most interesting parts of the PUBG “special sauce.” I’m not quite sure how to explain this, but it’s not just me – almost all of my group has also bounced off of Blackout, and from some posts I’ve read, we don’t seem to be alone in this. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher.

On the flip side, I got utterly hooked on playing through the normal multiplayer modes, especially team deathmatch. I don’t think I’d played Call of Duty multiplayer since Modern Warfare 3 in 2011 and I still find the multiplayer of Call of Duty to be quite a lot of fun, with the progression system giving me just enough of a carrot on a stick to keep me addicted to leveling up my character. This time around, I’ve actually stuck with it long enough to max out quite a few weapons and “prestige” my main account at least once now. I’ve even taken to playing in “hardcore” mode which eliminates most of the disparity between different weapons and weapon types (I fucking HATE getting “shotgunned” with a “no scope” 50 caliber sniper rifle shot… ffffuuuuu!) and changes the balance of firefights quite a bit in general.

“Lining up a kill shot in Hardcore.”

While I did eventually grow tired of the churn of Call of Duty’s multiplayer, as I always do, and I’m finally considering returning to the slower, more tactical gunplay of PUBG, I legitimately hadn’t been this addicted to a “normal” deathmatch type gamemode in PC game for so long I can’t even recall when it might have been. All in all, despite not dedicating my time to Blackout like I’d planned, Black Ops 4 has still been money well spent.

It was a busy several months of game hopping, and every game I’ve mentioned I’ll definitely consider going back to at some point in the future. For now, I’ll likely dedicate my time to more and more single-player experiences, particular those that have been stuck in my backlog for far too long, while desperately being on the look out for the next multiplayer experience I can hop into with my crew.

By the time I finally got around to editing this and posting this, I hadn’t played any of the games mentioned in quite some time. I had to begrudgingly re-install Destiny 2 to get screenshots, which means I’ll probably be heading back to play Forsaken much sooner than expected. On the flip side, hopping into Black Ops 4 to play a few more rounds of multiplayer for screenshots felt great, and I was a little sad to have to resign myself to uninstalling it. That’s possibly the best complement I can give it.

Side note: New year and a new, slightly larger thumbnail image size! Rejoice!

Lost in Erangel (…And in Space!)

This entry is so massively overdue that I’m honestly not sure where to even start at this point, so I’ll just dive in. Apologies if this is a little more “stream of consciousness” than my normal posts.

I started playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (AKA “PUBG”) in early April, after an old friend from the TPG days and I linked back up and he mentioned being eager to start playing it with friends. Coincidentally, one of my favorite, randomly discovered YouTube channels, FUBARBUNDY, which is usually dedicated to antics within DayZ, posted a video of some PUBG action. I actually first became intrigued by the idea of this style of game after watching another FUBARBUNDY video in which he played the similar (and related) H1Z1: King of the Kill. I hadn’t seen anything quite like either game. They took some of the core ideas of DayZ and other, similar survival games, and gave them a mega dose of adrenaline.

“Lying in wait.”

I didn’t mentioned it here, but I did very briefly dabble in DayZ. Only very briefly. I’ve been interested in the game since the early days when it was still a mod, but resisted trying it out, afraid that I’d either hate the harsh playstyle of the game, or become absolutely addicted to it. Again, I largely have FUBARBUNDY’s insane videos to blame for my more recent bout of interest. In DayZ’s case, it was for making the game look far more interesting and dynamic than it actually tends to be. That said, I loved the immersive feel of the world. Exploring the desolate, empty landscape, and the possibility of running into other players was endlessly intriguing, but I didn’t like dealing with zombies or wildlife, or how all of my minor injures started to add up until my focus had to shift from the seemingly impossible task of finding guns and ammo to finding first aid and medical supplies, or how most of the time when you do run into another player it doesn’t lead to teaming up, or an interesting conversation, a stickup, or anything besides a well placed bullet from afar. I took several stabs at it, but in the end the pace was just far too slow. PUBG though? It’s like DayZ for impatient people.

“Scoping out a compound before I approach”

Now, most people reading this will already be familiar with PUBG as it has become a bit of a phenomenon since it was released into Steam Early Access. Just in case though, here’s a quick summary:

You and 99 other players are air dropped onto a deserted island devoid of much outside of a disturbing amount of guns, ammunition, body armor, medical supplies, and the occasional vehicle. Your goal is to be the last person left alive. So, at it’s core you have a death match across a huge battlefield with an element of looting and survival tacked on. It’s not some bizarre social experiment though, games could last hours without something to give them a little more focus. Instead, inspired by the likes of Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, players are constantly being funneled closer and closer together, as the playable area of the map constricts, eventually forcing anyone left to end up in extremely close quarters. Because of this, matches tend to be over within 40 minute or so, and (more likely) much, much quicker if you die earlier on in the game.

“Pro tip: Don’t skimp on fashion.”

That is one of the strengths of the gameplay model: total, brutal elimination. The number of players left alive is always displayed in the HUD, and is constantly dwindling down. Thanks to a damage model erring on the side of “realism”, you can die very quickly in this game, and you, without a doubt, will. You will have bad games that end in someone beating you to death within the first few minutes of the match, you will have bad games in which you fully gear up, only to find yourself ambushed as you make your way across the map, all your progress vanishing in seconds, and you will have bad games when you make it to the very end of the match only to be outgunned with only a few other players left alive. The game is so brutal that I’m honestly surprised it gets as much love as it does. There’s something really special about the gameplay loop that just keeps you coming back though, and on those rare occasions when you do actually win? Amazing.

“Running through the hay fields.”

Besides the frustration associated with taking a lot of inspiration from its earliest incarnation as an ArmA mod, tending to lean a bit more towards “realism” in various areas in addition to the aforementioned damage model, the effect of “RNG” on each match is also often a topic of out of game discussion. Where you can land, who lands with you, what items and vehicles you find around you early on, and where the playzone constricts to are all vital to your success. In fact, many of my best matches have been, not coincidentally, when the playzone ended up focusing the fight in the location I was already in, allowing me to spend more time on gearing up and fighting than traveling. Likewise, many of my worse matches found me traveling far across the map, often slogging it without a vehicle, and desperately lacking good gear.

“Expect to meet strange men in their underwear, and shoot them.”

So I’ve been playing this game for something like 5 months now which begs the question “what do I like about it?” Well, I actually really enjoy the semi-tactical gameplay, with more realistic handling weapons, including quick time-to-kill, and the ability to move stealthily, or lay prone in wait. Like the ArmA series, I enjoy the wide-open battlefields and the tactical scenarios that kind of freedom can provide, including a nice mix of long range and CQB engagements. I also really enjoy sneaking around and loot old buildings, which is something I’m apparently just into. *cough* State of Decay *cough* I enjoy the intensity of having to spot enemies on the distant horizon and pay attention to the sound of their movements close around you. I also really enjoy the camaraderie of playing these matches with other players when in duo or team matches – being able to work as a team under these conditions is a lot of fun, especially with the added component of being able to revive your fallen teammates, massively altering your priorities versus playing solo.

“Proof that I’ve won at least one match in my life.”

This game has, no doubt at all, sometimes frustrated the hell out of me. My friends and I have gotten into arguments and left sessions annoyed and irritable on far too many occasions. Yet, at the same time, I’ve also made some new friends and relished practically every “chicken dinner” (PUBG slang for a win) I’ve been able to score, whether I was instrumental in the win or carried by my teammates. With the game continuing to improve with every update, I’m glad I decided to take the plunge. I really don’t know how long its legs will continue to be for me, but I’ve already gotten my money out of it at this point.

“Journey to beautiful solar systems…”

Another game I’ve been playing lately is Everspace. Everspace is a cross between an old school, semi-arcadey space sim (think the Wing Commander series, Freespace, etc.) and a rogue-like. You journey from sector to sector exploring randomly generated systems filled with loot, enemies, and other resources but when you die, you die, starting over from scratch. Well, as these things go in rogue-likes, mostly from scratch; you retain any cash you gained in your run which you can spend on skill tree upgrades, and some other special items, such as crafting blueprints, that will also help you in future runs.

“…and shoot everyone in them!”

Not only is it fucking beautiful, but this game has also proven to massively addictive. Your ship controls excellently, even on a controller (I’m playing the Xbox One version) and the space combat is just deep enough to be fun and, at times, a little challenging. My only real complaint is that I wish there was a bit more variety to the random areas and enemies, or even some crazy random scenario ala another space themed rogue-like, FTL: Faster Than Light, as I’ve already hit a bit of a wall with it. Honestly, that’s fairly typical with how I play rogue-like style games, so I can’t cast any blame there. Even still, it served me well in allowing me brief but highly appreciated vacation into the space combat genre and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

Oh, and for you VR types, the PC version has Vive support!