Shooter McWeekend

I was bitten by the shooter bug this weekend.

I woke up Saturday and played a little Quake: Champions, and I would return to it late Sunday night after podcasting. Champions has the unparalleled feel of the original Quake game, and is a pretty casual and accessible shooter, being the basics of the genre as it emerged, and nothing like a lot of the more modern games which feature things such as cover, destructible environments, vehicles, and even reloading. I've had a good time playing the game so far, and I think I'll continue to do so. I've somehow managed to be the top scorer on my team in two of the four matches I've played. Matches seem to either go 10 minutes or until one team gets 75 kills. The mode I have been playing so far is four-on-four. I have one character unlocked aside from the Slipgate Marine, an alien warlord called Scalebearer, whose active ability and starting armor value I prefer, I think.

On Sunday morning, I thought I would check in on Call of Duty mutliplayer. However, no one is playing Call of Duty 2 online these days, so instead I decided to check out the campaign mode. I played the first 3-4 missions as a Russian in Stalingrad, and it was good fun, if a very simple game at its core. I don't think I'll bother going back to it, when there are so many other Call of Duty games to choose from. I have World at War still sitting untouched, and I would bet there are still people playing the first Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online, as well.

Later Sunday, before going out for the day, I thought I would knock another off my backlog: Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity. I played the first mission of the first episode, and it was cool. This may be a little more in line with the original game than the first mission pack, Scourge of Armagon.

Finally, Sunday afternoon, as a reward for finishing my chores for the day, I let myself try out Fortnite Battle Royale (now just Fortnite) for the Switch. I really like the game on that platform, maybe even more than on the PC. It's much less of a pain to run endless distances with an analog stick than by holding down W, and it seems easier to quickly swap to build mode, as well. I think it's a good fit for the system, but what's not? The only drawback I see is that the Switch requires Wi-Fi, and unfortunately does not use LTE, and so it's portable playability is hampered. I'll play more of the game this way.