Winner Winner...

After trying and deciding Apex Legends was not for me, I went back to PUBG (mobile using emulator) and have been playing that consistently for the past couple weeks. (Consistently for me, natch.)

I really enjoy this game, I feel like PUBG has hit the sweet spot of realistic fun versus realistic onerous, and the four maps really each have a different feel to them without abandoning the core mechanics. Recently they added in weather effects like rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The first time thunder roared I just about jumped out of my seat.

I played a game last night I want to tell you about.

I did a squad game with 3 random strangers. Quality when grouping with randoms is, well, random but the match making usually means they are decent soldiers even if their tactical decisions suck sometimes.

We parachuted and landed together (a good sign, you know its an uphill battle when the squad splits up from the plane at the start) and have a successful looting of a town. We hop in a vehicle and head into the circle. We stop at a small group of buildings to loot some more and the fog gets super thick.

Suddenly I spot an enemy and quickly dispatch him. I run over to loot his crate and I hear the sound of two vehicles quickly approaching. I'm exposed as they roar up, two in a car and two on a bike. The Bikers are closer and I hose them down with my SMG as they jump off, knocking them both (i.e. they are damaged to the point they can't do anything but crawl and must be revived by a teammate) but the other two lined me up as I had no cover and knock me down.

I desperately crawl to a low wall while they try to finish me off but my allies were close enough to take them out and save me. Whew! That was close! Once all healed up we jump back in the car and head to the new circle.

Near the middle of the circle is a hill with some buildings on it, and a lower section with a larger building. We go there and start to set up. Suddenly another car of a four man squad roars up on the main hill and a firefight erupts. I was on the top of the big building on the lower hill and I try to help out, two of our guys are knock, panic rising, but we manage to win the fight and revive our squadmates.

We reset and get into a sniping battle out one side with a guy in a ghillie suit with a suppressed AWM. I get hit to low health, another teammate knocked, one gets killed, but the opponent silhouetted himself on top of a hill in the distance and I was able to wing him. He retreated but came back a few seconds later and this time I was able to knock him, and let the approaching death circle eliminate him.

We;ve been lucky that the smaller and smaller safe zone circles have included our hill and we're getting down to the nitty gritty. There is three of us remaining after the sniper fight with Ghillie suit guy, and there are two other players. While we were distracted on the low hill fighting off to the north, the other two got on the big hill behind us. I'm on top of the big building and can see the top of the hill, but the buildings, bushes, terrain all conspire to make them hard to see, and I'm just behind a small wall that I need to pop over to shoot. Not good.

My teammates are on the ground and try circling to get on the hilltop and I still can't spot the enemies. Suddenly one of my squadmates is knocked and then killed. Now its 2v2 and they have the high ground... and the last circle is on the hilltop. I have to move soon.

Finally I spot one of them near a big cargo container. I popup and fire some shots and wing him, but bullets fly my direction soon after. Time is running out. I run to the stairs with bullets flying around me, the firefights earlier having left my helmet and body armour in shreds. I get to the ground and approach the big hill, I can hear someone moving and its not my buddy, who just got knocked. Oh crap.

I circle the slope of the hill and spot the first bad guy only meters away! We both open fire with SMGs but my aim is better and I knock and kill him. 1v1, circle is closing. I run to the top of the hill. Suddenly bullets fly past my head! I drop prone in tall grass and bushes and the next salvo missed me completely... and I see movement to my left. I open up on the pixel that is the player I can see and hit markers pop up. I have you now. A second later and I've won.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner.

Apex Legends - Thoughts

Apex Legends is another entry into the Battle Royale genre that has become popular the last couple years due to Player Unknown's Battlegrounds (AKA PUBG) and Fortnite. As I'm a fan of this type of game and Apex is getting lots of rave reviews, I thought I'd give it a try.

PUBG and Fortnite both have 100 players parachuting from an overheard passing aircraft onto a map. The players start with no equipment and have to scavenge from supplies on the ground, or from the crates left behind by other defeated players. You can either drop solo, in duos, or in squads of four in both games. PUBG has four maps with distinct flavours (2 large, 2 smaller), Fortnite has one large map with biomes and is constantly changing the map every couple months to keep it fresh. Both games have character skins that you can earn or buy, but no one can buy in game advantages (AFAIK). The biggest difference between the two is that in Fortnite you also gather building supplies and can build structures and traps and the end of many Fortnite matches is fought in towering brick and wood constructions.

In order to keep the game moving both games have a constricting playzone where if you find yourself outside of it as it shrinks you take damage and will eventually die. This forces combat as players get closer and closer together.

So where does Apex differentiate itself? Well, Apex has one map right now and its smaller like one of PUBG's two smaller 4x4 km maps. But the map is amazing, with lots of different zones and architecture and interesting geology. Tons of verticality and zip lines to aid in some interesting movement. Its a very pretty map and lots to see and explore.

Players still drop from a passing aircraft but there is only 60 players in a match and you have to be in squads of 3; no solo and no duos.

Once in a squad before the match starts, players take turns picking characters, or as the game calls them, "legends". There are 9 distinct characters with unique voice lines, looks, and special abilities similar to Overwatch. Each character has a tactical ability that they can use often, and an ultimate ability they can only use once or twice a match that charges up over time. For example, one character's tactical ability is to deploy a healing drone and an ultimate ability to call a care package, while another can tactially zoom through the void (i.e. teleport) and for an ultimate, create a portal for other players to use. Squads can't take the same character more than once.

Like the other Battle Royale games players start with nothing and have to scavenge on the ground. They will find grenades, assault rifles, SMGs, sniper rifles, shotguns, armour, helmets, medkits, shields, attachments, scopes, sights, ammo, etc. Very similar to PUBG in this regard, although the shields are reminiscent of Fortnite. The weapons are very scifi, including a number of energy based weapons in the different categories.

So how does it all stack up?

PROS

- As I said, the map is utterly gorgeous even on low graphics settings and interesting and lots of varied terrain of different heights you can take advantage of.

- The different characters with differing abilities is a neat twist and does not feel overpowering when they use those abilities. Shooting is still the main way to win.

- The variety of weapons is excellent, and I like the new energy based weapons to mix it up.

- The game is well made, I did not notice any bugs or glitches while I was playing.

- The smaller map made the games faster and turnaround quicker. You never spend 10-15 minutes running across a desert and never see anyone, the next fight is only a minute or two away.

CONS

- The gorgeous map required me to run it at lowest graphic settings to increase framerate and even then I feel like I'm not as smooth as I would like. My computer is not top of the line, admittedly, but I don't have this issue with the other two games.

- Another problem with the map is that its so full of terrain that it is often hard to fight at a distance. Enemies can divert around the terrain, and almost all kills are in close range firefights.

- Characters move slightly faster than in PUBG and Fortnite and this causes two cons for me, the first one being the ring of death is never a concern because on the small map and fast movement you are always within easy running distance of next circle, and lots of terrain to cover your advance.

- The second issue with fast character movement is that combined with the long Time to Kill after players have armour and shields (especially later in game) is that even getting the drop on a player or shooting at them long range doesn't help as they can scoot into cover, lose themselves in the terrain, heal up, and come back for revenge.

(To be clear, I'm 45 years old and my hand to eye coordination was never great even when I was young, so this may not feel like a problem to other better players.)

- To make matters worse, matches are made up of new players like me and very experienced players with hundreds or more kills. Not just sometimes, all the time. Almost every time I died it shows the banner of the killing player and they had obviously far more experience at the game than me. This is a huge turnoff. I think Fortnite does this as well? I know in PUBG mobile that I play you are put into matches with players of similar season ranking if at all possible, climbing the ladder to more difficult opponents as you do well.

- The shorter matches does a lot to negate any build up of tension or anticipation. In PUBG and Fortnite once you kill the other players landing at the location you picked (if any), there is a build up of tension as you get your equipment and make the plan to get into the circle, picking your destination and planning your advance. Apex is right from action on landing to action to action to either dying or winning. That could be a plus for many people, but not for me.

OVERALL

At the end of the weekend, I went back to PUBG mobile using the emulator. There is a lot to like about Apex Legends, but after investing hours into it I did not feel like I was getting better after the initial learning curve and was constantly getting ganked by faster and better players. I want more time for the match to progress, I want more time to explore, and I want the satisfaction of properly planning my position to pay off in a kill, and not watch as my target gets hit and then disappears behind the building right over there.

Its a good game, but not for me.

So What Happened to February and March?

You may have noticed that before my post about Battlestar Galactica on March 25 I had not posted since the middle of January.

I was having a bad time. No major single issue but several small issues built up over January to the point that I was entering February in a pretty bad state. Money concerns meaning I was faced with having to give up my Jiu Jitsu training, a particularly cold and miserable Canadian winter, super busy with getting kids to activities every night, no time to hang out with friends, a birthday that was overall unexciting and uneventful, no free time with the wife... and on top of all that dealing with the realization of my divorce with EVE and the isolation that came with it, playing games where I had no personal connection with the other players and the lack of excitement of any new games for me to enjoy.

I became a little depressed. Not "I can't get out of bed depressed" but more like "I can't get excited about anything but I'm still functional and can pretend everything is ok most of the time". It got really bad in middle of February when I tried and failed to arrange a board game night with my friends for the first time in many months and had no luck. There was nothing to look forward to on the horizon and it was rough.

With March things did not improve at first. Canada's winter continued to dump snow and cold on us, I finally reached a point where it looked like for certain I would have to give up Jiu Jitsu, and the first weekend in 6 months my wife had free from the kids was marred by scary budget discussions and sleepless night.

Then some good news. I spoke with the owners of the dojo I attend and teach at and worked out a deal that did not have to give up the martial arts, and I sold some board games I didn't have time for to allow my youngest son to continue his art classes. The weather finally started to turn warmer. The budget started to come together as some cuts to extraneous luxuries were made. And, as my last blog post indicates, I finally got some friends together for a good board game night. As March closed out I finally started to feel like myself again and the stresses of the past few months finally released their grip on me.

And so here we are.

So with that out of the way, what have I been up to?

Mainly I've still been playing PUBG Mobile through the emulator when I have time to sit down and play for longer than 30 minutes. I've also started playing Magic the Gathering with the twins (and my wife dabbles) so I've tried out Magic Arena since its free and quick to play, and its surprisingly implemented well. Sometimes playing Overwatch at work but lately its been Magic Arena (Golgari Forever!).



At work once a week a group of four of us started playing Pandemic Legacy.


Its a fun game we can finish in about 20-50 minutes and we're about half way through the "season". Once its done I'm considering trying to run a Battlestar Galactica once-a-week game using Vassal. Or just arrange a rematch for last month's debacle after Easter.

And that is where we are at. Carry on.