Counter-Strike:Global Offensive - Why Have I Spent 40 Hours Last Week Playing This Competitive Shooter?

Game Title: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Publisher: Valve
Year:  2012
ESRB Rating: M
Platform:  Windows 10 PC
Genre:  Competitive First Person Shooter

Fun Factor

You don't always need the most complex game mechanics of the decade intertwined with the best story arch of the century in order to create a fantastically crafted game.  Sometimes you just need some guns, flashbangs, and an objective to bomb to have an addicting enough game to throw your life away playing.

CSGO is my most played game in my Steam library, clocking in at 140 hours total, 40 of which of those where just in the past week and a half or so.  To put how addicting this game is into perspective, I am still considered somewhat of an inexperienced player in the competitive aspect of this game, even though I have such a high playtime.

My total playtime for this game breaks apart as such: approximately 100 hours playing Demolition alone, while the other 40 have been spent on Competitive.  Due to this massive split in game modes, I'll spend a bit of time talking about my experience with both.

First off is Demolition.  If you've ever played CSGO before, I know what you're thinking: "You spent 100 fucking hours playing nothing but Demo?", and to that I answer "Hell yeah, and I had a damn good time with it too, fuck off."  Demolition is one of the less popular game modes in CSGO, though I'd have to argue that it is one of the most enjoyable for a few key reasons.  One of the main reasons I've always preferred Demo over Comp is that the pressure is far less.  When I first began playing CSGO, I'll admit that I was never one to really enjoy highly competitive games, so I took the most casual approach of testing the waters with Demolition.  Right off the bat, I loved it.  It took real skill to get good at, as you couldn't just spray and pray like you could with most other modern day shooters (looking at you, Call of Duty).  In addition to this, I loved the way the game progressed through each round.  In a stark contrast to its Competitive counterpart, Demolition does not have a money system.  Instead of buying weapons each round, you are awarded a new weapon in a line of predetermined guns if you were able to score a kill in the previous round.  What I love about this is that you can really focus on just mindlessly killing your foes, rather than having to balance when and when not to buy, what to buy, and if you should buy a certain weapon in accordance to the current loadout of your teammates.



This casual focus of Demolition is only reinforced by the smaller map sizes, forcing players into combat more frequently, subsequently speeding up the length of each game.

Competitive, while obviously keeping the main gun mechanics in place, is a totally different ballpark in terms of gameplay.  With Demo, you often found both teams rushing in to get kills, with bomb plants rarely being the main focus, which is the total opposite of Competitive.  The stakes are much higher in Comp, as failing to win has much more lasting consequences.  Of course, I am talking about the ranking system that accompanies Comp, and while the losses may be more punishing than in Demo, the wins also bring the chance of a rank up, which can be wore as a visual and calculated display of how skilled a player you actually are.

While I found Comp extremely fun and it has been the main focus of my recent CSGO playtime, its more tactical and high stakes nature more quickly drains me.  In addition to this higher functioning gameplay, the matches often last much longer on average, usually 2 or 3 times longer than some Demo matches.

Overall, CSGO is fun no matter what mode you decide to jump into.  If you're looking for a more consistent, constantly rewarding experience where the losses are minimal, Demolition is for you, especially if you seek a more casual and fast paced experience.  If you want your wins to mean something much more and enjoy a more tactical, skilled style of gameplay, Comp is for you, so long as you don't mind the occasional hissy-fits a Gold Nova 1 will throw because an unranked player is crushing them with only a tenth of the total playtime invested.

Learning Curve

CSGO has probably one of the steepest learning curves I have ever experienced in a game thus far, so long as first person shooters go.  What makes this game vastly different from the massive amount of titles in the FPS genre is your inability to aim down sights on most weapons in the game.



On top of the fact that aiming is now much more difficult, the way the bullets spray for each gun is of much variation, and significantly reduces your accuracy if you don't develop good spray-control habits.  The very first time I ever played CSGO, I was unbelievably frustrated by the amount of times I would die seemingly without getting a single hit on someone I was shooting at full-auto.  The reason for this is because with most shooters, bullets travel in a relatively straight line with recoil only playing a minimal effect on the trajectory of your shots.  Accompanied with the ability to aim down sights, and you have great control over where you shoot.

Weapons in CSGO rarely go in a perfect line from the barrel, and the chance that bullets will stray from your reticle depend on a variety of factors, such as your current speed, if you're jumping, crouching, or standing still, if you've just been hit by an enemy, how long you have been currently firing, and even the weapon type itself.

It took me at least 10 hours of the game to get good enough to get a few kills per match, and at about 140 total hours, I would like to think I'm about average in terms of competitive performance.  Of course, I still have a bad game here and there, sometimes multiple bad games in a row, but overall, it's taken me 140 hours to get decent.  I have seen players with over 500, sometimes over 1000 hours who were slightly better than me, and even occasionally just as good as me.  It only goes to show that the game require a tremendous amount of skill, coordination, and determination to get fairly good at it, which only adds to its overall appeal.

Graphics

While the graphics for CSGO aren't hyper realistic, they hold up after 5 years.  They certainly aren't the best anyone has ever seen, but they aren't really old enough to remark upon, keeping the game feeling fresh and fairly new, even if it is approaching the "older" phase of its life.

There isn't really much more to say about the graphics of CSGO.  They aren't a strong point for the game, but they aren't a weak one either.  Given a different style or aesthetic, the game would still play and feel relatively the same, if not just a bit odd, so I can't really say the graphics exist for any other purpose than to display the game.  They don't add mood, tone, or set any particular scene, but that's not a bad thing.  It allows for more of the player's focus to be centralized on the gameplay, which is the game's strongest factor overall.

Audio

Audio in CSGO is your best friend, specifically the sound effects.  I don't give a shit about the glitchy ass music that assaults my ears every time I launch the game and the buying phase music at the beginning of each comp round that does NOT stop playing for the entire duration of the match if I alt-tab out of the game, god-for-fucking-bid, no I'm talking about the sound effects and how they are often the largest determining factor as to whether or not you win or lose a firefight.

Obviously, anyone who has played a shooter before knows that listening in on the enemy team's gunshots is often a good clue as to their general location, allowing you to better position yourself for the appropriate attack/defense, however your ability to analyze sound must be much more sophisticated in CSGO.

Let me first begin by saying that if you just bought the game and you don't have a decent pair of headphones, just return the damn thing, because you're going to have a bad time if you can't locate the source of a sound, even a quick and subtle shift of a foot against brick or the cocking of a weapon's charging handle from around a corner.

Being able to shoot and hit your enemy is only half the battle, as a majority of the time you are trying to, in the stealthiest way possible, locate the exact position of your enemy before they locate you.  More often than not, knowing where an enemy is a huge upper hand that, with even a sub-par amount of aiming skill, can almost always help you win an encounter with a foe.

Footsteps are the most common thing to listen for, but you can also listen out for snipe scopes adjusting, grenades, smokes, or flashbangs being activated, and even weapon switching.

With the combination of good teammates providing frequent callouts for the general locations of enemies, and the ability to pinpoint a more precise idea of where they can be using sound alone, you'll seem so much better at the game than you might actually be.

Controls

The controls for CSGO are standard first person shooter controls, using either the scroll wheel (don't recommend, coming from a guy who has died too many times due to using it and being stupid) or the number keys.

The abnormality, as discussed previously, exists not necessarily in the physical controls themselves, but in the complexity of the individual gun handling.  Often, if you choose not to control your weapon spray, or simply aren't experienced enough to understand how to do this properly, you have to handle the gun differently than you would in a typical first person shooter.  In order to ensure the most accurate spray possible, it's usually recommended to drag your weapon downwards as you shoot it, as the resulting recoil will move the barrel of the gun up, thus equalizing the point of impact.  How much you should drag your gun down really depends on the individual weapon, though it can be said that sub machine guns, with their faster rate of fire, typically need more work down on them as compared to a slower shooting rifle.

While the recoil from the rifles' low rate of fire may not compare to that of a sub machine gun's, it is made up by the more erratic spray pattern that rifles usually seem to have, while their smaller sub machine gun brothers have a rather tight spray pattern, assuming you're standing still in both instances.

However, weapons with the lowest rate of fire, such as the AWP, the most powerful gun in the game, has a fairly accurate spray pattern, even if you are moving a bit.  Each gun seems to balance itself out, either by reducing fire rate and increasing damage, or by increasing fire rate and decreasing spray patterns.

Level Design

The level design of CSGO is fairly the same across each respective gamemode, with only slight deviations in physical construction of the levels, and the only major overhaul between each map being the theme (Is it a town like Inferno?  A desert village like Dust II?  An office like, well, Office?).

Below are a few screenshots of some of the most popular competitive maps.

Dust II

Mirage

Cache

Inferno

Office

As you begin to examine each map, you notice some very obviously similarities, the most noticeable of which being that every single map displayed above has the same pattern: Terrorists on one side, Counter-Terrorists on the opposite side, and three paths of attack between them both.

Even the callouts of the sections of the maps are close to the same, with nearly every middle path being named the appropriate callout of "Mid", and each long corridor or alley, which is also featured in at least one place each map being called some variation of "Long".

If we inspect the main maps for Demolition, we will see a similar pattern begin to emerge.

Lake

Bank

Safehouse

Shorttrain

Sugarcane

While Competitive maps featured a three way path to the other side, Demolition maps feature maps with typically one center objective, usually the bomb site, that all players will naturally gravitate towards.  Even more interesting is that for each map, while the paths are a bit less defined, three paths of attack often make an appearance on their way towards the center-most bomb site objective.

For instance, on Bank, you can either go straight into the bank, to the market on one side, or the garage on the other side.  Similarly, in Safehouse and Sugarcane, you can move through the middle, more contested part of the map, or attempt to flank the enemy by taking the side paths, though they may be more difficult to navigate.

The way the levels are designed only supports certain aspects of gameplay, such as the subtle art of flashbangs and smokes.  A proper flash or smoke can obscure the enemies sight long enough to ambush them, retreat from them, or even ninja a bomb plant.

No matter what gamemode you decide to play, CSGO strategically moves you towards other players, naturally creating hot points of contested firefights and choke points with its three path core level design.

Changes

For god's sake Valve, turn down the goddamn default main menu volume.  It's almost like you're trying to warn me away from the salt mine that is the community.

For real though, there aren't many things I would suggest to change about CSGO.  Avid players have told me that they wish there wasn't such a focus on the skin market trades, as to allow for more development work not only on CSGO itself, but other equally awaited Valve games.

The community can be a bit toxic at times, but that's not necessarily the game's fault, and there isn't much that can be done about people getting pissed off when they lose.
The only major thing I would suggest, if possible, would to better the security of the game, preventing the fairly high number of hackers to be present in online matches.  It's never fun when you're trying your best against a guy that can always headshot you around a corner, even if you made no noise for the past minute and you're in some obscure area of the map.

Sometimes it's just too obvious.

Recommendation

I have 140 hours in this game, so what do you think I'll say when asked if I recommend it?

It's fun, it's addicting, and it's a classic, must-have for anyone who has ever taken an interest in the shooter genre.

Plus, it's only $15.  I typically rate a game's price/content by $1 per hour on average, depending on the game.  Considering this game has average visuals and nothing about it is truly spectacular or really too inventive, I'll leave our scale at $1/hour.

Given the game is $15, and I played 140 hours so far, I have only paid about 10 cents on average per hour of content I received from the game.  That is one hell of a good number in my book.

Buy this annoyingly fun game.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - One of the Largest Open World Games Experienced On The Go

Game Title: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Publisher: Nintendo
Year:  2017
ESRB Rating: E 10+
Platform:  Nintendo Switch
Genre:  Open World Adventure

Fun Factor

There is a reason that Breath of the Wild won The Game Award for Most Anticipated Game of 2016.  Not only was the game hyped seemingly more than the first manned mission to the moon, but in a rare turn of events, the game actually delivered and exceeded the expectations that most had for the game.

I paid $600 for the complete Zelda kit of the Nintendo Switch a few days after it launched, and for nearly a month and a half, I only had Breath of the Wild on my brand new console, but let me tell you something:  I don't regret it one bit. (Just so long as you don't keep saying 600...).

Breath of the Wild is a breath of fresh air in the ever growing, crowded market for open world games, and even for a Zelda game, the open world nature of the game perfectly fits the design of it.  Killing monsters is fun, mixing potions is fun, dungeons are unique and enjoyable, but most importantly, the focus on exploration and encouragement it gives to the player to find their way around the world and discover things without having a map hold their hand to every interesting destination is perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this game.

Because the only part of the game you must play in a sequential order is the Great Plateau tutorial, you are free to complete any of the major quests in whatever order you please, filling the remaining time fighting random monster camps, completing side quests, and even just getting lost in the massive world.  This feeling of pure freedom, combined with the all the potential that a world crafted so hugely can offer, allows for the player to feel in possession of Link, treating him as though he was them and actively driving him to do the things THEY want to do.  This contrasts with a large about of story-driven games these days that treat the character as more of an actor in the game world, set to follow a specific script with some time allocated with improvisation, though they are never really in control of what they choose to do.  

No matter how you spend your time, whether it be proactively attacking some objective or passively laundering about, you find yourself enjoying the experience, completely immersed in the lush scenery, and rarely bored, as there is just so much content packed into such a tiny cartridge.

Learning Curve

Something that Breath of the Wild balances extremely well is the learning curve.  The game starts off relatively easy, though it requires you to think, whether that be about how you will approach a new puzzle or making the decision of how you'll move in to attack a camp full of monsters.


In the beginning, you have very little in the way of mechanically being able to solve the problems you are faced with.  You can pick up a wooden club, and if you're lucky, a rusty old sword, but those are about your only choices at first.  You can make some basic potions, but they don't really do much to help out, and you have very little health and means to heal yourself, so you have to avoid taking hits too often if you want to survive.

But as you progress through the towns and shrines, you begin to collect more knowledge and items, and only grow more skilled.  At the start, you can hardly scale down a steep hill without losing your breath and rolling down the cliff side like a brain dead puppy without legs, whereas later in the game, you can glide miles with ease, before dropping an attack on an unsuspecting enemy from above with your flame sword and so many hearts you can hardly see the screen anymore.  Super cool stuff.

The difficulty scales very well.  As soon as you leave the tutorial area, you could technically charge straight up to Hyrule Castle and fight Ganon with a nothing but a tree branch and some old tattered rags on your back, but the monstrous Guardians would kill you long before you could even come close.  Similarly, you are free to explore any part of the world, providing you can actually survive it.  There are no restrictions or bounds on where you can go or what you can do, but if you try to challenge the bull, you're going to get the horns, prepared or not.

Enemies also scale extremely well.  It's simple, but as you move to more difficult areas, more difficult enemies are to be fought, with their levels of difficulty being denoted by the color of their skin.  Every few days in game, a Blood Moon arises, resetting all the enemy camps as to allow for no area to ever truly be cleared out for too long, keeping the combat frequent, but with a break of well earned rest if you defeat your enemies.

Graphics

The visuals in Breath of the Wild are easily one of it's strongest points.  Take out the engaging combat, the heart wrenching story, and even the thematic music, and you are still left with a gorgeous exploration/navigation simulator.

Breath of the Wild is most certainly not a photo realistic game, but its not supposed to be.  The aesthetic of the game is a beautiful, painted world with a focus on nature, and the art style reflects this perfect, even while being a bit cartoony.  Even with a dynamic lighting system, Breath of the Wild manages to create beautifully lit areas and landscapes, and I swear there is nothing more satisfying than the shader moving that grass over the long ranging hills in the breeze, so gentle and with such a light grace.

The game truly encompasses the beauty of the outdoors, and the wild atmosphere is peaceful and extravagant.  This is one of the best looking games I have ever played, and due to its visuals alone deserves recognition.

There isn't too much more to say about the graphics of this game other than how fantastically well done they are, and how much I suggest you look at it, because this game is pure eye candy for anyone with even a hint of love for nature.

Audio

The thing I love about Breath of the Wild is the audio, more particularly the music.  Each village you stumble upon has a distinct feeling, which is only enhanced and brought even further to life by the clever use of music to set a tone for a particular setting.  Goron city, a settlement full of rock-like mountain dwellers, is accompanied by a robust and heavy tune, while something like the bird town of the Rito Village is played to the tune of flutes and and wind instruments, giving a floaty, whimsical vibe to the town.























Even the background music that plays while wandering between significant destinations gives a heroic feeling of exploration and adventure, while sometimes cutting out entirely in order to help emphasize the chorus of nature, really adding a highlight to the "wild" aspect of the game.

The music of Breath of the Wild enhances the overall tone of the game substantially, and apart from being beautifully scored and cross fading perfectly between moments of combat, exploration, and village discovery, it is just awfully nice to listen to, even outside the game.

Controls

The controls for Breath of the Wild are fairly straightforward.  The only innovative piece to touch upon would be the use of motion controls for your magnet power and your bow, though we have seen this done before on other platforms, most notably of which has to be the late and great Wii.

Due to this, I'll take this section to talk a bit about how the game fairs on a more portable, mobile platform: the undocked Switch.  Now, the docked Switch is essentially a home console with a slightly different controller, but the mobile version is much more interesting.

The first interesting thing I noticed is that Breath of the Wild seems to have been built exclusively for the undocked Switch, as more detailed areas of the world, such as the Korok forest and certain villages, begin to lag when played on an external display.  Although, this lag is fairly minimal and is said to have been addressed in a recent patch.

Other than the issue of occasional lag, playing between either the Switch's screen or an external monitor has very little of an impact on the game itself.  A huge benefit to allowing players to experience this game on the go means whenever they feel like they want to play, they are able to pull it out of their bag and jump in, and while this might be a greatly exciting concept, it is sometimes difficult to pull off with a game like this, to no real fault of its own.  Many of the quests in Breath of the Wild are extensively drawn out, so unless a player has more than 20 minutes on their hands (and that's really cutting it close), it's really not even worth booting up the game as you'll only find yourself having to shut it down in the middle of something exciting, which can be a real source of frustration.

Again, this is to no fault of the game itself, but still remains a bit of an issue.  This game is best played when you dedicate a good chunk of time for each sitting, and is not easy to jump in and out of, therefore, for the most part, portability of the game has no huge advantages as it might for other shorter, more fast paced games.

Characters

The characters in Breath of the Wild really stand out.  Each character has a well developed personality, and a backstory that often intertwines with other characters in the game.  Some characters are humorous and fun, like the Korok, while others are ghastly and vicious, like the Bokoblins.

One of my favorite characters has to be the Prince of the Zora Domain, Prince Sidon.  Like most characters in the game, Prince Sidon has only a few lines of spoken dialogue at most, though the entirety of his personality is told not only through the text he says, but through the subtle sounds he makes as his text changes on screen, alongside the music and body language that accompanies him.

Without hardly speaking many actual words outside one or two dedicated cut scenes, Nintendo is able to paint Prince Sidon as a cocky, though loving and charismatic character, one who is boastful and eager to do all he can to help you, the newly arrived hero, to save his Domain from the one of the Divine Beasts.

Many characters, even ones that do not have a direct impact on the outcome of the story or the overall gameplay, are animated and alive in a similar fashion.  When spoken to (and sometimes even when not directly approached first!), many characters will speak a few lines of dialogue that while may not be entirely revealing to who they are allows for the player to have a grasp on a basic archetype of who they are speaking to, as well as a familiarity with the setting around them.  Often, hints are given in the way of characters speaking to Link, as opposed to the sadly more typical fashion of a blatant line of text on the screen telling you what to do.

Story

The story for Breath of the Wild is melancholy one, riddled with emotion and heartache, and plays an active part in the gameplay itself.  While the main story may be more on the heavier side of things, the various side quests and the charisma of specific characters help to add humor and more lighthearted, whimsical moments that other Zelda and Nintendo games are often known for.

The heroic tale of Link begins with a great awakening after having slumbered in silence for years away in a sealed off tomb.  Upon escaping from the rocky prison, you discover that all of Hyrule has been overrun by ancient spider-like robots, known as Guardians.  These Guardians, once meant to defeat the evil powers of an entity known as Calamity Ganon, now find themselves possessed by the very thing they were meant to oppose.

Through a fairly lengthy, though necessary, tutorial, you learn the basic mechanics of the game, such as cooking and brewing potions, as well as combat and how to take on a few of the many foes you will encounter on your journey.  One of the most important things taught are the puzzle dungeons, called Shrines, which allow for later opportunities to upgrade health and stamina upon completion.

After this introduction to the main conflict of the game (helping save Princess Zelda all the work of fighting Ganon alone for like a hundred years to protect your lazy, sleeping ass), you are free to roam about the world as you wish, collecting bits and pieces of story that help add depth to the overarching theme of the game, while not being absolutely needed, and therefore are not forced onto the player.

This adaptive story-telling mechanic, through the use of pictures that bring back memories as well as conversations you'll have with villages about their surroundings and history, really allows Breath of the Wild to drive home the main idea that it pushes from the very beginning: freedom of exploration and discovery.

You are free to discover the story as you wish, but you don't have to.  You can kill random camps of enemies for however long you want, although the game promises to give you more of a straight line purpose if you want it.

Breath of the Wild balances the heartbreak of slowly discovering the death of all of your friends nearly a hundred years ago with the satisfaction of avenging them each time you complete one of the main Divine Beast dungeons.  By doing this, the game allows for a wide range of emotions to be felt, only to be ever more supported by the layout of the world and the structure in which you can discover and play at your own pace, allowing for these emotions and experiences to cycle naturally, rather than being forced onto the player in a specific time frame.

Level Design

The world in Breath of the Wild is huge, nearly 1.5 times larger than Skyrim, which is famously known for it's large and detailed world.  This works to Breath of the Wild's advantage, as previously stated, exploration is one of the largest focuses in the game after all, and giving the player more to explore is effectively added more content without really having to do anything more than level design.

Something great about the giant world is that not only is it huge, but it is also rich.  I mean rich in terms of all the random stuff scattered about for you to do, stuff so trivial yet so engaging that you couldn't even classify it as a side quest.

One prime example of this is the 700 or so (or is it 900?  Not like I'll ever find them all anyways.) Korok that are hidden throughout the world.  These Korok give you tiny rewards that allow to to upgrade your carrying capacity for solving simple, though sometimes challenging puzzles.  Such puzzles can be as simple as "you lifted up this rock!  Good job, here's a seed!" to as complicated as "put that metal cube in the perfect position as to accurately match the metallic symbol directly adjacent to it" or "step on this leaf thingy and run over there as fast as you fucking can and don't even think about messing up or you're not getting shit."  As you might be able to tell from my way of explaining it, sometimes they can be a bit... frustrating.

All the same, the Korok are one of the many oddities that can be found on your adventure through Hyrule, adding depth and character to the world without having to take up too much of the player's or developer's time.

Changes

About 40 hours in (and yes, I know those are chump numbers, but I'm a busy guy and a developer myself), it is very hard to recommend any major changes to the game, except I wish it was longer, which is an impossible request to ask due to the fact that the game is already humongous and I haven't even scratched the surface of it all yet.

No, it's not a perfect game, and I'm sure there were many small features that I didn't appreciate in all my time playing, but off of the top of my head, I have no major gripes with Breath of the Wild.

The only suggestion I would have that might change the game a fair bit is the either rework the stealth system, or scrap it entirely.  There are many potions and combinations you can use to increase the overall stealth of Link, though I rarely found myself using this.  Part of the problem with the stealth system also lies in the detection system on the enemies.  Maybe I just suck at it, but I found that sneaking up on enemies was only as good as the first enemy you killed, because after that, there was almost no way to hide your kill, and now you have the whole camp pouncing on you.



Due to this fact, I strictly kept combat to a "run and gun" rush style of fighting, and if I wasn't strong enough to take on more than one enemy at a time, I found it pointless to attempt a sneak attack, as it had been fairly unsuccessful in past attempts.

But, again, I dislike most stealth games and I'm not very good at them either, so perhaps others got much more out of the system than I did.  As far as I'm concerned, the game would fair just as well without it.

Recommendation

I am always shocked to hear that someone has not been able to experience the magnificence of Skyrim, as the game is so dear to my heart, I could not fathom the idea that someone else has not had the pleasure of sitting through the adventurous and oh so captivating game.  That same feeling I told towards Skyrim is now applied to Breath of the Wild, for most all the same reasons.

The story is interesting and compels you to push forward, rather than just being something slapped on haphazardly at the last moment, the mechanics are new and fluent, working off one another allowing you to move, fight, and explore in connected arrays of button presses, and the immersion of the world is otherworldly.

If you have a Switch, I have no idea why you have denied yourself the absolute pleasure of playing this game.

If you don't have a Switch, this game allow is enough to pick one up.

Get this game, love it, and remember it forever, because there is no way in hell you're going to forget an experience like the one this masterpiece provides.

PlayerUnknown's BATTLEGROUNDS - Just how good is this disgusting popular battle royal mod gone standalone?

Game Title: PlayerUnknown's BATTLEGROUNDS
Publisher: Bluehole Inc.
Year:  2017
ESRB Rating: M
Platform:  Windows 10 PC - Steam Edition
Genre:  Battle Royale

Fun Factor

As of August 3rd, 2017, the average amount of hours played of Battlegrounds across all 8.9 million owners is 33.7 hours.  Compare this number to a game considered one of the most addicting out there, CS:GO, and you get only 1/4th of total time played on average, clocking in at 8.5 hours per person.  That means Battlegrounds, a game that's been out for less than a year, already has not only about 1/3rd the community as CS:GO, but it also quadruples the total average playtime across all players.  You don't have to be good at math to realize how absolutely mind-blowing this is.

What I'm trying to illustrate here is how ridiculously addicting and stupidly fun PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is, and while this may be the case, why exactly is this game as popular as it is?

Let's explore some of the key components of a typical Battlegrounds game, the first of which being extreme, heart pounding adrenaline.  Just the pure rush of thrill as you skydive from miles above a deserted island littered in weapons is enough to get anyone's body tense.  Even from the very get go, you never know if you're going to have to race against other players in search of weapons and gear.  One moment, you're dragging ammo and a pistol into your inventory as fast as you possibly can and trying to reload before a guy across the room does before you, the next, his buddy bursts through with an AK (how the hell did he even pick one up so quickly?) and you're a bloody mess on the floor.  The game never lets up, whether you're first thing out of the plane, or wandering the fields and forests of the island alone.

Even mid to late game, you're constantly kept on your toes.  Was that gunshot fired from over the hill to the east or from behind me?  Did they see me running across the field with no cover?  Holy shit, is that a guy just standing over there?  (No, it's just another goddamn bush.)  If you're not a paranoid person and you've always wondered what true anxiety and fear feels like, just pick up this game for 20 minutes and I can guarantee you'll never enjoy a moment of silence again.

Aside from the atmosphere of adrenaline the game provides, the amount of "juice" is fantastically balanced.  While there may be 99 other people on the island at any given time, the whole map is large enough that you often find yourself in complete solitude, assuming you didn't drop with anyone else.  This sense of lonesomeness not only increases the aforementioned paranoia you'll often face, but it drastically raises the satisfaction whenever you score a kill.

I mean, god, there really is no other way of describing the pure, unadulterated hit of straight dopamine you get when you mini-uzi down an unsuspecting guy entering a building he was sure hasn't been looted yet (which is why you always close doors!).

I could go on for hours talking of all the aspects I love about PUBG, but that means less time grinding for those chicken dinners!

Learning Curve

While incredibly fun and rewarding of an experience, PUBG is also one of the most punishing gaming instances I have played through.  If you're a newcomer to Battlegrounds, do not think for a moment you're going to get a load of kills right off the bat, even less so win the game on your first go! (I recently heard somewhere that you are more likely to be struck by lightning twice than to win your first game of PUBG).

The learning curve for this game is steep.  Every game, you are matched against up to 99 other players who almost always have played more than you, but assuming the odds are equal amongst all players, that's still a 1 in 100 shot at winning.

Currently, I have played 90 hours of the game over the course of this past summer, and I have won a total of 2 solo games, 2 duo games, and 1 squad game (though to be honest, I was carried like a suitcase for that squad game).  Assuming each game averages about 15 minutes each, accounting for all the times I've gotten to the top 10 and all the times I was one of the first 10 killed,  that is about a 1.2% win rate, only slightly above the if-everyone-was-equal-and-there-was-no-luck-or-skill-in-this-game 1% win percentage.

So why exactly is this game so difficult to win at?  Well, first let's try to establish a definition for what a "win" in this game can really mean.  Some, including myself, would entertain the idea that while getting a few kills and making top 20 or so isn't necessarily "winning" the game, it definitely feels nice and you can leave happy, if a bit frustrated.  Even to achieve our definition of a "win" in PUBG is somewhat of a feat, especially if you are new to the game, as there are many factors one must take into account in order to even have a chance at success.

On the skill side of things, one of the most important things to affect the outcome of your efforts is knowing where to drop.  Do you take the risk and drop in an area where you know high level loot spawns and taunt fate against the chance of getting murdered on scene by the numerous others that had the same idea, or do you take the safe route of going to a couple secluded houses in the distance away from the initial fly path of the plane, compromising your chance at good loot for a more secure feeling of safety?  This must be considered right as the plane begins flying over the map, and you must hope that it flies over a part of the island you are familiar enough with to be confident in your decision.

Continuing on the skill side, one of the largest contributing factors to your success is your combat tactics.  Do you rush in, guns blazing, or do you creep quietly in the underbrush, waiting for your chance to pounce once your prey has turned their backs?  Neither method of attack (or defense) is really any better than the other, as the situation you are put in calls for different strategies.  Applying these strategies in the proper manner is crucial to the outcome of the encounter.

Of course, there are other determining factors like your aim, your knowledge of bullet drop for a certain gun at a certain distance, and general positioning as you run towards the circle or engage in a firefight.

Skill won't get you all the way to where you want to get in this game, though, as luck and RNG is a huge part of shaping the outcome of a game.  Even if you have the perfect spot to drop down to a key, the game can either be generous and give you full level 3 gear and a fully stocked M4 and Kar98, or you can be stuck with a motorcycle helmet and a sickle (not that I'm speaking from experience here or anything).  Sometimes, you'll be fully decked out and get head shot by a guy with an AWM from across the map, and other times, you'll make it to the top 10 using nothing but a pistol and a double barrel shot gun.

The game is brutal, but that only adds to its replayability, and the sincere feeling of accomplishment when you do well.  So yeah, it's hard as hell to learn and even get sorta good at, but boy do the small, sporadic rewards make it worth it.

Graphics

Graphics for PUBG are a bittersweet topic of discussion.  If you can max the game out, the lush forests scattered around the island and swaying fields reflecting just the right amount of golden sunlight drizzled out after being refracted off the gorgeous, dynamic skybox is other worldly, and needs to be experienced first hand.  But that's IF you can run it at max settings.

Currently, running an i5-4690k overclocked to 4.3ghz, 16GB RAM, and a brand new GTX 1080, I can only run PUBG on medium to high settings on a widescreen 1080p monitor at a relatively solid 60fps.  The rig that I have set up is nearly some of the best hardware you can get, which means it's far from cheap, and I still can't even max the game out.

The lack of graphical optimization is a huge drawback for Battlegrounds, as many who cannot afford the most expensive gaming setup but still wish to participate in the game cannot do so.  Likewise, those who can hardly run the game on their current rig but who still attempt to play it anyways are at a massive disadvantage, especially in the newly popular first-person only mode, where a high frame rate is needed to make the game playable.

Audio

The audio of PUBG is nothing spectacular, but like all the other aspects of the game, it is key to how you play, and paying close attention to the sounds around you can vastly influence the outcome of a fight.


First off, the ambient noise of Battlegrounds is pretty standard, just some humming and a few chirps here and there to keep the game from being completely silent during downtime, though I can't say I personally can contribute to how it could improve, if it even needs to be improved at all.

The real important snippets of audio come from the gunshots and their varying tones, the footsteps and their direction, and how both of these are projected in 3D space around your character.  For instance, every single weapon in the game has a relatively unique sound when it matters, allowing you to easily differentiate between a Kar98 and an AWM, two very powerful snipers, from a long distance.  Whether you're on the attack or the defense, you must take gunfire and it's booming sound into account.  Sure, you could blow that guy laying the grass away with a single headshot, but the circle is getting smaller, and you'd risk comprising your position, as well as revealing that someone has a sniper.  This is where silencers come in handy.  While they don't completely mask your position, they disrupt the 3D emission of the sound, making the source of the gunshot far more difficult to locate, as well as decreasing the range that the sound travels.

On a similar note, footsteps of both your enemies and your own doing are an essential aspect of Battlegrounds.  Footsteps allow you to know the general location of your enemy far before you see them, giving you time to set up a position with a good view of entrances and solid cover prior to your enemy even knowing that someone else is around them.  More often than not, the element of surprise can almost always guarantee a kill, just so long as you don't aim like a drunk toddler missing a few fingers.

More experienced players will use surrounding sounds or distractions based entirely around the premise of sound in order to create the opportunity for an assault on a keen, though confused enemy.  Some examples of this can be using the supply crate plane flying overhead to move when in the listening radius of a baddie, or having a partner shoot at the building from outside as you sneak up the stairs and flank the enemy from behind.

For those who have played the game before, I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that it is not a rare occurrence to enter a building you were sure hasn't been touched yet  (damn those closed doors) and find yourself face to gun barrel with some naked gun camping in the corner with a SCAR.  Footsteps, my friends, it's all about listening for and concealing footsteps.

Controls

There isn't much to say about the controls for PUBG.  They are pretty standard shooter controls, and work well if the design of the game, considering it is a shooter at its core. WASD for movement, right and left mouse buttons for aiming and firing, M for map, number keys or scroll wheel for weapons, etc. etc.

The only more inventive control scheme is the game's aiming system, borrowed from Arma, the game which first featured PlayerUnknown's revolutionary battle royale game mode.  Whether in third or person, PUBG gives the option to aim either down sights like a traditional shooter, or "third person aim", where the gun steadies at your hip and the reticle appears center screen.

This gives players the options for more precise, long distance shooting, usually associated with the first person aiming down sights mode, while also allowing room to spray at close range with a wider field of view during use of the third person aiming mode.

Characters

PUBG doesn't feature any story driven, or even dialogue driven characters, so I'll use this section to describe the possible loadouts that a player might find themselves choosing between in a typical match.  Weapons and different forms of equipment combinations change how different players may fight one another, giving an almost "character-like" feel to those with varying gear.

The most common combination, if you are so blessed as to have such luck, if one that most players strive for.  This goal combination of weapons is a sniper of some sort for long range alongside an assault rifle for close range.  Due to the rarity of snipers, most people are able to settle for a scoped assault rifle and either an SMG or shotgun for close range and clearing out buildings, depending on the preference of the player.  Personally, I can't hit my first shot for the life of me, and half of my mag is usually used as a guide to line up the other half in hopes of a hit, so shotguns are the equivalent of battle royale suicide for me.

Due to these different combinations of weapons, sorts of "characters" start to evolve with the play style of each participant.  You often have the guy in the ghillie suit with all level 3 gear and an AWM picking off everyone running to the next zone, but in the very same game, you'll have a guy whose made it to top 20 using nothing but an uzi and a pistol, and while he is very confident at close range in a building, he will often hide in the brush when exposed in an open field.

And that's what's so interesting about PUBG: while there are no defined characters, the RNG allows for play styles to convert players into their own unique character each game, giving a fresh flavor to most encounters, even after playing the game for nearly 100 hours.

Level Design

The level design of Battlegrounds is massive, to say the least.  Currently, there is only one map to play on, but after 90 hours in the game, I still can't say I've explored all of it.  Now, that is only partially due to the fact that the map is so large, but mainly due to the fact that only a few parts of the map are worth going to, even less ever in the flight path of the plane in the beginning.

I can honestly say I'm disappointed in the way that the flight pattern of the initial plane ride is lacking deeply in variation.  For how many different ways you can fly over this island, the flight path rarely strays from an intersection through the middle of the map.  While this enables players to have a chance to reach at least a few of the higher loot spawn areas, some of the smaller areas are neglected and rarely ever explored.  Due to high level loot ONLY being able to spawn in certain areas, there really isn't any reason to explore behind areas that you are familiar and more comfortable with.

Thankfully, PUBG begins to redeem itself with the circle mechanic that is implemented.  Every few minutes, a random circle generates on the island, and you have a certain amount of time to reach this circle before a deadly force field begins closing around you.  Stay in this force field for too long and it means certain death.  While it is possible to run from the force field, it is very difficult to outrun it if you do not have a bit of a head start.

With the addition of the most stressful circle in all of gaming history, players are forced together not only to duke it out until only one remains, but also are forced to explore uncharted areas they could not have predicted prior to the game starting, causing a constant sense of unease and uncertainty for each game played.

Changes

There are a couple obvious changes that most people would suggest, even if they have little experience with the game.  Though some of these suggestions can be, and usually are, adapted to after getting a foothold in the game, these changes could allow for newer players to better pick up the game, and more veteran players to better master the improved mechanics.

The first two suggestions are based purely on movement, and the clunky feeling it has.  This is more so an issue with the third person mode rather than the first person one, but the characters seem to have somewhat of an odd acceleration when they move, and carry their momentum with them even when you intend for the character to stop.  While this can be frustrating at first, you do eventually get used to it.  However, it still remains that the mechanic takes some getting used to, something that game developers should strive to avoid, as the fun factor of a game and the frustration level is often determined by how intuitive it is to control, and how in power the player feels while doing simple actions with their character, such as basic movement.

The other recommendation in the movement category is already promised to be implemented in an update eventuallyTM, but no one is quite sure when that might be anyhow.  For god's sake, please, add a goddamn vaulting system already.  There are so many low walls that you should be able to step over, but instead you need to do some weird running crouch-jump bullshit, which isn't too bad when you're all alone, but when you're chasing someone down or being chased yourself and it ends up getting you killed, it becomes extremely frustrating.  Thankfully, the eventual update promises not only a well deserved vault system, but also the ability to jump out windows, which I personally am very excited to try out.

Moving away from the movement of PUBG, the weapon variety and priorities of certain weapons by the development team need to be changed.  So far, every new weapon introduced into the game besides one (which was an uncommon pistol that has no purpose after the first 5 minutes of the game anyways) has been a crate only weapon.

So that means that all the really cool new snipers or bull-pup rifles or whatever else they have added thus far could only be found in crates, usually being rare in the crates which themselves are rare, giving the weapons a sort of artificial super rarity to them.  The entire purpose of adding new weapons is to generate a continued interest in the game, but when you make them so rare that most players will never even get to lay their eyes on them, it may as well be a fruitless effort.  If the development team insists and the constant addition of new guns to the game, at least make it more viable an option for more players to experience this addition.


While we are at it, why the hell are they focusing so much on new content being added over optimization?  I get it, they need to keep the game fresh and keep it alive, but for all those players out there who can hardly run the game (which is a good majority, mind you), they don't give a damn about new features if they can hardly play the game as it is.  In my opinion, Bluehole should focus on being able to simulate their game as efficiently and as lightweight as they possibly can before shifting what seems to be their primary objective on adding new weapons or maps.

Sure, LOD's take a while to create and set up properly, I've done it myself a few times, but I've also taken the time to add entire new weapons to my games as well, a time consuming process too.

Recommendation

With the issues and perfections the game exhibits in all, PUBG is a bit of a mess in some areas such as optimization and development team focus on content, but it is also one hell of a fun and addicting game.  I'd be lying if I told you I didn't love this game to pieces, and I'd be cruel not to recommend the same heart pulsing, palm sweating, frantic breathing experiences Battlegrounds has given me to others all the same.

It's still being developed, but even in its current state, PUBG is one of the most fun, energizing, and punishing games out on the market right now.