1 Hour of Fortnite

The first time I heard of Fortnite was reading about how Epic Games can give away a free game every week. Someone mentioned they can afford to do so because of all the money they make from Fortnite. Hmmmm, Fortnite must be a game made by Epic Games. Then I looked around and saw that it is a free-to-play third-person shooter/construction game where people can buy stuff with real money. It must be popular to be able to fund Epic Games with giving away free games. I did not think much of it and simply continued to enjoy getting the weekly freebies. Until Marvel showed up.

I really miss Marvel Heroes and was wondering how the Marvel Characters are integrated into Fortnite. Do you get to use the Marvel characters? Are they NPCs that you get to fight with/against? Most importantly, do I have to pay just to see them? Seeing that it is free-to-play, I thought it was time to try out Fortnite. Here are my thoughts on the first hour of Fortnite.

Lost is the word that describes my next 15 minutes or so. Or you could say it is exploring time. I had no idea what to do and where to go. I did see the play button but was looking for some sort of tutorial or character customisation area. After 15 minutes I decided to start a solo game.

Once the game has launched, the promotional Marvel cutscene plays, before being shown some ads or something talking about Battle Pass and buy… I don’t know, wasn’t really paying attention. A choice of three game modes appeared: PvE, Battle Royale and Creative. PvE looks like some sort of save the world campaign that must be bought. I have no idea what Creative is, because I chose Battle Royale.

The game starts, and it says I have to jump from the flying bus (Airbus?) to land on roof tops and break into buildings to get stuff. So, I am diving through the air, and I see a building so aim to land on it. Easy enough, just like Just Cause 2.

On top of a building was some bandages, a bolt-action sniper rifle and some ammo. There is no tutorial, but everything is intuitive enough and things are explained as you go.

While on the roof someone was shooting at me. They must be really bad at aiming because even while standing still they were missing me. I could not see where the shots were coming from, until I scoped in with the rifle. Slow moving target, 1 shot 1 kill. I thought “wow these bots are pretty bad. I must find a way to increase the difficulty.”

I randomly explored around and got a few more opponents and seeing all sorts of messages popup about who got who and what stuff I found and all sorts of stuff that is too much to remember. So far, nothing Marvel-lous around.

What is that purple stuff in the distance? Sentinels! Dead Sentinels. Time to take a closer look. The Sentinels sure showed that Fortnite had good scale. They were huge. There was an objective message saying to dance on their heads and it took me quite some time to figure out how to get on to their heads. I completed the objective and then another message popped up saying I was awarded something or something. I didn’t pay attention as the continuous shrinking battle circle went past me and I was starting to lose health outside the circle.

Getting back into the battle circle was easy enough, and I found lots of medkits to heal up. The rest of the game was spent wandering around aimlessly some more until I found opponents to shoot. The bots were too easy and even with their movements I could pick them off with the sniper rifle. Before long, Fortnite said I had won the game.

Well, not much of a solo game, but I did learn a lot and exploring around was interesting. I didn’t construct anything in the first game, because I didn’t see the need to. Wandering around looking for opponents was more fun. The highlight of the match, though, was seeing the huge Sentinels. Pity there were no X-Men around. The end of match debriefing awarded me with some stuff that I still don’t know what to do with. The debrief also said I had reached level 4. Level 1 to 4 in the first game? Doesn’t seem like much of a challenge, maybe I should play against some real people. For now, let’s start another solo game to learn more.

Hey, my character looks different. I guess rather than customising what your character looks like, they are generated for you each game. Same deal, jump off the air bus, land and get stuff. Unlike the first game, within 5 minutes I encountered and was taken care of by the first opponent. Whoa! That is a difficulty spike for a solo game. The game entered spectator mode, and I realised this was a real person playing.

The revelation hit me. In Fortnite, solo game means every one for themselves, not you alone vs bots. There can be real people in solo games. I look forward to more Fortnite games, hopefully, against more real opponents, because the bots have been abysmal.

After 1 hour, I thought Fortnite has a good variety of stuff and the exploring was interesting. It needs real people for good fun though. I still have no idea what to do with construction stuff, but hopefully will learn up about that at a later date. The huge Sentinels being the only visible thing of Marvel after 1 hour was disappointing. It sure looks like the good Marvel stuff must be bought. I wish Marvel Heroes was still around. It has not been the most entertaining hour of gaming, but it has been interesting enough for me to want to try again later.

GameGuru Free

GameGuru is a game maker/builder/creator/development program. It is not a game, but it is free on Steam until 07 September. Good for those that want to try their hand at making games.

A Free Epic Repeat

Epic Games is giving away Into the Breach once again. Free until 10 September.

No new game for me this time, but I can’t complain. I still have not played Into the Breach since I got it for free the first time. So many free games and loving it.

Tom Clancy’s The Division Free

Tom Clancy’s The Division is free on Uplay until 07 September.

Freebie Friday

Destiny or Fate, a card deck building game is free on Steam for what looks like 1 day only.

Epic is giving away HITMAN and Shadowrun Collection as their weekly freebies. Both free until 03 September.

If you have never played HITMAN or HITMAN 2 here is my review (kinda HITMAN 1.5 review). Then again, the game is free so why not just get it and try it out! It is the standard edition only, but still makes for a great stealth assassin game.

Steam Free Magrunner: Dark Pulse

Magrunner: Dark Pulse is free on Steam until 27 August.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter Free on GOG

Serious Sam: The First Encounter is free on GOG.com for the next 47 hours. Every FPS player should get this. All out action with loads of weapons, loads of enemies and the biggest big boss ever to grace the PC screens of 2001.

Epic’s Friday Freebies

Enter the Gungeon is once again free on Epic Games Store.

The other freebie of the week is God’s Trigger.

Both free until 27 August. Looks like top-down shooters galore at Epic Games Store.

Epic 24 Hour Freebie +

A Total War Saga: TROY is free from Epic Games for 24 hours.

The other 2 week long freebies from Epic are Remnant: From the Ashes and The Alto Collection. Both of these are free until 20 August.

Grid 2

Grid 2 brings to the racing genre more Grid, but not necessarily better Grid. With the improvements also came the disappointments.

Pros

Grid 2 has more event types than Grid like extreme overtake, live routes and point-to-point races that are not Touge races.

There are more tracks than Grid. They include real race tracks as well as fictional ones. Some are just different configurations of a track, going in reverse or have a day/night option. It still adds a good variety. Notably missing though is the Circuit de la Sarthe track and the 12 minutes of Le Mans event.

Graphics have improved since Grid. Among the general improvements to cars and tracks, debris can be seen flying around now.

Flashback is back. It sure keeps the fun rolling for longer to be able to just rewind the few seconds to prevent a bad crash.

There is split-screen play! Pro point just for having the option even though I have not tried it out. The game prevents two people from using the same keyboard, so at minimum another controller is needed.

Cons

Driving with a keyboard is worse in Grid 2 than in Grid. Driving assists have also been removed from Grid 2. It made me wish I didn’t complain about the driving assists in Grid, because now I wish it was there. It did not help much, but it was still better than nothing. As bad as Grid 2’s keyboard driving is, winning races is still possible on the easiest difficulty.

There is no in-car view! Very disappointing considering that it was in Grid.

The single-race mode in Grid 2 only allows you to use cars that you have unlocked in career mode. With Grid, you could select cars that you don’t own in career mode. It sure reduces the fun when you just want to quickly try out some cars.

The replays look worse than Grid. Sure the graphics have improved, and the annoying shaky camera has been removed, but there are more things that ruin the replay viewing. First, the number of drive by camera views have been reduced. I love drive-by/fly-by cameras. Crashes just don’t look as good without drive by cameras. Second, most of the camera angles are close to the ground. You hardly get to see the top of the car. Thirdly, there are some annoying shots of scenery without a car in sight that interrupts the race viewing. Here is a replay comparison video.

Other Points

Just like its predecessor, Grid 2 strikes a good balance between realism and fun. The cars handle fairly realistically and damage will reduce performance, but at the same time there is no tire wear, fuel management or pit stops.

The music is not spectacular, but it has definitely improved since Grid. It is not annoying any more.

There is no damage indicator. The car’s performance will degrade, so that is the only damage indicator.

In Grid 2’s career mode, you must complete objectives to open up more events. You do not always have to come first. This also means you cannot grind to open up events and get more cars like in Grid. There is no money or car purchasing. When new events that require a certain car type appear, you are given the option to choose one car. The other can be won by completing challenges.

The opponent AI drivers are almost infallible. I hardly see them lose control, let alone crash. Other than this point, they seem to behave much the same as in Grid.

Some events are governed by stricter rules than in the first Grid. There are now penalties for cutting corners in circuit races and drift points are removed if you spin-out, even if you did not hit anything.

The online part of the game has a separate career mode. You must win money from racing other people or completing challenges, then use the money to buy more cars. Hardly anyone plays Grid 2 online, so unless you really like the challenges, the online part is pretty pointless.

Grid 2 and its DLCs are no longer available on Steam. At the time of writing, the following stores are still selling Grid 2. Buying means paying a premium for a very old game without any DLCs though. I also don’t know how reliable they are when officially the game is not for sale anymore.
Fanatical

DLGamer

AllYouPlay