I Play Video Games, Yes I Do. How About You?

I own a Playstation 4. One of my favorite things to do is play video games with my friends. I actually have an extra TV that I set up, and one of my best friends comes over with his Playstation and we play next to each other. It’s like a throwback to the good ol’ days when I would play splitscreen multiplayer with my friends on Nintendo 64.

I play in spurts. Sometimes I’ll play many hours of video games each week, but then there are times where I don’t play anything at all. This past week, I didn’t want to spend too much of my free time playing, but I did get on for a bit. One of the games I’m really enjoying lately is Fortnite. It’s a free-to-play video game, and it’s exactly as it sounds: it’s free!

Fortnite: Battle Royale is the specific game I’m talking about. This is one of the most addicting games I’ve ever played. Essentially, it is a lot like Hunger Games, to give you a perspective. You can play either by yourself, or in teams of two, three, or four. I chose to play by myself this past week, but I often play with my friends on a team.

So the way it’s like Hunger Games is because 100 players get dropped into one map, and it’s last-man-standing. It’s as challenging as it sounds, as I’ve played many, many hours and have only won one time. It’s extremely addicting as how long you last is really dependent on your playstyle. If you want to jump right into the action, you’ll probably die rather quickly and join another game soon after. The benefit, though, if you survive is that you’ll typically have great weapons to start the game off with to give you a higher chance to survive.

I typically play opposite way, though. I try to land on the outskirts of the map and start by myself. I gather weapons and resources (did I forget to mention there’s a building aspect to the game?) and work my way throughout the map. There is a player count on the screen, and I almost always reach the top 30. This isn’t as impressive as it sounds, as my passive playstyle makes it so I don’t usually see another player for most of the match, anyways.

One thing that makes this game work so well is the quick turnaround. Many gamers hate long load times. In fact, it will turn many away from certain games simply because they don’t want to have to spend hours sitting in front of a load screen. If you don’t play video games, you can at least sympathize with how it feels when waiting for a YouTube video to buffer or load. It can get really frustrating and slow down the experience. One can join a Fortnite game within seconds, but typically only has to wait a minute until joining a match.

The other part of the game I like is how it caters to no certain playstyle. You can go Rambo on everyone, or remain stealthy and play back. Either can work, so it is up to the player in how they want to play. The resource gathering makes it so that even if you never see another character, you feel like you’re being productive. One of my friends won a game without getting a single kill! He made it to the final two, and the other player took fall damage and died. He technically didn’t do anything but survive, and he still won. It’s stories and experiences like that that make me love this game so much. Plus I’m cheap, and it’s free, so there’s that.