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.
