Every now and then I get an urge to play some PUBG. This time it's mostly due to the increased advertisement the game has had after going Free to Play. I see the game pretty much everywhere now so I decided to give it a go once again. Let's get that chicken dinner!
Basic training
The first thing that met me when I launched the game was the basic training tutorial. Turns out you have to go through this very basic tutorial that teaches you how to move, jump and shoot. Kinda strange seeing as I have 225 hours in this game already but I guess I just have to go through it. It was pretty quick anyways.
The next stop though needs you to play one whole match in a lobby of only bots. I didn't really have a choice in the matter. This was kinda helpful in getting a good feel of the game but the match was kinda lame overall. It plays nothing like a real match will when enemies just stand around and can barely aim.
I dropped into the military base which is usually a hot spot. No one else was here. I looted up and started running towards any and all gunshots I could hear. Whoever I found I killed. When you start shooting these bots they just start spinning in circles so you can get free headshots. Not really good training for the real thing.
In the end I won the match with 12 kills. Didn't really feel like real kills though.
Polar bear outfits!?
When I got into the menus of the game I was kinda taken aback. This menu used to be nothing but a big play-button, a screen to choose your clothes and a ranking screen. There's about a million things to go through now. Mostly changes I would have expected the game to make by now. A proper in-game shop, most likely due to going F2P, an events page and a whole ton of customization options.
I barely understood half of what I was seeing so I decided to just leave it be for now and go get in some matches instead. Like, I didn't come to run around in a school-girl outfit or a polar bear costume. If people pay money for this stuff they're stupid.
Let's rumble!
It took a couple of matches for me to get the feel of the game back. I made it to the top 50 a couple of times and mostly died to stupid mistakes. Like forgetting I had the gun in auto fire mode so that I recoiled myself to all hell. Rookie mistakes that I quickly shook off.
I managed to get in 2nd place once with 4 kills. That was a pretty decent match. I had quite shitty gear and only got hold of a gun with a sight towards the end. The guy who killed me and won was a level 500 player so I guess that was pretty fair.
My best match though was one I placed 4th in. I had a solid 8 kills in this match mostly from headshoting people with the M24 sniper. As far as I remember this is a gun that used to only be available from air drops so I was quite surprised to see it on the ground. I even picked off a guy who had found an air drop to get myself a ghillie suit and an AUG. That AUG pretty much shredded everyone I met. I got in an unlucky sandwich towards the end and had to go home hungry.
No chicken dinner today.
Overall thoughts
The game both feels and plays great at the moment. One of my biggest gripes back in the day was that the game was sluggish and glitchy. I hope that's due to improvements and not just me having a beast of a new GPU to play it on.
The queues are pretty much instant as well which is nice. No more sitting around waiting for a match. This is probably due to the free to play update and influx of new players. Now I only wish they added a "find new match" on the death screens so you don't have to go back to the menu for that.
All in all PUBG feels really great right now and I will probably continue to play it on and off. At least until it makes me rage enough to quit it again. We'll see.
@therealflaws is downloading the game as we speak so I hope to be able to get in some games with him soon. I desperately need a carry to get myself a win now. If anyone else wants to give the game a go it's free 2 play on Steam. If you do please use my referral code when you enter the game. That will give us both some cool rewards.
Code: 89562-22330
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.