A HUGE Thanks to Michelle Moffat for supporting at the Guild Leader level for this month’s episode. Please check out her book “Innocent Parasites” here which I will place behind a bit.ly link because good god Amazon needs a better direct linking system:
http://amzn.to/2y8Pr7p

THE GRINDSTONE TRIBUNAL:

We may have been waiting a good long while to look at this game, and knowingly saving it for Halloween for several months now, but at the very least most of our attitudes haven’t vastly shifted since we did. Dreskar, Izanagi009, MrAnnoyus, Mister Bright, Jackyoh and myself give our more in-depth thoughts on the little shooter that tries to do everything.

Dreskar:

This is one of those games that will sound rather hit and miss, yet through it all I do enjoy my time with it, even if I just find it a bit too tedious to play. I suppose that would be my major critique of the game, it just is too repetitive, too drawn out and while it is still an enjoyable game I often can only play a mission or two before I move on. I really love the building aspect of the game, hell I could go for an entire game just on the building system alone or if they went more in depth and made a tower defense ala Sanctum and just let us build the mazes! The more I think of it, the more I think they are missing an opportunity to try some other aspects of co-operative play, like special boss fights that require various mechanics to pull off.

As for Fortnite’s new totally not PUBG mode, it is pretty bland and while far better than PUBG itself it still has its own major problems. The shooting just isn’t tight enough, the controls are a bit more floaty, and getting screwed by RNG because you could only find grays and someone else got purple and blue quality weapons is just stupid,

Even with my complaints this is a game I can easily recommend, because it is a solid title that players can find some enjoyment from rather easily!

Recommended?:  YES

Izanagi009:

Where do I begin with this game? I suppose I should open with the positives first. This game is fun, let nothing get in the way of that fact. The game’s shooting feels solid with some good sounding weapons or just ridiculous in the case of some of the special weapons. Weapon variety itself is high with different ranges and roles covered. It’s building elements isn’t overly complicated but enable a ton of different structures in an interface that I understood instantly. Hero variety is high with different combat roles and weapon specializations covered from the shotgun soldier and bladed weapon ninjas to the pistol Outlander and hardware Constructor. As such, with this game, you are able to play to your taste and style quite well if you get the right weapon or hero.

Getting the right weapon or hero is the catch however as currently, the only way to get weapons, heroes, and the like is through either getting lucky with mini reward and normal llamas that are rewarded occasionally through daily logins or using V-bucks gained from dailies or cashing to get normal llamas or “super” llamas that either contain a ton of epics and legendaries or are specialized for one type of drop and have a legendary guaranteed. In addition, some of the stuff required to progress in F.O.R.T stats are either locked behind llamas in the case of survivors or require time to gain research points to spend. As such, the game demands a ton of time off the bat and, if you want to get really good stuff early, money spent.

That said, once you get the ball rolling with a hero you like, a few weapons and good F.O.R.T stats, you can have a fun time shooting husks and building whatever you want in a simple but expressive building system.

Recommended?: YES, but with the caveat of controlling your budget and being willing to invest a lot of time.

Mrannoyus:

There’s a lot to say about Fortnite and that’s due to it doing a lot of things.

As someone who usually rubs the bottom of the barrel when it comes to lucky drops I appreciate Fortnite putting in versions of the llamas that always guarantee legendary items.
This was going to be a long tribunal but then I realized that Fortnite is just too many things to give a good accurate tl;dr for. So I’m just going to close it out with anyone who says only higher level stuff drops from loot llamas is just bullshitting you because everything comes at level 1.

Plus at the very least the devs seem to actually be willing to find the root of problems unlike some other game that just recently had a big update…

Now excuse me as I resume playing more Fortnite.

Recommended?: YES, but watch your time and don’t buy basic upgrade llamas.

Mister Bright:

It’s fun if you got some buddies to play with and you pace yourselves.  The building/destroying is neat and done well.  You shoot lots of zombombos, so if that is your thing, you’ll enjoy this game.

Recommended?: YES

Jackyoh:

A fun game I funnily had fun playing with in a fun way. It must truly be the darkest timenite when such a game does not come from FUNcom. Fortnite certainly feels to get things right making it enjoyable, like the blend of defending, shooting and FORTifying your stuff both temporarily and permanently or the commander (that is you) progression where changing the play style is still possible without having to create a new character (like in Diablo 2) or respec some skill tree, requiring instead to obtain more resources to invest in other types of heroes or weapons or survivors or defenders.

Another highlight of the game for me is certainly Ray and the humorous lines and solid voice acting delivery. Shame there isn’t a way to replay past missions and a major part of the game (the last two out of four areas more specifically) are still missing or feel like placeholders at best… yet. With that transition, at the time of writing the game isn’t perfect though, with bugs here and there (that at least seem to get fixed), the music being really bland and some other annoying aspects … I’m looking at you Perfect Drops of Rain, not being so perfect! Whoever had the bright idea to also require 60 Drops of Rain to upgrade a high level hero while at the same time making that type of resource scarcer in higher level areas certainly hand a stroke, just maybe not one of genius. However, with recent updates that situation got better. Updates have been regular with the game reaching Version 1.8.1 after about 107 days adding new things, pretty much having some special event going on since the end of August and balancing old things and also “adding” a PvP mode that I don’t much care for.

The PvP mode with the original name of “Battle Royale” (do not steal), or “Quarter Battle with Cheese” as it is called in Paris or so I heard, seems to get the most attention currently on the Twitchwebs, but hey it’s free! However, the gameplay of Petting Loyal is very very different from the PvE “Save the World” portion of Fortnite. Saving the World isn’t free while Fortnite is in early access, but it is certainly a benefit that the cost is only 39.99, none of that 60 dollars PvP only bullshit (that one comes for free). And if you’re really into the game, then it’s always possible to throw more money at Epic.

Recommended? YES, but think whether the benefits of paying for early access are worth the money.

ChaosD1:

Ah Fortnite… so easy to put down, and yet so hard to pull away from. Like when I START playing, it’s a huge blast of “Ok, just a few more games” syndrome, until I realize that “a few more games” means “about 3-6 more hours.” It’s easy to lose yourself in this game, but you can easily stop once you find that good excuse, like “I need to go to bed” or “I haven’t eaten anything all day.” or “I forgot what the sun looks like.” For me, the most likely means of me checking out is “Oh, all my teammates are leaving” because I fucking refuse to PUG this game with the mouth-breathing imbeciles that infest it.

Ok… I’ll be reasonable. The people who play this game are pretty nice. Many can be really really fuckin’ stupid, but well-meaning and pleasant. Just not very adept at following simple directions. Half the time I wonder if they are bots that gained sentience. Myopic only barely covers the issue with my teammates in any given “Repair the Shelter” mission, or when I’m stuck with a really bad defensive side mission like that god awful Blu-Glo Siphon one that I only managed to finish 2 days ago because NO ONE wants to do it unless they are also on that mission.

In fact, it’s a lot of that quest gating that fatigues me on this game. You’ll see friends tell you about cool missions they are trying to get you to go on, but you’re still stuck back on Power Level 23 because you need to collect 15 turntables for Greg Universe because reasons, and the quests that are actually worth a damn for increasing your power are still a ways off. The grind can be real for several things. Need to get better stats? Upgrade your survivors! Oh wait, are you ready to spend 25 Pure Drops of Rain to get a small boost to your HP, or would you rather make sure your Legendary Hammer can actually hurt the things you’re hitting it with? That’ll be 40 drops. Hope you like doing “Ride the Lightning” over and over cause that’s the only mission on your map that’s providing those this hour!

You better enjoy this game for what it is because if you want to go anywhere you need to play a LOT of it, and progression is directly tied to this grind? The Llamas? lol nope. That’s what the government wants you to think. The Jet Fuel of gamer vitriol can’t melt these steel beams of truth. Anything you get out of those llamas still has to be upgraded and those Drops of Rain, not to mention the dozens of other types of crafting and collection items you’ll need to do so, are ONLY going to come from the grind. You may have a ton of legendary orange items and heroes, but they’re all going to be fucking worthless unless you grind out the game to make them worth a shit. Wallet Warriors will end up with nothing but a golden pile of tissue paper if they aren’t working towards improvement.
I know… I’m one of them. I bought every Founder’s pack. All of them. Even the “secret” one that becomes available after you’ve bought the most expensive one. You don’t want to know what that amounts to. But even with all of that I only have one hero and 3 weapons worth a salt because they are all I could afford to upgrade.
Still, I don’t regret spending it because this game is a fantastic time-sink and one I am more than willing to support.

Which is why I have such… concerns over this PUBG clone mode.
Can I just say this because it’s the Tribunal and almost no one reads this anyway? I fucking HATE PUBG. The game is so simplistic, boring, ugly and flash in the pan that I can’t stand the fact it’s getting this stupidly fervent fanbase behind it. It’s 2017’s “Flappy Bird”. Fight me IRL.
It’s this very fact that I was NOT happy to see it placed into Fortnite, and immediately get all this attention. Whe I was streaming Fortnite initially, it was one of those games where so few people played it I would usually end up being the top viewed stream. A stream that rarely reaches 50 viewers at a time. Now? Jesus god no. It’s even managed to beat out PUBG in streamed popularity a few times… so naturally when I stream the game now, any random viewers are expecting to see that mode, and nothing else. This isn’t the fucking game I signed up for!

Not saying it’s inherently bad, as I feel that slight thrill from crawling around the map, looking for ambushes, and hoping to be among the last one standing to partipicate in that nail-biting showdown… but they really should do a lot more with it. I suggested a few in the conclusion, but seriously, implement the husks. What’s more intimidating? A transparent blue shield wall, or a countless shambling horde of zombies shrouded in purple mist? Hell, go further with the battle royale aspect. Don’t just have the shrinking field, make certain zones off limits. Input some of Hunger Games inspiration and allow certain players to be “battle masters” and set traps and hazards for players around the map to force them to fight and survive, like that one Minecraft mod. Have FUN with this for fuck’s sake!

And for the love of god, don’t abandon the main game. I don’t care if it’s not as popular as the other one, flash-in-the-pan fame is fleeting, and it’s getting very tiresome to see games I fall in love with pander to the Lowest Common Denominator and flavor of the month seekers. I’d prefer we not take another one from me.

Recommended?: YES, but don’t spend anywhere near the amount on this game that I did.