Playing ARC Raiders
I have to preface this with the fact that I am objectively bad at shooter games. Worse when I am on a team where my job is to assist.
Last week my husband was playing ARC Raiders after work and mentioned the fact we never play videogames together. We really haven't played a co-op game since Diablo III and even then it wasn't too often. Before that we joined a WoW server in college. I did try playing some Counter-Strike/Call O'Duty type war games back then as well and did poorly.
To be good at these kinds of games you need to memorize the maps, lock down the muscle memory for weapon changes/heals/items, and most importantly, be able to aim - with a controller. I'm more of a solo RPG type person.
I do well enough in Skyrim but with a mouse and keyboard. I played Wow and Diablo with a mouse and keyboard. My husband and his friends play ARC Raiders on console, with a controller I never quite got the hang of once they started making games in 3D.
Anyway, I thought I should give it a shot so I could play one of the games he likes with him. So Friday morning I installed ARC Raiders on the xbox in the living room. After I picked the kids of from school we swung by the store and grabbed a $30 headset and some pizza and I started up the tutorial after dinner.
I didn't have great hopes but immediately I realized the game was better than that time I tried playing Helldivers. In Helldivers the goal is to head to a location on a planet and complete some mission (Capture the flag, Fix a radio, etc) all while being bombarded by hoards of alien creatures. You use specialty gear and weapons to do so and as you level up the gear and weapons get better but the monsters get harder, etc. It's very VERY hard to do solo.
The ARC Raiders the tutorial took me through what the goal was, basically run up to the surface and collect bits and scraps to bring back down to the human outpost. Easy enough, no alien swarms or crazy events. Just watch out for the drone patrols and well, other players. ARC Raiders has PVP mixed in. You get to choose if you want to be friendly or not while out on a mission.
My first few runs were simple, I would go out and collect five things that instantly filled my inventory and head back to the evac site. In Helldivers the evac is a ship that comes down and you can and will easily die trying to board the ship. In ARC Raiders once you are "killed" as in no more shields or white health bar you are given a red bleed out bar that slowly goes down. You can't do anything but crawl when in that state BUT the drones and robots instantly drop aggro when you reach it. Meaning you can race to the exit, call for evac, get shot to death then limp into the tunnel exit when the doors open and survive.
This is mostly how my runs go. I run around collecting things and depending on where I spawn in I might be able to complete a general quest requirement. Then when I'm ready to go I sprint to the nearest exit and hit the call button, get shot to death, then limp into the tunnel/subway car when the doors open. Easy.
Once in a while I'll get shot by someone in the game but it's only happened twice while solo. 99% of the time I die because one drone will beacon out while I'm shooting it and three more arrive that I simply can not kill alone. (See image at top of post.)
Now the very first day me and my husband did play a few group games together to show me around but I was lvl 3 and had no stamina or gear so it could have gone better. But last night we finally played real PVP in a group.
One big thing with this game is that if you die before making it back to the base you will lose all the things you brought with you. Your guns, your shields, ammo, bandages, quest items, everything is gone. This isn't as terrible as it sounds because you can easily craft all of these things for cheap from the junk (Sorry, it's called "goop".) you collect on your regular missions. But, when we do PVP we choose the second option, a free loadout.
A free loadout means you leave all of your own stuff back at home base and take a crate of basic stuff with you for free. It's like, a random lvl 1 weapon, a box of bullets, 1 shield, and a roll of bandages. Basically minimal stuff so if you get killed you won't care if you lose it AND if someone kills you and tries to loot your corpse they get... garbage. LOOOOOOL
So last night we played several free loadout rounds on the map everyone does PVP on and lost a few games. Mostly due to being killed by flame throwing robots, but a few times to folks who didn't bring garbage weapons and were able to snipe us from hidden areas. But it was fun to run around without worrying about losing my hard earned gear and supplies and just throw grenades and smoke bombs around.
I've only been playing a few days so I'm still just lvl 13. My workstations haven't been upgraded yet so I can't craft any green or blue weapons. But it's fun to just jump in little quick games where my goal is to sneak around stealing old batteries and coffee pots while hiding from the government drones so I can bring them back home to make Frankenstein weapons. That part is fun.
Oh and if I find toy boats I get extra points so I can get more outfits to wear in the game because everyone loves a little dress up mechanic.