What we played in January
Welcome to our first Dads Gaming “What we played”, a new monthly segment where we share what our community has been playing. This month we got a special treat in Rainbow Six Siege, explored Aurora Island in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, dived into Season 3 of Apex Legends, spoiled by the guns in the King of Looter Shooters: Borderlands 3, and cross-played in Call of Duty Modern Warfare.
Rainbow Six Siege
January 15th, 2020 started a five-week celebration for the SIX INVITATIONAL, the premier esports tournament for Rainbow Six Siege. The first Battle Pass dropped, creating a new way to earn rewards: renown boosters, weapon charms, skins for operators and weapons, and more. The Road to S.I. 2020 Battle Pass is available with one Free track and one Premium track. If you decide to go the paid track, the proceeds will go to the prize pool for the Six Invitational and other official Rainbow Six esports. Additionally, rewards are given at each and every tier unlock on the paid premium track. There are 35 tiers in all for this event.
During the weekend of the 18th, a new Stadium map was introduced programs, according to Ubisoft, only for a limited time. The map was a blend of maps we’ve played before, made a new way with bullet-proof glass while the map sat in the middle of a Stadium arena. The map Stadium also gives players all access to all of the game’s Operators whether you have them unlocked or not. The game type Unranked Bomb where each team takes turns defending or disarming a bomb site. Thursday through Monday every weekend during this limited time is when the Stadium is available. Be sure to link your Ubisoft Club account to your game profile so you’ll receive all the free: gear, renown, and battle points after completing the challenges or participating in the Community Challenges.
The Stadium map has to be one of my all-time favorites! It sits in the center of the ruins of a modern coliseum in Greece and is set for the sole purpose of training/proving grounds for the Operators. In the infield, sits the playable map that has large bulletproof glass exposing one side the building, all within a Kill House made up of the room with little furniture and minimal decorations. Even the plywood walls have “Rainbow Six RnD” printed on it. The Stadium map has callbacks to the great maps like old Hereford Base, Oregon, and Kanal sharing of the same assets.
There is nothing like Rainbow Six Siege matches, a tense multiplayer focusing on tactics and teamwork. Playing regularly with Dads is a great social experience, with building bonds and improving skills. Every new online match feels refreshing like Chess - where no two matches are ever exactly the same. With environmental destruction, it can create a new path leading to different routes for pursuing or escaping. No other game encourages close-quarters combat, and players who died cannot respawn until the end of around. Even while waiting for the next match, deceased players can observe cameras on the map and provide key intel to active players on their team through callouts or “pings”. Rainbow Six Siege provides escapism that’s unmatched.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Ubisoft released their latest Ghost Recon edition with Breakpoint and we’re having a lot of fun running, flying, driving and boating around the archipelago of Auroa and accomplishing our missions. This go-around has us playing as the hero Nomad and taking on our old friend from Wildlands, Colonel Walker (played by Jon Bernthal) and his private army he calls the Wolves.
The game is really quite beautiful and Ubisoft is continuously seeking feedback from the player community to improve the things we want and squash the bugs that we run into. From the top of mountains overlooking the entire archipelago to submarine bases, the team did a superb job of creating an immersive environment that it is easy to get lost in, especially if you’re playing with no HUD.
Come join us for some friendly fun and casual Wolf and drone killing on any platform of your choice. We have Dad’s playing across PC, Xbox, and PS4.
Apex Legends
As we come to the end of January, Apex Legends is wrapping up Season 3, which saw some of the biggest changes since the initial release of the game, the most prominent being the brand new map, World’s Edge. Featuring a wide variety of environments, the new map has offered exciting challenges to both new and returning players. The other major change was the addition of the 11th Legend, Crypto.
Crypto brought a second Recon class Legend to the roster. His abilities are focused on surveilling enemy teams with the assistance of his remotely controlled drone. Enemies within 30m of the drone are highlighted with a bright orange triangular ping that tracks the target while they are within this range, and are visible to all teammates. His ultimate ability is an EMP that is triggered by the drone and does 50 damage to all enemy shields within a very large radius, as well as slowing them temporarily. Additionally, it disables enemy Wattson traps, Caustic traps, and Octane jump pads. While he is not the strongest choice in the early game, during the final circles, his ability to pinpoint enemy teams gives you a strong tactical advantage.
Overall, Season 3 has provided a breath of fresh air to the game. The meta of the game has shifted to favor more mid to long-range engagements thanks to larger overall map size and long sightlines. An early complaint of low loot distribution compared to map size has seen some improvement as Respawn has increased the number of loot bins present in many areas. Furthermore, the inclusion of three high tier loot vaults that can be unlocked with special keys has created a tactical tradeoff between getting to a vault quickly versus potentially running into other teams seeking the same thing or waiting in ambush.
Apex Legends is currently in the middle of a new Limited Time Mode called the Grand Soiree. This mode has been an arcade-style mashup of 7 game types, each lasting two days. These game types have brought new and exciting twists on the standard game format, including a 3rd person mode, a mode that automatically respawns teammates whenever a ring closes, and a ring that deals high damage and never stops closing. With 3 modes left to go until the event’s conclusion on January 28th, there is still lots of fun to be had.
Respawn is quickly approaching the 1st anniversary of Apex Legends, coming up on February 4th, which will coincide with the end of Season 3. No one knows for sure what Respawn has planned to celebrate this momentous occasion, but everyone is excited to see what’s in store.
Borderlands 3
If you are carrying a torch for any of the previous versions of Borderlands, then the fire will keep burning for this installment. The guns are the main attraction and the potential of getting a better one is around every corner. Well, at least until about halfway through your first run of the campaign. At some point, you become the angel of death and everyone else is just fodder. And then the fun starts… True Vault Hunter Mode! No explanation needed just turn it on and start, now your playing Borderlands 3.
Gearbox is a seasoned developer any complaints I have about Borderlands 3 can be chalked up to preference and opinion. I am not a fan of open-world games moving towards this new open segment or area model. Borderlands 3 using plants as their open areas (as does outer worlds). It creates unnecessary loads times and UI navigations issues. Even more importantly I love games that have the “if you see it you can go to it” sense of adventure connected to it.
Borderlands 3 is still king of the Looter Shooters in my near-sighted eyes. Great guns, great voice actors with Borderlands gameplay. The game should experience an injection of excitement soon with the upcoming release of Takedown at Maliwan’s Blacksite DLC.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
In a world of remakes, retelling, and reboots of movies, games are no different and this year’s installment of Call of Duty followed suite with Advanced Warfare. I know at first it seemed they ran out of ideas and just wanted to make a quick yearly installment but in my opinion, they did a great job and this is one of the best ones since Modern Warfare 2. With the closing of Season 1 right around the corner, February 11th I wanted to give some thoughts and personal opinions on this year’s installment.
What I like, the fact that it is grounded, there is no wall jumping, double jumping, grappling hook or jet back. I know a lot of people liked those features but I like the boots on the ground feel and sure there are some people jumping, shooting and laying down all at the same time but there are not as many as there used to be.
Cross-Play and Skilled Based Matchmaking (I know most hate it), the cross-play makes it so there are a lot more people to play with and with the SBMM you play against people that are generally the same skills as you. Very rarely do I have to wait more than a couple of minutes to find a match (not counting loading times) and I have not tried to turn Cross Playoff to see how long it would take.
DLC, the fact that all maps, new guns, and game modes are free is a huge plus for me. I am on a budget and can’t buy a ton of video game-related things so having free DLC is a great feature. Sure there is a store but everything is cosmetic within the store and it will not give you a leg over the competition. The Battle Pass is also all cosmetic so if you want to go for it, most people had enough COD points just from buying the game.
Sure there are some negative sides to all of this, for example, a lot of players do not like the SBMM because they didn’t get to play against their Christmas Noobs but I have been on the receiving end of that and more power to Activision for not messing with it. Sure there are bugs, looking at your collision but they are doing weekly updates which include bug fixes and weekly game mode rotation.
Overall I feel this is a great installment and the game has a lot to offer, there is still a Battle Royal mode coming out for it which will offer its own take on the mode, more classic and new maps, more guns, more season, and much more. I am looking forward to seeing what else the game as to offer and what it will bring to the table to keep it fresh. I played the single-player and can see it’s fun, I beat it and not really a single-player FPS guy so not much to say about it, as for the coop, that’s hard as heck and need to the premade team for it. I haven’t played much if it but will mess with it one of these days.