Winner Winner...

After trying and deciding Apex Legends was not for me, I went back to PUBG (mobile using emulator) and have been playing that consistently for the past couple weeks. (Consistently for me, natch.)

I really enjoy this game, I feel like PUBG has hit the sweet spot of realistic fun versus realistic onerous, and the four maps really each have a different feel to them without abandoning the core mechanics. Recently they added in weather effects like rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The first time thunder roared I just about jumped out of my seat.

I played a game last night I want to tell you about.

I did a squad game with 3 random strangers. Quality when grouping with randoms is, well, random but the match making usually means they are decent soldiers even if their tactical decisions suck sometimes.

We parachuted and landed together (a good sign, you know its an uphill battle when the squad splits up from the plane at the start) and have a successful looting of a town. We hop in a vehicle and head into the circle. We stop at a small group of buildings to loot some more and the fog gets super thick.

Suddenly I spot an enemy and quickly dispatch him. I run over to loot his crate and I hear the sound of two vehicles quickly approaching. I'm exposed as they roar up, two in a car and two on a bike. The Bikers are closer and I hose them down with my SMG as they jump off, knocking them both (i.e. they are damaged to the point they can't do anything but crawl and must be revived by a teammate) but the other two lined me up as I had no cover and knock me down.

I desperately crawl to a low wall while they try to finish me off but my allies were close enough to take them out and save me. Whew! That was close! Once all healed up we jump back in the car and head to the new circle.

Near the middle of the circle is a hill with some buildings on it, and a lower section with a larger building. We go there and start to set up. Suddenly another car of a four man squad roars up on the main hill and a firefight erupts. I was on the top of the big building on the lower hill and I try to help out, two of our guys are knock, panic rising, but we manage to win the fight and revive our squadmates.

We reset and get into a sniping battle out one side with a guy in a ghillie suit with a suppressed AWM. I get hit to low health, another teammate knocked, one gets killed, but the opponent silhouetted himself on top of a hill in the distance and I was able to wing him. He retreated but came back a few seconds later and this time I was able to knock him, and let the approaching death circle eliminate him.

We;ve been lucky that the smaller and smaller safe zone circles have included our hill and we're getting down to the nitty gritty. There is three of us remaining after the sniper fight with Ghillie suit guy, and there are two other players. While we were distracted on the low hill fighting off to the north, the other two got on the big hill behind us. I'm on top of the big building and can see the top of the hill, but the buildings, bushes, terrain all conspire to make them hard to see, and I'm just behind a small wall that I need to pop over to shoot. Not good.

My teammates are on the ground and try circling to get on the hilltop and I still can't spot the enemies. Suddenly one of my squadmates is knocked and then killed. Now its 2v2 and they have the high ground... and the last circle is on the hilltop. I have to move soon.

Finally I spot one of them near a big cargo container. I popup and fire some shots and wing him, but bullets fly my direction soon after. Time is running out. I run to the stairs with bullets flying around me, the firefights earlier having left my helmet and body armour in shreds. I get to the ground and approach the big hill, I can hear someone moving and its not my buddy, who just got knocked. Oh crap.

I circle the slope of the hill and spot the first bad guy only meters away! We both open fire with SMGs but my aim is better and I knock and kill him. 1v1, circle is closing. I run to the top of the hill. Suddenly bullets fly past my head! I drop prone in tall grass and bushes and the next salvo missed me completely... and I see movement to my left. I open up on the pixel that is the player I can see and hit markers pop up. I have you now. A second later and I've won.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner.