Fortnite Switch Review
I would have begun this with a bias as I never liked the Fortnite concept. Two factors discourage me in this game. 1) To progress, you need to relentlessly level up or buy V-Bucks. Purchased with real money. 2) It’s an online multiplayer game. I just want to play local games.
When my daughter comes to me asking if I want to play Fortnite, I always have an excuse for not playing. I just wasn’t interested. I let her use my login to play on the Switch. On the PS4 too if I was on the former.
Fortnite noob, more like boob
In the beginning, she wasn’t any good. Initially, it was the co-ordination of both analogue sticks. Timing both movements and looking around the primary issue. As expected, the frustration kicked in after the endless kills and I said I’d have a go. If you’ve read any of my reviews, you’ll know that I’m not particularly good at games. But I’m not horrendous. Within a few minutes, I started getting the kills and helping her level up. Any game that has pistols and sniper rifles usually work for me and I caught on relatively quick.
I’m still a noob and likely to stay this way. I don’t get the construction side of things. When I say ‘get’ I understand the purpose, but I want to play the game at a more leisurely, strategic pace. With these MMO’s, you can’t do that as you won’t last 5 minutes without being killed. On that basis, I make use of other people’s towers and just hope for the best.
By Grabthar’s Hammer!
Fortnite makes use of a wide variety of weapons in the game; pistols, shotguns, rocket launchers and sniper rifles to name a few. There are also a lot of novelty weapons too as well as epic skins. I was quite impressed with the John Wick skin but it went before I did anything about it. Besides, I wasn’t playing the game then. I did see the Avengers theme with Thanos and the weapons that came with it. Thor’s hammer was particularly cool.
My daughter is now becoming a bit of a Fortnite expert in the game. I’m not suggesting she would do well in a ranked match, but she can hold her own and is developing her style. When she isn’t playing the game, she’s watching YouTube videos so I guess I should watch out.
I’ll Compete, But Only If You Do
In denial that I’m competitive (I am), I garnered more of an interest in the game as she suggested I play on the PS4 and she uses the Switch. Of course, now she’s good at the game, she starts referring to my skin as being a noob skin so I abuse my adult power and buy some V-Bucks while she’s out of the room then subsequently buy the latest costume (at the time it was a samurai but seeing her play yesterday, it’s already old news). She was pretty impressed but having the new costume meant other players were seeking me out to look at it, then to kill me at close range. You can find out the current weapons and skins from the Epic Games official website.
Playing co-op together like this, called Duo, changed my mind about Fortnite. I’m still not a fan of in-app-purchases but playing the game ‘locally’ together was a lot of fun. She was dictating to me where I needed to land, what resources I needed to obtain and to pick out loot whenever available. In return, I would hang back and snipe anyone going near my little girl and that was a lot of fun, in a paternal, somewhat vindictive way.
Cross The Fortnite Streams
If only there were more cross-platform games. Minecraft is a great example. It’s also cheaper not having to buy another PS4 or Switch. When we’re in the same room, there is no need for the non-existent chat via the Switch. We can, y’know, talk. In real life.
The Fortnite community appears to be made up of younger people. I could be wrong but except for Pewdiepie and Ninja, I don’t know of many ‘older’ gamers playing it. Perhaps because it’s free-to-play, it is so readily available and you can have so many people play at the same time. In summary, it’s as good as a free-to-play game can be, as a standalone would I buy this? Most unlikely – unless there was a mode where you could play against AI characters. I know that defeats the purpose, but those are my demands, officer.