Robocraft - 20/20 hours

Wow, that was rough. It seems like every time I talk about finishing half a game in a single marathon session it comes off less as an enjoyable experience and more as something to be endured, but I think that's because I tend not to think of playing games I enjoy as "marathons."

Still, for the record, 10 hours of Robocraft in a row is far too much. There's only about 10 minutes of game here, and then it's the same thing over and over again. And while even that would be fine if I liked the 10 minutes, here it was just painful.

I think what it comes down to is that I'm not very good at piloting my robots. I was able to get up to silver league among the Thursday night crowd, but I'm pretty sure that, like 90% of that was getting lucky draws for my teammates. I don't think I ever got more than two kills in the same match and the less said about my many ignominious deaths the better. I would get stuck in corners, wind up doing donuts while trying to reverse, and my weapon accuracy was nonexistent. I felt sorry for anyone who wound up on the same team as me.

But I stuck with league multiplayer anyway. It was the only way I was going to get those blessed periods of respite where I got to sit around waiting for a lobby to open up. Once, it took almost 40 minutes! Though sadly, that was a one-time thing. The second longest wait was 5 minutes. I spent quite a bit of my time in absolute terror that I would be efficiently matched and then promptly killed.

But I don't think my experiences should be used to guide anyone either towards or away from Robocraft. I stubbornly refused to give up at something I was terrible at and at which I had no intention of improving. I think if I'd approached it with greater sincerity, and allowed myself time to cool down between disasters, I could have come to love this game.

At the very least, I genuinely respect it. I'm not thrilled about the loot-box grind, and despite all the parts I got from league play (another reason to do it is that you get a gold loot box, even for losing), I never really got rich enough to feel free when designing a new robot. But aside from that, the core concept is great. Building robots, seeing them modeled in the physics of the world, and then having a combat system where the shape and composition of your robot actually matters - all of that adds up to a very memorable experience. That such a thing is even notionally available for free continues to blow my mind.

It's just not for me, specifically.

Still, it's not the game's fault that I realized this at hour 13 and then forced myself to play for another 7 hours regardless. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the sort of out-of-context problem that is impossible to design around.