Play Counter Strike 1.6, with full multiplayer, in the browser

Man, what a trip down memory lane. Learned to fear that AWP sound again immediately.

Counter to others I'm actually surprised by how little I enjoyed it. I used to play a ton of FPSes back in the day (CS betas to 1.6 heyday) then stopped for well over a decade. Picked up Call of Duty during the pandemic as a means to stay social with friends and told myself barely anything had changed. Boy was this a great lesson that things have, in fact, changed a lot.

IMO, the latest COD is really bad with regard to how the game feels to play. There is still some sort of shitty e-sports objective that is being optimized for and no one in charge seems to care.

If you go back to something as recent as COD Vanguard, you will find the gunplay is likely closer to what you recall. I play in lobbies like Ship Haus 24/7 to get myself warmed up. It is really hard to feel competent dropping straight into a gigantic campaign-style map with skilled players scattered throughout.

I only played WZ1, so didn't experience the in-between iterations, but the current WZ 2 experience is such a miss. It baffles me how that was playtested and no one said "this is a massive regression in both fun and functionality". I understand wanting to mix it up, but to introduce tedium (looting system as designed), boredom (map size + mobility), and frustration (ping system / loadout changes / general bugginess) seems so misguided. Instead of leaning into what made WZ1 a massive initial success (an arcade-style, generally high-action BR) and try to emulate what other BRs are doing better.... it makes no sense to me.