“Do you have a ping of 1000 or something,” my opponent asked, during my inaugural bout of Straftat. Ah yes, this is it, that sense of unpleasantly intimate sheepishness. That‘s the withering late-90s chatbox scorn I’ve been missing, in this age of glossy live service multiplayer. I hid under a stairwell in order to meditate upon my response, then laboriously typed: “No, I just suck.” Right on cue, the other player tumbled into view and shredded me with an AK.
The player I met in my second match was more forgiving. “I honestly think the characters need more HP,” they said, generously. My wrists need more HP, actually. My eyes and reflexes need urgent patching.