I went to a firing range once. Now, don’t get the wrong idea: I had no pretensions of “Oh, I’ve played first-person shooters, so this will be a bullet-casing-encrusted cakewalk.” I was not able to pre-fathom, however, just how truly terrible I’d be. Even the simple act of loading rounds into my borrowed 9mm pistol’s magazine was – at least, at first – an awkward, embarrassing battle of man vs incredibly simple machine. And, of course, I made all the rookie mistakes: I forgot to turn the safety off, my aim kept getting shaken up by recoil that wouldn’t rattle a baby, etc. All the while, I couldn’t help but wonder: “How do people who are actually good at this do it?” This wasn’t helped by the couple standing in the stall next to me, gleefully unloading a gigantic automatic rifle.

Receiver – Wolfire’s every-aspect-of-a-gun simulating entry in the recent 7DFPS challenge – reminded me all-too-painfully of that day. But, you know, in a mostly good way. And with a twist: I had to bring my horrific lack of firearm know-how, abysmal aim, and woefully non-bulletproof body into an environment full of things that definitely knew what they were doing.

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