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Overwatch: The FPS You’ll Want to Play

Blizzard’s new first person shooter is, for lack of a better word, incredible.

I’m a bit late to the party. This highly successful game was released back in May and it’s only been just recently that I’ve decided to test it out.

Overwatch takes the ‘hero shooter’ genre and hit it out of the ball park. From the beginning, Overwatch focuses on its characters rather than their powers or weapons and this is how it is so successful.

It isn’t a single player campaign – it’s a team-based multiplayer game and with elements from a traditional MOBA, you have the choice of 21 heroes to play as, each with their own special skills and roles. What stood out to me is you must work together with your teammates to win. It’s a game based on assessing and responding accordingly and this isn’t a common aspect in FPS where we must take things into consideration like: positioning, the map, the abilities of your team and the opposing team, character selection, etc. It’s a sophisticated affair that at face value looks as deceiving as a regular online game. If you’re stuck with a bad team, I feel for you.

The way it was described to me was: ‘It’s like League of Legends, but it’s got guns and a cool map, and it doesn’t take an hour to take their nexus.’ Instead, Overwatch is a game of mere minutes during which your team must complete the objective and fend off the enemy team. It’s sounds pretty simple, but when you’re in game it’s so much more complicated. Trust me.

One of the 22 characters to choose from: Widowmaker. Source.

It’s fast paced, it’s intense, and when I first started I had no idea what the heck I was doing. And when the opposition suddenly has two Genjis, I was thinking to myself: ‘Why would you want to do that to me?’ With that being said, you have to take into account your team composition and make decisions based on how you are faring against the enemy.

That’s the beauty of having a roster of 22 characters with specific abilities to choose from: they have a particular role and can be used to counter play the enemy team. There’s attackers, defenders, supports and tanks; but each a character has a different skill set, strengths and weaknesses and they serve a different purpose. In game, each time you die you have the opportunity to switch characters, meaning each death is a chance to make a comeback and change your tactics with a new desire for revenge.

Character selection. Source.

Despite being such a youngling in the FPS field, Overwatch has garnered a huge following and has implemented Competitive Play, a game mode with a competitive ranking system quite similar to League of Legends (which seems to have set the basis for ranking systems in online games). This ranking system gives the game authenticity and a valid place in the competitive world of esports. It has even gone as far as creating the Overwatch World Cupan international competition of teams from around the world and those who make it will progress to compete at BlizzCon. The voting only just recently ended and the teams have been finalised.

That’s how crazy this game is.

Verdict: the hype around this game is real. Overwatch‘s fluidity and changing variables each game with different maps, objectives and plays has opened a new perspective on the way we view FPS and online gaming. Despite a lack of a single player mode, the current version of the game is solid, providing constant surprises and a lot of fun. Would highly recommend buying if you’re looking for a new game to try out with some friends.

Rating: 4.5/5

Oh, and can we talk about the memes?

I can’t breathe when I see this. Source.
Please. Source.
Source.

Memes are life.