Overwatch

*This was written shortly after the game came out. As a result, some of the specifics are outdated, but I think my main criticisms still stand*

So it's been about a week and a half since I bought this game. 40 hours later and I think I finally can at least present some of my feelings on it. My overall impression on this game is positive. It's a fun, fast paced FPS like that other game it will inevitably get comparisons to, Its community is one of the better ones I've dealt with (pubbing is still a nightmare though) and there is enough strategy and skill required to make it fun while playing semi-seriously, but not so much that it sucks as a drunk/mindless game. It can survive both in small and large bursts of playing, as the rounds are long enough to be satisfying but short enough to not get too old too fast. Its good. However, it might be a problem when literally everything I just said (and more) can be applied to its predecessor as well.

Overwatch seems to lack an overall identity of its own, There is nothing wrong with a game taking a large amount of influence from another game. How many people are going to play Overwatch because they miss TF2 cirqua 2008-2012? I know I did, that's the entire reason why I bought the game in the first place. It could have convinced me to play it because I want to play Overwatch, it had 40 hours to do that. Instead, it feels like I've poured so much time into this game more because I miss TF2 in its prime, and less because I want to play Overwatch itself. Sure, there is a large cast of heroes designed around a MOBA design philosophy, but that doesn't make it different enough to form its own identity apart from TF2. I mean, Zarya might as well be a rule 63 skin for the heavy, Mercy's gameplay is medic, but she can fly. She's also swiss, but that can easily be mistaken for German. Hanzo is Huntsman sniper gameplay wise, Pharah is Soldier with easier rocket jumping, Widowmaker's sniping mechanics couldn't be more like default Sniper if they tried, the only game styles here are ones that TF2 pioneered (and yet they still don't have the best game mode), I could go on. Art design and gameplay are way too reliant on the style TF2 set, but in the future instead of 196X. It doesn't feel like its own game. The maps could have easily appeared in TF2 servers if they were de-futurized, it feels like TF2, not like its own thing.

The biggest noticeable difference is how it treats its hero design. TF2 created heroes with more broad ideas defining their uses. Scout is fast, and damages a lot up close, while being fragile. Medic heals. Spy sneaks behind enemies and backstabs, etc. This made it relatively easy to create custom builds and devise a diverse set of weapons behind each character, all you had to do was emphasise some traits about them and deemphasize others. Sure, later on the balance on a lot of items left a lot to be desired, but in many cases the weapons you chose could come down to pure player preference. In Overwatch however, they take more of a MOBA approach to character design. Instead of being very broad, they give a very specialized concept behind each hero and give a few abilities that relate to that character. For example, The Soldier was designed in a way where he could be mobile and survive quite a bit on his own, or be with his team and help whatever general goal they had at the time. Either way, he had the potential to deal a lot of damage. This meant that items could improve his damage on direct hits instead of focusing on AOE, or give damage while rocket jumping, or meme killing enemies by falling on them, or make it easier to escape low HP scenarios, or healing on hits, and risking having 1 less maximum ammo. The relatively simple design allowed for a flexible system where the player could impose their own preferences and play the way they wanted to, while still retaining the original concept (in theory at least). In Overwatch, the design of Pharah, the Soldier's parallel, focuses more on the mobility and rocket jumping aspect to the design. This isn't an inherently worse philosophy, but it means that in some scenarios some characters will be more useful than others and the player needs to play a game of rock=paper=scissors in order to win. Personally, I don't like MOBA's anymore so I don't really like this direction. I think having Ults in this game almost ruins it to some extent, as it keeps the team doing well even stronger and makes it harder for the opposing team to make a comeback. It also means that in many cases, deaths are caused less by gunplay skill, and more because of decent timing.

As for gunplay, the game seems to specifically work against that in some cases. Most noteworthy is the 20 tick rate. Ticks are how many times a server updates per second. The result is a difference between what is happening on screen and what is happening on the server. 20 may sound like a lot, but it is actually not at all. CS:GO's servers are at 60 ticks by default, and even that isn't good enough for competitive play. At a competitive level, the game has 120 ticks. Now as much as Overwatch is not trying to be as precise a game as CS:GO is, 20 ticks is clearly not enough for this game, even for pubbing. Go play Tracer for a few rounds, and you'll know what I mean. There have been a countless number of times where I have made an action, and it registered as making that action on my screen, but the server says otherwise. This usually results in a death I should not have taken. Now this may just sound like I'm bitching, but this has actual consequences for this game if it is not fixed. This game is, to some extent, trying to appeal as a competitive/streaming game. A lot of pro players will not stick with a game that has a tick rate as absurdly low as this. It is annoying enough at my garbage level, let alone people who want to take multiplayer games even semi-seriously. There's also somewhat big balance issues with the game. Play a few games and you know that heroes like McCree and Widowmaker are pretty strong, but it goes further than that for me. There were some questionable design decisions have been made with other heroes as well, such as Bastion's auto attack in turret form being hitscan, Roadhog's hook being hitscan, Symetra having a design that is almost inherently underpowered, The range on Torbjorn's Turrets, FUCKING MEI, etc. This is an issue that arises with having the MOBA design philosophy. Too many characters within the hero pool are going to be useless, while another chunk are gonna be stupidly overpowered. No matter how much time goes into balancing them. There are just too many factors that need to be worried about for all of them to be fixed accordingly (one of the inherent issues with MOBAs in my opinion). .

Lastly is the issue that the game has with maps. For starters, there are no custom maps. One of the reasons that TF2 has lasted so long is because the community has always put work into the game. Even before Steam began to take advantage of this, the TF2 community was constantly making new maps, skins and game modes. It has given the game a large extension on its lifespan. Updates have helped, but those updates would have gone to waste if not for the community making new content for the game. Not to mention all of the maps that started out as community made maps that were made official by Valve. Overwatch NEEDS this, along with a server selection screen. The matchmaking is needed for MMR and general playing, but without the community having a way to be directly involved with the games development I cant help but feel that the entire game will go to waste. This is coming from the same company that made Warcraft 3, so I cant imagine that being too far fetched of an idea.

Its also needed because a lot of the maps are not too great. Putting these up against the greats of CP_Dustbowl, CP_Badlands, PL_Badwater and almost any map that isn't CTF_2Fort or TC_Hydro, most of these maps are mid-low tier maps. They're playable, sure but there seems to be a lot left to be desired. For starters, the difficulty curves are totally out of whack. Most of the capture point maps are far too difficult for the defending team on the first point, but then far too easy to defend the second point. As much as the first point should be more difficult to defend, the difference is far too much. Take Anubis for example, the first point takes way too long to get to and is ridiculously wide open around the point, while the second point is buried deep within a bunch of walls with a shitload of choke-points. Especially the center most one. Or Volskaya industries. Between the first and second point, there is an entire area that is never defended and is rarely fought in. It seems like its only use is to make it longer to get from the first point to the second, or vice versa. In this case, it is because it is far too easy to defend the second point directly, and the middle area doesn't have anything for the defending team. Even the payload maps suffer from this. Most of these maps final stretch is unnecessarily hard, route 66 especially with the last stretch being a super long straight tunnel. The only maps that come off as balanced to play are the King of the Hill maps, and that is for somewhat obvious reasons. They also come off as the best maps to play in general because they feel balanced for both teams the whole way though.

I figured when buying this, that if I dumped 20 hours into it, I would be satisfied with its $40 price tag. One week later, I've put in almost 40, so I'd say I got my money's worth. If you have a time machine, you probably have better things to do than read this review. But if not, go play TF2 from 2008-2012. It is a straight up better game with a charismatic identity, incredibly fun gameplay and it doesn't take itself too seriously. The community is one of the best communities in gaming, and following its progression was constantly exciting. For everyone else, If you miss TF2, and you don't mind a game that is too much like a MOBA for its own good, I'd say give this a shot. It will scratch that TF2 itch when you need it to, but it might leave a void making you wish TF2 wasn't a shell of its former self.

I've played a fair bit online but my character is always underpowered and defense based. I feel they've yet to really master this system. I'd have to check out a second iteration if it ever comes and see if they can fix the boring parts of this game.

Lasted me a little while but loses its flavor in not that long of time. Not enough cool weapons of confidence like the slick faultless COD game series.

Anime charactertypes never really hit for me, I don't care. Give me Bayonetta girls all day long instead. And then the fans shipping characters, that was just a nah for me dog.

About a C+ for multiplayer which is better than a lot of game series.

Colorful, fun, peaceful, nothing wrong with that, I just want more weight to things overall. More impact, more power, less floating, more consequences for actions. Not rote play style sets for offense and defense. It's a really good idea on paper though, I think if mastered it could have real potential.

(written oct 3, 2016)

Gaming giant Blizzard hasn’t seen a new IP in eighteen years until the introduction of Overwatch. Not having previously played World of Warcraft, Diablo, or any other Blizzard games, I didn’t put too much thought into Overwatch during its conception, but the open beta weeks before the game released had me hooked immediately.

Overwatch is a first-person arena-based shooter with airtight gameplay, solid mixes of MOBA and FPS elements alike, poppy cartoon graphics, colorful art, beautiful character designs, whimsical voice-acting, and a whole bunch of other aspects that make a game bubbling and sparkling with personality.

Booting it up for the first time, the game encourages you to try the tutorial. You’re taking control of the character Soldier: 76, a character modeled after the likes of Call of Duty protagonists. Soldier: 76 as the player’s first experience with the game is a good decision, as he’s the simplest character in terms of mechanics.

Here is where the game introduces it’s MOBA-like elements: secondary attacks that require recharging and ultimate attacks that are gradually charged up and charge faster the more hits you land. They’re very light, but blend well with the heavier emphasis on team-based FPS gameplay.

Each match feels like an adventure, like a playable action movie; bombastic music is played by orchestras in between rounds, preparing you for the adrenaline-rush of a round you’re about to have. The solid gunplay, melee attacks, and support casts all feel fantastic to play as, with great sound design backing up the satisfaction.

Blizzard favors a more caricatured, animated style than photorealistic, and that design choice really shines in Overwatch. The art direction and character designs, specifically, show inspiration from Disney and Pixar films, supplementing the bouncy animations that give characters life. Overwatch has a much brighter color palette than usual Blizzard games, as well; the contrast to their past titles is well deserved.

Managing a roster of over 20 characters is a challenge to manage, yet Overwatch handles them all with finesse. Each character has a different trope to them, usually relating to themes apparent in video games and pop culture, but when me and a fellow teammate interact through story-related voice lines, it brings a smile to my face.

Interactions with snippets of lore are charming, but ultimately, it’s the strongest story aspect that Blizzard brings to the table. Character backstories told through walls of text, accessible only through Overwatch’s official website, or the few CGI shorts that have been uploaded onto the site.

Blizzard’s method of storytelling is off putting enough; separating the story from the base game completely already makes players lose interest, but Overwatch’s mythos is, in general, weak. Separately, individual character backgrounds are interesting to read, but have loose ends and confusingly clash when combined.

Luckily, Overwatch’s world and characters more than enough make up for it. Just about every character is interesting in design, personality, and gameplay. It’s a game that expects you to cycle characters in different matches, let be a main or two, so the lasting appeal of each character makes the player feel more comfortable with team composition.

When looking at the big picture, Blizzard has offered a fantastic game with blockbuster production value, and the value of replayability is still growing with a community that grows larger and larger by the seconds. It’s great to see a game that I can sink my teeth into and play for months, or even years; whatever time I put into Overwatch, I look forward to every second of it.

I know you guys are mad but heres what im going to say:

Balancing is fine. What i'm about to say doesn't apply to all games, but in overwatch if a buff means you can no longer play the character, that means you've been playing the character wrong.

This is basically a less complicated TF2. That should be a compliment.



Look the simple fact for me is that there is just no other game i've played that is as engaging, exciting, and plain fun in its gameplay. Perhaps that means I need to play more video games.

I get its no longer relevant to the mainstream, but that doesn't make it worse all of a sudden.

They ruined it. Well, as they usually do, because blizzard fucking sucks. April 14 2020 ""Echo added to the game"" incident ruined my last hopes. Unbalanced piece of shit, also, whoever idea was to name McCree ""cassidy"" can go fuck himself. OWL is dead, no one cares about it. Ranked is dead, I have to wait about 20 minutes to play FUCKING VOLSKAYA. I bought this dogshit several times since I have 3 accounts in top 500 and i still play it to these days. I hate myself and I hate blizzard even more.

What can be said about Overwatch that hasn't already been said? Not much.

Instead of reformulating old observations that have been made by many others I want to quickly summarize what I think went wrong.

-Poor balancing decisions causing long periods of dissatisfaction (Moth, GOATS, Double Shield)
-Blizzard Employees quitting/Activision acquisition
-Highest viewed OW players stop playing
-Not nearly enough story updates/lore/cinematics past the first year
-Poor player distribution across roles
-Controversy

What a great first year or two though.

The game is still fun, but Acti Blizz have proven themselves both incompetent and immoral, the players who are left are generally unsavory, and the bleak future of the IP means it's not worth wasting your time with.

Fuck Bobby Kotick

F for disappointing me immensely.