Background
From the undeniably popular dev company Blizzard Entertainment comes a whole new level of FPS. Join the agents of Overwatch as they fight to bring order to a planet of chaos. After being forced to disband due to political intervention and civilian distrust, they must come back together in the worlds hour of need. Take a few dozen heroes from all around the globe and add some energetic and fast-paced shooting at exotic worldwide locations and varying levels of helpful or hurtful team composition, and you have the gaming phenomenon known as Overwatch.
Gameplay
Unlike most first-person shooters, Overwatch places the player in different roles. This type of class-based gameplay was made popular by games like Team Fortress 2 and is the basis for the MOBA genre of gaming. You choose your character and join a team of 5 other players to either attack or defend objectives from the opposing team. Each hero possess multiple abilities to help give them and edge in battle and giving them a truly unique feel. They are broken into four categories: Offense, Defense, Tank and Support all of which serve different purposes to the team. The key to winning in Overwatch is team composition and role utilization. When you choose a character you have to play YOUR character’s role, meaning you shouldn’t pick a Defense hero such as Widowmaker, who is best used from a distance to maximize her sniper based weaponry. While her rifle can be used from us close it is a far cry from the sniper mode. So she should stay away from the frontline of battle. These tactics are key and are recommended, but hey, play how you want, you find something that works you go ahead and do it.
Hero Classes
Heroes fall into one of four categories which are Offense, Defense, Tank and Support. Each class contains heroes ready to fulfill their roles. Offense heroes, such as McCree, Tracer and Genji, are the damage dealing foot soldiers, they have the highest damage output combined with optimal mobility, and are perfectly suited for seeking out and securing the objectives.
The Defense heroes, such as Widowmaker and Hanzo, are the ones who stay back and protect the objectives and help keep the enemy at bay. They usually shine when defending points of interest for their team, but are quite capable from most positions when used with the proper team composition. If you enjoy being right up in the thick of the action then check out the Tank class. The Tanks serve two main purposes, to eat up damage and shield teammates from enemy fire. This class includes heroes like Reinhardt, Winston and D.Va, all of whom can absorb tons of damage and are excellent at shielding allies and escorting objectives. Finally there is the Support heroes such as Kenyatta, Mercy and Lucio. These are the kings and queens of utility. They provide healing, shields, team buffs and serve the general purpose of aiding their teammates. They are not much for damage output as they are for keeping their damage-dealing/ damage-soaking teammates alive.
Multiplayer
with class-based shooters, the main draw is obviously the classes and characters. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other areas that deserve focused attention. As with all competitive shooters, the game modes and maps play a large part in the appeal and longevity of a game of this magnitude. Unfortunately for fans of the shooter genre you won’t find very much diversity as far as game modes are concerned in Overwatch (as of the time of this reviews writing). There are only three different types of modes, including It is well known that Blizzard is working on more content to add to the game in the form of maps and characters, with the first post launch character being recently released in the form of support sniper, Ana, and Germany-based map Eichenwalde.
The actual combat is very enjoyable and very much relies on your teamwork and character chemistry. To much of one class or hero can be detrimental making the team’s weaknesses very visible and exploitable. Too many Tanks and your teams mobility is dwarfed making it easy for teams to bottle neck you; too few Offense heroes and your team’s damage will be to minimal to seal the deal on any kills.
Verdict: 10/10
Overwatch is unlike any other shooter I have played. It is astonishing the amount of character in this game. Every character has their has their own personality that is incredibly flushed out for a game that only features multiplayer game modes. Without a single player-campaign or anything resembling it, I find these diverse and engaging characters are suffering from severe under utilization. Overwatch also suffers from a lack of diversity in terms of overall game modes, however this is mended by the the many ways that games can play out and strategies that can be utilized to push one’s team to victory. I was unable to find anything detrimental to the game that can’t be solved with content add-ons and character balancing patches. If you are just looking for something fun that you can pick up and play with your friends right off the bat then Overwatch is a game you can safely add to your collection. It is truly a genre defining game and manages to carve out its own path. In a genre flooded with the same basic mechanics and gameplay, Overwatch strives to give the player a fresh experience with each match.
