Overwatch Has Made Me Love Multiplayer Again

This is all really unfortunate, as there is no denying that the character design is good. I want to play a game featuring Tracer, Reaper, and friends. Even Junkrat's grenade launcher exudes artistic care. The maps are well done, too. They seem honeycombed with alternate paths that take advantage of each character's traversal abilities. (That is, when not being riddled by a turret's bullets.)


Yesterday evening (December 1st, at the time of writing this) was the night of the annual Game Awards show, a lavish live-streamed spectacle where the best and brightest of the video games industry gathered in Los Angeles - in order to receive awards voted on by industry peers and journalists, celebrating the year in gaming. It was a good night for big-name hits like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End , the reboot of DOOM and Blizzard's mega-selling team shooter **Overwatch ** , as well as respected independent titles like That Dragon Cancer - and it was a chance for those in attendance to show off all-new trailers for upcoming tit

The Sonic Amplifier's primary firing method is a close-to-medium range automatic barrage of soundwaves, and even though this weapon is relatively weak, its sheer accuracy allows for you to pick up eliminations left and right with clever aiming. Lucio's secondary fire is far more interesting, as it's a knock-back blast that operates on a cooldown, making it perfect for taking out snipers that you sneak around. On maps that feature opportunities to plummet to one's death, there's nothing more satisfying (or frustrating) than having Lucio push you off of the stage while you attempt to line up a headshot. Oh, and if you're in a situation where Roadhog, Reaper or D.Va is wreaking close-range havoc, this is an exceptionally useful skill

In terms of visuals, Overwatch is technically fine. It isn’t pushing any graphical boundaries, but it looks good enough and gets the job done. Overwatch features a colorful palette with crisp visuals that is aesthetically appealing and really shines on maps like Hanamura. What is important is that overwatch Patch notes maintains a solid 60 frames-per-second, which is good considering it is a fast-paced shooter. The rest of Overwatch’s presentation is solid. The few spoken lines of dialogue are voiced well and many are genuinely funny. Nothing here is as grandiose as Starcraft 2 or Diablo III, but considering Overwatch doesn’t have a huge campaign, it’s perfectly understandable.

Despite what my love of recent independent titles like Hyper Light Drifter , Firewatch and The Banner Saga 2 might suggest, I have a strong history with games of a more bombastic persuasion. My most played game of all time, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, found a way to capitalize on the combination of my love for multiplayer chaos and my susceptibility to addictive feedback loops. Granted, I would never claim that Modern Warfare 2 is some sort of godlike game, but there was something about its complete lack of balance and downright brilliant map design that tapped into a very specific portion of my mind.
The lack of strong story elements doesn’t overshadow what the game does do well: gameplay and map design. The 21 characters aren’t just diverse in their personalities, but also in their different abilities. Each character has two unique abilities that are assigned to the bumpers on Xbox One, R1 and L1 on PS4, and Shift and E on PC. A few characters, like Widowmaker and Soldier 76, have a third special ability assigned to LT/L2/RMB. Widowmaker can ADS her sniper, and Soldier 76 can use his assault rifle’s grenade launcher. Overwatch looks deceptively simple from the outside, but mechanically has a large amount of depth.

Out of the gate, there are effectively only two types of gameplay modes available: attack/defend, or escort/prevent. Not exactly a deep pool to draw upon as both of these modes have already been run into the ground years ago. There are, admittedly, some slight variations. Sometimes, a point must be captured, and then a vehicle must be escorted. Otherwise, this is nothing that hasn't been seen in Team Fortress or Call of Duty. It is personally baffling that other games recently released that offered a deeper, more varied multiplayer experience, like Star Wars: Battlefront or Rainbow Six: Seige were lambasted for being too light on content, yet this gets a pass.

With Overwatch, the charming hero shooter from Blizzard, launching this week, we want to make sure that you’re as prepared as possible to help your team dominate. Overwatch’s main focus is clearly on the interplay between its dynamic characters, so in order to become competent, you’ll need to understand how every character works. Throughout the week, we’ll be publishing guides on each of the 21 launch heroes, three at a time, with the hopes that you’ll be able to recognize certain patterns on the battlefield.

Ignoring a required Day One patch that's larger than the actual game, it seems best to acknowledge a major flaw right at the outset: Bastion. Yes, there are many ways to counteract this character. The most obvious being attacking from the rear. However, one cannot attack from the rear when the enemy converts into a turret, his back to a wall. In turret form, this thing can chew through a shield and tank in seconds, and take down most players before anything can be done. Should the opposing team be controlling every avenue of ingress with multiple Bastions, the situation devolves into hopelessness.