Overwatch Review

Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainments latest in a long line of games is already gaining huge popularity since its release on the 24^th May. This popularity is not only with fans of FPS but anyone familiar with how Blizzard do things, we’ve all been giving it a go.

I’m not generally into first person shooters. If they have a strong RPG element I could be willing to give them a go, but generally I leave them alone. So, I was surprised with myself when I bought it, and even more so when I found that I genuinely liked it.

Storyline

So, the storyline? Does it really matter? Well, Ok I guess it might to some people. So, in short there was a large war between artificial intelligent robots and people. Massive devastation and all the stuff that usually happens in wars followed. The war ended and a new organisation was set up to keep the peace, to watch over us… in short Overwatch. Incidents of corruption started to surface and people distrusted Overwatch more and more. A terrorist attack took out the leaders and the group was disbanded shortly afterwards. This is presumably why these same ‘heroes’ are now available to hire as mercenaries and guns-for-hire.

Gameplay

Blizzard Entertainment’s done a good job of providing a variety of characters that cover all the different play styles and roles. More than I can even really list here. There’s snipers, muscle-bound tanks, actual tanks, mêlée gorillas, cowboys, skull-faced reapers, angels, droids and a load more. Each of these characters has a different weapon, colt pistol, laser beam, hammer, mines, cryo-ray and every character has an ability that gives them a unique way of travelling like flying, teleportation, grappling up to a ledge, super-speed etc. In short there’s a lot of variation. Due to this variety you have to learn to play each character you can’t just expect to understand each one with only a brief play-through.

When it comes to the different play modes there are only three distinct ones. There’s training matches which put you against AI opponents, Quick Match which sets you against players of a similar skill and Custom Matches.

Quick Match which is likely to be the type of game you’ll play most, has a number of match types. You can be defending or assaulting a position, escorting or capturing a delivery or maintaining control of one or more points on the map. As you play you accumulate points based on damage caused, damage blocked, health healed, objectives captured etc. If you do particularly well, the other players may even vote for you as Player of the Match which grants its own rewards.

Graphics

Graphically, Overwatch has the graphics of you would expect from any Blizzard Entertainment game. Big, bold colourful and well rendered graphics. Each character has a unique look with animations that set it apart from the rest. The maps are also fairly unique and never underestimate the power that a few bits of destructive environment can bring.

Sound

The sound in Overwatch is definitely a good match for the style and type of game. In truth, I haven’t even really noticed it which is testament to just how well matched it is.

Replayability

The more you play Overwatch the more experience you get. This experience gets you loot boxes you can unlock. Each of these loot boxes could contain new skins, voice emotes. tags, and poses which is just one of the reasons why you would keep playing. But you know what? The loot boxes aren’t the main reason for returning. The main reason to keep coming back to Overwatch is because it’s just so much fun. The games are fairly quick and you can be into the next match in less than a minute. There are more than enough characters to get grips with. In truth you could probably have a few more game modes, but this doesn’t detract too much for me.

Verdict

Overwatch is a very fun game that is clearly worth its £30 price tag. There’s loads of different characters and they all have their own unique skills and style to grips with. The game-play may be a little simple for a seasoned FPS player, but the skill and tactics you need to learn if you want to survive are thrown in by the armful.