Today we're going to be reviewing a very big name in the gaming world in Overwatch, the reason for the title is that it's hard to form a comprehensive review on this game from a personal standpoint as it's one of those rare games where it got more famous than the game it was based on, for better or worse, on one hand it does what it does extremely well, on the other hand it's basically a rip off of Team Fortress 2, usually reviewing a game like this i'd rag on it for being a clone of another successful game but given it's massive success it's hard to walk the line on this between clone and industry leader.
So instead of trying to explain why it's hard to review for me, lets just review the game and come to our own conclusions later.
Welcome to the future.
Premise and Story.
Before I begin the story I just want to point out that if it seems to you that i'm explaining the plot of Winter Soldier and Civil war(Comic storyline), you aren't alone they're incredibly similar.
Overwatch takes place roughly 6 decades in the future of our own earth, while at the beginning there was peace and was heralded as another human golden age, however even with these massive advancements in science and technology some more than questionable morality came about in the form of building sentient AI' known as the "Omnics" who were created to achieve financial equality across the globe, however being sentient and learning the Omnics eventually began to create their own line of robots which quickly turned on humanity in what was known as the "Omnic Crisis" one that inevitably called for the creation of Overwatch.
The Overwatch initiate was manned by two veteran soldiers and quickly brought numerous global talents into their organization to end the Omnic crisis, in which they were successful, however the two leaders of Overwatch, Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison, began to question each others decisions over the scope of Overwatch, eventually the rift came to a head when Morrison became the head of Overwatch and Reyes became the head of Blackwatch, a covert branch of Overwatch that essentially dealt in domestic terrorism to the worlds enemies, as time passed though the growing divide between the two became more and more heated and eventually reached it's peak.
After the feud between Reyes and Morrison reached the point of a near civil war, the united nations began an investigation into the allegations hurled by both sides, it was then that the Overwatch Headquarters was attacked and destroyed by a massive explosion killing both Reyes and Morrison in the process, the united nations agreed that Overwatch had become a relic of the past and was doing more harm than good and signed the Petras Act which designated all Overwatch type activity as vigilantism and disbanded Overwatch completely.
This is where we come into the story, set a few years after the Petras Act, Overwatch legends reformed the organization despite the UN, with Overwatch gone even for a couple of years, companies have become monopolistic and have started a civil war between each other with rumors that the Omnics are beginning to rise up in Russia, after the reformation of Overwatch it's discovered that Morrison and Reyes were not killed in the blast instead going underground, Morrison reappeared as Soldier 76 and Reyes became Reaper and joined a terrorist organization.
Now with the reformation of Overwatch the two sides constantly battle each other while trying to find the truth of why Overwatch was shutdown, who bombed Overwatch HQ and why the UN sided with the corporations who are now pushing the globe further towards a war.
Gameplay
I'm just gonna come right out and say it, it's a clone of Team Fortress 2, now that that's out of the way lets get deeper into the game that has evolved over the past few years and look at the core aspects of the game as well as mechanics and team play aspects of the game.
Overwatch is a 5v5 first person battle arena, teams pick numerous different heroes and compositions and try to outplay each other, there are numerous different game modes, heroes and abilities, maps and ways to play with teams being balanced around team combat as opposed to rambo players(all though you still can rambo if you want) depending on the game mode however these compositions may become stronger or weaker depending on what aspect of the mode you're doing, for example the assault mode relies a lot more of defensive/offensive operations than say escort where you need fast moving operators coupled with some defense as well as a lot of offensive characters.
First though lets talk about the main aspect of Overwatch.
Various and Sundry Heroes.
Overwatch is a team based game, but unlike most games in this genre boasts a very wide range of characters that differ wildly in their abilities,some will be more geared towards heavy frontline defense like Reinhardt and Winston even they can differ in how they approach the defense of their team, likewise you have a wildly differing offensive team, some may be front line heroes like Genji and some may lurk in the background like Widowmaker and Hanzo, since there is a lot of heroes to choose from games are usually fresh and exciting as you never know how different combinations of heroes will work together, but it does have a bit of a downside.
The downside from it's predecessor Team Fortress 2 is that the matches suffer from Hero Bloat, as there are over 20+ heroes to choose from games can be quite chaotic and the balancing of some heroes suffers greatly with some heroes being extremely powerful and some being situationally powerful, this is a "unique" problem with Overwatch when you consider other games that have a wide array of characters to pick from don't suffer from this like Rainbow Six: Siege, it also makes it harder to balance the game around numerous characters and how they interact with each other, for example say Mercy Vs Widow Maker.
While Widow Maker is a very powerful sniper and used to attack relentlessly, Mercy is a healer with a lower health pool, putting these two against each other usually results in Widow winning, however you can't really balance that as one is meant to be a healer protected by defensive heroes and one is meant to be on her own picking off the healers, it's a hard thing to balance since making one stronger or one weaker means you still have an unbalanced hero that will inevitably always get picked over the other, while personal skill comes into the equation it's still something that can get on your nerves over time.
But, it isn't all bad, the heroes themselves are enjoyable and fun with differing play styles and when working with a competent team can be extremely fun to steamroll enemies with and try out different strategies and team comps, and when you're ready go to the competitive version in Ranked and really test your team skills against other teams who are just as good as you.
Modes and Maps
Overwatch has a few different game modes, however they are largely the "same" in the sense of the game play where the objective ultimately comes down to destroying the other team so you can advance, I would say this is the weakest part of Overwatch as I mentioned above, the balancing of the game and the direction of the heroes doesn't really leave much room for meta tactics or even really in game strategies, it's very cookie cutter when you look at it from an objective point of view.
Not that i'm saying it's not fun, but it doesn't have the same feel as say Team Fortress 2 where matches can go on for ages since the heroes are a lot more balanced and the maps are a lot better.....designed? for team matches and have better chokepoints and tactical opportunities, but one thing I will say for Overwatch is that the maps are very detailed and look amazing, i admit i haven't played too much of Overwatch but from what I have played it's an amazing looking game with unique maps.
Maps aside though, one thing that does stand out is how both mode and map are designed to push teams directly together with very little flanking and multiple pathways, in that sense the maps are quite linear but do achieve what they are created for, creating team fights at every section possible and keeping the action flowing.
Meteoric Rise
One thing that has been very prevalent in Overwatch has been the astounding success it's had from day one, not very many games have a hype train that lives up the hype and Overwatch has quickly become an E-sports favorite in gaming around the world, while some criticize the more casual nature of Overwatch however it's undeniable that Overwatch is one of the most popular games of this decade and with no end in sight it seems to be getting only more popular as time goes on.
Last year saw the formation and start of the Overwatch League, a competition dedicated to bringing the best Overwatch teams across the globe competing for the title over a 6 month period with a prize pool of 3 and a half million US dollars spread out among the teams, given Overwatch launched in 2016 this makes it the quickest game to receive one of the highest prize pools in a professional league ever and one of the quickest games to be a standard in the E-sports league ever which bodes extremely well for the longevity of the game and for Blizzard Entertainment as a whole.
While i'm not the biggest fan of Overwatch it's still amazing to see a new game come out of the ashes of a failed game and rise to such huge heights in such a little time, also i'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Overwatch started as a failed project in Blizzards "Project Titan" MMO that suffered in development hell since the early 10's but somehow managed to become one of the biggest games of the decade, as a fan of game design and development, It was incredibly pleasing to see Blizzard manage to pull this off when nearly every other game that has been in development hell and failed has been launched in a very very weak state, so hats off to Blizzard.
Critical Review and Reception.
As I said above, i'm not the biggest fan of Overwatch seeing as iv'e had thousands of hours in Team Fortress 2 and it's hard to separate them, but I do understand the amazing draw to the game, for those of you who never experienced the TF2 style genre or are alot younger than me, Overwatch captures the same sense of enjoyment and fun that TF1&2 did in their respective years and has capitalized on them and arguably made it better with bigger games and team composition.
While i'm not a fan of the never ending cavalcade of Heroes that Blizzard release it's created a massive cult following around them with some Facebook pages having hundreds of thousands of fans for individual heroes and community memes, and from a mechanical standpoint the game is extremely solid and well polished, one of the most endearing things about Overwatch is the fact of how polished and optimized it actually is, available to be played on high graphics with minimal system requirements and as far I know has very bugs or glitches.
Ultimately, this game is about personal choice and a "generational" gap, while some people absolutely hate it, there's an equal amount of people who absolutely love it, personally i'm somewhere in the middle but only because as I said iv'e played so much of this type of genre in the past that i'm burnt out with it(same goes for MoBa's) but there's no denying that Overwatch is here to stay and that it's only getting bigger as time goes on.
Why this game have to be a paid one!!? :(
amazing