Overwatch: Impressions
I was fortunate to finally get a chance to play Overwatch this weekend during the stress test event. And for those of you who were not lucky enough to play, I will, leave you with some impressions.
I like how the games are objective based rather than kill based. This stops a lot (but not all) camping. Also those lovely kill-streak rewards that make games like Call of Duty obvious within 5 minutes of the game starting which team is going to win.
In Overwatch, I have lost games that I thought were easily in my grasp. I have won games that seemed hopeless. It was quite rare in my experience where the game was very one sided. And even when you keep getting wrecked, every time you do what is intended by your role (shooting bullets, healing people, capturing objectives) your ultimate bar fills. And most of these abilities are strong enough to be game changing. One mistake by the enemy team can change the balance for the rest of the match.
The cooldowns that the characters make use of to activate their abilities are quick enough that they can be utilized multiple times a game adding to dynamics of the battles. Best of all, none of the characters seemed absolutely broken. There were times that a skilled player was capable of making a character seem broken (looking at you Bastion) but that was more due to the player being skilled at the game rather than the game being unfair.
The ability to switch characters is vital in this game. Certain team compositions can render other characters completely useless. I appreciate this dynamic as it allows both teams to keep each other on their toes.
I played many of the heroes and will make a nod to Bastion, Soldier 76, McCree, Lucio and Reinhardt as my favorite heroes to play. I wanted to be good at playing Reaper, but I am finding this to be difficult with the way I play. I also want to master Widow as I have never been good at sniping, but that will have to wait for another time likely.
Instead of telling you what each of them do, I challenge you to check that out for yourself. This game will certainly be worthy buying and my only regret is that my beta access vanishes tomorrow.