Thursday, 29 June 2017

Overwatch Review - I found my new favourite first person shooter.


By Sam Coles:

Overwatch was already a success before it was even released with the unique characters that were crafted for the game, people showed their appreciation through fan art and cosplay. Over a year later and the game is still very popular for good reason because it has fast pace arena shooter action with a colourful cast of heroes, Blizzard gave me the chance to check the game out in celebration of the one year anniversary so they sent me a copy. So is the game any good? Yes.

Overwatch if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past year and half is a hero based arena shooter with a cast of fun and colourful characters you can pick from. These different characters are not just different from an aesthetic point but they all have unique abilities and are split up into four different classes. You have healers which are there to keep your team’s health top up and revive, you have the tank classes which are big behemoths that deal the most damage, you have defence heroes who generally fight at a distance they’re generally snipers and finally you have the offense heroes who are fast and nimble perfect for charging objectives.

All the characters are great and will suit everyone’s different playstyles, you want to be quick in nimble and be in the fray all the time? Then choose Tracer as she is super quick and can warp at short distances; the only con to her is that she has a small amount of health. Maybe you want to be a hulking beast and takedown everyone in one fell swoop then choose Reinhardt as he has a devastating Warhammer which destroys people coupled with the defence of his shield he can use. They all feel great and it’s fun to experiment with each character to see which ones you like in each section so you can feel right at home with them as you help your team towards victory.

What game modes are there? Well the main game modes you’ll be playing are Payload which if you have played Team Fortress 2 you’ll be familiar where one team has to escort a cart across the map from checkpoint to checkpoint until you reach the end. This mode is a lot of fun as it is a virtual tug of war and it can get really tense when you’re on the team who are trying to stop them and you’re right at the end and turn it around and win it is so satisfying.

You have capture which is a form of domination from Call of Duty except there are only two capture points and you have to hold it for a certain amount of time. This can get very chaotic when all the players on each team dog pile one location and this is great if you use close ranged characters like Reaper as he duel wields shotguns and he can make people melt. There are other modes in the arcade mode such as the classic capture the flag mode and the co-op horde mode but honestly I just went back to quick play as the core modes were more populated.

Visually the game looks beautiful it does not shoot for a realistic look as it goes for a Pixar animation look so everything is greatly exaggerated to generate some great vistas and loveable characters. It also helps that the game runs at a buttery smooth framerate of 60 frames per second without any hitches and I played this on the Xbox One which is admirable for a consoles.

Is there anything wrong with this game? Yes and that is the matchmaking it can be unbearably slow to find a match sometimes where I have been in a skirmish mode for 20 minutes. I do like the fact that game lets you faff about in skirmish mode while you wait but it is ridiculous how long you have to wait sometimes.  


Overall Overwatch is my new favourite first person shooter with tight controls, beautiful visuals, fun and colourful cast and fun and fast gameplay. If you missed it last year jump in now as there has never been a better time to play.

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