Overwatch: a video game review

December 6, 2016

Overwatch Origins Edition (Handout/TNS)

By FRANKLIN DUFFY
Staff Writer
Overwatch is Blizzard’s team based first person shooter game that has skyrocketed in popularity since its first release for the PC/console market and was priced at $40 back in May 2016.
The game features several gameplay options, all of which sport two teams of six players going against each other while one team attempts to push carts or capture points and the other team tries to stop them. The difference between Overwatch and most shooters, however, is the unique character design; not every character is just a guy with a gun, but rather there are characters from all race groups, genders and play styles, and even the heros with the same play styles have vastly different strategies.
For instance, the two offensive heros Pharah and Sombra act and play very differently. Pharah sports a jet pack and missiles while Sombra has the ability to turn invisible, get around the enemy team and attack from behind.
Another unique feature of Overwatch is the maps, which are specifically designed so that every character has both advantageous and disadvantageous spots.
The game originally had been moderately criticized for copying a previous class based team shooter know as Team Fortress 2, an iconic game with similar characters but much less diversity in play styles. This opinion was quickly silenced when Overwatch overtook TF2 as the number one class based team shooter.
I have invested well over 30 hours into this game and I can honestly say it’s one of the most fun games I’ve ever played, that is, if you have friends to play it with. One of the downsides of this game is that it isn’t as fun to play alone as you can’t reliably coordinate with your team, which makes it harder to win. However, getting a group of friends together and playing for hours on end is incredibly fun.
Blizzard just released a new update with the new character Sombra as well as many new game modes. Two of these new modes in particular, Player vs Player Duels and 3 vs 3 Eliminations, have already sparked an interest for competitive versions. With an already strong eSports community, it is likely that this will be added sometime in the future.

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