Overwatch review: It's worth the wait

Rising from the ashes of Blizzard Entertainment’s cancelled MMO, Titan, is Overwatch, a class based multiplayer shooter with a visual style which can only be described as “Disneyesque.” I’ve got to admit, I enjoyed the first E3 reveal teaser of the game—it was creative, fun and gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. However, as time progressed and more footage of the game emerged, I was put off by the gameplay. I can’t really explain it—the visual style, when combined with the cartoony violence, didn’t sit particularly well with me. It was all the more frustrating when I couldn’t get my hands on the game despite my various attempts to sign up for the PC closed beta. I was indeed an active player of “Onlywatch,” the metagame which involves watching someone else play Overwatch.

Then came the open beta. Apart from frequent crashing and the poorly designed party system (which somehow found its way into the final release), the Overwatch open beta was a big bundle of fun—even more so when you’re partied up with friends. The retail release mirrors the beta in almost every way, and if you’d played the beta, chances are that you’ve picked up Overwatch already.  For the uninformed, Overwatch is a class based first-person shooter, with its roster of lovable characters broken up broadly into offense, support, tank, sniper and builder classes. The roles are self-explanatory, really, and within a few games, you should have a very clear idea of which heroes to pick in any given situation. Prioritizing team composition is always preferred, but counter-picks might also be required. For instance, if the enemy team is raining death from above with a rocket launcher-wielding Pharah, it might help to pick a sniper to shut her down before advancing on a control point. Need to push through a well-fortified chokepoint? You should probably stay behind your tank (a Reinhardt’s shield is your friend) and take out the enemy turrets from a safe distance.  If you’ve never played a class-based shooter before (but are a Call of Duty veteran), Soldier 76 is a fantastic transitionary hero to start with. He’s got an assault rifle with an alternate fire mode which shoots rockets, can set up a healing station and can sprint. Starting with him, you can slowly graduate to heroes which require more finesse to be played. MOBA players will be familiar with support and tank classes, so if you’re all about playing the objective, there’s something for you as well.  It’s worth noting that Overwatch is still a shooter first, which means that despite the game’s best attempts to orchestrate team skirmishes with multiple heroes and abilities coming into play, you’re likely to encounter the odd 1 v 1 with an enemy hero. You’ll be required to exhibit a reasonable amount of individual skill as well, and while heroes do have hard counters, skill can often prove to be the deciding factor in such a face-off.  The game’s high skill ceiling is both a positive and a negative. As a casual player, it’s easy to pick up and play but the game can prove to be frustrating since some hero combinations are more effective than others on lower tiers of play (Torbjorn’s turrets and Bastion in siege mode, for instance). Hero stacking (a team which consists of more than one of the same hero) is another issue on lower tiers, but in the competitive scene, this is all too common. Given its massive hero pool, Overwatch does feel well balanced overall, but effecting balance changes across skill levels is a challenge which Blizzard still needs to address.  Overwatch is a far cry from MOBA games found on PC, and should not be confused for one. Its similarities with the genre end with its roster of heroes who happen to fall under similar role classification. It certainly helps that they’re a truly remarkable bunch with unique visual representation. Each of them are so distinct, in fact, that it’s virtually impossible to mistake one hero for another—even when all you can see of them are their silhouettes. Blizzard seems to have taken the effort to create a story for each of them, and in addition to the sneak-peaks we’ve got via animated shorts on the official Overwatch YouTube channel. More of the lore can be experienced in-game, through banter between characters, maps and more.  While solo queueing is definitely an option, there’s no doubt that Overwatch is at its best when played with friends. Be it communicating (or over-communicating, as the case may be) to synchronise “Ultimates”, reveling in the joy of a comprehensive victory or sharing in the misery of a narrow defeat. However, there’s room for improvement as far as the game’s social system goes. Party leaders should be able to take their groups with them, rather than semi-disbanding and re-assembling a group every time. The process of sending out invites, while functional, can be made less tedious with a group invite option of some kind. These might seem like nitpicks, but they do adversely impact the overall social experience of Overwatch.  I found the game’s progression system as well as implementation of microtransactions to be lacking as well. As far as progression goes, there isn’t any real benefit to levelling up other than loot boxes which give you a random selection of cosmetic items such as skins (which look fantastic, by the way), emotes, stickers and more. Perhaps Blizzard should have borrowed a trick or two from Call of Duty’s playbook with unique cosmetic upgrades for accomplishing certain goals. As for the latter, paying real money should at least guarantee players specific items rather than the same loot boxes which can be earned from playing the game.  Overwatch is easy to recommend to anyone interested in a team based shooter. It’s even easier to recommend to anyone who can put together a team of three or more friends to take on the world. Trust me, being in the thick of the action on a control point in Overwatch is a very special feeling, while successfully warding off an enemy advance can be goose bump-inducing. Its positives outweigh the negatives for the most part, but its price point could potentially make the game unappealing to solo players and those of you looking for a big chunk of content to bite into. Overwatch was reviewed on a Sony PlayStation 4

RATING: 8.5/10

What’s Good

• Huge roster of lovable characters, lore is well integrated
• Caters to both casual and hardcore players
• Outrageously fun when in a party
• Visual style will stand the test of time

What’s Bad

• Price point is high for a multiplayer-only shooter
• Balancing seems geared towards competitive play
• Progression system is a mixed bag

  Overwatch system requirements