After much anticipation, Blizzard released its first-person, hero-focused shooter, Overwatch, earlier this week. The game has already laid claim to some significant accolades, including a particularly glowing evaluation by our own Daniel Tack. Today, we’re coming to Overwatch with a fresh set of eyes, and exploring just what makes the game different if you haven’t yet checked it out.
Dan Tack has spent hundreds of hours with Overwatch across the beta and the final release, but as a fellow editor and shooter enthusiast, I’ve only just started diving into the action. It’s safe to say I have a lot of questions, but also a healthy skepticism about what I’ve seen so far, and I’m not sure yet whether Overwatch is the game for me. I’m sure I’m not the only shooter player who is wondering whether Blizzard’s new shooter is worth investing in. Hopefully, we can help answer your questions.
Matt: Dan, it’s been awhile since a Game Informer editor gave out a score of 10 for a new game. That’s a big deal!
Dan: It absolutely is, and it was not a decision I took lightly at all. I debated the final score for many, many hours, but in the end, I feel completely justified and comfortable with it. If I consider any game a 10, this is it.
Matt: Wow. So, with an eye towards this feature we’re doing right now, I’ve held off on playing too much of the game. People who read the site know that I play a good number of shooters, but I’ve stayed pretty fresh on Overwatch, and I’ve just played a few matches to get an early impression. At least at first glance, beyond solid controls and pretty visuals, I’m still trying to track in on what makes it stand so far above the pack. What was your experience? Did you love it from the start? While I like what I’ve played so far, I have to say that the very first few minutes playing don’t immediately sell a person on why the game is that great.
Dan: I’d completely disagree with that, actually. That is one of the game’s strongest aspects, I think. It’s immediately accessible. You can hop in, click a character, and boom, you probably have one weapon, a few abilities, and an ultimate. You can figure out what’s happening right away and understand it, even though it will take much, much longer to dive into the depth of the game, like ability synergy, team compositions, and using your abilities to take advantage of maps, situations, and more.
Matt: Yeah, I think I had a different experience in that regard. Their training mode is super smart, in that it breaks things down to the absolute simplest levels, as if someone has never played an FPS before. But when I hopped into my first couple of real matches, I felt like the game didn’t do a lot to explain what was happening, and without knowing the abilities of other characters, or how to best achieve an objective, it made for a challenging start.
But it sounds like whether someone has my somewhat more questionable start, or your more favorable experience with those early matches, additional time with the game helps to clarify a lot and make the game more engaging. So let’s talk about what some of those deeper elements are. What moves the game from what you might consider a solid shooter, to the way you ultimately evaluated it, which based on your score, puts it in the running as one of the best games you’ve ever played?
Dan: I must confess I’ve never actually even tried the training mode. The game’s modes were immediately recognizable to me as I’ve played plenty of Team Fortress 2 in my day. As far as deeper elements go, I find there are what boils down to different “tiers” of learning and skill acquisition when it comes to Overwatch – layers on layers of things that come together masterfully.
A new player can obviously say “Okay, I’m Roadhog. I throw my hook out at people, heal myself, and shoot people with my shotgun. I can combine my hook to pull someone toward me and hit them with a big burst of damage and kill them, then go behind something and heal. I’m a big sustainability tank with some damage! Cool!” And then you have the next level, which is learning various points on maps where you can pull people right off the world for instant kills, finding out that you need to be ripping Mercys away from their Reindharts and not targeting enemy tanks, or, in the right situation, maybe pulling a Reindhart toward you so that your Reaper can get to his exposed back. Or maybe just ripping apart a turreted Bastion, breaking him out of his sentry mode. Then you start to do other things, like actually working with a team to synergize all these things together, as character ability kits come together in pretty incredible ways, especially when ultimate abilities start playing a huge role in big team fights. These layers of intimacy and learning make it so you are always picking up new things, whether you’re playing competitively or just goofing around trying to make 6 Pharahs happen.
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