Overwatch is an online team-based first-person shooter (FPS) video game released in May 2016. This game’s development company, Blizzard Entertainment, is also the producer of other famous game titles including Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Destiny.
Since its release, Overwatch has engaged a large number of gamers all over the world. According to Statista, by October 2017, the number of Overwatch gamers has reached 35 million, a dream number with any game title.
This game can be played in Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. All screenshots in this post are taken from Overwatch: Origins Edition on PlayStation 4 platform.
1. What Overwatch Is About
- Game genre: First-Person Shooter (FPS)
- Game mode: multiplayer
- Internet required: yes
- Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
- Age: 12+
Like other multiplayer first-person shooter games, Overwatch introduces a broad range of different characters with their abilities and favorite weapons. A player chooses a hero to start the online battle and cooperates in a team of six to attack or defend their objectives against another six-player team.
If you played Team Fortress 2 by Valve Corporation before, Overwatch will be very familiar with because the two games’ mechanics are more or less similar. The difference is that Overwatch features more heroes and maps than Team Fortress.
2. Overwatch Games
Besides the training sessions (tutorials, training with bots, training with AI), you can join Overwatch online multiplayer combats with Quick Game, Arcade, and Competitive Game. While in Quick Game, you can play with other players of around your level, the Competitive Game gets you ranked in competitive matches.
The competitive games often require stricter rules for any gamer who wants to joins. A player can be banned if he/she left the game when playing. However, the win or loss of the whole team due to one player’s sudden left is still among controversy and many gamers have been frustrated about it.
Overwatch provides a wide variety of maps. A player cannot choose a map in which he/she plays on. Additionally, each map includes different objectives to fulfill, which creates the diversity in the game’s missions pool.
If you don’t like to take on the responsibilities of being the reason for the team’s loss, I recommend to play in Training Mode or practice the hero first with Training Bots.
3. Overwatch Heroes / Characters
Up to now, Overwatch has introduced 26 heroes with different powers and weapons. The playable heroes are grouped into four roles: Offense, Defense, Tank, and Support.
There can’t be two same heroes in one team. If your teammate has already chosen your favorite hero, you have to switch to another one.
Playable heroes
Offense heroes: McCree, Doomfist, Pharah, Genji, Reaper, Sombra, Soldier 76, and Tracer. These heroes often possess great movement due to high mobility, except Reaper and McCree. Also, they produce great damage to opponents.
Defense heroes: Torbjorn, Widowmaker, Mei, Hanzo, Bastion, and Junkrat. Most of these heroes are good at guarding and defending objectives from the Attackers.
Tank heroes: Orisa, D.Va, Reinhardt, Winston, Roadhog, and Zarya. This group often features heroes that have high health pool. Therefore, it takes more efforts to kill them.
Support heroes: Zenyatta, Moira, Symmetra, Mercy, Ana, and Lucio. This group includes usually heroes with healing abilities. They are rather team players than to produce damage or to defend objectives. Due to the importance of healing abilities, every team should have at least one player who plays as a support hero.
Hero Counters
Each hero has counter heroes who he/she is strong or weak against.
For example, Genji is strong against Bastion or Mercy while he is rather weak to deal with Winston and Roadhog.
4. What is Fun in Playing Overwatch
If there are about 35 millions of gamers playing Overwatch, this game surely has some fun to talk about.
Many Heroes to Choose From
With 26 playable heroes of different roles to choose from, Overwatch clearly wants to give its gamer a wide selection. Also, on Youtube, there are video stories about each hero’s background which make them more alive and more interesting to play with.
To master these heroes, practice is required. If a gamer wants to perform excellently, he/she’d better play with one hero a long time to understand the hero’s strengths and weaknesses. But why to stick with one hero while there are 26 of them to choose from?
Different Killing Styles
Like any FPS game, you will have a good experience in killing the opposing team players with your favorite weapons. Bombs, rockets, pistol, sniper guns, mouse traps or electric shocks, which one you choose? I can say that it is a great feeling to eliminate 5 players at a time with Junkrat’s special ability Rip Tire.
A Hero Never Dies
A great thing playing the game: a hero never dies. If you are eliminated by the opponents, you will be respawned in 6 seconds. During that time, you can watch a Kill Cam how you were shot, or what other players are doing.
The Game Modes: Maps and Objectives
Before a game starts, you would be classified into either Attacking or Defending side. However, your objective is not to kill all of the players from another team, but rather to complete a task that the map gives you.
The high-quality graphics will bring you to different locations all over the world. You will get excited all the time trying to secure your points in Egypt’s Temple of Anubis or escorting the payload in Mexico’s Dorado.
Currently, the game modes include:
- Escort: the Attacking side will escort a payload to safely reach the checkpoint, while the Defending side tries to stop them before the time runs out. This mode is available for the maps Gibraltar, Dorado, Route 66 and Junkertown.
- Assault: the Attackers attack one capture critical objectives/points while the Defenders try to prevent this to happen during the time limit. This mode is for the following maps: Hanamura, Horizon Lunar Colony, Temple of Anubis, and Volskaya Industries.
- Hybrid: the game starts with an Assault Mode and ends with the Escort task. Maps with Hybrid Mode: King’s Road, Numbani, Hollywood, and Eichenwalde.
- Control: both team attempt to remain control over the objective areas for the longest time. Which team reach 100% first will win that round. There are three rounds to play and the winning team must secure two victory points over three. Maps to play Control Mode: Lijiang Tower, Nepal, Ilios, and Oasis.
Squad-based / Teamwork Combat System
This is a teamwork game, so of course, you have to cooperate with other players. Sometimes your team plays excellently and you enjoy a victory. The other time you might get defeated because of idle or inexperienced gamers. You can be angry or delighted. Overall, you will learn how to make the teamwork more effective. This teamwork mood is also an engagement point of the game.
