Since Overwatch released back in 2016, I’ve resisted it. Whether for my lack of a good system to run it on, or the hesitance to spend a whole £30 on what seemed like a very limited game, I doggedly refused to get it. Even when my favourite YouTube channel became a dedicated Overwatch space, I didn’t buy the game. Yet, having bought my Omen 15, I finally decided to go for it as the title to christen my lovely shiny GTX 1060.
Now I’m here, in March 2018, wondering why on earth I waited so long. Overwatch is an incredible title. It runs silky smooth on this machine (I also have it loaded onto the SSD, so everything is lightning fast) and it’s a joy to play.
I’m terrible at it, I should add. Really terrible. I’ve probably only played a few hours of it, too. I wouldn’t say I’ve checked it out anywhere near enough to review it properly, but it’s definitely a masterpiece regardless.
Overwatch was created to be one thing, and one thing only. A fast-paced, multiplayer, objective based FPS. It does it stunningly. There’s no classes, there’s characters, with jaw-dropping levels of variety. One moment I can be blinking around the battlefield as the fragile Tracer, and the next flying above the battlefield healing my friends with Mercy, it’s a remarkable feat to have put this much innovation into character design.
Blizzard, of course, are well versed in the multiplayer scene, and they have a history of producing polished, elegantly designed video games. Whether their success with Starcraft, or the Goliath that is World of Warcraft, they know how to give audiences what they didn’t even know they wanted yet. Their breakthrough game, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, was multi-award winning, and set a new standard for the RTS genre, showing that multiplayer was the future of the genre.
The company has not lost its edge, now with an annual revenue of $2.4 billion (2016), and just seven ongoing multiplayer titles providing the backbone for their business. Blizzard don’t release many new games and, like Rockstar, it means when something releases, it’s probably going to be incredible. I never anticipated how huge Overwatch was going to become, but I should have.
Honestly, you’ve probably had enough reviewers and friends tell you to buy this game, so I won’t. Watch some gameplay, you’ll come to your own conclusion, but at just £30 from Blizzard’s own store, you won’t lose much by trying it.
Head to https://playoverwatch.com/en-us and see what you think. Comment below if you’ve been holding off getting Overwatch, tell me why!
Oliver Douglas 