"Overwatch" is Blizzard entertainment's next big game. The company has not released a new IP in over 15 years. Which is, if you are like me and have been playing Blizzard’s games since childhood, it is kind of a big deal. "Overwatch" is the game that came out of the ruins of Blizzard’s efforts to make a game called "Titan" which failed. 'Overwatch,' however, is rising like a phoenix out of the ashes in great strides.
The game is a six versus six, first person shooter, which sounds like another boring FPS game, but it is actually much more in depth. Each player selects a hero; each hero has unique abilities (such as grappling hooks, building turrets, heat vision, flying and ice walls, just to name a few) that they can use to turn the tides of battle, reminiscent of Valve’s game "Team Fortress 2." The abilities all fit with the many characters unique personalities. Each character's personality can range from a gorilla, a German medic with angel wings, a time traveling Brit and a cowboy actor.
Describing the game, it may just sound like a "Team Fortress 2" clone. In reality it is much, much more than just that. The characters have much more to offer than just being soldiers on a battlefield; each has a reason they fight in the world. One of the characters is a freedom fighter for his home in Jamaica, but he also happens to be a very popular DJ. Each of the characters drip with as much personality as the next, making the game feel like the conflict matters.
I have been a gamer for almost all of my life, so i have played a lot of games in my time. However, "Overwatch" just feels different to me. I was able to play the game when it entered an exclusive beta, as well as, the open beta, and my friends and I were able to play it for more than an hour at a time; which is how long at maximum we tend to play games nowadays. Lately, we have played less, due to how uninspired we are by today's current games. It feels a lot like Blizzard actually took the time to make a game that matters and is not just another game companies that is grabbing for cash.
My friends and I are actually quite excited for a game to come out which almost never happens anymore. Usually, we just groan and say “Well, looks like I have to drop another sixty dollars to play that game.” It seems to be that it won't be like that. Not this time. We are so excited for the game to go live in the next few days; we are actually counting down the days until we can play the game again after the betas have ended.
"Overwatch" comes out on May 24th.
