2340: The Rise of GOG

0340_001

I remember when GOG.com — or Good Old Games, as it was originally known — first launched. It was an exciting moment, because it promised to be a storefront absolutely filled with PC games from my childhood. PC games that it had previously been near-impossible to 1) acquire in the modern era and 2) get running on modern computers. (Okay, 2 was less of an issue because DOSBox was already a thing by then, but 1 was a problem, at least, and not everyone knew how to set up DOSBox properly.)

I've kept my GOG.com account since launch, and just recently I find myself starting to drift more and more towards them and away from Steam. I'm not going to abandon my Steam account, obviously, since there are several hundred games in there, but GOG is starting to prove itself to be a real contender in the online digital storefront battlefield.

The GOG.com of today is a little different from when it launched, as its change in name will attest. Rather than focusing entirely on retro PC games, GOG.com now provides a mix of both retro and modern titles, and has recently even started doing "Early Access"-style games, though not to the same degree as Steam.

In fact, "not to the same degree as Steam" is a running pattern when it comes to GOG, and the platform is benefiting from it. While Steam is presently suffering from a deluge of low-quality titles released on a seemingly daily basis — the mobile app store problem, now for your home computer! — GOG.com's marketplace is considerably more curated than Steam, and the few Early Access titles that are up on GOG are already decent quality rather than shovelware thrown out with an Early Access tag in an attempt to excuse shittiness.

In other words, discovering new games on GOG.com is a lot less of an issue than on the Steam of 2016 because you don't have to pick through pages and pages of shitty Eastern European games with "Simulator" in the title, or perpetually Early Access Minecraft knockoffs, or games by people who don't understand what the fundamentally appealing elements of pixel art are, or… you get the idea. This isn't to say that there isn't some shit on GOG, of course, but it's far from the flood of effluent that Steam has been suffering from for a while.

And then there's GOG's new client, Galaxy. While still lacking a few features to put it on parity with Steam's well-established client — most notably an in-game overlay for chat, achievements and web browsing — it's a very good start, offering a well organised, nicely presented game library and features like playtime recording and a datestamp for the last time you played a particular title. Perhaps most notably — and most understandably, given GOG.com's original pledge, which still holds true today, to remain a DRM-free digital storefront — is the opportunity to both automatically install games through the client a la steam and download DRM-free standalone installers for each and every game on the platform for backing up onto physical media or other hard drives. Coupled with the fact that GOG games often come with a variety of digital extras including manuals, soundtracks, artwork and all manner of other goodies, this is the next best thing to a physical copy — and if you feel strongly enough, you can even burn these installers to a CD or DVD and make your own physical copy using the materials provided. (I'm probably going to do this for the Ys games; I like them enough to want them on my actual shelves.)

GOG's summer sale has also been excellent, with deep, generous discounts on a variety of games as well as a fun metagame that was very generous with its prizes. Rather than providing useless shit like emojis, profile backgrounds and trading cards like Steam, GOG's summer sale metagame sees you earning experience points with each purchase and action performed on the site, with three free games on offer at various XP milestones. And they're good games, too — specifically, Spelunky, Gabriel Knight Anniversary Edition and Dreamfall Chapters.

I anticipate I'm going to be using GOG.com a lot more in the near future; there's still work to be done — some games promise achievements but they haven't been implemented yet, for example — but the future looks bright for this growing storefront that refuses to compromise its principles.

Keep it up, GOG; you've got a loyal customer in me.

2339: Adol Wins Again

0339_001

I finished Ys: The Oath in Felghana tonight, after a bit less swearing at the initially unassailable-seeming final boss than I anticipated.

That was an absolutely brilliant game. Well-paced, enjoyable to play, challenging but never insurmountable and certainly didn't outstay its welcome; my game clock read just over 12 hours at the end, although GOG Galaxy claims I actually played it for 24 hours, which can probably be accounted for with a number of boss fights that took a significant number of attempts to clear.

Make no mistake, Oath was a difficult game, but it never felt overly punishing. Indeed, any time that I found myself staring at a Game Over screen, I always knew that it was my fault. Specifically, it was usually the result of overconfidence: charging headlong into a group of powerful enemies, hoping to obliterate them all quickly and gain a ton of XP, but instead getting torn to shreds. Or, in the case of boss fights, it was a matter of learning the attack patterns and then being able to execute suitable countermeasures.

The boss fights were a particular highlight, because they featured an absolute ton of variety and mechanics to pay attention to. The first couple of bosses were very much about dodging and timing, while others were about inventive use of your skills to avoid damage. What I particularly liked were the several encounters that initially seemed absolutely impossible to complete, but which after a bit of practice and careful observation proved to be somewhat less of a problem than I initially believed they would be.

Oath is old-school in its sensibilities in that failure is part of the experience. When you first encounter a boss, you pretty much need to fail in order to understand what it's doing and how it affects you. I've said this before, but in many ways it reminds me of fighting fast-paced versions of Final Fantasy XIV bosses: all mechanics can be countered and dealt with in some way, whether that's through dodging, skill use or various ways of protecting yourself. There are always clear visual and auditory cues as to what's about to happen, allowing you to prepare yourself appropriately, and in situations where you're expected to perform more complex actions such as switching between skills in the heat of battle, the encounters are designed in such a way that you always have time to perform the actions you need to rather than suffering under a relentless assault. Indeed, it's certainly possible to defeat the final boss without taking any damage because there's an Achievement for doing so, and I imagine most of the others can also be handled in such a manner.

I also enjoyed the plot a great deal. While I missed the presence of Feena and Reah from Ys I, II and Origin, the new characters were well-defined and interesting. The villains in particular had some interesting plot arcs, and the game threw up several unexpected curveballs towards its conclusion.

Character highlights for me included series recurring character Dogi, who despite being big enough to crush walls comes across as one of the nicest people in the world, and this game's vaguely implied romantic interest Elena, who was both adorably cute and a genuinely likeable character. I felt a bit bad leaving her behind at the end of the game, but I'm getting the impression protagonist Adol is a bit of a player; I'm anticipating a variety of other cute girls over the course of the games in the series that I'm yet to play.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again; I'm sorry that I haven't checked out this series sooner. I'm having an absolute blast with it, and I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming Ys VIII, which I'll be very surprised if we don't see come West courtesy of Xseed Games in the near future. Given how much I've enjoyed the series so far, I feel fairly confident saying that I'll probably be there day one when it finally comes out.

2336: From the Shores of Felghana

0336_001

I started Ys: The Oath in Felghana today after finishing the main story of Ys Origin. (I do intend to go back and replay Origin on the harder difficulties as well as grind through its extra modes and unlockables, but that will be a gradual process!) So far I've played about two hours or so into the main story, beaten four bosses and yelled more curse words at a game than I can remember doing for a very long time.

Oath in Felghana is hard. Really hard. Like, really really hard. I did not know this going in, so feeling quite confident off the back of clearing Ys Origin (which was challenging, but not mega-hard) I thought I'd start Oath on Hard rather than Normal.

I started to think that I had maybe made the wrong decision when the first boss took me a good ten attempts. When the second one took me probably twenty or thirty tries — including having to stop after a few attempts because I was getting pretty wound up by the whole thing — I seriously considered restarting on Normal or Easy, but my pride prevented me from doing so.

Then I beat that boss, and I remembered what I had discovered during my first runthrough of Ys Origin. Ys games, so far as I can tell, are not games intended to be breezed through without any resistance whatsoever. They're short, yes, but whenever their diminutive length is quoted, it isn't taking into account all the times you'll have to retry the difficult bits. Because you'll have to retry the difficult bits a lot. In other words, Ys Origin and Oath in Felghana may well be "10 hours long", but that figure assumes that you'll beat all the bosses first time and won't make any stupid mistakes while exploring lava-covered ruins. And I can assure you that you won't beat all the bosses first time, and you most certainly will make stupid mistakes while exploring lava-covered ruins.

This difficulty makes it all the more satisfying, though. There's a feeling of genuine "release" when you finally overcome a difficult challenge, and much like Ys Origin, I've found that while the bosses in particular are difficult, you'll almost certainly find yourself getting a little bit further each and every time you try, rather than stagnating with absolutely no idea whatsoever what to do. Oath, like Origin, is so well designed that it manages to "train" you how to beat its bosses without giving you any explicit instructions. The animation and sound cues, the attack patterns, the overall "rhythm" of the encounters — all of them are carefully tuned to make each encounter surprisingly intuitive, and while many of them aren't especially complicated in terms of mechanics, you'll need to practice in order to perform what the game is asking of you flawlessly. And you will need to be as close to flawless as possible, because Oath in particular is very unforgiving.

It's funny. The Souls series kicking my ass and forcing me to learn encounters is one of the things that ended up putting me off it, but I'm really enjoying it in the Ys series. This leads me to believe that it's perhaps not this actual style of game that puts me off, but the aesthetic; Ys is colourful, cheerful and energetic, while Souls is dark, dreary and depressing. While there's a time and place for dark, dreary and depressing, I tend to prefer that sort of thing in my survival horrors and adventure games; when I'm RPGing, I want to be heroic in a colourful fantasy land filled with pretty girls. And Oath in Felghana is certainly delivering on all fronts so far.

2335: Goddesses

0335_001

I finished Ys Origin's true route this evening, and if the first two games hadn't already convinced me this is a series that will stay with me a long time, that ending would have certainly done it. The way it establishes the backstory of things that are just a matter of course in Ys I and II is beautiful, and it brings a whole new layer of meaning to the overarching storyline and mythology of the series. I'm looking forward to seeing how — if? — this mythology fits into the games I'm yet to play.

The thing that's struck me most from these three games in the series that I've played so far is how beautifully the goddesses Reah and Feena are handled. It's hard to tell whether this is the work of the original Japanese script or Xseed's excellent localisation, but either way, they're wonderfully depicted characters that act as an important centrepiece to these three episodes of the overall storyline.

The most striking thing about them is how overwhelmingly nice they are. And I don't mean in a bland, uninteresting way; both Reah and Feena are convincingly friendly, approachable characters despite being divine beings, and there's a decent amount of the backstory in Ys Origin in particular that deals with their loneliness and desire to have friends among the humans rather than being revered as the powerful beings they are. Indeed, even in Ys I where series protagonist Adol Christin encounters an apparently amnesiac Feena, she seems keen to cling on to him and develop a close personal relationship.

They're a study in contrasts, too, despite being similar in appearance and bearing. Feena is kind and gentle — the sort of person it would probably be nice to have a hug from. Reah, meanwhile, is more willful and stubborn, but counterbalances this with a similarly graceful demeanour and a desire to always be hospitable to those who have the confidence to approach and address her. They make a good pair, and while we don't see a huge amount of either of them in the first two Ys games, this is more than made up for in Ys Origin, where we get to spend quite a bit of time with both of them.

Perhaps the nicest thing about them is the feeling that the Ysian religion, based on following the teachings of the Six Priests and worshipping Feena and Reah, is both plausible as a belief system and comforting. It's not infallible, by any means, either — indeed, Toal comments to the goddesses in Ys Origin that they are "barely even half perfect", and it's partly everything the goddesses and their helpers put in place that led to the apocalyptic situation that greets you from the outset of Ys Origin — but it's obvious that the goddesses, both as people and as mythological figures, bring great comfort to the populace. In a world where JRPGs in particular often take rather ruthless aim at religion as part of their narratives, highlighting the negative aspects rather than the positives, the Ysian approach to belief systems is almost refreshing.

I think that sums up the tone of the series quite nicely, too. While there's plenty of darkness, evil and unpleasantness going on — arguably more so in Ys Origin than in I and II — there's an overall warm feeling to the series that brings to mind comforting childhood stories like fairy tales and fables. I anticipate that this feeling will become stronger as I spend more time with regular series protagonist Adol in the subsequent games, but the three distinct stories in Ys Origin unfolded in a compelling, interesting manner, too; they presented a convincing back story to what unfolds 700 years later in Ys I and II, and I'm left with an almost overwhelming desire to immediately go back and play I and II again having seen what Origins' story had to offer.

I'll save that for now, though; I've still got Oath in Felghana, Ys VI, Ys Seven and Memories of Celceta to get through. And I'm looking forward to all of them.

2331: Revenge of the Horde

0331_001

Patch day for Final Fantasy XIV today, and it seems like a good one so far. I haven't yet delved into absolutely everything on offer — partly because I went out for the evening — but what I've seen so far is pretty great.

Of particular note is The Final Steps of Faith, the big new Trial for this patch. This sees players taking on the mighty Nidhogg in a battle to the death as he brings the full force of his rage down on Ishgard and those he believes to have betrayed him.

The Final Steps of Faith is a cool fight, because — at the moment, anyway — it's genuinely challenging, even in its story mode incarnation. It's not excessively difficult by any means — the challenge factor comes from the fact that you actually have to pay attention to mechanics and can't just cheese your way through it. I'm all for this; while there's a certain amount of pleasure in being able to overpower old content with top-end gear, it's always a bit of a disappointment when fights that were once challenging, exciting and dramatic become a matter of simply soaking up all the damage being thrown at you and repeatedly smacking the enemy in the teeth.

I'm sure this situation won't last with The Final Steps of Faith, but for now it's nice to have an important storyline fight carry the appropriate amount of drama for the context.

This got me thinking back to the reasonably hefty amount of time I spent playing World of Warcraft, and how that game never quite got me feeling excited about combat. Things got a little better when I went a bit crazy modding the game's UI and added a "Jukebox" mod that allowed you to play music in combat, but it still never felt quite the same as an exciting encounter in a single-player RPG.

Final Fantasy XIV, meanwhile, absolutely nails the drama aspect. While the movement-heavy nature of combat means that it's not able to include the sort of cinematic camera work that people have associated with Final Fantasy since VII hit PS1s all those years ago, the combination of amazing music, gorgeously spectacular visual effects and a genuine feeling that you're struggling against a foe of unimaginable power help make the game's most important fights shine as some of the most memorable things I've ever done in a game — and certainly in an online game.

I've now finished the main story (and the enjoyable, optional "post-story" quest, which had a really heartwarming ending) so I find myself pondering what's next for Heavensward. While this patch brings the Dragonsong War plot arc to a close, there are still some unresolved threads that are clearly going to be tugged at further in the next couple of patches, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the stakes will be raised towards some sort of dramatic showdown that will inevitably lead into the next full expansion pack.

And in the meantime, I hear those bloody Moogles need some help with their crafting…

2329: Another Trip Up Darm Tower

0329_001

I finished my first playthrough of Ys Origin earlier. I chose to play through for the first time with Yunica Tovah, who apparently handles most like Adol in the subsequent 3D Ys games, but now I'm going through it again with Hugo Fact, who plays impressively differently.

One thing that struck me with Ys II in particular, and it appears to be a pattern that continues with Origin and its ilk, is how much shoot 'em up DNA is in this series. Numerous bosses have distinctly "bullet hell"-style attacks requiring intricate dodging and pattern recognition, for example, but this connection is most obvious when playing Origin as Hugo, since even his basic attack involves firing bullets. Hell, he even has two "options" (sorry, "The Eyes of Fact") floating either side of him to fire additional bullets, which double in number when he uses Boost mode.

It's interesting quite how different a feel this contrasting playstyle provides, since you're otherwise going through pretty much the same levels and boss fights as in Yunica's story, albeit with different cutscenes and a few minor changes here and there. Boss fights in particular are a very different affair when playing as Hugo, since rather than it being necessary to get in melee range as with Yunica, as Hugo you have to play a lot more defensively, attacking from range in suitable openings and taking great care to avoid attacks, since Hugo is considerably squishier than Yunica is. Not only that, but Hugo's individual attacks do quite a bit less damage than Yunica's axe and sword swings, though he makes up for this by being able to attack 1) from a distance and 2) much more rapidly than Yunica.

I'm also playing this second runthrough on Hard difficulty; I'm not quite brave enough for the series' signature Nightmare difficulty yet, but I thought I'd step things up for Hugo, since I felt pretty confident with Yunica by the end of my first playthrough. It's noticeably harder, particularly when it comes to boss fights. I'm not entirely sure if this is down to enemies' boosted stats or simply the different way Hugo plays that I haven't quite gotten used to yet, but I'm finding myself having to retry boss fights more times than I did on Normal with Yunica.

One of the things I like about Ys Origin so far is that although the boss fights are very difficult, I don't think there's been a single encounter in the game where I felt like I was beating my head against a wall. In other words, although I might fail a boss fight several times in succession, I'd make noticeable progress each time, chipping away a little further at the enemy life bar each time until I was eventually successful. It's a matter of practice and skill rather than luck; in some ways, it reminds me quite a bit of Final Fantasy XIV raid bosses, where you need to know what's going to happen in the fight before you can even think about being successful; flailing wildly isn't going to work, at all.

Anyway. I'm keen to get through Ys Origin for a second time with Hugo, and then polish it off a third time with the "secret" third character, whose story is quite a bit different from Yunica and Hugo's, from what I understand. By playing all three stories, you get the full narrative; this is an approach that some people find tiresome — particularly if they have to play through the same levels again with a different character, as you do here — but it's something I always enjoy. I really enjoy seeing stories from multiple perspectives, and while Ys is fairly conventional fantasy in many ways, it's well-written, well-localised and features some entertaining, endearing characters, so I'm more than happy to plough through it to see everything it has to offer.

Then after that, there's Time Attack, Boss Rush and Arena Mode, of course, which I'm curious to at least try… so much for being a short game!

2328: Play of the Game

0328_001

I'm really enjoying Overwatch. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think it's the first competitive multiplayer game that I've actually wanted to "git gud" at enough to be truly competitive in the online sphere. I don't know if I actually have the skills or the talent to be able to do that, of course, but I've been performing reasonably well in the current "Quick Play" mode — effectively a "pre-season" warm-up — and getting a good feel for characters. So much so that when the proper Ranked Play mode makes an appearance in the near future, I feel confident stepping in and attempting to prove my worth.

Overwatch is also helping me to understand the appeal of e-sports. I'm still not entirely sure I would ever want to sit and watch a game of Dota 2 or something (as opposed to actually getting stuck in and playing it) but, playing Overwatch, I certainly feel something while I'm playing. It's particularly thrilling to claw back victory from the very jaws of defeat, and all of Overwatch's various game modes are well constructed to always make this a distinct possibility, meaning it's pretty rare to feel like you're being completely dominated unless your team is particularly incompetent.

It's quite entertaining to see the varying reactions of people you play against. Competitive gaming culture has, for the most part, instilled the impulse to type "gg" (Good Game) after a match has concluded — the online equivalent of a friendly handshake after a sports match — and more often than not you'll see this shorthand pleasantry being exchanged once the victor has been decided. (It's occasionally accompanied by "wp", which means "Well Played").

But there are some people out there who don't like losing. Some people like the guy who responded "no" to my "gg" after one match because he lost, and he didn't like losing. People like the guy who, in all caps, told his entire team to uninstall the game and that they were a "useless fucking team" after losing; he didn't like losing, either. And people like the guy who judged everyone on which character they picked, with sniper Widowmaker obviously being "for noobs".

Then, of course, there was the Chuckle Brothers my friend James and I encountered earlier, who starting sniping at each other in chat during the match and gradually escalated to threats to "wreck" each other. I may have prodded the fire a bit, but it was too hilarious not to troll a little bit; by the end of the match they'd both made themselves look like complete douchebags to the other participants, and one in particular (who was on the opposing team, who lost against me and my comrades) seemed to think that the fact he'd killed my character several times somehow made him superior than me and the rest of my team.

Me, I don't mind if I win or lose, because games of Overwatch are good fun, and the game is balanced well enough that I've only had one or two matches that I felt were completely imbalanced, and that was largely because the opposing side was using unconventional tactics that none of us knew how to counter. (Six Torbjorns is a force to be reckoned with… until you figure out Roadhog and Pharah.) It's a competitive game, after all, so by its very nature there has to be a winner and a loser in each and every match. If you want to win more, you practice and get better, just like anything — just like real sports. There's no sense getting angry and throwing a tantrum over it, because, more likely than not, that's just going to alienate you and make you less likely to be able to put a coherent team together — and coherent teams with good communication will always perform better at this sort of game.

I'm very interested to see how Blizzard plans to implement the ranked system into Overwatch; while I've never played Starcraft 2, I understand its online ranking system is pretty comprehensive and gives you a good idea of where you stand in relation to the rest of the community, so I'm expecting something similar here. I'm also expecting the game to have a good, long lifespan; Blizzard has a good track record of continuing to support its games over time — particularly those with multiplayer components — and with Overwatch proving as popular as it apparently has been so far (the amount of fan art out there already is insane!) I think we'll be seeing Overwatch tournaments and leagues for a good few years yet. And, for the first time, I want to be part of them.

2320: Never Pick One Main

0320_001

This advice is true for many different class-based games, be they massively multiplayer online RPGs like Final Fantasy XIV or competitive games like Dota 2 or, indeed, Overwatch. (Yes, it's another Overwatch post, for which I make no apologies.)

Overwatch is an interesting case study, though, in that unlike the other examples I gave above, you can change your character and indeed your complete role in the team at any time — either immediately after dying or if you're back in your base. This leads to a whole new interesting metagame where your team isn't bound by the principles of the "holy trinity" of tank, healer and damage-dealer (or, in Overwatch's case, the holy quartet of tank, support, offense and defense) and can instead evolve and change as a match progresses according to the team's needs.

Because this is such A Thing in Overwatch, you absolutely shouldn't pick a single character and "main" them like in other character-based games like competitive one-on-one fighters. At the bare minimum, you should be familiar with a hero in each of the four roles, and ideally you should at least know what every hero is capable of, even if you're not particularly skilled in playing as them.

You can read guides about this, but the best way I've found to learn which hero is good against which opponent is simply to experiment and see what happens. That way, you'll naturally figure out which heroes you enjoy playing and who they're effective against.

I have a number of heroes that I've started gravitating naturally towards so far. I intend to expand my repertoire over time, but for the moment here are my favourites.

In the offense role, I'm a fan of Tracer. Her rapid fire guns immediately hit their target when you fire them, so there's no need to lead targets in the same way as you need to with those who shoot more obvious projectiles — you still need at least a reasonable degree of precision, though. Her absolute best features are her special abilities, though. Her Blink ability lets her teleport a short distance up to three times in succession, letting her quickly dart across doorways and passages that are covered by dangerous sentry types such as Bastion or Widowmaker. And her Recall ability is great for confusing an enemy, as well as providing a means of self-healing by not only rewinding her location, but also the value her health was at a few seconds ago.

For defense, I like Mei. Her Ice Wall ability is great for blocking off specific routes and funneling the opposing team down a route you can cover more easily. Her weapon also has a great deal of flexibility; the short-range "ice thrower" acts a bit like a flamethrower only, you know, colder, and also has the added benefit of freezing enemies, initially slowing them and eventually freezing them completely for a brief moment. Her alt-fire, meanwhile, fires an immensely accurate icicle bolt that proves devastating to snipers such as Widowmaker, dealing a huge chunk of damage in a single hit at medium to long range. Combine this with her ability to freeze herself, making her temporary invulnerable while self-healing, and her Ultimate, which causes a freeze and damage effect over a decent-sized area, and you have a great defensive hero who is more than capable of going toe-to-toe with dangerous, occasionally insurmountable-seeming threats like Reinhardt.

In the tank role, I enjoy D.Va. D.Va is interesting to me in that she's not necessarily designed to soak up a huge amount of damage in the same way as some of the other tank characters, but is instead a rather mobile unit that can put out a good amount of close-range damage while having much better survivability behind enemy lines than the Offense heroes. Her absolute best thing, though, is her Ultimate, which self-destructs her mech suit, taking anyone in a significant radius with it, including herself if she doesn't get out of the way. What's fun about this ability is that you can combine it with her mech suit's jump jets ability, effectively "throwing" the self-destructing mech at the enemy team from a distance while she skips off happily into the distance. Also she's adorable.

Finally, in the support role, I've had most success with Lucio. A speedy character with a passive "aura" effect rather than a more active healer like Mercy, Lucio is an excellent support character who is very capable of putting out a decent amount of damage in his own right. His decent mobility thanks to his high speed and Wallride ability allows him to move unpredictably and avoid damage, while the relatively short cooldowns on his abilities let him provide either speed boosts or decent healing to nearby companions on a pretty consistent basis. Not only that, but the fact his buffs and healing work as an aura mean that he can concentrate on wrecking some fools while he's benefiting the team, meaning he can help out in several ways at once.

I'm sure I'll discover new favourites in the near future, but for now these are the ones I've had the most success — and fun — with.

2319: Pass into the Iris

Overwatch is still excellent.

I'm tempted to leave it at that, but I should perhaps qualify my statement.

It's difficult to pin down a single, truly appealing element of it because there are so many, and that's perhaps it's biggest strength: there's something in there that will appeal to most people who are at least vaguely receptive to the idea of competitive first-person shooters.

For me, the absolute best thing about it is its accessibility. There's a wide variety of different heroes, some of which are more difficult to use, but all of which are rewarding. Plus some absolutely wonderful balancing has clearly gone into the game's development, since each hero has a clear "counter" that is eminently suitable for dealing with them when they start giving you grief.

It's a game with accessibility for casual players, in other words, but one which has sufficient depth to keep competitive players interested in the long term. It will be interesting to see how the community as a whole takes to the ranked competitive games when they launch soon, and whether the game as a whole takes off as an e-sport.

It's rather enjoyable to be in at the very beginning of what is clearly going to be a thriving game with the longevity of Valve's classic Team Fortress 2, a game to which Overwatch is often compared, and not unreasonably so. However, where I found Team Fortress 2 to be completely intimidating (due to the fact that by the time I had a computer and Internet connection that could handle running it, everyone else who had been playing for years was infinitely better than me, and it felt impossible to get any better), with Overwatch I'm finding it easy to contribute to a team effort, pick the right heroes for the right situation and help get the job done.

What seems nice about the community as a whole — at least on PC, I can't speak for the console versions — is that the player base isn't afraid to have a bit of fun. Earlier tonight, for example, I had a game where the opposing team started out by posting three Winstons (a giant Tesla cannon-wielding gorilla with a rather refined voice and attitude) outside our base, and gradually, as the match progressed, everyone else participating switched to Winston too, until by the end of things we had an absolutely chaotic melee made up of twelve mutant gorillas all going all HULK SMASH on one another at once. The results of that game really didn't matter in the end, because everyone involved had such a great time, and of course it was followed up with a couple of other matches in which everyone picked the same character again. Six Reinhardts bearing down on you is certainly a sight to behold, though this situation helped me realise Pharah's value in that she can leap high into the air and rain rocket death down on Reinhardt from above while staying well out of range of his big-ass hammer.

Overwatch is a game that hasn't forgotten a core reason we play games is, well, to play. It's a consistently joyful, smile-inducing experience that the vast majority of the community seem to play well and with a good attitude; you get the occasional ragequitter yelling "uninstall the game now" when their team loses, but they are relatively few and far between in my experience so far, and when this happens most people just shrug and move on. Overwatch's excellent matchmaking coupled with the significant player base means that their team slot will be filled in a matter of seconds anyway, so it's no great loss to the other players if that person wants to ragequit.

Assuming Blizzard keeps supporting Overwatch as much as it claims it will — we're promised free new heroes and maps on a fairly regular basis; the only "premium" paid content is the ability to purchase the Loot Boxes containing skins and other customisation items that you acquire for free every time your account levels up anyway — I can see myself playing it for a long time. And it's a nice feeling to find a multiplayer experience like that: it's one I can easily share with friends, since there's none of the MMO issue of you "outlevelling" each other, getting to different stages and being unable to play together due to the disparity in your characters' power levels, and its 5-10 minute matches make it eminently friendly to the more busy people I know who perhaps only have half an hour here and there to play some games together.

So yes. Overwatch. If you've been on the fence about grabbing it but you like the sound of it, stop hesitating and grab it. Then we can go and shoot some fools together.

Cheers luv.

2316: Overwatch is Out, and It's Awesome

0316_001

Well, it's here: the only multiplayer-only first-person shooter I think I've ever actually been genuinely excited to play and be on board with from day one: Blizzard's Overwatch.

The servers went live at a little after midnight my time, and aside from one incident where I lost connection from a game, everything seems to be running extremely smoothly. I am happy about this.

Here is a list of reasons why I like Overwatch when I typically haven't got into other competitive first-person shooters:

It has characters. Call of Duty is boring to me because soldiers are boring. Overwatch has a wide variety of characters that includes cute girls. So that's a win.
There's no complicated metagame. No challenges to unlock weapons, no perks to worry about, no loadouts, no higher-level people dominating you through use of higher-level unlocks: everyone is on an equal playing field.
The "you must be this skillful to play" barrier is lower than a lot of other shooters. The thing that puts me off a lot of competitive shooters is the fact that it's extremely difficult to learn how to play them effectively when some 10-year old can snipe you from halfway across the map before you've even got anywhere near the objective. Overwatch's characters cater to a wide variety of skill and confidence levels, and most don't require pinpoint accuracy to have a good time with.
The objectives are simple to understand but challenging to complete. The game modes may be straight out of Team Fortress, but they work. The Overtime mechanic makes for some genuinely exciting last-second turnarounds, too.
The weapons are satisfying. Each character only has one or two weapons at most, and they're all great fun to use. They make good noises and feel powerful.
The game gives excellent feedback. Through the use of sound and HUD elements, Overwatch keeps you nicely informed on what's going on. If you're getting shot in the back, a nearby character will tell you. If you're successfully hitting an enemy from a distance but can't see it very well, a sound effect lets you know that your shots are on target. And most characters' HUDs are designed so that you don't have to take your eyes off the action to know important information.
The abilities give characters unique identities. Not only that, but you need to know the best ways to avoid and/or counter these abilities. That keeps things interesting.
The support characters are more than just healbots. Most of them are more than capable of putting out respectable damage, too, and some even have other interesting abilities to support the team.
D.Va. Say no more.

Now I'd better go to bed before I get tempted to stay up all night blasting fools… doubtless there will be a lot more of this over the next little while, though!

If you're playing Overwatch on PC, feel free to add AngryJedi#2260 as a friend. If you do so, let me know if it's on the North American or European servers, because Blizzard inexplicably region-locks its friends lists rather than having one global one.