overwatch – Page 9 – The Daily SPUF

Overwatch: Genji

May 19, 2016 Davjo_ 0 Comments genji, hero, overwatch

Y’know, that cyborg ninja whose brother Hanzo uses the Huntsman. Jokes aside, Genji seems to be a hero focusing on high mobility, being able to double jump, climb walls and even swiftly move into any direction (which could even count as a far-reaching triple-jump) with his ability Swift Strike. I should probably explain the basics of his attack and his abilities before talking of things like these. Genji’s weapon is a bunch of shuriken, or throwing stars, always firing in either an accurate burst of three or in a fast-firing cone of three, thus allowing him to attack 8 times… [Continue Reading]

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Turning the Beat Up with Overwatch’s Lucio

May 18, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments healing, lucio, overwatch, scout, support

The previous four classes I’ve described are all derivative of tried-and-true playstyles from other games. Mercy is a Medic, Junkrat is a grenadier, Widowmaker is a sniper, and Soldier 76 is every rifleman ever. But while he’s not nearly as easy to pin down, Lúcio quickly became one of my favorite classes to play because I can’t think of a single shooter with somebody like him. He feels like a support unit out of a real-time strategy, to be perfectly honest. With his boombox loudspeaker thing, he can either passively heal all the teammates around him (including himself, completely subverting No Self… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch: Writing on Writing

May 17, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, overwatch, writing

Jigglypuff requested that I backup my claim that the writing in Overwatch is bad. “Also you say noone in Overwatch is well written, could you provide any examples of why? Because a character being a trope or common archetype does not automatically = poorly done.” He’s right about archetypes as a concept. Committing to a baseline that’s familiar to the audience is a tried-and-true method that every writer uses, and when establishing brand new fictional worlds without pre-existing lore (such as Overwatch) they’re the best way to give the players something to initially latch onto. If they can understand part of… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch’s Soldier 76

May 15, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments overwatch

Blizzard knows exactly what they’re doing by making Soldier 76 the tutorial character. Much like Striker from Final Combat, he’s unashamedly added to appeal to fans of traditional military shooters, what with his gun being a hybrid assault rifle/rocket launcher and his unique mobility trick being the bog-standard sprint. But personally I’m completely okay with that because he was the first non-Mercy class I played simply because I understood him within seconds of controlling the character. He’s probably the best starter character possible for new players of any FPS skill level, and once you get the hang of him you’ll… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch’s Widowmaker

May 14, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, overwatch, sniper, widowmaker

I’ve already mentioned that Overwatch did not escape the “if one team has a healer, they win” syndrome, and they are likewise still suffering from ” chronic Sniper-itis”. Even the subreddit has noticed the amount of bloody snipers limping around in the back not being particularly useful or fun to fight against. Which is a shame, because played well Widowmaker can be so much more than a sniper. When not scoped in, her rifle becomes a bullet hose that Soldier 76 would be jealous of. Her E-attack is a poison mine (the only non-Ultimate DoT attack in the game) which serves… [Continue Reading]

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Junkrat – The Overwatch Demoman

May 12, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments demoman, overwatch

Overwatch has a Sticky Jumper. I couldn’t believe it when I found out. Junkrat’s playstyle is almost identical to my single most preferred playstyle in TF2. I just spent about two hours on the training map reaching all sorts of insane places with the concussion grenade. I am going to fall in love with this character, I just know it. Now, let be fair; he’s not as mobile as a Sticky Jumper Demoman. For one, he only gets one (recharging) conc grenade so he can’t fly particularly far with each jump, and he can’t chain them. No air pogos, no cross-country flights….but… [Continue Reading]

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Mercy: Overwatch’s Medic

May 8, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments medic, overwatch

As Medic just wrote a great article summing up our experiences with the Overwatch open beta, I thought I could get more specific and cover the classes I’ve enjoyed playing. By no means do I consider these extensive guides or anything; these are mostly first looks since I’ve hardly had time to play them. But of course I’m going to start with Mercy. Not only are medics inherently attractive from the perspective of an untrained newbie who wants to help his team, I’ve also got more hours playing Medic in TF2 than any character in video game history. Obviously the… [Continue Reading]

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Phovos reviews Overwatch – Getting into our heads!

May 7, 2016 Medic 0 Comments comparison, game, headache, non-tf2, overwatch, Team Fortress 2

Hi, Phovos here! And guess what? We’re finally playing Overwatch! After failing to get into every single beta so far, we’ve been playing the Open Beta that lasts until May 9th. Overwatch is a ton of fun. The characters look cool, the maps are amazing, there’s free loot and it’s overall a blast to play. Very chaotic right now, because of the influx of players who don’t know what they’re doing, but still awesome. The maps are the best part of Overwatch, they’re really nice, good-looking maps, even with their long lines of sight and large amounts of choke points.… [Continue Reading]

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On Hype

January 15, 2016January 15, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments developer, hype, On Shooters, overwatch, payday

Gamers have a love/hate relationship with hype. It fuels our soul, keeps us looking to the future and fills our minds with the tantalizing possibilities foreshadowed by either a PR Department or just the words of our online comrades. Sometimes the final product fizzles in the sun, sometimes it handles itself well enough but doesn’t meet hype, and on rare occasion it can exceed everyone’s expectations. But is too much hype a good thing? From a developer’s perspective, it makes sense to try and drum up as much excitement over a product as possible. Your goal is to get people… [Continue Reading]

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Five reasons why I’m not pre-ordering Overwatch

January 2, 2016 Medic 1 Comment competition, criticism, non-tf2, overwatch, Team Fortress 2

Everyone’s going on about Overwatch. Me? I’m pissed off. Mostly because I missed the open-to-all Beta weekend, because that was the one weekend I didn’t have stable internet. Typical. Still, I’ve been watching Overwatch and I do really like the look of it, and I think Valve will have to step up their game if they want TF2 to be able to keep up. That being said, I won’t be pre-ordering the game any time soon. Here’s why. 5. I don’t feel as if it’s worth $30 right now. Overwatch being a mostly multiplayer game is good and all, but… [Continue Reading]