Overwatch - what am I missing?

Okay, full disclosure first: I play Battleborn. I LIKE Battleborn. I'm not here to do THAT discussion.

What I'm here to ask is this: What am I missing with Overwatch? The gameplay is buttery smooth, I grant you. The controls feel a little wonky, but I think that's just me because I'm playing Battleborn at the same time. And the map layouts look great.

But....it's just shooting people. I grew up in the days of CSS, when the best game on earth, was a free mod for Half Life :-) I've been a part of gaming for over 30 years. I don't understand why people are raving about a game that does one thing; admittedly it does that one thing quite well. But there's no depth to the game. It's run around the map, or fly over it, or grappling hook up(assuming the hook lands you on a surface you can run over) it, shoot people, stand by a moving target to progress to the next checkpoint. The characters are well designed, but this is Blizzard. They made PANDAS look dangerous :-) There's no story in the game; its just shooting people. There's no map-specific fights or real mechanical variation on the characters.

I have to think that I'm missing something here. I mean if people wanted this, why is everyone not going utter ape-shit over the remastering of MW 1, which I think still benchmarks most FPS games on the market?

There's plenty of story, it's more of somewhat dark souls story telling than ordinarie in-your-face story telling. The game is fun, I have not had this much fun in a FPS since TF2 first came out.

Yeah I know what you mean. I think it's the type of game that you play to get your fix for the day and go to sleep. It does have some addictive properties to it though like the constant unlocks and cosmetics that you can buy. I had a blast with it but I'm kinda worried about its longevity. But if they have some kind of league system and ranked games where you progress up it could actually be a very good long-term game. I mean in that case it's like Street Fighter 5 which has pretty much no story or offline content but it's such a blast to play online.

I definitely appreciated Battleborn's story mode though. I had a lot of fun. And in fact I preferred the moba aspect of it than overwatch's short 10 minute matches. Battleborn's matches had a lot of depth and strategy involved which is to be expected from a moba which I think overwatch sorely lacked. But maybe with the league system, the game could be much more than that. Playing against good players, it might not end up as merely another shooter but rather something that really requires good teamwork and strategy to win.

I get where you are coming from, but you just criticized one game for doing one thing, while praising another for doing the same thing.

I too love CS, but...it's just shooting people. You run around, you shoot people. Maybe play the objective, but it is mostly just shooting people.

Yes, but CSS, was over fifteen years ago. If this game came out ten years ago, before MW1, even with a graphical downgrade, I wouldn't have a single complaint. But for all the visual richness, for all the smooth controls and detail in the characters, the core mechanics, are JUST shooting. I can't upgrade a character; I can't even SIDEGRADE to maybe do things a little differently. Maybe lose something, to gain something else. Every Tracer player, plays the same way. Every Winston or Mercy, is going to tank and heal the same way. The characters might be varied from each other, but nothing about them can really be varied by the player.

To maybe put this in perspective MBJ, consider that while CS had no classes, the weapons and armor you took into the fight, were generally hard to spot until the bullets started flying. That gave CS a lot of gamesmanship; skilled players could flash and pistol early rushers, and keep the rest of the opposing team unsure about what main weapons they're now going to run into on a shorthanded fight. But Overwatch has no variance, aside from switching classes. There's nothing you can really hide from the enemy team about what's coming. So it's just a scrum around the objective.

I don't know if I would compare BattleBorn to Overwatch as one is namely about killing bots (BB), while the other (OW) is closer to Team Fortress 2- Two teams with one winner after an extended amount of time.

OW being the only one I've played, and I think it suits me better. It's a simple PvP FPS you can play in short or long sessions (flexible).

While BB looks a bit more grindy, and requires long sessions exclusively. Kinda like Destiny.

Eitherway; enjoy your games.

I don't understand the "it's just shooting people" point you're making. Overwatch is the type of game that attracts people like myself because I'm able to be more creative with how I play and use skills I've learned in other games. I'm usually not into MP shooters because they're just about shooting people. I was instantly interested in Overwatch because it's more than shooting.

For the open beta I've been using Tracer because she was my favorite in the trailers. I started off just using her like any other shooter, but once I got comfortable, I'll literally just blink off a ledge if I'm in a bad situation and then recall back and murder some people. I just like the level of creativity it allows. Yeah, it's still shooting, but the way I'm doing it makes it fun for me.

I know they're not MP games, but Overwatch reminds me of games like Dishonored and Vanquish. Some people play those games in such a basic way and they can't understand why people love them so much. You don't have to use the added abilities, but if you learn how to use them in combat, it drastically changes the gameplay. Maybe it's different for me because I don't play many MP shooters, so I just play it like I play my favorite SP games. I remember reading GameInformer's review of Vanquish and it annoyed me. To that reviewer it was a cover shooter, but I was sliding under huge bosses and cutting them apart piece by piece. For me, it was a very unique experience and why I'm a fan of PlatinumGames today.

I think it's just about how you play it. I'm super aggressive in Overwatch now because I can see what's possible and I'm still learning more. When I see what players are doing with the other heroes, I get even more excited for release. If you watch somebody who's really good, I don't see how you can just say "it's just shooting people". I haven't played an MP game since Driver SF(lol), but I'm getting 20-30+ killstreaks almost every time just based on my play style. It's smooth, looks great IMO, has a ton of character in the design, and it allows me to play it my way. There are some legit assassins who play that game and I know they come from playing more FPS shooters, but I can compete because I'm use to being more creative in other games like the ones I mentioned. Those abilities really make it something special for me.

@PS2fweak: Yeah I agree with you because actually I was one of those people. I played MGSV and Dishonored and didn't understand what was so good about them because I was ghosting through them Now ghosting is nice and all but imo it's really boring. You use none of the awesome gadgets they provide you and just slip by, teleporting, etc. But when I started to use the tools they gave me in creative ways, thats when I realised why these games are so good.

Okay, I'll go by your post(Sorry, but I don't like quoting someone's ENTIRE post here, and then mine. These things get big enough as is. :-) ) And for those who are insinuating THAT argument, please remember, we're not here for THAT argument. Gamespot and IGN have done more than enough to fuel that rather silly divide, and we don't need to re-enact it here. :-) So let's focus on Overwatch.

Everything that you referenced in your post, pertains to a single aspect: in the game, hot-seated and playing, making decisions right there in the moment. You base your opinion off gameplay in that moment to moment feeling. That's fine. That's something a long list of FPS and TTPS games have done admirably. Pick a character, send them into the field. Don't like them or got killed fast? Pick another character and go back in.

But is that really all you want from this game? Even better, SHOULD that be all that you want from this game? I understand that OW is being billed as the new e-sport. So it's not a crowd I really understand. Before the game even hits shelves, we're getting competitive gameplay right out of the beta. Usually, that takes a little while; you know, people play the game, pick apart the mechanics, and then really start to develop a competitive scene. OW, TO ME(Sorry, but I had to make sure no one thinks I'm speaking for some majority :-), feels like it's not going to develop any further in the core gameplay, than it has. Modes will certainly be added, as well as new maps, but the core aspects of the gameplay, feel rooted and fixed where Blizzard wants them to be.

To me, Overwatch feels like Blackjack in a casino. Now, a savvy Blackjack player, will tell you all about the math and the strategy of playing multiple hands, knowing when to split, double down, hit or stand. But in the end, there are three outcomes: you beat the house with that hand, you tie the house with that hand, or you lose to the house with that hand.

When I first saw Overwatch, I thought it was going to be Poker. Not JUST about winning the hand, but winning the hand when you have a LOSING hand, and bluffing your way over. When the money and the cards mean far less, than the person behind them. I'll use Planetside 2 as an example; many's the time that I have used a squad, to headfake the entire OPFOR. Instead of focusing all our efforts at capping one specific base, my squad and I would capture all the little outposts around several other bases, sending off warnings to the enemy, that their various facilities are all under attack. Their response would be to divert aircraft and ground vehicles to inspect those bases, which we would mine the roads to, making it appear that we're preparing a large ground assault. So, we pull enemy assets away from the main fight, to meaningless fights elsewhere, while our real objective is being hit with our faction's full strength. It's an underhanded tactic, but, it works. :-)

That's what I'm trying to see with this Beta. Where is that person to person gamesmanship? Far as I can tell, both sides effectively run into a meat grinder until one comes out with greater numbers of survivors than the other.

Yeah I felt this way when Crysis came out; people were saying "it's just another shooter" and if you want it to be, it is. But if you want it to be a stealth game, it is. If you want to pick people off from afar, loose them in the jungle, then pick them off one by one using a combination of stealth and super strength...you can.

In games like this, you're given a pantry full of raw ingredients. If you want to make just a basic bread, knock yourself, but don't be disappointed because that was your choice. If you want to make decadent triple chocolate chunk cookies with gold-flake, you can do that too.

Games like this (Overwatch, Crysis, Dishonored, Vanquish) put the burden of fun on the gamer's imagination, and you can't fault the developer for doing that. They've been kind enough to give you a sandbox without any prebuilt sandcastles in it, and isn't that how it should be?

I've definitely seen what you're talking about, but what I love is how you can personally step up to the plate and be a team player even though you sacrifice getting some kills. I was mainly playing as Tracer and McCree, but I realized how much you can do as support or tank. So many people want to be fast and agile or snipers. They miss the point and then they wonder why their team loses.

When you have a good team, it's very much like what you described with Planetside. My initial love of Overwatch came from just having fun with the different heroes, but now I love being a team player. Now, I'm the one getting upset when I see 2 Tracers, 2 Widows, 2 Hanzos, etc. It can be annoying, but it feels so good when things are set up right and people play as a team.

Not JUST about winning the hand, but winning the hand when you have a LOSING hand, and bluffing your way over.

This does happen often enough. Like I said, sometimes you need to be the one to step up, but it can be nice because you end up learning how to play with more heroes. OW rarely has a problem with players not choosing offense or defense. It's almost always support and tank that are MIA. Either people don't pick those classes, or they don't know how to properly use them. I don't want to act like I'm really good, but I do like to use them how they're designed. You may not be play of the game, but your team will give you credit when they see how much damage you block or how much you heal.

Right now I'm really enjoying it. I forgot one of the issues with MP games is cheating, so that may ruin the experience at some point, but I'm still loving it so far and even more now that I know how rewarding the other classes are.