Overwatch is a good game that is incredibly fun. However, some things disturb the overall impression.
First of all: Overwatch is one of the absolute highlights of the year for me and Blizzard’s hero shooter has the potential to be a total mega-hit. But nothing is perfect and a few aspects of the game annoy me even more, especially since the game is otherwise so devilishly polished. Here is my list of annoyances in Overwatch.
Annoyance #1 – Overwatch is too beginner-friendly
Overwatch follows Blizzard’s concept “Take a genre, break it down to the basics, and make it beginner-friendly.” This worked well for Heroes of the Storm and allowed me a smooth entry into the MOBA genre, which games like LoL never achieved.
But Heroes of the Storm is – thanks to different game modes and various talents – a complex game that only offers a quick and uncomplicated entry but still presents a lot of depth.
Success experiences that are not
Overwatch, however, goes too far in my opinion with the beginner-friendliness. Here, on average, I have three skills that I can use from the very beginning and that do not change anymore. And then there are heroes that are designed so much for newcomers that it almost hurts. Soldier: 76, for example. That guy has an aimbot as an ultimate. Seriously?!? Even total noobs, who usually can’t hit a barn door, can easily rack up 5-kill streaks.
In my opinion, that’s too much of a good thing, because aimbots and wallhacks (like Widowmaker uses) are not without reason extremely popular cheat tools in shooters, quickly ruining the fun for all other players. And yes, of course, you can also fail spectacularly with an aimbot ultimate and the aim assist is not always active, but still, the skill is simply “cheap” in my eyes.
The same goes for other ultimates, like Hanzo’s dragon strike or Bastion’s tank mode, which require little skill and still lead to high kill numbers. Greater kill streaks should in my opinion be something special that only good players achieve. But here, everything is somehow devalued because of such skills.
Annoyance #2 – Original game modes, please report!
Next, what annoys me are the game modes. They are focused on capturing and holding capture points. Ancient shooter fare that I have honestly seen and played hundreds of times. Sure, it’s fun, but considering that Blizzard has created original maps with special victory conditions in Heroes of the Storm, the creative desolation of the game modes in Overwatch stands out even more.
The escort game mode doesn’t change much either. It is indeed more original than the other modes, but often devolves into frustrating trench warfare that is not fun at all. In contrast, if you consider Battleborn, which transferred the MOBA game principle perfectly into a shooter, especially with the “Meltdown Mode”, I am even more disappointed by Blizzard.
Annoyance #3 – Story relevance, please report!
I am a big fan of background stories and especially with Overwatch, I find the setting interesting and the backgrounds of the heroes fascinating. Well, it’s just unfortunate that you don’t notice anything of that in the game, as Overwatch is just a pure PvP shooter.
It’s nice that there are organizations like Talon, Overwatch, or the Omnics. It’s just completely irrelevant, because in the game, Widowmaker, Tracer, and Junkrat can effortlessly face off against Winston, Reaper, and Roadhog and freely shoot each other to pieces. Even worse for immersion in the game world are the clones of the heroes, as two Genjis and three Tracers can easily zip around.
I seriously wonder why Blizzard even bothers to present a complex story when it is so completely trivial and contradictory to the actual game. Here, it becomes quite clear that Overwatch emerged from the ruins of Blizzard’s MMO flop Titan and they wanted to utilize the whole Titan story somehow. An alternative PvE mode with small missions – like in Battleborn – would really be an enhancement.
Annoyance #4 – Hello cliché!
As much as I like some of the heroes from Overwatch, they annoy me too. Instead of really creating cool and unique characters, Blizzard often resorts to clichés in my opinion.
McCree is a cowboy and of course he MUST fulfill almost every western stereotype, High Noon anytime and anywhere! He could as well be named “Eastwood”! Or Widowmaker, who could only top her cliché-ness by being called “Femme Fatale”.
Reaper is totally evil, we get it!
Or Zarya, who already corresponds to the cliché image of the Russian “manwoman” and then also waxes poetic in every second sentence with a comical accent about her preference for Siberian bears. All of this is only surpassed by Reaper, who, with his cloak, overly deep voice, and pseudo-cool moves, is sooooo evil. Muhawhawhaw! He even crushes Winston’s glasses in the trailer, the villain!
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Blizzard simply overdoes it with the stereotypes and fails to create more profound heroes – especially villains – and instead reverts to platitudes. I think Gearbox does this better in Battleborn. The quirky heroes there are so extremely exaggerated that they are cooler and more original than most Overwatch characters.
But enough complaining. Maybe I am just artificially getting upset about little things. Or what do you think? Do these things annoy you too? Or does it not matter at all as long as the game is fun? Or are there perhaps completely different things that bother you about Overwatch? Write it in the comments and let us know!
