LogFAQs > #985494371

#17 TIE. Overwatch (2016)
Total Points: 11
List Appearances: 4
First Place Votes: 0
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Writeup provided by tazzyboyishere
Few games have managed to suck me in the same way that Overwatch did. It was my first time playing an online multiplayer-only game, a format which I didnt believe I would ever like as much as a single player experience. But I got it close to the official launch and played it consistently up until it was absorbed into its worse sequel in 2023. Overwatch has somewhat transcended a video game to me at this point. It represents core moments in my life. Acquaintances I made on the board became close friends. Gaming with the boys back in 2016 was essentially the only thing I looked forward to in a particularly dark place before I went to grad school. It was a backdrop to eventually paying attention to the types of scummy behavior present in the AAA gaming space, particularly due to the scalding hot water Blizzard found themselves in for quite a while. It was my introduction to esports and Twitch streaming, as I had never imagined finding enjoyment in watching others play video games. And possibly most important, the insanely low skill floor and impossibly high skill ceiling let me approach the game on my own terms, work to get better, and discover all kinds of ways to play video games I had never engaged before. Overwatch was special, and of course they killed it to present us a F2P experience which watered down the strategic aspect of the game to be more about skill-shooting. The devaluation of the tank role and the overall power creep of the fanbase made it to where even QP felt highly competitive and stressful. I was never all that great at the game, peaking in diamond prior to role queue, which I never bothered grinding out afterwards. The game pretty much fell off for me when Marvel Rivals released, a game which I love quite a bit, but has kind of been speedrunning the problems with toxicity and tuning me out of it. Lets just say, I think the console versions of Overwatch not having text chat features for a while was probably a good thing. Anyway, I mainly want to use this as a space to talk about all the characters we saw in the game from my least favorite to favorite!

Doomfist
Abomination of a character. Seems like hed be fun to play if you got used to him, but he was never fun to fight if someone was remotely competent. I think I had under an hour of time on him over thousands of hours playing the game because I hated his schtick that much. Hes better in 2.

Sombra
Another abomination of a character. Her whole toolkit is getting rid of cooldowns, which is like, the most fun thing about the game. She didnt take control of a whole game as consistently as Doomfist did, but she was always anti-fun. She was not made any better in 2. This is the last character I think is bad on my list.

Echo
Do not care about this character in the slightest. I forget she exists all the time.

Roadhog
Not a fan of his playstyle and dont really like playing against him. Hook was always annoying, and fortunately it was fixed to where you couldnt be hooked while breaking line of sight. I never played him anyway, but they made him anti-fun to play in 2.

Orisa
She was mostly fine, but there was a period of time where you basically had to play Orisa if the enemy went Orisa, so I ended up playing her way more than I wanted to. I think shes pretty boring, and the amount of time I did play her just soured me on her more.

Genji
Barely played Genji. He was so hard to use. Felt I would get disoriented so easily any time I played him, and could never do consistent damage with him. Hes one of the more annoying heroes to fight against if the enemy knows what theyre doing, but he takes a high amount of skill to make work consistently, so I dont mind when he would tear me and my team up as much.

Widowmaker
I play using controller. She can be fun, but value and enjoyment is severely hampered for me.

Pharah
Like Widowmaker, shes rough on controller, but she has way more room for error. Never really learned how to play her since fuel management is a bit too hard for me to do in this game, but shes good fun. Very annoying when paired with a Mercy pocket, but everyone is annoying with a Mercy pocket.

Brigitte
She apparently ruined high level play for a good while, but I dont think she was ever that oppressive in lower ranks. They retooled her eventually and I never really could get her to work myself. She was fun to play though.

Tracer
I never did play her much due to how disorienting I found her playstyle to be, similar to Genji I suppose. Shes a lot of fun though, and its really satisfying when everything does click.

Bastion
Never really got him the way some did, particularly one of my friends who was really good with him. Hes so much fun if you arent getting appropriate pressure due to his insane damage output, but any time I played him, I would get killed so quickly. Was also made way less fun in 2 what a shock.

Cassidy
Name was changed from McCree after the scandal (A good decision). Hes fine. His ultimate sucks ass, but it's hilarious when it works. Im bad at him.

Ana
Conceptually one of the neatest characters in the game, though Im quite bad with her. Shes one of the more stressful heroes to play as.

Mei
I miss when she was the most annoying character in the game. Regardless, her playstyle is very trolly and frustrating, so I get the backlash she gets, but most people didnt even use her to her full potential. A good Mei is super oppressive, and the few times Ive managed to be that Mei have been quite exciting. However, I never have played her too much.

Moira
Shes pretty fun. How her healing and damage work together is a really cool concept that I think works out exceptionally. She can be pretty annoying if she plays dive and your tanks dont peel, but thats less of a character issue.

Hanzo
Pretty fun character, no other real comments. His headshot potential in the early days was really fucking broken, but once that got patched up, he pretty consistently remained a solid hero to play with and against.

Lucio
Very fun guy. Wall riding is great. He got a number of tweaks to make him more comfortable to play over the years and settled in quite well in the latter half of the game. Speed-boosting the team is a lot of fun.

Symmetra
Its hard to place her given how much she was changed over the years. I liked her quite a bit after the rework where she got a shield generator, but she got reworked after that as well. Another slower-paced character that got a lot less fun as the rest of the game shifted and her personality was lost to accommodate. My friends make fun of me because I think she is hot.

Soldier: 76
Probably the most generic character in the game, but still pretty fun. We have an inside joke about Soldier being a support character because, when I was first starting, I would just stand on the payload and put a healing field down every time it came off cooldown. This was successful like, 80% of the time, so I figured I had found a busted strategy. It wasnt.

D.Va
Almost always preferred Winston if I was gonna dive. D.Va felt a bit more complicated to play, and I usually got burst down playing her similarly. I think shes fun, but I definitely never played her properly.