GameSpot's The Lobby: Overwatch -- Has it lived up to the hype?
GameSpot's The Lobby: Overwatch -- Has it lived up to the hype?
13:08

GameSpot's The Lobby: Overwatch -- Has it lived up to the hype?

Video Games
[MUSIC] Let's talk about something a little bit more current, shall we? The Overwatch early access started yesterday. The open beta is getting rolled across global territories as we speak. I think a lot of places probably have it already. Yeah? I thought it was Thursday. Is it Thursday it's happening? I think May 5th. Okay, and what day is today. I think it's May 3rd. Third. It is, May 4th is Wednesday. I think it is for all three platforms. [CROSSTALK]. Then we'll be able to go an pick up themselves. Let's have a little chat about it briefly. I've been playing it on the beta for awhile, what seems like an eternity now Are you reviewing it for us or not? > I will be, yeah. For all I know, that's the plan. Cool. Aaron have you played any Overwatch at all? I played some Overwatch, yeah, I played some of the beta. What are your thoughts on it so far Mike as somebody who is going to review the final product, I feel like we're basically playing the final product now. Yeah, minus anything they change with the progression and the skins and just overall, I don't know. Disturbers in that rotation, I think. Right, [UNKNOWN] live stuff perhaps? Yeah, this game has got me hooked. I think because of our jobs, it's tough to really play one game all the time anymore, which, it sounds like such a small thing to whine about, yeah. Boo hoo. Right, it is not a big problem at all. But, I am looking for counterstrength, I am looking for that shooter I can just go back to time and time again. And, it has really got me hooked. Each of its characters, it feels like they could have a game revolving around them. I think these characters are so nuanced and so detailed and so much thought put into each one. And then when they collide, the balance is so great, and you think about each match a different way, depending on who you're playing or what the objective is. There's so many like minor things, so many major things you don't even notice, just because it's such a chaotic looking game. But then, a certain point it kicks in when you know a few characters, and you know what you're doing, you know What your team is trying to do, or where it just starts making sense in such different ways each time. And yeah, I'm looking forward to putting a lot of time in this. I'm totally with you in terms of like we're talking about [INAUDIBLE] earlier and there were games like [UNKNOWN] 1.6 I was big into. I liked [UNKNOWN]. I liked [UNKNOWN] Fortress, the release Sort of tent pole first person experiences online games that I sort of, we all have right, when we look back at our history of our favorite games and this is as close to one of those as a game has come in a long time. Like, probably, call of duty 4: modern warfare. Like this is a game that I can see myself playing for like, a year or two. And it's because of what you just said, it's because there is such a I mean, you can never tell right when Randy Pitcher was off talking about Battle Born and we were seeing these games like Battle Cry. And then Overwatch was coming up from Blizzard. And there's sort of a cynical aspect where you're thinking it's just somebody else who's trying to get into another, Multi player game which they're trying to hook in people to play forever and it's going to be like a mobile or it's going to be like this super reductive thing, and there's all these different characters that look different. So I kind of went into [UNKNOWN] being a little bit cynical, thinking you know what, they're all going to look, you know, people are going to look to cosplay as these people, but I'm not going to care, I just want to play a god damn first person shooter. But these characters, they are so individual. Yes, all interests and I genuinely mean all. I think maybe Soldier 76 is the one that I like playing the least but I still enjoy playing him. Yeah Across the board, 21 of them are so interesting to play like Junkrat I sometimes play with. I love Pharah and Widowmaker, but I'll just jump all over the place. I don't mind. When I'm last into a [UNKNOWN] into a team and it says, you need to play as assault or support. And it's like, fine, I'll pick [UNKNOWN] or I'll take mercy and put them if the map works. And I think it's obviously that's even had a big lot of Lot of trouble with what they went through at Titan. And I think they had a big weight on their shoulders to really make something legitimately great. And I think Overwatch is, like, legitimately great. Yeah. Scott's been playing a lot of Battle Bourne. I've played a decent amount of Battle Bourne. And that's a game where, and Scott described probably earlier on the show. I didn't catch it. He was saying it's easy to master, but it's difficult to learn. Whereas this one is. It's difficult to do both. It's easy to learn, but it's difficult to master because the characters they initially seem really simple. But, some of my favorite characters, it's this fine balance between mastering these five characters but also just it's so fun to try someone out new. And it's still. The game itself is very inclusive and how you play it because at the end it doesn't show kill death ratio, it really shows yeah kills. It'll say, if you were a support, you healed this much team damage. Then everybody votes on what was the most useful and I think that's a really cool way of showing how this game works and that you don't just have to be Widowmaker sniping people in the face to help. You can be Zarya my favorite character shielding people, shielding yourself. Using your ultimate to create these choke points. Where everybody, where junk rat starts lobbing grenades in while mercy revives your last teammate. It's just refined chaos. It's so cool how it unfolds differently each time and what initially seems like a simple game. I think the way that they're tracking your score and what information they choose to display and not display to you, it came up in your interview. Was really good design decision. I can't tell you how many games encourage bad player behavior because they are so obsessed with their K-D or so obsessed with their point total. It actually will get players to be selfish and not play the objective. Them choosing what to show and not to show based on making players more emotionally connected to. Just focus on the objective. Like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about your KD. Don't worry about the other things. Yeah. Like, those are very forward thinking design decisions that I think encourage good player behavior. Totally. Actually, they even did things like, not including [INAUDIBLE] is also a part of that, where it's like. Take it easy for team deathmatch in here. You probably wouldn't face a support character but they literally do not want any situation in which you get back into like bad habits. I mean team deathmatches is the death of objective based gameplay. Right. Because what usually happens and it has happened in a lot of shooters that you have in extent of [UNKNOWN] And you have some great modes, and you have deathmatch and people realize that deathmatch is the quickest way to get through the unlock tree, and by the time they're done with it they're like whatever, I'm just gonna keep playing deathmatch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And you kill the objective modes. I've seen that happen in Battlefield and lots of other games, so It's very brave to not have Death Match. And it's a decision that I think more games should follow. And then I guess when this first came out, we sort of frame it in terms of a lot of new games. And sort of new things that are happening in first person design. Especially in online competitive. Maybe not shooters, but just online competitive play. But this like such a best of, of, you know, so many first person shooters. I mean, Widowmaker has the grapple hook from Quake 2, you know? Junk [UNKNOWN] is basically team fortress grenades. Spammer. You know, Lucio runs on walls, like so many games, you've got Tracer, who's basically [UNKNOWN] in Dishonored, Diva is Titanfall, like all of these characters, they're Even Widow Maker's sniper rifle feels like it's a head shot home. It's like Counter Strike. You can get people in the body and then at a certain point, you're playing against people who really know how to play Widow Maker. Like, no, I need to go for head shots. Yeah. There's people that will grapple hook and then mid-grapple, just start sniping you. Yeah, in the air will snipe you, including that little cool down thing that happens with it. A style of game play that revolves around choke points a lot. Yes. Because that's one very specific thing about this game. Whereas, in Battle Borne, the maps are very open. And strategically, if you're not successful pushing one side of the map, you can shift to the middle lane or the left lane. Whereas in this one I feel like you live or die by certain choke points in this game. And the deciding factor a lot of times are some of the characters who can go up and over buildings. Yes. And get behind the enemy team. But there's also a lot of players who You just like you gotta push through this thing then if you can't do it matches over. Yeah totally, it's very like Team Fortress 2 in that respect. Or Team Fortress Classic whatever Quake Quarrel Team Fortress could you wanna go the whole way back. [LAUGH] However far you want to go back. That's why Overwatch is really. I'm traditionally an offensive player. Yeah. In Battlefield and- You're so offensive. Yeah. I offend people when I'm shooting them. [LAUGH] I guess it's always offensive. This game, I actually like l playing support characters a lot, probably the most. You know, Zaria, I think she's classified as a tank. She's->>Yeah.>> [LAUGH] She's very much->>She is.>>Oh, yeah. In her psyche and how she plays, but She's very much the poorer in the way she can shield people. And you're just talking about chokepoints. As someone who is really into multiplayer level design it's cool that her [UNKNOWN] is essentially letting you almost create these many chokepoints yourself with a blackhole pulling a bunch of people in. I think it was the one match where I really realized how cool this game can be. It was the payload, we were almost there. We were escorting the payload. and I was tracer. And I was just playing her like a dual wielding, first-person shooter game. Then I realized, no, I should be a pest right now. I should just go back to where they're spawning almost. I don't have to kill anyone. I just have to just annoy them. Yeah, hassle. Keep them occupied. Shoot them when I'm about to die, back out to the next room. Keep running away, shoot them. And it was awesome because I was just, like I was scrimmaging, wasn't killing anybody and I know, I know they hated me for it because they couldn't get back to my team. Yeah. Who was doing their jobs. And we had a Widowmaker above us. We had Farrah just kind of watching the payload from above. We had a Winston circling it, and then I was just off by myself going rogue and kind of just essentially annoying the other team. The memorable moments that you get in this game remind me so much of playing games of CS where you've got 4v1, right? And you're watching spectator mode in CS Italy and You know the other player just figures it out. Just like, isolates one and I'm done. Gets two of them, done. Like a random grenade thrown, it just kind of works out. And then, you know, the fight in a market and there's melons flying everywhere and then they end up winning. It's got those moments but on such a moment to moment basis. I kind of feel like whenever any game, especially when you have preview, I'm so hesitant to talk them up because There's this sort of thing where it's like you're fresh, you got early access to this thing, you've been playing it forever, you've been playing under great conditions. We've been playing Overwatch so much that over the past couple of months that I have absolutely no hesitancy in saying that I think that this is one of the best online first person shooter that has come out in like a decade. I keep having to remind myself that it's not out yet because I played it so much. Right. It's not out for three weeks. It's not out until May 24. So if you're a crazy person that buys a $130 edition Or you got the Origins Edition for 60. You're still not going to be playing it officially until then but just like Hearthstone, you're able to go play it openly now I guess, or soon enough. Yeah, I mean you're saying Counter-Strike and I agree with that comparison. The one game I've been comparing it to my friend asked be because he saw Overwatch and he's like this just looks like a MOBA to me like what Battleborn is doing with a couple of their game modes. No, I was like, just think of Team Fortress 2, but instead of 5 classes, or whatever it was, 6, you have 21 and they're all much deeper, the map, there's more maps, and he's like, alright, you already, you had me, and again, I'm reviewing it, I'm just tempering what I'm saying but I had fun, but I don't have a final opinion of the game, but I always have been playing a lot of it. Yeah. And I'm hooked on it. All right. Well there you go. I want your thoughts on it. You played it sort of you doubled. Yeah, it depends where you're coming from. If you are like a battlefield guy who like this type of game, to me Siege landed with me better just because I love I love how the intensity of Siege and the fact that it's the first game in a long time that you're not making a lot of kills and every kill that you make matters a hell of a lot. To me, that's more exciting than just a really well-done MOBA-style shooter. But that's just because I like tactical shooters and I like Battlefield. And I like the sandbox better than I like the chokepoints. Like it's funny. Ed, did you play Brink? Not, not much at all. Cause i feel like Brink tried a lot of this stuff and Yeah. For some reason it didn't land with people. It seems like Overwatch is trying very similar things in, connecting with people.>>Yeah.>>So...>>Like you're right the player movement stuff was very much in the early days for first person shooters back then as well.>>So I think that I know a lot of people who love this game in the office, choke points are not for me. I like open layouts where I can make decisions that aren't just go through that or die you know and that's what I like about these, that's what I like about battlefield And I've got a lot of games to look forward to this year too. [LAUGH] I mean, I don't know when Titanfall 2 is going to happen, we're going to find out at E3. Doom 3 is a couple weeks away as well. Yeah, but I respect other people's enthusiasm for this game right now, and And I did enjoy what I played. Yeah. I'm gonna play more [INAUDIBLE] stuff. Interesting. Interesting week for [INAUDIBLE]. Interesting month. And yeah, I mean, hopefully an interesting year as we get to the end with Call of Duty. Let us know what you think. Are you gonna pick up [INAUDIBLE] watch yourself Are you going to jump into the open beta? I'm interested [MUSIC] to hear from people who are playing it this week for the first time, actually. And let us know what you think in the comments. Hm, don't know. [MUSIC]

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