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Overwatch - That time Blizzard made a non-Diablocraft game.

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Okay, so Blizzcon is going down, and Blizzard decided to open it up with showing their new game. It's a new IP (hate that term) in the vein of Team Fortress 2. It has a very Pixar-film style to its art and animation, and the game isn't about classes; it's specific characters. Some of them do things you'd get in TF2, like the dwarf guy is basically an engineer.

 

But then there's Tracer, who can basically blink / go back in time to a previous position.

 

Bastion, the robot that pretty much turns into a turret and wrecks shit.

 

Widowmaker is a sniper that more or less caters to the Quake 2 / 3 mod community that would play railgun-only matches with hookshot. Also she has aimbot hacks built in.

 

And Winston, a goddamn armored gorilla that is huge and will pin you to the wall and shit.

 

And more. The trailer doesn't cover all characters and only 12 are playable at Blizzcon. But yeah. This thread exists so that people can get hyped.

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Also, beta sign-ups are here.

 

I like the look of it, and the goal of an accessible, light-hearted online game makes me happy. It sort of looks like it has too many moving parts to be as accessible as they're hoping, but maybe it's super-intuitive once you're actually in the game.

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Not getting the comparison to Pixar at all but this does look kinda neat. I will try it.

Also, funny how valve makes Dota and then blizz decides to try out an fps. The world's gone MAD.

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Yuck.

 

I know I've given Blizzard shit for their trademark art style feeling over used in the last few years, and while this feels like a departure it also feels extremely uninspired and generic. Is it one of the million saturday morning cartoons on or a throw away disney flick? I can't tell!

 

The gameplay reminds me of shadow run fps more than anything; which isn't bad, but the tone/art does nothing for me. Blizzard is weird now.

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I have to say, this looks really cool. I love team games with lots of ways to play.
It's cute how a lot of the characters are like blizzard tropes, siege tank robot guy, monk robot guy, sniper lady, really big hammer guy, dwarf engineer guy etc.

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Not getting the comparison to Pixar at all but this does look kinda neat. I will try it.

 

Ahh, you'll need to check out this cinematic trailer.

 

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I typically love the Blizzard art style (regardless of how I feel about individual games), despite it arguably being "overdone", but goddamn I think this game looks bland as hell, art-wise.

 

The gameplay does look potentially really fun - some of those abilities they showed off I can definitely see myself getting super into - but I can't tell what the actual structure of the game is? I'm assuming it'll have the standard CP, CTF modes, but that's an old tired trope. Gimme something new!

 

Did they really say they wanted this to be "accessible"? Based on the number of characters and the varied styles of play presented in the gameplay trailer, I find that super hard to believe. That's a lot of information! It'll take a while to acclimate to the way they all interact with each other, let alone how best to play each individual class. Not to mention how they all work best on various maps. Hoo boy.

 

Ugh I wish it didn't look so artistically unpleasing. Everything else looks great.

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It looks interesting! Like the style. It does that typical Blizzard thing of looking over-the-top and silly but being tonally mega serious about itself somehow.. "Time to be a super cool, sleek Reaper dude! And serious!" And then there's a big gorilla...

I'm hyped! A Blizzard FPS. Excited to see how they'll apply the Blizz-polish on the genre.

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That cinematic trailer is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. I was imagining the game would be something more approachable than what we see in the gameplay trailer. Guys, I don't have time to memorize the class features and map details in a new multiplayer shooter. Ah well, we'll have to wait and see how it shakes out. Maybe Blizzard does something really clever that makes this appealing to someone who only wants to pop in every now and then. <fingers crossed>

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This just makes me want to play more TF2. I don't know about this game though...

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Ahh, you'll need to check out this cinematic trailer.

http://youtu.be/2smv8thwYfo

Still not getting Pixar from that. Its far too bland. Maybe older DreamWorks before they started making alright movies? Mostly its just cartoony cg people to me.

I also just remembered how much I dislike blizzard's humor so I'm pulling for this to not have that.

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If it's just Super MNC, only with people playing it, I'll be happy.

Sorta what I'm hoping for, to be honest.

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I'm kinda shocked at peoples' reaction to the art here, especially regarding calling it 'bland' or saying it's the same as everything else. We're in an industry drowning with "NO MAKE THINGS SUPER SERIOUS GRAPHICS" and the last year or two has been a departure from that shit (see: Splatoon).

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I'm kinda shocked at peoples' reaction to the art here, especially regarding calling it 'bland' or saying it's the same as everything else. We're in an industry drowning with "NO MAKE THINGS SUPER SERIOUS GRAPHICS" and the last year or two has been a departure from that shit (see: Splatoon).

 

Splatoon looks good, though! This just looks boring.

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Ok, I didn't see the cinematic trailer.

That was awesome. Can I just keep watching that instead of playing the game?

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Forgot to note, there's no deathmatch mode. Though who knows, maybe demand can change that around. For now though it's not part of the game design. Of course, that has people all mad.

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Can we talk about character design and diversity at least? I'm with a lot of people on "oh okay it's just a Super Tuftoo," but the diversity of the cast has me pretty amped right now. Like, TF2's playable cast is what, 7 white guys, a black guy, and the Pyro (who was never given an explicit identity, iirc? I am not up on my teefs lore).

 

Contrast this to Overwatch, which leads off with a cast of a white british woman, a (presumed?) French woman whose skin has been turned blue, a male gorilla, and a male Death Reaper Being.

 

That's a pretty goddamn strong start, even if the rest of the trailer is built around two white kids.

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TF2 with Dota style heros? I would be interested, but I just don't have the time to get good at multiplayer shooters these days. Maybe they will release a horde mode at some point.

 

Edit: Widowmaker is totally just Kerrigan.

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I really like the look, sorry gentlereaders if that's not your cup of tea but I'll grab hold of any game with a nice clean art style with some really intresting vibrant backgrounds any chance I get(which is not often enough).

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Also really loving the look of this. I feel like the general artstyle might be a little overdone now, but Blizz's art team is just so solid that it looks a step above any other attempt at this style I can think of. Also it just looks fun. I think they nailed the tone which makes it come across a lot less generic. It succeeds at the "saturday morning cartoon" vibe for me because it actually feels like one.

 

I think I might be in love with Tracer. She's so kooky, I feel like we don't get too many characters like that, and when we do it's the super-shrill cutesy character like Tiny Tina or whatever.

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+1 to LOOKS GOOD

 

There are a lot of elements in Overwatch that have been Overdone in concept-art and vis-dev circles, especially for video games, but I think it looks like one of the best, most well-executed examples of this sort of aesthetic that's out there. Half-anime, half-pixar, all Tumblr-bait.

 

Plus, that cinematic trailer has absolutely top-notch A+ No. 1 Five-out-of-Five animation. Oof.

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Without commenting on the gameplay itself, I liked the cinematic trailer much better than the gameplay trailer. Mostly because the gameplay trailer isn't gameplay.

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IMO the gameplay looked tight.  The soldier (rocket) class looked like it'll play like Jedi Knight 2.  I just got a feeling that things were connecting in a very satisfying way.  SMNC never felt like a good shooter to me, but this feels like a strong game.  And I'm also stoked about DOTA style abilities because it'll be the first FPS since Counter-Strike to play around with a match based persistence system.  I really hope they don't do any RPG elements outside the game.

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