My (Late) Overwatch Wishlist and Review
I finally caught up with the times and got a PS4. Along with that, I had to pick up a copy of Overwatch. I’ve been seeing screenshots, memes, and every other form of post imaginable about Overwatch for months.
Surprisingly, it lived up to all the hype. I’ve been playing it every night since I got it (Finally hit level 25. Hello, Competitive Play), and I’m not stopping anytime soon.
The character designs are amazingly detailed and the characters themselves are distinct and diverse, with various body types, skin tones, and backgrounds. It’s a refreshing and much needed step in the right direction in an industry where the majority of the protagonists and playable characters are mostly men, mostly white, and the women are little more than fan service. Don’t get me wrong; I like men, I like white people, and I like
Look at that fucking diversity. Look at those different colors and shapes and sizes. Fantastic
fan service, but too much of anything is never a good thing, you know? Overwatch more than delivers in terms of variety and representation. It’s an all you can eat buffet of bad asses with several delicious choices.
In addition to all of this, the gameplay is incredibly fun and easily addicting. It’s not hard to get the hang of, but there’s still a challenge when it comes to mastering each hero’s moves and recognizing who is best suited for a particular map or situation. Speaking of maps, the various environments in which the gameplay takes place are awesome. It’s obvious how much work was put into them, and that work definitely pays off because the settings are just as detailed, varied and beautifully rendered as the characters. My personal favorites are Route 66 and and Ilios because it doesn’t take as long to get to the objectives and it’s easy to push members of the opposing team to their deaths.
Ilios
Route 66
That said, while Overwatch deserves all the praise it receives, it’s not perfect. Soooo, here’s my wishlist for things I’d personally love to see in Overwatch, which I believe would help it achieve perfection:
- More environmental interaction. I wanna be able to like, shoot a car or barrel of volatile chemicals so that it either blows up or leaks toxic acid or something. I’m a simple girl. I just wanna fuck more shit up in as many ways as possible, you know?
- More Pharah skins. I love her. I want to see more. Different silhouettes, too. For example, Widowmaker has several completely different outfits, while Pharah’s are more or less all the same. Unfair.
See? Look at this injustice, Pharah gets slightly modified repaints while the finest international fashion designers handstitch each and every one of Widowmaker’s outfits out of silk and unicorn thread. U n f a i r. - Really, more skins for all the characters would be great, and not just your standard “we’ll change the color” stuff; I wanna see full makeover treatment. It seems like some heroes get a wide range of skins while others get “eeeeh, just change the colors and throw on a pattern or two.”
- More play modes because I’m greedy and I want more of the goodness Blizzard has bestowed upon me.
- Character creation in upcoming installments. Like how Soul Calibur introduced it in SC3. I love character creation. Maybe I’m just a narcissist, but I have this strong desire to insert as much of myself as I can into the games I play. Completely completely characters would grant me this wish.
- Story! You’ve given us such interesting characters, and it’d be cool to learn more about them through gameplay. Maybe optional storymode DLC for each of the characters? Idk. More substance. Or spin-off games. I know that we can just read their backstories, and I love reading, but I wanna play them out too. Maybe I’m greedy. I just wanna know everything about everyone from a firsthand perspective. Especially Pharah. Did I mention that I love Pharah?
Overall, even if I never get a single thing on my wishlist, I don’t plan on putting Overwatch down at any point in the near (or even distant) future. Sure, I was late to the party, but the party is still going strong.
~DeLa Doll
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DeLa Doll is a culture writer, cosplayer, and artist based in Florida. She has been writing professionally since 2016, with some of her work being featured on sites like HuffPo and /Film. She is an advocate for meaningful diversity and representation in media, a gamer, a mom, and an avid user of DIY hair dye.
