After work Thursday morning I stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up a copy of Overwatch for PC (I normally download games, but have gone over my 400gb bandwidth cap for two straight months and run the risk of getting forced into a higher tier plan). I didn’t follow Overwatch much before its release, and never played any of the beta’s, however I couldn’t escape the buzz around the launch of Overwatch. Everything I had heard about it was overwhelmingly positive, and after being disappointed by Battleborn I figured Overwatch would better live up to expectations.

I spent a few hours with the game this weekend and am already hooked! Overwatch’s matches are fast paced and brief, compared to the drawn out, boring matches of Battleborn. I know they’re two different games, but it’s hard to avoid comparing the two. What’s even better is that just about every match feels competitive, I’ve never encountered a match where it didn’t at least feel like my team could win. Most of the matches I’ve played end up in an overtime period and it’s been exhilarating to just barely squeak out a win at the last minute of a match.

The list of characters available at the start of Overwatch seems daunting, however it’s pretty easy to learn how to play a character. The ability to swap hero’s each time you spawn (if you wish) further encourages experimentation. If you start a match with a character you’ve never played and realize you’re not going to have fun during the match, you can switch to another hero before your next respawn with no penalty.

Despite the variety of heros available, I haven’t been able to get away from playing as Pharah. I’ve just had too much fun to try anyone else. I love being able to shoot anywhere in the vicinity of enemies (or groups of enemies) and doing enough splash damage to take them down. I might not be playing well, but it feels like I’m contributing to the cause even if I’m not racking up kills (or eliminations).

Overwatch looks and runs great on both my desktop and my laptop. I recently picked up an Acer Aspire V15 Nitro – Black Edition (GTX 960M 2GB, 2.60GHz i7, 8GB RAM) and it runs great on high settings while still being smooth and looking great, which is awesome! The UI and menus of Overwatch are also expertly crafted, and everything feels just right.

Everything about Overwatch just feels perfect. The gameplay is easy to pick up and fun for everyone, and the objective based matches are always enjoyable and never feel one sided. The loot box system is a great way to make players want to play ‘just one more match’ to level up and earn a new box, however even without a reward system I’d want to keep playing for hours because every moment of Overwatch is absolutely thrilling.

I can’t wait to jump back into Overwatch. I can see myself playing a match or two a day for months and months to come.