Oh hey, new Overwatch short.

[Zhukov]

Okay, first off, can we keep the butt debate out of this? I'm sure there are a great many important things to be said on that subject, but there are least five other active threads in which to say them. We don't need to make this a sixth.

So... as someone who was a bit disappointed by the first Overwatch short, this one was downright delightful. Dialogue is utter cheese, but damn, that animation. The rooftop chase sequence is gorgeous.

As is often the case with pre-rendered trailers, this makes me wish Widowmaker was actually that mobile in gameplay, rather than being a mostly stationary head-clicker who can fire a grappling hook once every twelve seconds.

Oh, and I like that they actually made an episode in which their poster child character is bested. That might seem like an odd thing to fixate on, but it's actually rather rare. Usually in promotional material you'd just see the main characters beating on mooks with any encounters between them being inconclusive.

 

[The Philistine]

I'm guessing Blizzard will slowly introduce the dynamics of the human/robot, why the assassination took place, and it's impacts to kick off the game. It also seems pretty clear we're gong to wind up with one group of scrappy heroes versus another team of rough/shadowy anti-heroes/villains. But the biggest question I still have is: in a world of time-warping humans, robots, and talking gorillas, why is Widowmaker grey?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Okay, first off, can we keep the butt debate out of this? I'm sure there are a great many important things to be said on that subject, but there are least five other active threads to say them in. We don't need to make this a sixth.

<.< so you're saying they should....butt out?


Very good video; I thought the Poster child of the game was a giant Gorilla though, not Tracer

First off, that was terrible. 10 out of 10 points awarded.

Second, Tracer is now the poster child, whether Blizzard wants her to be or not. They brought it on themselves.

Finally, on to the video at hand. If only the game was even remotely like this, I would be interested. But it's just like Team Fortress 2--awesome videos for the characters, but unappealing gameplay to me. Team shooters are just not entertaining in my book. I mean, great world and interesting story but none of that is going to be in the game. It's just going to be run around and kill the other players. Over and over.

 

[Zhukov]

... why is Widowmaker grey?

She's actually kind of blue-ish. She probably looks grey in the short because it's night lighting.

Anyway, apparently [http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/heroes/widowmaker/] it's because her heart beats really slowly which makes her emotionless to be a better assassin and turned her skin blue as a side effect.

Yes, I realise that makes no sense at all. Somehow I doubt a physiology expert was consulted when they were writing the lore.

I thought the Poster child of the game was a giant Gorilla though, not Tracer

Eh, debatable I guess.

But she's on the box, she was a big part of the first trailer (yes, alongside Winston, the gorilla) and she's on all the banner ads I'm seeing all over the internet.

 

[EternallyBored]

... why is Widowmaker grey?

She's actually kind of blue-ish. She probably looks grey in the short because it's night lighting.

Anyway, apparently [http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/heroes/widowmaker/] it's because her heart beats really slowly which makes her emotionless to be a better assassin and turned her skin blue as a side effect.

Yes, I realise that makes no sense at all. Somehow I doubt a physiology expert was consulted when they were writing the lore.

I thought the Poster child of the game was a giant Gorilla though, not Tracer

Eh, debatable I guess.

But she's on the box, she was a big part of the first trailer (yes, alongside Winston, the gorilla) and she's on all the banner ads I'm seeing all over the internet.

Pretty much everything I've seen has Winston and Tracer as the face of the good guys and Reaper and Widowmaker as the face of the antagonists.

Curious why you didn't like the first trailer as much though, I thought it was a much better character piece than the second, while the second did better world building with the human/robot stuff, I find it hard to choose which I like better.

As for the games plot, it seems weird to me that they are setting it up as a PVP game when the story doesn't seem to support what's going on or why everyone is fighting each other. Especially things like why characters like tracer and Widowmaker would ever team up with each other. The story they've come up with is cool, but it seems like it would be a lot better in a single player or co-op type game, the threads tying the story with the actual gameplay seem tenuous at best.

 

[The Philistine]

Tracer is also the first Overwatch character to make it into Heroes of the Storm. And her tagline was already worked into a card in Hearthstone (Argent Horserider). She's definitely the face of Overwatch.

She's actually kind of blue-ish. She probably looks grey in the short because it's night lighting.

Anyway, apparently [http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/heroes/widowmaker/] it's because her heart beats really slowly which makes her emotionless to be a better assassin and turned her skin blue as a side effect.

Yes, I realise that makes no sense at all. Somehow I doubt a physiology expert was consulted when they were writing the lore.

So she could pink up if her heartbeat picked up. I'm sure that little detail will never be abused by anyone.

Makes about as much sense as other bits of Blizzard lore.

 

[CritialGaming]

I thought the movie was a lot more fun than I find the game. Team based arena FPS's, just bore me. But this movie was awesome, i find it interesting that they are able to pump out these cinematics like this, considering that they've show behind the scenes of Wow cinematics that take them over a year to make a 180 second expansion trailer. It leaves me wondering how many cinematics they had already in the bank when they announced this game, and how much content we will get after release to further expand the universe and story.

Honestly, I am a player who only cares about story. Since the game doesn't have any story, I wont buy it. I'll watch the videos and probably read the comics. But I'm not interested in the actually game at all. Until the single player campaign expansion at least.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Still not digging the Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks style. I hate this cartoony style when it comes to CG animation if you want to do that just make 2D traditional animation.

It just does not look Blizzard-y to me.

And I am so used to their cinematics looking Hyper Photo Realistic like say the Diablo 3 cinematics:


Heck even Wacraft despite being cartoony in its own right has cinematics that looks so photo realistic looking:

 

[Zhukov]

... why is Widowmaker grey?

She's actually kind of blue-ish. She probably looks grey in the short because it's night lighting.

Anyway, apparently [http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/heroes/widowmaker/] it's because her heart beats really slowly which makes her emotionless to be a better assassin and turned her skin blue as a side effect.

Yes, I realise that makes no sense at all. Somehow I doubt a physiology expert was consulted when they were writing the lore.

Actually that does make a kind of sense; if her heart is beating slower she might be getting a lack of oxygen, which causes a blueish-gray discoloration of the skin, because iirc blood is blue unless oxygenated.

That's super unhealthy though <_<

Yeah, but heart rate doesn't control emotion. If I do star-jumps for a few minutes and get my heart rate up I'm not making myself more emotional. Likewise if I sit still and do breathing exercises to lower my heart rate (although I suppose that is kind of calming).

Plus someone whose blood was so de-oxygenated that their skin went blue wouldn't be in any condition to go running across rooftops.

I know, I know, I'm overthinking this.

Curious why you didn't like the first trailer as much though, I thought it was a much better character piece than the second, while the second did better world building with the human/robot stuff, I find it hard to choose which I like better.

First one was a lot of talking with bugger all action.

Blizzard's cinematics team have always been great at action and they can do decent physical comedy when they try, but they can't write dialogue worth a damn.

Mini-Winston was undeniably cute though. And him typing with his feet was a nice touch.

 

[Redryhno]

I'm guessing Blizzard will slowly introduce the dynamics of the human/robot, why the assassination took place, and it's impacts to kick off the game. It also seems pretty clear we're gong to wind up with one group of scrappy heroes versus another team of rough/shadowy anti-heroes/villains. But the biggest question I still have is: in a world of time-warping humans, robots, and talking gorillas, why is Widowmaker grey?

Sci-fi science more than anything. Basically she's outfitted with cybernetics and her heartbeat's been slowed so she lost color in her skin. Why it turned her blue isn't exactly explained beyond "less oxygen, therefore blue skin".

And I'll agree that it was nice seeing a hero get their shit kicked in for once. Nice change of pace, especially for Blizzard the last few years. Really interesting to see how outclassed Tracer was honestly.

But I will say I enjoyed the Winston one more. It just felt like there was more heart put into it than this one. This was more an action sequence that could've honestly done without the dialogue. Felt really off the entire time beyond the Shambali guy's speech, or at least the fragments you heard. Especially that big overdramatic "NOOOO" at the end by crowd member #6.

 

[Dizchu]

The animation is really good, the voice acting is really goofy, the character expressions are nice... overall a good little movie.

Wasn't expecting Tracer to sound like an English teenager though.

 

[The Madman]

I loved it, kinda puts me in mind of a mash up between G.I. Joe's and Pixar. That's also some amazingly smooth and well crafted animation, the stairwell chase and the entire scene where Widowmaker is taking out the rooftop guards are stunning.

How the hell does Blizzard even do this? That's pretty damned close to Pixar quality and yet they're just pumping these movies out. Visually it even puts Valve's 'Meet the ___' series to shame if we're comparing between games here, and those look pretty damned good as well. This is just on a whole 'nother level. Their in-house cinematic tools must be incredible.

Also love the use of music to ramp up the tension, but then music and sound have always been another of Blizzards strong suits.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The faces look a bit generic in that random NPC sort of way, but otherwise very nice. This is the first time I've heard Tracer talk though, and I'm very surprised at her British accent. But maybe that's because visually she reminds me of X-Men's Jubilee.

Shame this game is multiplayer only, meaning I won't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Dose butts though.

 

[Iwantstuff]

Absolutely agree with the dialogue. I feel like they completely whiffed the whole "Begin with a line and then end on the same line but with a slight twist" thing, but the actual video itself made the characters feel like they were an absolute elite force to be reckoned with, which just gives me all the more reason to want to play them.

But I also want more lore, because with these shorts Reaper and Widowmaker are now absolutely the bad guys, and I don't know why the good guys would be on the same team besides "gameplay and suspension of disbelief." But I'm sure there will be a lot more and push comes to shove I don't feel like it'd detract from my enjoyment of the game.

 

[Redryhno]

Absolutely agree with the dialogue. I feel like they completely whiffed the whole "Begin with a line and then end on the same line but with a slight twist" thing, but the actual video itself made the characters feel like they were an absolute elite force to be reckoned with, which just gives me all the more reason to want to play them.

But I also want more lore, because with these shorts Reaper and Widowmaker are now absolutely the bad guys, and I don't know why the good guys would be on the same team besides "gameplay and suspension of disbelief." But I'm sure there will be a lot more and push comes to shove I don't feel like it'd detract from my enjoyment of the game.

To be fair, Widowmaker and Reaper are a part of a merc group, so the reason they were on the same team would be they were paid to be there. Hell, you've even got both of their ties to Overwatch before they were Talon, Reaper if I'm remembering right was basically next in line after Soldier, and Widowmaker was married to one of the previous leaders before she went insane.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

How the hell does Blizzard even do this? That's pretty damned close to Pixar quality and yet they're just pumping these movies out. Visually it even puts Valve's 'Meet the ___' series to shame if we're comparing between games here, and those look pretty damned good as well. This is just on a whole 'nother level. Their in-house cinematic tools must be incredible.

You have to keep in mind Blizzard has been making cinematics for their games for some 20 years. While the earlier games cinematics might not look like much anymore, they've been consistently impressive for their time and have only improved since then. Blizzard certainly got the experience[footnote]And the budget, that also helps[/footnote].

Also, I feel comparing Overwatchs purely cgi shorts to TF2s 'Meet The' is not entirely fair, since the latter are largely made using the ingame engine, with all the limitations that implies. An engine that is about a dozen years old by now, so there is a pretty large technological gap between the two. In this sense, I find it actually pretty damn impressive how good TF2 shorts made in SFM can look, which I guess can be attributed in a large way to the strenght of the art style.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Spoiler: How dare you say such terrible about my OverWatchfu. Just look at how sad you made her.

What the hell is that Life is Strange character doing there?!

 

[SweetShark]

I will say I didn't liked it so much like the first Episode. It was very good, don't get me wrong, but the first one had more exciting material which make me watch it all the time.

For example I really liked that the goons of Reapers aren't stupid like in some similar movies/comics/books/etc. Especially when you see how a single goon react in a specific situation. In other words, I really like delightful Underdog moments. That why we love the "Traitor" Stormtrooper in the new Star Wars movie.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So... as someone who was a bit disappointed by the first Overwatch short, this one was downright delightful. Dialogue is utter cheese, but damn, that animation. The rooftop chase sequence is gorgeous.

As is often the case with pre-rendered trailers, this makes me wish Widowmaker was actually that mobile in gameplay, rather than being a mostly stationary head-clicker who can fire a grappling hook once every twelve seconds.

Oh, and I like that they actually made an episode in which their poster child character is bested. That might seem like an odd thing to fixate on, but it's actually rather rare. Usually in promotional material you'd just see the main characters beating on mooks with any encounters between them being inconclusive.

I'm a little behind on my Overwatch lore. Can you explain it to me from the bottom up? Why did Tracer butt in on the assassination attempt? Is she fighting some kind of rear guard action?

 

[happyninja42]

Eh, I personally am tired of the "Hot, scantily clad female killer, who gets a sexual pleasure from killing people." trope. So I didn't find it all that impressive.