Zero Punctuation: Overwatch vs Battleborn

[crimsonspear4D]

You'd think that since Yahtzee laments at dry game seasons so often he'd use that time to make retro reviews or editorials or his "special moments in gaming" videos that he used to do back in the day. Hell, he could even do some fan mail readings and tell us what whiny pricks we are.

I guess he's gotten comfy with all that Escapist money, since becoming their last money maker.

I love how this game pisses off people on both sides of the "I'm very serious about gender politics" spectrum, and you have a gajillion people who are playing it and having fun with it, it's probably made a ton of money already, proving truly how small the group of screaming malcontents truly is.

I'm not so sure about both sides. The people who get painted with the SJW brush seem to be having a great time playing the game and shipping all the female characters with each other.

Well, I don't know about """SJWs""", but I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE me some lesbians. Tracer/Widow and Zarya/Mei are my otp 4 life, son!

 

[Erttheking]

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I'm slowly becoming a big fan of Pharah/Mercy myself.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Wow, this video seems to have a lot more comments than normal, I guess people really want to weigh in on which game they pref.... it's about the fucking butt again. Can't you guys just go read through one of the old threads where you already brought up all of these arguments several times? Just go read one of your old posts, pat yourself on the back, say "mhmm, I showed that person, they must surely believe my side now", and MOVE ON. I feel as if I've transcended to a new level of disappointment.

OT: Out of the two games, I've only played Overwatch. While I definitely agree that it's overpriced at 60, I think it's fair at 40. I've already gotten my money's worth out of it and will probably spend 100s of hours more on the game. Add the free updates that will be coming down the pipeline and the huge community, I'd say I'm pretty excited for the future of this game. I've done my best to get decent with as many heroes as possible. So far I'm thoroughly enjoying:
McCree
Reaper
Pharah
Soldier 76
Zarya (probably my favourite)
Roadhog
Junkrat
Lucio

I hate versing:
Mercy (her ult is the swingyest in the game and she gets it so fast)
Genji (fucker just jumps around most of the time)
Tracer (mostly because I'm jealous of the people who play her well)
Widowmaker (the most unfun thing in this game is flanking a team only to be shot in the face due to wall hacks as you round a corner)
Spamzo

 

[The Enquirer]

It's already dropped by 50% since launch.

Where did you hear that? They just published stats recently (as in today) that they grew to ten million players, which surpasses even the open beta numbers.

Number of players is meaningless. Active players is the real number. Blizzard is famous for reporting the former and not the latter.

My point being that I hadn't heard anything regarding active players and was wondering where he had heard that because, as you said, we don't get those numbers and I was wondering if the person in question actually had a source or was just talking out of their ass.

 

[camazotz]

I can't say I disagree with Yatzhee at all here, other than that I've been enjoying Battleborn a lot more, and for at least one reason he didn't mention: it's got SPLITSCREEN. Yeah! So my son and I can play it together. That, plus the campaign missions and solo play make Battleborn a better fit for my house.

Oerwatch was fun but after 3 hours I felt like I had seen all the game had to offer. It's kinda like eating popcorn....if you had 20 flavors of popcorn to eat, but it's still popcorn in the end, lots of empty carbs. But the popular consensus online seems to be Overwatch is the be-all and end-all so.....yeah.

 

[camazotz]

I'm glad Yahtzee constantly mentions his disfavor for multiplayer game so I don't sound like the only solitary loser on the gaming forums. Godforbid you ask a younger gamer if a game like LoL or Call of Duty has a single player mode, you'll get laughed out of the park.

Totally with you here. I actually bought Overwatch because of the story trailers and thought it was going to have some sort of campaign or story element in the game itself, and was totally surprised (due to my poor research, I guess) that it was nothing but shorty, frothy online arena matches essentially. My bad. But still.....why couldn't Blizzard have done a campaign mode, with offline play? Why waste all that effort on a story that's essentially not even in the game?

 

[Dalisclock]

Totally with you here. I actually bought Overwatch because of the story trailers and thought it was going to have some sort of campaign or story element in the game itself, and was totally surprised (due to my poor research, I guess) that it was nothing but shorty, frothy online arena matches essentially. My bad. But still.....why couldn't Blizzard have done a campaign mode, with offline play? Why waste all that effort on a story that's essentially not even in the game?

I was interested in the trailers, but once I heard it was pretty much a team shooter ala TF2, I realized nothing in the trailers was going to matter(and it seems I was right). and my interest pretty much dropped off. I'd love to see a full length Overwatch film or a SP game exploring the world and characters, but it doesn't seem like that's in the cards so I've kind of stopped paying attention.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I wondered if Yahtzee was going to review either one of these games, so I guess it makes sense he would compare the two in the review.

...Wait, he commented about TracerGate? OH GOD YAHTZEE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!

Quick, everyone into the bunker before the flame war starts!

Someone didn't scroll down...

Tis too late, the wars of flame have begun.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

Can't really see the drought with Fire emblem Fates being released in the Australia now as well. Only after that one can talk about a dry season.

Considering his opinion of Valkyria Chronicles I doubt Fire Emblem is on Yahtzee's radar.

Look at her poses here. Which one sounds out? You have 3 cocky playful poses then one where she is just standing there almost saying "look at my butt." Its not playful, its not cocky, it just is, there is no character to it. Its the kind of pose you just use when your mind farts and you cant be bothered.

They all look pretty bland and lifeless apart from the one where she's sitting down. I like the new pose though.

 

[Yuuki]

Can someone explain what Yahtzee means by "full price"? Overwatch is $40 USD for the base game.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I loved that aside to talk about how the concept of buying a game has changed. I too dislike the thought of investing in permission to run around a server until the lights go off.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Can someone explain what Yahtzee means by "full price"? Overwatch is $40 USD for the base game.

On the Blizzard store for Australia, the basic edition is $70, the Origins edition is $90. And the basic edition is not available as a physical game so X1 and PS4 players are paying $90 just to get on the ground floor - unless the basic is on Live or PSN, but I can't check that at the moment.

So yeah, I loved everything about Overwatch but at it's current price point I can't justify it. If it had a campaign, maybe, but it didn't.

 

[Metalrocks]

overwatch is fun and im not even great at MP games. but, at least it gives you the option to play against the AI which is pretty welcoming for me. every now and then i do play against others.

and dont worry, i also hate borderlands. didnt see the appeal in it.

 

[EMWISE94]

A fine video Mr Croshaw, but I will comment on one thing, the Tracer pose change wasn't a cave in from Blizzard due to one person, Jeff Kaplan went on record stating that even the internal team didn't like the pose so the change was inevitable.

 

[RaikuFA]

Can someone explain what Yahtzee means by "full price"? Overwatch is $40 USD for the base game.

On the Blizzard store for Australia, the basic edition is $70, the Origins edition is $90. And the basic edition is not available as a physical game so X1 and PS4 players are paying $90 just to get on the ground floor - unless the basic is on Live or PSN, but I can't check that at the moment.

So yeah, I loved everything about Overwatch but at it's current price point I can't justify it. If it had a campaign, maybe, but it didn't.

It's retail price on the PSN as well.

 

[StatusNil]

Why waste all that effort on a story that's essentially not even in the game?

Because "Project Titan", it was supposed to be the MMO successor to WoW. They likely worked on the back story for years before canceling it and piecing together Overwatch from the rubble.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It wasnt someone saying "sexist" it was someone saying "I don't think she would pose like that."

"I don't think she would pose in such a sexist way".

It's not sexist, it's just sexually suggestive.

Right you are, but the outcry was over sexism, not the perception of what Tracer's "character" would and wouldn't do.

Actually, no. The original complain was because it was "out of character".

The "character" everyone decided she had before the game was even out, sure.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

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I feel like everyone wants to view this Tracer thing in purely black and white terms, either as another gamergate tantrum or another SJW overreach. I feel like it's possible to have complicated opinions about it that aren't so absolute.

Was that pose objectifying? Yes, unequivocally. It was fairly standard video game/comic book 'girl who wears impractical armour that also happens to be sexy' trope.

Did it 'undermine so much of the good they had done'? I don't think so. At the risk of being accused of mansplaining, I think it wasn't necessary to imply that everything they had done was at risk because of one pose. I hate this internet mentality of tearing strips off people the moment they put a foot out of line. I prefer the softly softly approach at first.

Was it bad that Blizzard responded the way they did? Yes and no. I think it's both troubling that Blizzard can be so easily influenced by a single opinion, especially in a team-shooter like Overwatch where balance is king, but I also think it's good that they pay attention to their community.

I'm ambivalent, in other words. Really, I feel like the big problem with this is that the internet compulsively divides into camps to fling rocks at each other whenever something like this happens. As far as 'controversies' go, this is so minor it doesn't have its own passport.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

It wasnt someone saying "sexist" it was someone saying "I don't think she would pose like that."

"I don't think she would pose in such a sexist way".

It's not sexist, it's just sexually suggestive.

Right you are, but the outcry was over sexism, not the perception of what Tracer's "character" would and wouldn't do.

Actually, no. The original complain was because it was "out of character".

The "character" everyone decided she had before the game was even out, sure.

Well all we know of Tracer's character is what we've gotten from the various trailers and shorts - all (or most) of which were released prior to the game itself since there's no narrative framework in the game to inform us of her traits. Plus since the complaint came from a closed beta tester they were basing their opinion on the in-game information as well.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It wasnt someone saying "sexist" it was someone saying "I don't think she would pose like that."

"I don't think she would pose in such a sexist way".

It's not sexist, it's just sexually suggestive.

Right you are, but the outcry was over sexism, not the perception of what Tracer's "character" would and wouldn't do.

Actually, no. The original complain was because it was "out of character".

The "character" everyone decided she had before the game was even out, sure.

Well all we know of Tracer's character is what we've gotten from the various trailers and shorts - all (or most) of which were released prior to the game itself since there's no narrative framework in the game to inform us of her traits. Plus since the complaint came from a closed beta tester they were basing their opinion on the in-game information as well.

I'm with Yahtzee on this - to me it just shows what little faith Blizzard had on what they were doing.