Overwatch Vs. Battleborn: Which Is The Better Hero Shooter

Overwatch's Tracer is a perfect example of why Blizzard has created a game with a more appetizing personality than Gearbox. With a press of the E key, Tracer has the ability to warp back to a previous position, restoring the health and ammo she had at that point. Around half of the time one utilizes Tracer's Recall skill, she'll use her adorable English twang to drop the line, "Ever get that feeling of déjà vu?" Now, this is the type of quip that could be obnoxious if delivered imperfectly or too frequently, but it actually winds up being wonderfully charming every time. Combine this with her shrills of joy whenever she uses her Blink skill to warp around the map, and it's clear why Blizzard has made Overwatch's first hero the face of the franchise. With Battleborn, each character feels like the cheesiest character in a Borderlands game, and they never seem to be quiet. Add this to the fact that curse words are bleeped out, despite the fact that they're used frequently, and it often feels like Gearbox missed the mark on Battleborn's personality, which is a shame considering that its visual style is so striking and engaging.

Despite the fact that Reaper's core weaponry is extremely simple to use and understand, his abilities require far more planning and strategy. Shadow Step gives you the ability to teleport from your current position to one of your choice, which is extremely useful for sneaking behind opposing players or getting to an objective quickly. The twist is that teleporting using this method isn't instant like, say, Tracer's Blink. Because there's a one-to-two second delay where you're completely vulnerable at play here, Shadow Step is a terrible choice for escaping losing fights. Luckily, Reaper's other core ability, Wraith Form, gives him the ability to becime completely invisible and glide for a brief amount of time. While you cannot shoot while using Wraith Form, it's a wonderful ability for getting out of trouble, assuming you aren't just going to be followed after a one-on-one gunfight. Wraith Form is also outstanding for setting up Reaper's devastating ultimate, Death Blossom. A spinning 360-degree barrage of shotgun bullets, Death Blossom is great for clearing out an objective, assuming that distance-based heroes aren't able to pop a few bullets into him at range (Reaper is totally vulnerable during this attack).

With Overwatch, the charming hero shooter from Blizzard, launching this week, we want to make sure that you’re as prepared as possible to help your team dominate. Overwatch’s main focus is clearly on the interplay between its dynamic characters, so in order to become competent, you’ll need to understand how every character works. Throughout the week, we’ll be publishing guides on each of the twenty-one launch heroes, three at a time, with the hopes that you’ll be able to recognize certain patterns on the battlefield.

While this tweet has become the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to criticizing Battleborn, it's completely emblematic of a game that doesn't always feel like it knows what it is. Whereas Overwatch maintains its laser-focus on providing the best multiplayer arena shooter experience possible, Battleborn often feels like it wants to be everything at once. While this provides a great deal of content for players to dive into, it also makes it feel like there's far too much present for any given mode to succeed. The campaign, which is widely considered to be the weakest portion of the entire package, is loaded with fairly mundane combat encounters and a story that feels a bit too bare-boned for its own good. Combine this with a standard point-capture mode, a straight up MOBA playlist and a MOBA-like twist mode, and Battleborn begins to lack the focus that Overwatch is priding itself on. Granted, if Overwatch wasn't so damn replayable, one could argue that it's lacking in content, but the sheer dynamism of its combat more than makes up click for more this.

Still, defeating Bastion is actually pretty simple. When he's in his Sentry Configuration, he actually gets a second critical hit zone on his back, so any character that can sneak behind him is going to be able to make short work of him. Needless to say, Tracer and Reaper, with their Blink and Shadow Step abilities, respectively, are awesome against Bastion. In addition, characters like Junkrat and Pharah are really awesome at causing massive amounts of explosive damage to Sentry Bastion. Finally, if you have a coordinated team, you can certainly use Reinhardt's massive shield to absorb Bastion's gunfire while other teammates unleash chaos on him from safety.

There are certain developers out there that make games that are far more polished than everything else out on the market. Blizzard pretty much leads the charge here, and Overwatch is absolutely no exception. In my over one-hundred matches played during the Overwatch beta, I haven't experienced a single dropped frame or moment of lag. Think about that for a second. We live in an age where AAA games routinely launch broken, so for a beta (though this beta is essentially a final build) to be more polished than the final release of its closest competitor, that really says something.