One of the oddities of Overwatch is that if you play with a pre-made team, the game gets harder. I go from a ~60% win ratio in random groups to pretty much 0 in a pre-made with friends.

This is somewhat counterintuitive. We figured that playing as a co-ordinated group would make you almost unstoppable. Team comps could be spot on, choke points verbally controlled, ambushes and ultra’s given plenty of warning. All of which is true, but the thing I hadn’t realised is that once you rock up with a 5/6 player group, the game will try to find a matching team of similar numbers to fight against. So while you’re a little more organised than a Quick Play pug, so are they. And unfortunately ‘they’ always seem to be a whole lot better.

Given the rookie status of most of the people I’m playing with, this means we have been getting hammered. We’ve gone 0/10 most nights - we were thrilled (or should that be relieved) when we won one round of a best of three! While our skill level and experience is pretty low, we should be winning at least a few. Even though we’re theoretically being matched with similar skill levels, it’s pretty clear that most grouped players know how to play, and are probably a lot more organised. Team composition becomes much more important to counter opposition strategies - coming up against a well oiled Bastion/Mercy/Reinhardt team is very difficult to overcome without some thought and on-the-fly planning.

Luckily it’s still fun, and it also means you quickly realise that it won’t be enough to just have 5 people you know playing together: you need to communicate and co-ordinate and play as a team, not a bunch of individuals. That may work in random groups, but it falls apart against an organised attack. It’s similar to coming up against a well oiled PVP group in WoW. You quickly realise when the other team is used to playing together, and grudgingly prepare for a short sharp lesson in defeat. The biggest improvement would come from someone taking the leader role and co-ordinating things . Either that or an entire team of D.va’s!

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Having exorcised The Witcher, I’ve been spending some idle hours in Overwatch as a change of pace. As has been much discussed, it’s a superb implementation of the team shooter with the Blizzard signature slickness plastered all over it. Kind of Team Fortress on steroids and with a coat of shiny paint and a wonderfully varied roster of characters.

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Finding a hero that clicks is key and full marks to Blizzard for making each character feel distinct within their designated role. Don’t like whip fast DPS? Choose Soldier 76 over Tracer. Prefer mobility over stomping about? D.va trumps Reinhardt for you (his manic charge notwithstanding). Struggling with the pace? Bastion, despite the jealous trolling, is peerless at plonking in place and holding down a defensive position. The great range of playstyles that are supported is a credit to the dev team and no doubt a large reason for Overwatch’s success - there’s almost certainly a hero that will suit the way you want to play.

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So far I’ve managed to get a good handle on Bastion, Mercy, and more recently D.va. Mercy has been my go-to, which has been interesting having never played a healer. Healing really changes your perspective on the game, and makes a nice change from relentlessly hunting down the enemy. I love her flight-escape mechanism, which seems to be key to playing her well. D.va is also a bundle of fun with her two lives, self destruct, and an almost Bastion-like lock down potential.

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Next I need to select a DPS to round out the specialities, with Tracer and Reaper looking most likely¹. Tracer seems super hard to play well but it sure is fun having that amazing mobility - I somehow managed to get a POTG in my first ever game with her, but that was more good luck than good skill. Her Ultimate is also a little underwhelming - certainly compared to Reapers' unstoppable reaping. Unlike WoW, DPS almost seems the hardest to play, but that may come down to no longer being the twitch gamer I aspired to being in ye olde Quake days.

Another highlight is watching good players - some really good - strut their stuff. Witnessing or watching a single-handed team wipe or epic save is humbling, inspiring, and educational. Mastering D.va’s mid-air-Booster-Self-Destruct combo move is next on my list, having been destroyed by it a few times.

It’s fun having a dip-in dip-out game on hand, which is certainly what Overwatch is: no gear grind and insta-play. And it’s also great playing a game which gets away from the drab landscapes of the typical shooter - Overwatch is all saturated colours and lens bloom. Fascinating too to think that this universe might have been the next WoW² - a story driven version of this universe would be spectacular.

“The swamps and slums again, great”

That super-meta line, along with Firewatch, was probably the thing that got me to finally finish a play through of The Witcher. Yep, finished.

Despite my near fdisk fury, I managed to see the game all the way through, and it feels good to be done. There were definitely too many swamps and slums, but it’s an intriguing and well told tale.

Firewatch seemed to clear my head of the fug the Witcher had cast, and I was totally surprised to find myself looking forward to joining Geralt again and unravelling his story to it’s conclusion. Diving back into a rich fantasy land was fun, helped enormously by the fact that Geralt is a pretty entertaining guy to play. His sharp humour and low tolerance for fools leads to some smart dialogue exchanges, as does his swordplay when words fail. I barely used magic, focussing on swift slaying and reckless attack - and playing easy mode. The story is the thing, not the fighting.

The game is solid if creaking with quest mechanics that remind me of old school Warcraft - back and forth and back and forth between quest giver and destination. One saving grace was unlocking fast travel, the developers finally showing some mercy on we poor suffering players (and their playtesters no doubt) with the sudden appearance of teleport portals.

One criticism is quests that can never be completed because you accidentally trigger the next story phase. A quest to create an epic armour set was only introduced in the penultimate chapter, not completable until the final chapter, and then having collected all the pieces I advanced plot before realising that meant no longer being able to create the fabled suit. Would have been nice to earn that much earlier in the game.

There was also some poor story pacing - introducing what turns out to be a very important character very late, an overlong epilogue, and a strange diversionary chapter where the main story goes on hold while you unravel a love triangle. There were moments where I realised I was really just wanting to follow the story and that the ‘game’ was getting in the way (and hence maybe I should just be reading the books). But each time it pulled back from that precipice with some clever plot twist or promise of more intrigue. And it was a very unusual love triangle!

Overall though I’m pleased to have played it. The rich story, depth of character, and slow journey to all powerful Witcher were satisfyingly delivered despite the engine showing the ravages of time. W2 and W3 are apparently leagues better, with some granting W3 All-Time-Great status, so that’s something to look forward to. Given it took almost 10 years to play W1, I should be ready for them by…2030?

Having been defeated by The Witcher’s timesink boss, I was browsing through my game library for something a little snappier and came across Firewatch. And happily a link to an article of ‘great short games’ confirmed it might be an appropriate palate cleanser.

After a little backstory setup, the game plonks you in Shoshone National Park in the US, where you are going to settle into a ‘firewatch’ tower - as a park ranger and lookout for forest fires. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous game to look at and listen to. The colour palettes are stunning, ranging from lush greenery to orange-drenched sunsets, and they change and adapt in parallel with your progression through the story. The use of light is spot on, creating a wonderful and enveloping environment that begs for idle wandering and exploration¹. I found myself drifting along forest paths and grassy meadows or staring out over a stunning valley, not really paying attention to the story, just enjoying being there.

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It’s perhaps not surprising when you learn that the super talented Olly Moss (he of the best Star Wars posters ever) was responsible for the 2D art. The UI and general aesthetic benefit from the involvement of Panic, who develop impeccably designed Mac and iOS apps.

The sound too is beautifully crafted. There’s a real sense of wilderness and peace - or otherwise - as you wander the fields, valleys, and streams. I turned the music right down to let the environmental ambience wash over, though Firewatch is one of those rare games where I found the music to be appropriately used. There are times where a quiet musical score will be introduced at just the right moment, enhancing rather than distracting from the journey.

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In amongst all this beauty, the storyline could almost be inconsequential, but that too is well delivered and for the most part works - especially if you make sure to dive into the conversation options. There are a few jarring moments, mainly to do with the interruption to the idyll established early on, but the fundamental tale of people dealing with life changing events is built nicely and becomes quite emotionally affecting. And only 5 hours: recommended.

During my inexplicable WoW hiatus¹ I’ve been trying The Witcher for the 3rd time. I’ve installed and uninstalled it twice in the past, being frustrated each time by the amount of courier quests which take you from one end of the map to the other and back. That plus badly signposted irreversible decisions led to furious HDD wipes before even getting through the first chapter.

This time I decided to fully cheat and have a thorough walkthrough open while playing, as well as a recommended talent build ready to go as I played. Armed with this knowledge, and being better prepared for what I was getting into, I rerolled Geralt and plunged into the thick of it. And it was better. Knowing most of the map already mean I could more easily adjust to the constant back and forthing, and the walkthroughs helped when it came to some decision point where I wasn’t sure what was going on (or worried about what was).

I rumbled through Chapter I, completing it this time, and actually enjoying the complexity of the questing and characters. The European heritage of the game shines through, both in the depth of the world building (based as it is on Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels) and the adult nature of the NPCs. There’s plenty of swearing, politics, racial tension, and sex on offer. Bad, women-as-reward ‘achievement’ sex, but at least it acknowledges that sex is a thing. There’s all sorts of sub plots, hints at a rich back story, and complicated cross threaded storytelling. It’s very different to standard Dungeons and Dragons based fantasy gaming, and all the better for it.

Feeling confident, I ventured heartily into Chapter II, which takes you into a city for the first time. The story changes to a murder-mystery of sorts, as you try and eliminate suspects whilst investigating the denizens of Vizima. Again there are plenty of complicated stories and characters, and the distances to be traversed are thankfully shorter (though still with plenty of back and forth).

The super annoying ‘drunk’ mechanic is, well, super annoying (you basically can barely see or move for what feels like 30 real-time minutes - though you can force the game to sleep it off by meditating). And the clever idea of using day/night phases to show/hide different NPCs is fun for a while, but eventually a bit tiresome. Having to meditate until dawn to generate an NPC, then immediately meditate again ‘til midnight isn’t particularly thrilling gameplay.

Notwithstanding these tics, I slowly pieced together what was going on, and felt that the game was nearing it’s first story climax. I’d solved the mystery, had a suspect in my targets, and was ready to spring the trap… … only to find that there was what looks like another 10 hours of gameplay before that was going to happen. 10 hours of trudging through a swamp, more courier quests, more sloowwww collecting of objectives. Slightly incredulous, I mentioned this to a friend who recently finished (and is working on Witcher 2) who laughed and confirmed that the accursed swamp sub-chapter is indeed frustrating and time consuming. Even with all the positives of the story, I couldn’t face committing more time into what was already 15+ hours of play to only be half way through Chapter I.

It must be a 70+ hour game at this rate, which is beyond my capacity to complete I fear. Which is kind of an odd position when I think of my /totalplayed in WoW: months, if not years. But an MMO somehow offers something different, the persistence of your characters, the evolving storylines, and the relationships with other players. The timesinks in The Witcher are pretty obvious and pretty weird, given there’s no financial reward for the developer in making us take longer to do something. MMOs on the other hand have got the timesink hiding down to a fine art. Catch 1000 fish but get a great hat? Why not.

The feeling that I’m wasting time playing single-player games is hard to ignore, even though it doesn’t really make sense - it’s ‘wasting’ far less time than an MMO. That feeling is something I guess I was trying to overcome with this latest endeavour, but while I haven’t deleted it off my HDD yet, I can feel the moment fast approaching.