This will be a relatively short blog post (I got some Valiant Comics to read), but it was something on my mind so I figured the easiest way to get it out would be to write a short blog post about it. When Overwatch was released I was sure it would be my game of the year. I had not had that much fun playing a multiplayer game since Team Fortress 2 was originally released (where TF2 is and my feelings on it is a blog post in and of itself). However, months later I still loved the game but hated booting it up at the same time.

I would dare say most of my Overwatch games go badly. I find myself to be a good player, both on the PC and the PS4. I would daresay the matches on PC tend to go better than PS4 but typically I find myself grouped with a team of players who seem to act like they just booted up the game. "Hey, this Genji guy is a ninja and looks cool. I'm playing him." Complaints like this aren't really worth bringing up until you factor in stuff like there is no true "skill ranking" in the game and even Blizzard admitted that the season 1 and season 2 rankings weren't very good, so that leaves you rolling the digital dice and hoping to get someone who realizes what Reinhardt's shield is for. I'd put money on seven out of ten of the games that I get in are bad and I end up not having fun because of it. Now, compare that to something like Titanfall 2 and it is a whole different ballgame.

Titanfall 2 is always fun online. I am sure this isn't the case for some people but it is for me. When I win, when I lose, when it is a close game, when it is a shut out (even against my team) I am still having fun. Some of this might be the fact that players can go off on their own to an extent and still help out the team opposed to something like the previously mentioned games. The only time I've been even slightly bummed out is when I go to play a new (bad) weapon but I can immediately swap out weapons OR even edit my loadout while the game is still going on. Even the single player is super fun and I'm going back to it again this week to finish off the difficulty and collectible trophies.

I've had great matches of Overwatch...and the vast majority of them have been with a party of 3 or more people. If they could just make it to where I can get matched with people who "play their class" (saying that in Jeff's voice) I think I could actually enjoy the game to its full potential. Until then I'll continue to get upset at my team for ignoring the payload.

All that being said, Doom is my #2 because the single player is the best single player of 2016. If they somehow had a good multiplayer mode it is possible this would have been a more complete package for me.

Yeah I tend to agree, competitive mode is absolutely not worth playing alone. I do occasionally have fun playing with friends, but even if half the team is slacking it's a massive detriment and I get steamrolled a lot more often than even in season 1.

I agree about TF2 as well, I haven't had a twitch shooter feel so exhilirating since MW1, and I've been MVP in about a third of the games I play which is a really nice feeling as I struggled to keep a .7 KD in black ops 3, which I eventually sold.

I have to say though, the 3v3 elimination mode in Overwatch really brought me back to it. It's added a cool element with the no respawn thing, it's fast paced, close quarters and strategic, which was missing from the game. It's also a lot easier to get three people together for a party than six. The opportunity to earn three loot boxes a week from it is nice too.

Another nice thing about tf2 is that the verticality and speed really help eliminate camping, people pulling that stuff are much easier to expose and take care of.

@terminallychill: I would add my experience is across all game modes, not just the ranked-competitive. I like the 3v3 but I've found its turned into what WoW pvp was where there are only pre-determined matchups :p

Titanfall 2 is almost never fun online because there are about 30 people who play on PC and they've all prestiged about seven times by now. Also it's just kind of inherently a bad PC game, as is every Call of Duty game past the first two.

Overwatch had been fun for the first couple dozen hours or so. Once you hit the point where solo carrying becomes less and less possible and having a party becomes more and more important, playing the game on your own is just not fun.

@yummytreesap: The prestiging thing really has nothing to do with a player's skill factor, especially given the 2x XP weekends they've done and all the codes people could get. All that means is they played the game a bunch. That being said, I think it really sucks that the PC player base is that low.

Also it's just kind of inherently a bad PC game

Why is it inherently a bad PC game?

Good post Sammo. I'm puzzling over the last statement—it sounds like you might not know Doom has a multiplayer component (unless I'm misunderstanding). You should try it—it's surprisingly good! They just added bots, too.

It's pretty low investment and it evokes that grungy "LAN party" feel of yesteryear. And occasionally you turn into a demon and rip a guy's legs off, so that's nice.

What I like about it is although TitanFall 2 and Overwatch are extraordinary multiplayer experiences, they are HIGHLY rage-quittable for me. When you lose a match in Doom, enemies get to do silly taunts on the score screen and I chuckle and move on.

Maybe it's just me but I feel the same way about Overwatch that you feel about Titanfall 2. With that said I don't play Overwatch competitive barely ever, I'm just not that type of player. I don't take games of quickplay serious enough to get mad at it. I judge my own performance and not the performance of everyone on my team (they're responsible for themselves) and if it goes badly I still had fun playing it and there's always next game. I have almost 100 hours in Overwatch and Im sure I'll have many more playing this way. If I played competitively I don't think I would have stuck with it as long.

Overwatch is this years Rocket League. It's gonna hit really well with most press people because they already have an established group of people that they play any and all games with regularly. It relies on the age old fact that any game is fun when you play it with friends. As an FPS though it's sorta middle of the road. It has some good ideas, but also some pretty crappy execution.

DOTA 2 is always game of the year

As one of these "prestige" people (I'm working on Gen6 now) it's hardly that bad online. There's roughly between 1000-2000 players, and while you may see the same faces here and there, it's not that dramatic. Sometimes I really think the issues Titanfall 2 is having with a player base might be at least somewhat fixed if people stopped calling it's death every five seconds.

That said, though, Titanfall 2 is my GOTY for 2016 as well. Everything about that multiplayer is perfect. The movement, speed, and variety between Titan/Pilot make it such a fluid game. I was a very avid CS:GO, CoD, and Blacklight: Retribution player before TF2 and now I can't seem to hold my own anymore in those after finding my stride in TF2.

@bondfish: I like Heroes of the Storm more. I used to be a League of Legends guy until the community just became too much for me.

@williamflattener Sorry, I know there is a multiplayer mode I just didn't like it at all. :(

@ares42 I think that if they implemented some sort of "true ranking" on the back end that it would help out a lot with the matchmaking.

@kindgineer I also think the "is Titanfall 2 already dead" stuff is very annoying. As long as I get into games consistently I don't really care how large the overall community is. I think it is funny that I bought Mirror's Edge (the new one) on a PSN sale for about $12 and the movement in that is so sluggish compared to Titanfall 2.

The modern Call of Duty or Call of Duty-style game's incredibly short time to kill has always felt like a mechanic put in place to boost the speed of the console multiplayer shooter. On a PC, since nothing else but the method of input (i.e. mouse and keyboard) changes as far as I know, this very short time to kill ends up making the game kind of ridiculous and sort of feel like playing an instagib mode in Quake or something, only way worse because you barely have to aim. When I think of games like this I think of repeatedly dying from people the moment they come into view and far before my 30 year-old brain can react, or shooting people/getting shot in the back.

I can still have some fun with Titanfall 2, but it still feels a little off to me in all those same ways.

This isn't me being snarky or rude, I'm merely trying to make an assumption on what you've said. If most people you are grouped with don't "play their class", then my guess is you are ranked quite low? My experience has been that nearly every single player knows how to play their character of choice, most play to the meta and mostly teams work together, even without voice chat. It may not feel like players know what they're doing at times, simply because we get outplayed and like to blame it on everybody else. I've certainly done the same. Or perhaps we've just had vastly different experiences.

@yummytreesap: Sounds like a lot of the reasons I hear people don't like Battlefield (or similarly styled games) very much. I don't really have that trouble unless I run right into enemy lines (I think my KDR is something like 3.3 right now). Not to mention with objectives and AI enemies they give you stuff to do besides gun for pilots and titans all the time. Sucks you have a bad experience on PC though.

@frodobaggins Also not trying to be snarky but that is a failing assumption. I was ranked 59 or 60 in season 2 (I haven't bothered with season 3 placement as of yet) and here is the link to my stats on PS4 currently. The meme of "get on the freaking payload" exists for a reason...same for memes about Genji and Hanzo. I'm not the greatest player but I do just fine.

@sammo21: season 2 ranking was a 0 - 5000 scale. You're stats arnt loading for me on mobile, something about no season 3 placements. I honestly don't encounter many players that I think that person doesn't know what they're doing. Most people at least know the character they play and most of the time I end up with a good group composition. Maybe we just had different experiences?

maybe the reason i primarily played lucio is that i easily knew my place on the team and could still contribute strongly without being some tight focused esports pro overwatch player (because i'm really, really not)

i love this game but it's way too late for me to ever think of going back. i could never catch up to the level people are at now.

i also don't know what you imply by knowing what reinhardt's shield is for so i'm REALLY sure i'd be out of my league if i go back in. git gud etc.

for some reason i found TF2 more infuriating as everyone was so fucking good at it right off the bat (or cheating, not sure). which hurts cause the game is so fucking rad.

I don't want this to turn into a dump on Overwatch thread, but the game never clicked with me. But I never liked Team Fortress 2 either, so I shouldn't be surprised. Titanfall 2 is freaking awesome. It basically plays into my ridiculously aggressive play style. I love it.

Overwatch is a good game, but it leaves me yearning for more content like a campaign or even a co op levels to point I wish it was more like Battleborn. I can only stomach so much competitive and I need to unwind that isn't their no so great arcade modes or going against bots. Hell, I would trade in all their comics and trailers for just one actual non gimmick level campaign.

It was a super fun beta, but reading all the changes they made (competitive mode, ranking, no longer able to pick the same character) made it go from a maybe to complete pass. I felt the fun casual nature was what made it great, all the focus on rank, k/d, who wins etc just isn't what I would want from that type of game.

@oursin_360: you can have multiples of the same character in arcade mode.

@sammo21: isn't that mode gimped with less characters per team? Also i feel it splits the player base. I dont know the game was fun how it was to me, i just don't think its for me any more.

@oursin_360: splitting the player base? What? How is that any dofferent than, literally, every other shooter with multiple modes?

@ripelivejam: There are very known cheaters on TF2, at least on the Australian servers I frequent. Their competitive mode is also beyond screwed. I still play it occasionally but watching CS:GO and DotA 2 actually get proper attention and ports over to new versions of Source made me slowly very bitter about how I felt like Valve saw me as a TF2 player.

If I made a topic like this it'd be much simpler and just say "I bought Hitman when it was on sale for Black Friday".

Overwatch is a phenomenal game to be sure, it had a great base and the ways they've expanded it with new heroes, skin events and the Arcade modes have been really great. That said it's not become a game I play damn near every day like Heroes of the Storm. It's not even a game I play every week like Heartstone. It's a game I play now and again like most games. That's why I feel okay giving it to Hitman instead and having Overwatch be the runner up. Also Hitman is phenomenal as well. That's a big part of it.

@sammo21: it being different from every other shooter was why i liked it.

But yeah it aint for me anymore, nothing really to argue if you like it you like it.

@oursin_360: not really arguing; its not doing anything new, I mean it really is team fortress 2 or Team Fortress Classic with Blizzard polish is all.