The opening twenty minutes of No Man’s Sky sum up the whole of the experience better than two years of marketing and interviews ever could. You’re an anonymous explorer crashed on a planet you’ve never visited before, desperate to find the resources you need to repair your ship and leave. What follows is an awkward fumbling around with systems you don’t quite understand, broken up by frequent moments of curiosity and awe from the world around you. Once you actually lift off and make your exit, a question enters your mind, the same one that so many asked in the lead-up to the game’s release.

“What do I do?”

At any one point, No Man’s Sky will offer you a multitude of answers to that question, many of which are in conflict with one another. At its best, it’s a spectacle; a journey though an endless series of undiscovered worlds, all waiting for you to make your mark on them. At its worst, it’s a clunky, unfocused and often self-conscious experience that seems to frequently get in its own way.

The time spent in your first star system can be rough. You see a cluster of planets in front of you that can be visited in any order you’d like. Once you make your choice, you pulse drive forward to your destination. The feeling of breaking through the atmosphere of a new planet to unveil its terrain never gets old. Even if what you land on ends up being underwhelming, all you need to do is look up at the stars to see a handful of other planets waiting for you, like a long table full of gifts that only you can unwrap. Somewhere out there is a world that you’ll want to stay in for hours, either due to its beauty, plentiful resources, or both.

It’s the latter of those two where things get complicated. Very quickly you’ll find that you can’t carry a lot in your suit or on your ship, so your goal is find upgrades for them as soon as possible. That’s where the mining comes in. Resources are everything in No Man’s Sky. You need them to refill your life support, to fuel your ship, to craft new items or to interact with the NPCs sitting in the bases you stumble upon. The limiting of those resources and your slow ascent towards being able to do more with them is the whole of the gameplay loop, turning your aimless exploration into a grind more often than not, especially in the early game. You’re encouraged to discover and file everything you see on a planet and are rewarded with credits for doing so. Those credits can then be spent on bigger purses to put more resources in, which will then lead to more credits to buy bigger purses for even more resources and so on.

For the sake of variety, you can visit monoliths to uncover secrets about one of the alien races. This almost always leads to you learning more of their language, which is to your benefit when, you guessed it, trading resources. There are only three races; the ertzaz-Klingon Vy’Keen, the business-minded Gek, and the heavily-visored Korvax, and typically one will be the dominant presence in a particular star system. Depending on how your interaction goes, you can build or ruin your standing with their people. The interactions themselves are very thin. They will almost always be seated alone in a base and you can make a choice that will either end in a binary pass or fail condition. You then leave to never see or speak to them again.

Ironically, it’s the frequency of these interactions and the lack of variety within them that makes the world of No Man’s Sky seem infinitely smaller. In the whole of the galaxy, there are only three sapient races. Also, they landed on all of these planets before you discovered and named them. Their inclusion feels tacked on and undercooked, which can be said for a lot of the problems with No Man’s Sky as a whole.

It feels as if the notion of endless unhindered exploration was so overwhelming that goals and barriers were added at the last minute, even if just remind you that you’re playing a game. The story, which barely exists, feels like it’s there simply because someone decided it needed one. Atlas is leading you to the center of the universe because… you needed an end goal. Sentinels exist everywhere because you needed an antagonist. But did you really?

Exploration is only appealing with the promise of finding new things. The procedural nature of No Man’s Sky means that it won’t take you very long to realize how similar those things are to each other, each new planet starting to feel a little too much like one you’ve been on before, as if you were just sold on a brand new Malibu Stacy doll only to find that nothing has changed other than her hat. Soon enough, every animal starts to feel like a jumble of the same body parts. You will enter a base already knowing what to say to the bored Vy’Keen waiting in his seat; already having figured out the pattern to the puzzle terminal because you’ve solved dozens before it.

All of the “game” parts of No Man’s Sky seem designed specifically to prolong this feeling for as long as possible, to keep you on the other side of the curtain, unaware of the Wizard’s machinations. It seems so terrified that you’ll find the seams that you’ll want to stop playing as soon as that moment occurs.

My favorite time with the game was rather late in my playthrough, long after I’d translated most of the alien languages, built a hyper drive, and bought a ship so large that I’d never fill all of the slots in its inventory. I’d leveled my multi-tool so much that mining and combat were both trivial. Literally all the game needed me to do was go forward.

But instead I stopped. I quite liked the planet I was on. The climate was manageable and there were gorgeous trees everywhere I turned. At night the sky would turn purple and those same trees would seem to glow in the distance. I parked my ship at a beacon and just started to walk, throwing on my favorite podcast in the background as I explored. Soon enough, I found a complex series of caves that seemingly never ended. I must have spent a solid hour simply walking around, taking in the sights, wondering where this was all going to lead me. When I finally returned to the surface, I looked up to see a series of ominous rock formations, just flowing in the air above me, like islands. I stood there for a while, just taking it all in, amazed by its beauty but somewhat saddened that I had no one to share it with.

That sense of solitude, feeling insignificant in a vast world that doesn’t care if you interact with it is at the heart of No Man’s Sky. Yet there is nothing quite like finding a place within it that speaks to you in a certain way, even if only for a brief moment. You will, most likely, be the only person to ever see it. There is something equally empowering and tragic about that.

That is why, for all of its various faults, No Man’s Sky is often hard to put down. It’s a confliction of ideas, seemingly pushing you away from this untethered experience that it’s afraid of you having, while being equally unaware that’s where it’s greatest strengths lie.

Six Heroes left, and it could argued that I saved some of the very best for last.

Offense Heroes are your aggressors, getting kills via flanking and/or highly damaging weapons. For experienced FPS players, these are often the ones that feel the most familiar, pulling mechanics and playstyles from other popular games. As always, I've ranked them in order of personal preference in regards to their usefulness.

MCCREE

Breakdown: The fact that McCree is due for a nerf very soon is a testament to how much of a threat he's become in the early game. One of the most popular Heroes to pick, he's effective at both medium and close ranges and can act as a sort of "anti-flanker", able to stop many of the other Offensive Heroes in their tracks.

The Peacekeeper is a six-shooter that deals great damage per shot, making many of the lower-HP Heroes easy quick kills. There is a damage fall off from a distance to consider, though the goal with McCree is to get up close and trap the enemy one-on-one. That's where the threat of his alt-fire comes in. "Fan the Hammer", as it's known, will empty his clip in a shaky burst of fire. If every shot connects, it will kill all but the sturdiest Tanks in one go.

The Flashbang-Fan the Hammer combo is the thing that makes McCree so dangerous. The Flashbang will stun the enemy just long enough to you to steady your aim, making sure the burst is concentrated. This means that a McCree that isn't in cooldown has the potential to essentially one-shot kill anyone that gets close to him. The distance on the Flashbang takes some getting used to, but it can stop certain Ultimates if timed correctly.

McCree's walk speed isn't great, so his Combat Roll is his best (well, only) defensive tool. It will reload the Peacekeeper upon use, so it also works as a way to immediately prep a Fan the Hammer after taking a few primary shots.

His Deadeye Ultimate will target all of the enemies in his field of view, setting them up for a string of instant kills after they've been locked on. The amount of time it takes to lock-on is dependent on the distance and health remaining of the target. The element of surprise is key to using Deadeye as McCree will loudly announce what time it is before doing so and moves very slowly during the targeting. Being out of sight is the difference between "High Noon" and "High NoGAHhhh"

As mentioned, McCree is slow and doesn't work at long range. He has a looooong walk back to objectives without a teleporter and being out in the open can be hard to escape from if you're spotted. You also don't want to get caught on cooldown, as the threat of a Flashbang is going to be the primary threat to keep people on their toes. His Ultimate is the only tool he has against groups and is very obvious. McCree is a very strong character but you also need to be clever.

Heroes to Target: The flankers, mainly Reaper and Tracer. They have to come to you and will regret doing so. Wait for Reaper to get out of Wrath Form so he has no way to escape your Flashbang. Supports and Tanks will also make for easy targets.

Heroes to Avoid: McCree's range issues make him easy pickings for snipers. Genji is also the one flanker to watch out for since he can actually Deflect the Flashbang.

GENJI

Breakdown: Genji is a menace. He's a highly mobile flanker that can run into a fight, tear things up, and be gone before anyone even knows what happened. A highly skilled Genji can wipe out an entire team on his own and many players think twice about even attempting to engage him, since he has a lot of versatility that gives him an advantage in direct encounters.

Like his brother Hanzo, Genji has the ability to wallrun, with the addition of a double jump. This is key because a Genji player is always moving in and out of battle, repositioning to create better opportunities for himself. When you see good Genji players (and I'll fully admit that I'm not one) perpetual motion is the recurring theme.

His primary Shuriken is a three shot burst that flies straight and is good for a longish to medium range. The alt-fire is a horizontal spread that comes out a little bit faster and is better for up close and even occasionally small groupings of enemies.

Swift Strike is a forward charging slash that doubles as a mobility tool. If it manages to be the killing blow, the cooldown disappears, making it possible to pull of some insane Shinobi maneuvers on a string of weakened opponents. Genji will bolt forward in whatever direction he's facing, so this means that he can also get sent into the air or up on a platform. In combination with his passive abilities, he should be able to get out of a sticky situation fairly quickly.

Deflect is his most important tool for offense and survivability and is what makes him such a dangerous Hero to face off with. Any bullets sent his way will simply bounce off of him and back to wherever he's facing. The most frequent use of this will be for countering a frazzled enemy that's firing as you run towards them, but the Deflected shots can also be used to take out another target, like a nearby Support. It will negate any melee damage and can even counter some Ultimates. Getting good with the timing of Deflect is one of the most important skills to master as a Genji player and will literally save your life more times than you can count.

Upon activating the Dragonblade Ultimate, he will wield his sword for 8 seconds, dealing high damage to anyone within melee range, so it's obviously best used on groups in a path within a short distance. The neat thing about Dragonblade is that Genji's other abilities like Defect and Swift Strike will still work, so you aren't nearly as vulnerable as most other Heroes when using their Ultimates.

If you're new to the game, Genji may as well not exist on the Hero selection screen. He is arguably the hardest Hero in game to master and has to put in work to achieve results. You need reflexes and a gameplan, as a Genji running into the battlefield with neither is just an easy target with nowhere to run. There are also a few Heroes with weapons you can't Deflect, making a one-on-one fight with them a tricky proposition.

Heroes to Target: Genji is one of Bastion's strongest counters, able to either run behind and flank his weak spot or simply Deflect all of hit Sentry fire back at him. The same applies to a Torbjorn turret, though it's tricker. Widowmaker can also have a hard time since you're a fast target and can sneak up on her.

Heroes to Avoid: Zarya, Winston, Symmetra, Mei - anyone with a weapon immune to your Deflect.

REAPER

Breakdown: Man, what a dumb character. Sorry. I'm trying not to editorialize too much in this but Reaper stands out in a field of dramatically more inspired designs. This does not stop him from being one of the most frequently chosen Offense Heroes, however. He is one of Overwatch's most dangerous close range threats, able to move through enemy lines easily and sneak up on you before you notice the shotgun pointed at your face.

Reaper is all about flanking. He's not much of a team player and will mostly run off to do his own thing, no doubt whilst listening to Korn on his Walkman. Sneaking up and getting the kill with his Hellfire Shotguns is always the gameplan. The slow fire rate is made up for by the damage output, though you need to be constantly up close and harassing to be the most effective.

As a loner that will likely never be hanging out with a Support, Reaper's survivability is helped by picking up Soul Orbs, which are drops that only you can see from the corpses of enemies. Without these, his only other way of staying alive is via Wrath Form. It has a multitude of uses, but it will primarily be for sneaking in or out of a contested area. He's completely immune from damage and will move faster, with the added bonus of removing any debuffs that may be on him at the time. Shadow Step has similar utility, allowing him to teleport to a location within sight. This is key to taking out turrets, snipers and anyone else that can't deal with Reaper up close.

The Death Blossom Ultimate is very basic, causing him to shoot wildly in a circle, taking out anyone that the stray bullets may touch. It's useful for clearing a path or even dropping in the middle of a control point, but keep in mind that Reaper can still be killed in mid-animation, stopping the Ultimate completely. It's best as a follow-up to a set-up move, making it safe to execute while still ensuring the kills.

Range is an issue with Reaper, making him a high risk Hero to play, especially if you don't have confidence in your ability to get in close without being seen. He's loud and not exactly subtle, so anti-flanking can shut down a lot of his tricks. He also leaves himself wide open if he teleports right in sight of an enemy, giving them time to aim right for the shape of your head before you've even materialized completely.

Heroes to Target: All of the Tanks, barring Zarya, can have a very hard time dealing with Reaper. He is one of the only close range counters to Mei, able to Wrath Form out of her freeze. He's also another solution for the annoying Bastions or turrets that your teammates can't reach.

Heroes to Avoid: Reaper has problems with most of the other Offense Heroes in the game. There is nothing he can do to Pharah, since you can't teleport into the sky and have no way of damaging her. McCree can flashbang Reaper and stop him from Wrath Forming away and both Tracer and Genji are faster with better ranged options.

PHARAH

Breakdown: Pharah controls the skies in Overwatch. She has one of the highest damage outputs in the game and will be very hard to stop if the enemy team isn't equipped to deal with her. She's able to get to places most other Heroes can't and generally dominates open spaces.

When using the Falcon Rocket Launcher, it's best to remember the old rule - "don't aim where they are, aim where they are going to be". Hitting mobile targets directly is highly damaging but often not possible, so the splash damage and knockback from the rockets are going to make up a majority of your output. This obviously makes Pharah a long range threat and can be used to pester windows and doorways, catching anyone hiding in cover. Shoot for walls or the floor in front of an enemy, especially if your aim is lacking.

Most of Pharah's time will be spent in the air, triggered by her Jump Jets, which give her a head start. Hover is her way of maintaining altitude and moving back and forth to reposition. You have to feather the button a bit to get a feel for it and staying in the air as long as possible will usually be to your benefit. With practice, you'll almost never need to touch solid ground for very long. The alt-fire button will activate Hover as well as the jump button, the former being a bit more comfortable for PC players, in my opinion.

Concussive Blast is oft-forgotten, good for its knockback and getting snipers from their perches, but it's much more useful as a mobility tool, giving you a sort of wall jump when well timed. In combination with her other abilities, she can get around much faster than most enemies would expect, keeping the pressure on. Pressure is the most important factor in Pharah's game, making sure the enemy doesn't have time to look up and take a shot at you.

The Barrage Ultimate is one of the most powerful and straightforward in the game, sending a torrent of rockets at an area and doing AOE damage. It's another move that's better set-up by a teammate, be it Mei's Blizzard or Zarya's Graviton Surge. This also prevents her from getting shot out of it, which is not only possible but rather embarrassing.

Pharah's usefulness depends on the map and situation. She's out of her element on the ground or in tight spaces, unable to create the distance that she needs to be most effective. She can get flustered up close and take damage from her own rockets if not careful. Even when flying around, you are a very exposed target that can't move very quickly, so direct counters from certain Heroes and abilities can render her useless. She can be a very fun character to use but requires practice and good decision making.

Heroes to Target: You'll want to take an almost bullying mentality when picking targets, going after Heroes that you know can't do anything to fight back like Junkrat, Reaper, and Reinhardt. Supports are, as always, high priority as well.

Heroes to Avoid: Attackers that only need line of sight can take Pharah out quickly, like Widowmaker or McCree. Soldier 76 has the accuracy to shoot her out of the sky without much effort. Roadhog can Chain Hook her out of the air and Zenyatta's Orb of Discord will also make it hard for her to hide.

TRACER

Breakdown: It's ironic that Tracer is Overwatch's cover girl considering that you almost never see her. That's not to say that she's never picked in games (quite the opposite), but her playstyle revolves entirely around zipping through an area unnoticed. The prototypical flanker, she's the fastest Hero in the game and has multiple ways to escape from a bad situation. A good Tracer is very very annoying for the other team and will be hard to hit.

The Pulse Pistols are high rate-of-fire weapons that do good damage. Headshots are the obvious priority since your time in a battle will usually be brief and the clip is pretty small. This is why Tracer is always doing something; moving or Blinking so she has a second to reload. Blink itself comes with three charges and will bolt her forward in whatever direction she was already going. Players often forget that this means she can also use it to go backwards, which is a helpful retreat if a Recall isn't available. A common mistake players will make is using all three Blinks in one go when a single use would have done the job. Unless you're rushing back from a respawn, it's usually unnecessary.

Recall will take Tracer three seconds back in time, including the location she was in and the amount of health she had. This is her only survivability tool and should be used as soon as a fight has gone south. Using Recall after you've been in the same battle for 15 seconds is useless. A good "combo" of sorts to get down is to shoot a full clip, Blink forward for a melee attack, then Recall and continue shooting. Blink-Pulse Bomb-Recall is also good for threats like turrets or Bastion.

The Pulse Bomb isn't very flashy but will stick to a surface and do a good chunk of area of effect damage. It's less of a group killer than a way to deal with high priority targets like a teleporter, turret, or a big Tank that's giving the team trouble.

Like Genji, Tracer can be difficult to use. She's a very fragile target and rarely has her team to back her up. By that same token, she doesn't offer much utility either, likely to see her group even less often than the enemies do. She is one of the most ability-dependant Heroes in the game and is a sitting duck on cooldown. Maps with a lot of bottlenecks like Hanamura can also be hard to make any progress in.

Heroes to Target: Supports are always easy flank targets, but Tanks like Reinhardt or Sentry Bastion are great to attack from behind. You can harass snipers but make sure you've closed the distance.

Heroes to Avoid: McCree, Roadhog, Mei; anyone with an ability that stuns you. Heroes with homing weapons like Winston or Symmetra also don't need to see you to do damage.

SOLDIER 76

Breakdown: More vanilla than a... thing containing high amounts of vanilla, Solder 76 is the default create-a-wrestler of Overwatch, a no-frills attacker that's extremely easy to use and understand for anyone, regardless of their shooter experience. With that simplicity, however, comes consistency. While a lot of other Heroes rely on gimmicks and subterfuge to be effective, all he has to do is point and shoot.

The Heavy Pulse Rifle is one of the most accurate weapons in the game but will lose that property if shot continuously. The trick to maintaining that accuracy is to shoot in bursts. This method is his best option for long range attacks, though you'll generally want to stay at more of a mid-range for most encounters. The good damage and sheer familiarity that most players will have with using such a straightforward weapon makes it easy for getting results. The alt-fire Helix Rockets have similar properties to the ones that Pharah use and should also be fired in the same way, taking into consideration the splash damage.

Solder 76 can use Sprint without ever needing a cooldown, almost as if it were a passive ability. It's his only mobility tool and is still slower than some other Heroes, but he can run forever. You can't shoot while Sprinting and there is a delay before you can draw your gun again. This can be a good time to throw down a Biotic Field to buy yourself some breathing room. The Field itself makes 76 the only Offense Hero with the ability to heal teammates, meaning he's a valuable contributor if he stays with his team.

Like with most of the other Heroes in this category, his Ultimate, Tactical Visor, requires you to either be sneaky or have a set-up beforehand. It's a literal aim-bot that will allow you to burst through a grouping of enemies at an accelerated rate, though keep in mind that headshots are not possible when it's active, defaulting to enemy chests instead.

Soldier 76's weakness is, well, his lack of definitive strengths. He's average pretty much across the board, not fast enough to be a flanker or sturdy enough to soak up damage. There are no surprises when dealing with him and a soldier possessing basic shooter tropes can be in over his head when dealing with a lot of the more specialized and bombastic Heroes in the game. The skill ceiling for Soldier 76 is low, meaning that his potential is roughly the same.

Heroes to Target: 76's accuracy makes him one of the team's better tools against a Pharah. He'll also be able to pick off Supports up close without giving them a lot of breathing room.

Heroes to Avoid: Tracer will run circles around you, making it hard to get a shot in, though it's possible. 76 is also the perfect candidate for a Mei to freeze since his options for escape are limited. Snipers, as always, can out-range you and you don't have the mobility to beat them in a lot of cases.

Well, that does it for my Hero Breakdowns. Hopefully this makes the jump into Overwatch a little less intimidating for new players and maybe even teaches fellow intermediates something that may not have already known. I may consider doing something similar once more Heroes are added to the game, depending on how things go. Personally, I think the game could afford one or two additional Support variations and perhaps even an extra Tank just to even up the roster a little bit. I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

A great man once said "offense wins the glory, but defense wins the game". Full disclosure, I don't know anything about sports. Dennis Rodman said it in the hit movie "Double Team" and I just thought it was apropos here.

Defense Heroes are typically defined by their high damage and ability to control an area. As the name suggests, they're generally better served when Defending, though as always, there are exceptions. If you play Overwatch for any length of time, you'll quickly learn that glory, or in this case the Play of the Game, will actually favor the Defensive Heroes more often than not, typically because of how frequently packs of enemies like to run into them.

Once again, I'll be listing the Heroes in order of my personal preference. Your list will probably look different. The game's still relatively young and it's better to look at this as more of a starting point for new and overwhelmed players than as a definitive guide. I'm wearing differently colored socks. I'm not a very definitive person.

WIDOWMAKER

Breakdown: The closest thing I have to a "main" in a game where switching characters is important, Widowmaker is the quintessential sniper of Overwatch. Her range is, obviously, best in the game and her single-target damage is scary. In the right hands, she is the backbone of any Defending team and will annoy her enemies to no end.

Her weapon, the Widow's Kiss, has two fire modes. The primary is a medium range assault rifle that's going to be used mostly to get out of bad situations. As you'd assume, the goal is to stay out of close range encounters, but this mode will at least offer you some options when someone gets the drop on you.

The alt-fire is her real weapon, the sniper rifle. While looking through the scope, she can charge up the power of her shot. A fully charged headshot will kill most Heroes and a bodyshot will, at the very least, make them more vulnerable to the inevitable follow up if they managed to survive. Setting up shots in such a fast-paced game takes practice. You need to know the maps well enough to get the right positioning and also have an established comfort using the weapon. Every Hero has their own specific settings that you can play with in the options menu and Widowmaker is one that I'd suggest this is essential for. Everyone has different sensitivity preferences and you can also change the look and color of her scope. I use a green dot since it's an uncommon color that stands out in most environments.

Of course, when playing a Widowmaker, no matter how good of a shot you are, you're not going to want to stay in one place for too long. Unpredictability and awareness of your surroundings are key to your survivability, so you'll be using her Grappling Hook a lot, either to get out of a position you've been spotted in or to simply keep the enemy team guessing as you move from perch to perch. A Widowmaker that the enemy can see is an easy kill, especially if you're stuck looking down your sights at someone else, so keep moving.

The Venom Mine will stick to any surface, exploding and inflicting poison damage on anyone that gets near it. You'll be notified whenever it gets triggered or destroyed, so it arguably has better function as a security system to cover your flank when zoomed in on targets. When it's triggered, you'll know someone is approaching. If you do prefer to use it for attack, try not to put it anywhere obvious, just like with Symmetra's turrets. Try ceilings and doorways. It's also fun to throw onto a Payload if you get a clear shot.

Her Ultimate, Infra-Sight, is literally just a wallhack for your entire team, showing the location of every enemy Hero on the map for a few seconds. The benefits are obvious, allowing set up for sneak attacks and, in the rare case you have both a Widowmaker and a Hanzo on the team, a much less obvious use of his Ultimate. It can also spot Symmetra's teleporter.

As a sniper, Widowmaker does poorly if anyone manages to get close. She's also significantly less effective on certain maps than others, needing open space but limited flank points to work in. More than most other Heroes, a bad Widowmaker can sink a team. If you're a poor shot, bad under pressure, or in a situation where you can be used better elsewhere, switch out. There is nothing more frustrating than being teamed up with a stubborn Widowmaker that can't hit anything and doesn't seem to care that her team is at a 6v5 disadvantage. For this reason, two snipers, especially two Widowmakers, is usually a bad idea.

Heroes to Target: Anyone in your sights for a headshot, but Supports and backline heroes should be the priority. Zenyatta especially since he can be one-shotted, even without the headshot.

Heroes to Avoid: As noted in my Tank breakdown, D.Va and Winston can jump up to where you are and take you out quickly. Flankers like Genji and Tracer can easily get to you as well.

JUNKRAT

Breakdown: Junkrat is a lot of fun. He's great for controlling an area and has huge damage potential without requiring a lot of precision to be useful. Barriers and turrets don't stand a chance against him and he has the tools to scare off flankers, all while spamming explosives in every direction.

The Frag Launcher is used for just that, throwing grenades around the map looking for the AOE damage from the explosion even if it doesn't hit directly. Big targets like Tanks are fun to harass, though you don't actually need to see the target to make an impression, shooting over walls and around doors. This is going to be the best way to take out turrets that the enemy may have set in your path. It's a poking tool that you'll be shooting out constantly, establishing distance from the enemy. Often you'll want to focus more on spreading confusion than taking out a specific target, though keep in mind that the grenades can also damage you, so freaking out in an enclosed space isn't recommended.

The Concussion Mine has a few uses. The most obvious is as a trap for flankers or anyone that gets too close, but it's also the only solution to his otherwise limited mobility. Setting off the mine at your feet will launch you into the air. This is his only real way to escape from bad situations and keeps him from constantly being on the low ground. This fling also applies to enemies, so it can be used to knock snipers out of position or even toss an enemy off of the map. For damage purposes, it's best used in combination with the Steel Trap. Throwing a Mine on top of the Trap will just ensure guaranteed damage for anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in it. The Steel Trap itself is also good for covering your flanks and controlling choke points. Both the Mine and Trap can be destroyed, so watch out for that.

Junkrat also has a passive ability that drops a cluster of bombs whenever he dies. It does enough damage to kill any non-Tank in the game and it's something that a lot of players seem to forget about. If you are in a close quarters situation, it may actually help your team to make the sacrifice and fling your soon-to-be corpse at a high priority target.

The RIP-Tire Ultimate puts you in control of a speeding tire that will explode for massive damage the moment it hits anything. It's on a timer and is easy to see (and hear) coming, so you'll want to get creative with the positioning. You can actually use the jump button to climb walls with it, giving you some extra angles to attack from.

While he always makes for an entertaining and chaotic Hero to play, Junkrat suffers in moments where you do actually need any sort of precision. Mobile attackers can run circles around him if they get close and the best he can do is either throw a desperate Trap down or Mine jump away. The frantic nature of playing as Junkrat doesn't lend itself to survivability and most of his threats, the RIP-Tire included, can be shot down and stopped before actually doing any damage.

Heroes to Target: "Target" is sort of an odd concept with Junkrat since spamming an area is your main contribution, though Supports and anyone with low health/mobility can make for an easy kill. Bastions and Torbjorns can't do much of anything to stop you, since you'll never be in their line of sight.

Heroes to Avoid: Tracer is the main candidate for a mobile attacker you want to steer clear of. Junkrat is absolutely useless against Pharrah and a Zarya will love to be around you to charge up her Energy.

HANZO

Breakdown: Hanzo is the other sniper of the game, considered a more challenging Hero to use than Widowmaker, but with different options for mobility and more of a capacity to deal with groups. He has the highest skill cap of all of the Defense Heroes and can be very very hard to deal with in the right hands.

The Storm Bow is a great distance weapon, but the timing and application make take some getting used to. The shot gets stronger as he draws his arm back, but also slows him down considerably. There is also a bit of a dropoff from a distance, though a full power arrow will fly straighter and further, doing more damage when it connects.

As he doesn't have a Grappling Hook, Hanzo uses Wall Climb to find his sniping spots. As a passive ability, you can use it as often as you like without cooldown. Genji is the only other Hero that can do the same, though instead of flanking and prepping sneak attacks like his brother, Hanzo will mostly want to use it to escape or find a different angle to take his shot from.

When put in a situation with groupings of enemies or even just one at a closer range, Scatter Arrow is his primary tool to remain a viable damage dealer. Upon impact with a surface, the arrow will split into pieces and bounce into random directions, damaging anyone caught in the aftermath. It's great for hallways and small rooms, since there are very few escape options and the random path of the fragments are left with few places to land. When aiming out in the open, you'll want to make a habit of hitting the ground slightly in front of the target to make sure they're reliably hit with most of the shots. If the Scatter Arrow actually hits the enemy, it won't split.

His Sonic Arrow is an underused ability that acts as a sort of sonar, similar to Widowmakers Ultimate, though it can be used more frequently at the expense of a shorter range. Knowing enemy positioning is useful for setting up targets or deciding your next location to shoot from. You will want to use it to give your team more intel and it also makes his Ultimate, Dragonstrike much harder to predict and avoid.

Aside from being just plain awesome-looking, Dragonstrike is one of the most damaging Ultimates in the game, instantly wiping out anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the path of the twirling dragons. It can go through walls and will continue to advance forward until it reaches the end of the map. It's best used after another Ultimate has created a group of slowed or stopped enemies that you can wipe out in one shot.

Hanzo is incredibly cool but requires practice. That high skill ceiling comes with the expected learning curve, figuring out the timing of his arrows and their distance, while also not making yourself a slow and obvious target. His Ultimate is also extremely easy to telegraph, since he has to do a Dragonball-esque announcement every time it's summoned. New players will freeze and get caught, but anyone that already knows the deal can very easily sidestep it.

Heroes to Target: Similar to Widowmaker, you'll be mainly looking for headshots on Supports and anyone else that's a clear shot, though the Scatter Arrow gives you more options against a group.

Heroes to Avoid: Hanzo has the exact same problem that Widowmaker does dealing with Winston and D.Va. Widowmaker herself can also be a strong counter against a Hanzo since her shots are easier to set up from the same distance.

MEI

Breakdown: As annoying as she is adorable, Mei is one of the most significant one-on-one threats in the game while also offering utility for her team as a whole. Of all of the Defense Heroes, she has the most potential to aid in an almost Support-type role, protecting and buying time for her team.

Players absolutely despise being around Mei, since her Endothermic Blaster will slow and eventually freeze them in place, setting up an assault from a teammate or an alt-fire headshot when alone. It takes roughly 2 seconds for the freeze to take effect on an enemy, but it's almost always a guaranteed kill if they're caught alone. The freeze-icicle-melee combo should be your go-to with anyone unfortunate enough to get near you. Dealing a close range headshot is going comprise a majority of your usage with the alt-fire, though it also serves as her only option at a distance. The shot itself is fast and more damaging than you'd initially expect.

Her Cryo-Freeze ability is a self-heal that also leaves you invulnerable for a few seconds. Aside from the obvious use-case, it can be used to bait skills or Ultimates from opponents, leaving them in cooldown when you've emerged. In the case of the latter, teammates can also hide behind the ice block for cover, though obviously AOE attacks can still hit them.

Mei's greatest asset to her team is her Ice Wall, which summons, well, a wall of ice, allowing you to block off pathways and absorb damage. You can also toss one behind an enemy that's trying to escape from your Blaster, trapping them up close. It can be rotated before placement and anyone standing underneath will end up elevated when it's summoned, including yourself. This gives Mei some extra mobility options and helps her find new ways to flank a target. There are many many inventive uses for the Ice Wall and likely more to be discovered with time.

Her Ultimate, Blizzard, is similar to Reinhardt's and Zarya's in that it's more of a set-up move than a damage threat. Upon throwing a drone into the air, it will freeze anyone caught in the radius. This is good when followed up with a more easily avoidable Ultimate, like D.Va's or Hanzo's.

Although her entire playstyle is about giving enemies grief, she does have range issues, needing to get close to single targets to be effective. If her enemy doesn't run alone, the threat of her ice is significantly compromised and trying to freeze one of them will just leave you open. She's also not very good for contesting payloads and badly placed Ice Walls will do more harm than good, sometimes even cutting off her own teammates from the fight.

Heroes to Target: Genjis typically run alone and can't deflect your blaster. Tanks in general are also easy targets since you have a bigger target to aim your freeze at.

Heroes to Avoid: Snipers, Pharrah, anyone with range. Reaper can also Wrath Form away from the freeze and is better at close range than you.

BASTION

Breakdown: If you're ever unsure of how long someone has been playing Overwatch, just ask them about Bastion. If they're new to the game, he's the most unfair and broken Hero you could pick, an instant win-button if there ever was one. That's... not exactly the case, though his kill potential is high, making him an incredibly frequent Play of the Game highlight. He's the best starting point for anyone trying to learn a Defense Hero as he's very simple to understand and can hold down a control point with little effort.

His main ability is the Configuration Switch. He'll start every match in Recon mode with a basic submachine gun. The primary use for Recon is traversal, either to get towards the objective or to relocate for Sentry mode. A vast majority of Bastion's time in the match will be in Sentry mode, as it absolutely tears through anyone in seconds and will even take down Reinhardt's Barrier on pure DPS alone. You can't move while in Sentry mode, so you have to plant yourself to a location with a choke point and ideally no flanks. It can be fun to put yourself on top of a payload, though it's not viable for very long. It's best to act as if you are a thinking turret, constantly repositioning yourself to keep the opponent guessing. Positioning is everything when using Bastion.

Self-Repair does exactly what it says on the tin and should be a force of habit whenever there's a break in the action or you're moving to another shooting spot, though he can heal in Sentry Configuraton as well.

Bastion's Ultimate is a third Configuation known as Tank. It combines the threatening damage output of Sentry with the ability to move, giving him a health increase and changing his weapon to an area-of-effect cannonball. It can slaughter an entire opposing team, though it's best not to venture too far from your control point, since you'll be exposed and back to Recon after Tank's duration.

What stops Bastion from being a complete nightmare to more experienced players is just how many ways there are to counter him, most of which involve getting picked off from a distance or attacking the literal glowing weak spot on his back. In Sentry mode you are essentially a sitting duck if anyone gets close to you and attacks it. You'll receive double damage and be dead before you have time to even think about switching to Recon, which is far weaker anyway. Bastion is very predictable and will immediately become the highest priority target when spotted by the enemy. If unprotected or in a game with poor team coordination, he doesn't last long.

Heroes to Target: Just about everyone inside the choke point. If they're in front of you, fire until they're dead. Enjoy your Play of the Game.

Heroes to Avoid: Genji can not only deflect your bullets back at you but can also get to your weak point faster than you can react, as can Tracer and Reaper. Ranged Heroes like snipers and Pharrah are also going to be looking to take you out and can stay out of your sight. Junkrat doesn't have to even see you to blow you up. Roadhog can hook you out of Sentry mode. This is why Bastion is not overpowered.

TORBJORN

Breakdown: I'd make a 4th Lost Viking joke but the game itself already beat me to it.

Torbjorn is the closest parallel Overwatch has to TF2's Engineer, a passive teammate that will contribute protection and an effective control weapon. Like Bastion, he is a Play of the Game standby that will seem unbeatable to new players and can often be hard to take out even for more experienced teams.

His Rivet Gun is a weapon designed more for poking than damage, though it will be called upon to defend your Turret when enemies get too close. A vast vast majority of your kills as Torborjn will not come from the Hero himself and his main priority will be to protect his turrets. It has two fire modes; the primary is a projectile with some fall-off and the alt is more of a shotgun for close range.

For Torbjorn to help his team directly, he has to accumulate Scrap. His Armor Packs come with a Scrap cost and more can be found from the dead bodies of your opponents, to a limit of 200. One Armor Pack will cost 50 Scrap and offer a non-rechargable HP boost to yourself or any teammate you toss it to. This is his most neglected ability and should really be used as often as possible.

The Forge Hammer is his secondary "weapon", but should just about never be used as such. Its main function is to maintain the Turret. Torbjorn's entire playstyle revolves around his relationship with his Turret. Love the Turret. Whisper sweet things to it. Rarely, if ever, leave its side.

You can place a level 1 Turret just about anywhere on the map. It will immediately start to track nearby enemies and deal damage if they get too close. You'll want to give the Turret a few love taps as quickly as possible to upgrade it to a level 2, which fires at much faster rate. Most of your time in a match will be standing right near a level 2 Turret, waiting for it to do all of the work for you and being ready to repair it with the hammer if damaged. You can only place one Turret at a time so knowing the map and choosing a good location is the most important thing you can do as a Torbjorn player.

Activating his Molten Core Ultimate will upgrade a level 2 Turret to level 3 and put Torbjorn himself into a sort of rage mode, increasing his damage and making the Turret take out enemies very quickly. It's best saved for when a grouping is approaching the control point and you are looking to take them all out in one fell swoop.

As you may have gathered, Torbjorn is nothing without his Turret. He can't hold his own for very long without it and is really just a short guy with an average weapon. He's a one-trick pony with a lot of the same issues as Bastion. Once the enemy figures out how to deal with Torbjorn (or already does), you're toast. A poorly placed Turret will also expend the resources of your teammates trying to protect it, making you a liability.

Heroes to Target: Your Turret will take care of most of them, though you'll want to watch out for the flankers sent through enemy lines to deal with your baby.

Heroes to Avoid: Same as Bastion. A majority of the other Defense Heroes have ways to deal with your Turret and you won't be able to build another if they're close to you when it's destroyed.

Tomorrow we'll look at the remainder of the Overwatch roster, the Offense Heroes.

Today, we're looking at Tanks. These are the big heavies that typically make up your front line, soaking up damage with their large health pools and defensive abilities.

Once again, they'll be listed by my personal preference of most to least useful.

REINHARDT

Breakdown: A Tank in the most traditional sense, Reinhardt is a must-have for most team compositions. He's the rare Hero with the ability to contribute on Attack or Defense, no matter the map or objective. His durability and generous shielding means he can either hold back an assault or push through a choke point with his friends, always threatening to maul anyone that gets too close. The fact that he's very easy to use is just icing on the armored cake.

His hammer swing is incredibly satisfying but has limited utility. It's mostly going to be used for taking out low health enemies or creating space. The only time you'll want to swing wildly is after stunning a group with your ultimate first, looking to take out everything in your sight.

A vast majority of your time with Reinhardt will be spent with your Barrier Field active. It's his greatest asset to a team and with 2000HP, can stay up for quite a while, though you'll want to drop it occasionally to recharge. The benefits are obvious, allowing your teammates a safe spot to retreat and shoot behind. It's also why Reinhardt shouldn't run alone, always a better option to soak up damage than one of your lighter teammates. The Field makes for a good combination with a Sentry mode Bastion, protecting him from frontal assault while also being there for the inevitable flank. It can also be used to push back a group of enemies into a trap, like Symmetra's turrets.

The Charge is a high risk move that can kill most targets when they impact a wall, but you have to choose when to use it wisely, as it's easy to see coming and will leave you wide open if it misses. It's best used when there's very little distance to close and you want to take out a high priority target. You can also use it as a form of Kamakaze attack, flying off of the map and taking someone with you. This is one of the only counters to D.Va's Ultimate, though obviously you'll sacrifice yourself in the process.

Fire Strike is his only projectile, good for taking out turrets or stationary Defense Heroes like snipers. It's easy to avoid, but you can actually cancel your primary attack into it for a nice fake out. It's his least used ability, but that also makes it one that your enemies will often forget about. In a rare moment you have the Barrier Field down, throw one out to keep everyone honest.

His Ultimate, Earthshatter, is best used on grouped enemies and in combination with another attacker. The stun doesn't do a lot of damage on its own, but is an excellent setup for something bigger.

The downside to playing as Reinhardt is that he's slow and not very flashy. Everyone knows his deal and will try to get behind him as quickly as possible. Aggressive Reinhardts exist, but you'll mostly want to stay back, since he's a big easy target and needs his Barrier Field active to benefit his teammates. He's no good to anyone by himself.

Heroes to Target: Anyone that gets a little too close. Otherwise, it's typically no one unless you're right on an objective and a Bastion or Torbjorn turret is giving the team trouble. He can withstand the assault long enough to get in and deal with the problem, since all it should take it one well-timed Charge.

Heroes to Avoid: Anyone that can get behind you, like Reaper and Tracer or someone with a weapon that ignores your Barrier Field, like Symmetra or Zenyatta.

D.VA

Breakdown: To call D.Va a Tank is a little misleading, since she functions differently than any of the other damage sponges in her category. She's more of a hybrid Attacker that can serve multiple roles on a team. Her ability to continue fighting after her mech has been destroyed can serve as both a blessing and a curse depending on the situation and she acts as a good Hero to switch to mid-match if you need to clear out a rather persistent grouping of enemies.

Her primary weapon, the Fusion Cannon, has infinite ammo at the expense of limited range. In very close quarters, they can take out most single enemies in no time, but positioning is key since she is slowed down significantly when firing. Most of the time, you'll want to be right on top of an enemy looking for the kill or offering suppressing fire when at a distance.

Her Boosters offer her movement options that other Tanks don't have, perfect for getting up on ledges to pick off helpless snipers or even let her flank in certain maps. It has the ability to knockback enemies at the expense of some minor damage. It's worth it if you can knock an enemy off of the map or even just off of the objective for a few seconds.

Defense Matrix will protect from any projectiles directly in front of her line of sight for a few seconds, best against burst fire from a turret or machine gun. It's not as good as Reinhardt's Barrier Field, obviously, but can help in a pinch. Since D.Va is usually a high-risk Hero to play, this is easily her most underused ability and, if well timed, could save you from having to walk around without your suit due to easily avoidable damage.

The Self-Destruct Ultimate is arguably one of the best in the game, always a huge threat to anyone caught in its generous range. The damage is enough to kill anyone at full health and your allies are immune to it. You, however, are not and can get killed by your own attack if not careful. A move you need to practice is a quick hit of the Boosters before you activate it. This will fling your mech forward, making it much easier for you to avoid the blast. You can also do this to fling the mech straight up into the air, making the fuse even shorter when it hits the ground. It's insanely fun to watch everyone scatter when a giant explosive gets dropped right in the middle of the objective. The threat of her Ultimate alone is why a team with multiple D.Vas can be incredibly frustrating to deal with.

Outside of her suit, she is a very fragile, yet reasonably mobile attacker. Her out-of-mech blaster is ironically better than her primary Fusion Cannon and she's less of a huge target in this mode. It's essentially like having a second life, albeit a very delicate one. You'll want to charge another Ultimate to get back into your suit as quickly as possible. It also may be to your benefit to simply die and respawn with the charge so you have another Self-Destruct to play with.

The disadvantages to D.Va are her generally low damage output, range, and risky play style. Mobility is key to using her, but she's also a big target, meaning that a large mech rocketing towards the enemy is still a large thing to focus your attack on. Despite her large health pool, her Mech always seems to go down a little too quickly, leaving you to play Zero Suit Samus until you can get another charge. Even if you're a good shot, absolutely no one is scared of a mech-less D.Va. They're scared of the one thing you can't access in that mode - your Self-Destruct.

Heroes to Target: You will be the bane of any poor Widowmaker or Hanzo on the enemy team. You can reach any high ground they may want to hide in and mow them down without much resistance.

Heroes to Avoid: Zenyatta. You're going to see that name a lot. Just like with how snipers are deadly to Support Heroes, the Orb of Discord really really likes to stick to tanks. She also hates Mei. Everyone hates Mei, but D.Va really really hates Mei, since your most effective range is exactly where she wants you.

WINSTON

Breakdown: Winston is a great choice for anyone that wants a Tank that's easy to use, can soak up damage for the team and be more proactive than some of the other options. He's a good middle ground between the defensive abilities of Reinhardt and the mobility of D.Va and is effective on Attack or Defence, though I feel he generally leans towards the latter. If you're looking for a starter Tank and holding up a barrier the entire match seems lame, then you may want to get up to some monkey business.

Sorry.

The Tesla Cannon is on perpetual easy mode, always firing out a beam for as long as you hold down the button. It has a generous auto-aim that will catch pretty much anyone silly enough to get near you, though the range is somewhat lacking. It's also useful for taking out any Symmetra turrets that my be hiding nearby.

His ability close a distance is reliant on his Jump Pack, which flings him forward in whatever direction he's facing. Like with D.Va's Boosters, this can be used to access enemies up on perches, but will mainly be used to rush towards objectives where you can immediately throw down a shield. The landing will actually damage anyone caught underneath, so try to make a habit of aiming for a body on the way down.

Another habit that you need to get into with Winston is throwing down a Barrier Projector the moment he lands, since you'll typically be aiming for a control point or a payload. It forms a decent sized bubble shield around Winston and is his greatest asset to a team. A common strategy is to stand on the payload and throw down a Barrier, turning it into a traveling shield for a few seconds. It's also good to keep in mind that it generates a full sphere, so you'll also be protected on bridges or ledges from shots below. If using him more offensively, a fun trick is to throw a Barrier Projector at a turret or an enemy in the middle of an AOE Ultimate. They will be unable to shoot outside of the sphere and allow safe passage for your team.

Anyone looking to attack Winston will have to step through the shield, which is exactly the range you want them to be at for your Tesla Cannon or a well-timed Ultimate. Primal Rage, as it's known, allows Winston to go, well, apeshit, wildly flinging his arms at anything in front of him and causing significant knockback. It's not as much of a kill move as it is a way to clear an area and/or separate the enemy team, as the visual of a giant red beast running around is usually enough to get them to scatter, even if you don't actually hit. While it's possible to kill him in this mode, it's pretty difficult and not really worth the effort. It's best used when Winston is near-death, since it refills all of his health on activation.

Like most Tanks, Winston isn't much of a damage dealer and has very limited options if caught with his abilities on cooldown. He's a Hero that's all about positioning, not just for his own survivability, but for the benefit of his team. Because of his big face, he's also very easy to headshot and will not do well if isolated from his team for too long.

Heroes to Target: Snipers and Support, generally anyone that you can jump and bully that can't defend themselves up close. Genji is also one to seek out since the Tesla Cannon is one of the few weapons that he can't Deflect.

Heroes to Avoid: Anyone that's much deadlier at close range than you, like a Reaper or McCree. Zenyatta, again, is also an issue.

ROADHOG

Breakdown: Roadhog is easily the most offensive-minded Tank, able to dish out a hefty amount of damage with or without the help of his team. He's one of the biggest one-on-one threats in the game, the anti-thesis of what you'd normally imagine a Tank would be, as he can survive and often excel when by himself. With the highest HP pool in the game, he can be very hard to move off of an objective and the fear of his Chain Hook will generally keep enemies running the other way.

His gun has two fire modes; the primary working as a close range blast and the alt sending out a medium range ball of scrap that sort of acts like a grenade launcher. Roadhog is actually the only Hero in the game that will likely spend more time firing his alt weapon than his primary, sending out shots to pester anyone you're too slow to reach.

The primary fire is highly damaging but only useful from very up close, which is where you want your targets to be. To aid in this goal, he has the Chain Hook, which will pull the enemy towards you, Scorpion style. This can not be stressed enough - the Chain Hook is everything to Roadhog. His entire gameplan revolves around being able to use it effectively, so spend time in the practice range getting a feel for the spacing and timing. Once you've gotten the hang of that, you need to master the Hook-Fire-Melee combo, which will kill most enemies and severely damage everyone else. Another thing to keep in mind with the Chain Hook is that it can interrupt someone in the middle of an Ultimate, making it one of the very few defensive applications that he has.

If you do find yourself in trouble, Roadhog can regen health with his Take A Breather ability. It leaves him stationary, so you'll want to be in cover whenever you use it. The cooldown is relatively fast and Roadhog has a lot of HP, so he can wander ahead and even flank without worrying about hunting down health packs.

Roadhog's Ultimate, Whole Hog is... the worst Ultimate in the game. There's really no sugarcoating it. It's a minigun that's often very hard to hit with and is really only effective against groups that you need to knock back. It still has its uses, especially when trying to keep the enemy team from the objective, but no one is scared when Roadhog activates his Ult. They're only afraid of the Hook.

Though he can heal himself, Roadhog is still a big slow target that's likely going to take a lot of damage. Unlike the other Tanks, he has no shield ability to speak of, so he can't do much to protect his teammates and the enemy team knows that you will have a long run back if you end up respawning. Missing with the Chain Hook will also announce to them that you pose no threat for several seconds, which is another reason why you should practice with it. Without his Hook, he's nothing.

Heroes to Target: Support heroes, especially Mercy. If you want a big practice dummy to try out your Chain Hook on, go for Reinhardt, though you'll want to attack from the side since it can go through his shield. You probably won't kill him but can be used to pull him out of position. Once you've gotten the aiming down, try pulling a Pharrah out of the sky. On the ground and up close, she's useless.

Heroes to Avoid: Though you can pull Snipers from their perch, chances are they'll be too far out of range for you to connect. Most of the Offense heroes are poor choices to pick a fight with since they either have better mobility options or better damage up close than you. Also, have I mentioned Zenyatta?

ZARYA

Breakdown: Like Zenyatta, Zarya sits at the bottom of my list despite being the most damaging Hero in her category, mostly because of how difficult she can be for new players. If she were a fighting game character, we'd define her as "high execution", a very dangerous weapon that many will find themselves unable to use effectively, since there can be a lot to keep track of.

Zarya's Particle Beam acts like a stronger variation on Winston's Tesla Cannon, having the same easy aim, but with two modes of fire. The Alt fire is a weaker grenade launcher that does splash damage at a greater distance. The primary fire is your main threat, as it gets stronger as you gather energy. Like the Tesla Cannon, it also can't be stopped by Genji's Deflect or D.Va's Defense Matrix.

Energy is stored by her Particle Barriers, which can be activated on herself and one teammate. All of the damage absorbed by the Barriers will convert to Energy for her weapon, increasing in strength the more you have absorbed. A fully powered Zarya is a death machine, able to take down even the heaviest tanks with relative ease. You'll generally want to throw Barriers onto easy targets like your Supports. Also keep in mind that your personal Barrier doesn't last as long and has more of a cooldown, so it should be used with a bit more discretion.

Her Ultimate is Graviton Surge, a very good utility move that essentially works like a black hole, pulling all nearby enemies into a nice vulnerable grouping. As you'd imagine, it's best for setting up another Ultimate or simply bombarding an area. On some maps, it will even pull enemies off the map or into a pit, though certain shields, like those from the other Tanks, can block it.

The thing with Zarya is that either she's an absolute beast or nearly ineffectual, depending on the player and the coordination of her team. There is very little middle ground with her and she relies on timing and pressure to make any progress, since her damage counter decreases quickly and her shields don't stay up for very long. She lacks mobility and is also not very good as a primary tank, better paired with a Reinhardt or a Winston.

Heroes to Target: Sentry Bastions and turrets are easy damage to absord with your Barriers. Finding a Junkrat or a Mei is like Christmas, since all of the spam they want to throw at you will only make you stronger. Also, that Zenyatta that's been bothering all of your other Tanks? Zarya's Barrier removes his Orb of Discord.

Heroes to Avoid: Zarya has significant trouble with snipers like Widowmaker. You simply don't have the range or mobility to do much when caught in her sights. Faster heroes like Tracer and Reaper can also be difficult to hit, no matter how much Energy you've stored up.

Friday, I'll be back to cover the Defense Heroes.

Now that I’ve had a significant amount of time playing and researching Overwatch, I like to think I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of everyone’s effectiveness and application in matches. I wanted to put something together for new-ish players that may be overwhelmed by the huge roster and be unsure what their role is or how to use certain Heroes. I’m going to tackle one category every day until we’ve covered everyone, starting with Support.

Three things to keep in mind before we continue.

1) I’m going to list the Heroes in order of who I feel is the most to least useful.

2) Everyone in the game is viable and everything is subjective. This isn’t a tier list and putting someone at the bottom doesn’t mean that Hero’s useless. It's all personal preference.

3) Seriously. Not a tier list. You in the back, don't think I can't see you. Put that torch down.

LUCIO

Breakdown: Ha… you see it’s funny because he says… ahem. Sorry.

Lucio is my boy. I’d go as far to say he’s the most useful Hero in the game. If you’re on Attack, there’s little reason not to have one. If no one else wants to play Support (like most of the Quick Matches you'll get dropped into), pick Lucio. You’ll serve as the backbone of the team and be able to make up for poor coordination.

While his regular fire is nothing special, his alt-fire (Soundwave) is useful for its pushback, either to get you out of a bad situation or to push a target off of the map. Obviously, his main purpose is to buff the team, and speed boost will get them to the objective quickly. Your first instinct will be to switch to healing as soon as a fight starts, but a fast team is harder to hit, so knowing when to Crossfade back and forth is key to using him.

The heal on its own is underwhelming, but becomes invaluable with Amp It Up, which should always been active whenever you have it available. His Ultimate, Sound Barrier, is almost too good; adding 500 HP of shields, your team will be downright unstoppable for a few seconds. If you have an Amped Up heal going at the same time, that capture point is yours.

Wallride is fun but mostly useless outside of a few escape situations. If you’re up on a wall, you could probably be closer to your team. You can definitely assist with damage, but that’s not your primary function.

The only downside to playing Lucio is that you are a constant target. You have to be in the middle of your team to be the most effective, so if you don’t have anyone protecting you, running away is your only option, which is exactly what the other team wants. Never be alone. You can’t fight anyone by yourself and the team doesn’t benefit. If you do end up dying, it may be smart to stick around at the spawn for a moment until someone else spawns with you, using your speed boost to get both of you back to the action faster.

Heroes to Target: Anyone standing near a ledge. A lot of people seem to forget about Soundwave, so it’s even more satisfying when a dominating Reaper gets killed by Jet Set Radio. Tanks in particular are nice big targets that can’t really do much to you, Winston especially.

Heroes to Avoid: Anyone with range; Widowmaker, Pharrah, Hanzo. You will be the main target for a lot of defensive teams and there’s very little you can do to any of them. McCree and Mei can also stun you. Once that happens, you’re a guaranteed kill.

MERCY

Breakdown: If Lucio is a must have for an Attack team, Mercy is the same for anyone on Defense. She’s also the one Support character that mixes the best with others, if you’re thinking of adding a Zenyatta on the team for more for debuffs and offense or want to double down on safety with a Symmetra. She should be every newcomer’s first pick, as she’s easy to use and helps you get a feel for the flow of a match.

Obviously she’ll spend a lot of her time healing single targets, but her damage boost is significant, perfect for teaming with a stationary Bastion or Sniper. Like with Lucio, knowing when to switch between the two modes is important. Too often, new Mercy players will forget about the damage boost entirely, wasting the beam on teammates that already have full health.

She can switch to a pistol for some self-defense, but if you find yourself in a situation where you need to use it, you’re probably already dead. Some players like to show off while getting kills with her. Those players are also probably letting their team die. Don’t be that guy.

Guardian Angel is a must for getting around quickly, especially if you have a team that spreads itself thin. Your primary concern should be with your defenders and tanks. Offensive Heroes are going to run ahead. They’re typically flanking and don’t need the damage buff. If you see one at critical from far away, don’t pursue unless you have a clear shot. The only exception would be Pharrah. If you can keep up, it’s a lot of fun to pair up with one, though don’t neglect the rest of the team when you do.

Her Resurrect Ultimate is a game changer, though a common mistake people will make is waiting for a huge group of dead allies before doing it. Resurrecting one valuable Defender at the right time isn’t going to win you Play of the Game, but will likely be way more useful at helping you win the objective.

Once again, you are going to be a target and can’t do much alone. She’s also not the most exciting Hero to play, pretty much just helping others get the glory. As a rule, if I see a Mercy in the post-match vote, I always go for her, since she’s often the unsung hero of the team, even though they would have been much much worse without her contributions.

Heroes to Target: No one, unless there is a very low health enemy nearby. Again, if you’re looking to do damage with Mercy, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Heroes to Avoid: Snipers, again. Widowmakers LOVE to see Mercys in their sights (I say this as a Widowmaker player). Flankers like Tracer and Genji can also be hard to shake off. Guardian Angel away if you can.

SYMMETRA

Breakdown: Depending on who you ask, Symmetra is either one of the most underrated Heroes in the game or someone that’s only good for a teleporter. You don’t see a lot of Symmetras, mostly because of how passive her playstyle is, making her one of the least desired picks. That said, if you know the map, she can be very very annoying to the other team, making it lots of fun for you. That’s the primary word to keep in mind when using her – annoying. You won’t be a great damage dealer, but you will be a great frustration dealer.

Her beam does surprisingly high damage, increasing over time, but the range is pitiful. It’s good to stack with a target that’s already taking damage from your sentries or from another Hero. The alt-fire orb is useful for pestering from a distance and both modes can go through shields.

As soon as the match starts, you’ll want to throw a Photon Shield on everyone. They only offer a small bit of protection, but they recharge and are permanent until the teammate dies. As long as you’re not putting yourself in danger to do so, make it a priority to throw a shield back on to everyone after respawn.

The Sentry Turrets are going to be your primary damage output and all six of them firing at once will kill anyone in the game within seconds. The tricky part is when it comes to placement. Your first instinct is to put a cluster of them close together, but they can be destroyed quickly. The key is to put them in areas they won’t be immediately noticed, around corners or above doorways. It’s incredibly satisfying to have an attacker chase you through a hall and immediately fall into your trap because they weren’t paying attention.

Her teleporter is arguably her entire reason for existing and can swing the momentum of a match by eliminating the respawn travel time. Put it near the objective, but slightly out of the way so the enemy can’t immediately find it. You get six uses, which is often more than enough to gain an advantage for your team. It can also be helpful to place turrets near the teleporter for protection. Even if they get destroyed, you’ll be notified that something’s up and can plan accordingly.

You have to be clever with Symmetra since the opposing team will immediately start looking for turrets and a teleporter once they realize you exist. Without turrets, she won’t be able to defend herself for long. She also has no healing ability, so playing her as the solo Support can be a struggle with a risky team. This is why she’s essentially useless on an Attack squad.

Even more so than with Mercy, if you ever see a Symmetra in the voting, give her props. It’s incredibly hard to put out numbers with the kinds of things she’s designed to do.

Heroes to Target: Reinhardt will absolutely hate you. Your primary beam is one of the only things that can go through his barrier and there’s not a lot he can do about it, since you’re still faster. Genjis also can’t deflect, and make good targets for traps in hallways.

Heroes to Avoid: Have I mentioned Snipers? Junkrat is also the best Hero for blowing up your precious turrets in one burst. There’s just about nothing you can do to a Zarya. Tracer is too fast. Look, avoid pretty much everyone. Again, make yourself invisible for as long as possible.

ZENYATTA

Breakdown: Zenyatta is the Dhalsim of Overwatch, not just for his design, but for his place as a very niche support choice. He’s easily the hardest of the four to use effectively, but also has a high skill ceiling, making him very dangerous in the right hands. He’s best used in an Attack team, having lots of big spongy targets to pester as everyone moves forward. Another Support is also ideal, like a Lucio or a Mercy, so some of the pressure to heal is taken off and you can focus on damage. He doesn’t play as well with a Symmetra, though I’m sure there’s a gimmick team composition out there that can do fun stuff.

His main attack is a very precise rapid fire that’s perfect for headshots. The five-charge burst is highly damaging, but very hard to get an open shot with. This is why it’s best to partner him up with someone else, like a Tank, so he has something to hide behind while he’s throwing orbs out.

The gameplan with Zenyatta pretty much centers entirely around his Orb of Discord. The Orb of Harmony is good for a quick heal but loses its effect after the teammate leaves your line of sight. The Discord Orb has the same property, but the goal is to take out the target before that happens. As it greatly increases the damage an enemy takes, you can drop most Heroes quickly with just a few shots after the fact.

His Ultimate will heal anyone in an AOE and should be saved for when you’re in the center of a group. When playing as him, the center and rear should be where you spend most of your time anyway. It’s also important to note that most of Zenyatta’s health is shields, so it will regenerate over time. Since there isn’t a lot of it, this is the key to him having any survivability.

Okay, real talk – I like Zenyatta a lot, but he struggles. There’s very little he does that another Support can’t do better, outside of damage output. Lucio’s Amped Up heal is just as good as his Ultimate and he himself can be hard to keep alive, having very little health and mobility. If you get caught alone, all of the Discord Orbs in the world won’t help you. Good Zenyatta players can be downright savage, but more than perhaps any other Hero in the game, he will suffer the most from Quick Play matchups with random teams. Without some level of coordination, you’re going to have a rough time, and if he dies, it’s often a long, slow travel back to the objective.

Heroes to Target: Big slow Tanks that need to be Discorded. They should always been your primary targets and their big faces are the easiest to headshot from a distance.

Heroes to Avoid: Seriously. Snipers. They’ll ruin your day. It’s just how the rock-paper-scissors breaks out. One bodyshot from a Widowmaker and you’re done. Hide behind bigger targets that have your Orb of Harmony attached to them.

Hope that was informational. Tomorrow, I’ll cover Tanks.

There is a lot to unpack about MGSV.

It's the most recent game that I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with; north of 70 hours last I checked. I don’t really do that much anymore. My attention span is comparable to that of an insect these days and that draw just isn’t there in most cases. My needs are different. I’m no longer the guy that would marathon JRPGs back to back. Now, it’s rare for me to devote that much time to anything, let alone a video game.

Metal Gear is different though. It felt to me like it was the last big “event” game, something to anticipate and over-analyse the same way moviegoers look forward to the next comic book film. The fact that there was so much distance between each game helped, I think. By the time the first cryptic trailer for The Phantom Pain showed up, I was more than ready to love again, even if parts of the previous games left me with an odd feeling. That’s the thing with Hideo Kojima. Regardless of how you may feel about the man, it’s impossible to deny that he makes a great sales pitch and even if he doesn’t fully deliver on the promises he makes (often intentionally so), you know that you won’t walk away feeling apathetic. In that sense, independent of anything else, the man is a success. That’s the goal of art, after all – to make us feel something, even if that feeling is outrage.

Considering I wouldn’t spend 70 hours with a game I don’t like, it should go without saying that I quite enjoyed my time with The Phantom Pain. It’s easily the best-playing Metal Gear ever, which may not be much of a compliment considering I treated the gameplay of the previous installments as that thing I needed to rush through to get to the next wacky cutscene. That was always the draw, but that’s also my own bias at work. Tell me a big dumb story and I’ll get invested in it, even if things don’t exactly come together the way I’d like them to. This is all the more ironic since I actually really liked the story revelations in MGSV, which apparently puts me in the minority. Maybe I just had different expectations of Kojima and how he weaves (or doesn’t) a narrative; the themes he choses to focus on above others. He’s always been more of a big idea guy than one for character development anyway. That’s why so much of the cast in the previous games appeared to speak with the exact same voice, from the exact same knowledge base, with the exact same opinions on genetics and/or nuclear proliferation.

That said, this homogenization may be intentional. After all, the whole series, and MGSV specifically, are about how we perceive and very often misunderstand iconic figures; how great heroes and villains were likely less interesting than we think and the idea of a symbol being more important than the person. This is one of the many instances in which Kojima gets in his own way. He crafts such memorable characters but puts them in situations where you have no choice but to ponder their futility. No one in MGSV matters because they can’t, but I had a similar feeling after 3 and 4, games that are very specifically about a sense of duty overriding emotion and heroes being completely unknown to the world they saved. We understand that Big Boss is an infamous figure in the universe, but we as players also know that he’s kind of a boring dude. That doesn’t matter when commanding an army willing to hang on every word of a legendary hero.

These are the things I consider when trying to keep up with the latest debates about Kojima. As with most arguments on the internet, I do find myself desiring a bit more nuance, less lines drawn in the sand. Either the man is a genius or a hack. Either he’s charmingly eccentric or he’s a misogynist. I imagine he’s a lot of things. From my perspective, he’s a man that’s crafted one of my favorite universes the medium has ever seen; a universe that unfortunately has a lot of toilet humor and melodrama. This is a man that designed Quiet, whose appearance and characterization are painfully discordant with one another, to exist in the same world as The Boss, a rather plain-looking woman that is undeniably worshiped by everyone that dares speak her name.

Hideo Kojima, to me, is a contradiction, much like the things he creates. I guess in that way, I can relate. No, I don’t have an unyielding desire to insert fart jokes into everything I write, but the things I create tend be the best reflection of who I am, better than any description I could come up with. I suppose that’s where things get muddled; we’ve played Kojima’s games for so long that we feel like we know him. After playing MGSV, I certainly know the books and music he’s a fan of, along with his favorite parts of the female anatomy. After playing MGS2, I felt like I knew a little too much about his love life, Rose clearly a stand-in for someone nagging him about important dates one too many times. For someone that creates stories about deception, he himself is often a little too transparent.

Maybe that’s a side-effect of telling the same story for too long. I’m certainly not trying to make excuses for the man as much as attempting to understand him; why he often assembles things that seemingly work against his own goals. I suppose the easy answer is that he simply doesn’t know what he’s doing, but MGSV is too good for me to believe that. You don’t accidentally direct one of the best games of the year. Instead, we simply have to acknowledge that the best can always be improved upon, whether or not those flaws are indicative of the person responsible. There’s a balance to be reached, for sure, and I feel that too often we get caught up in the idea of Kojima and what he appears to represent to us and games at large.

For all we know, he may actually be a pretty boring dude.

I remember the first mixtape I ever made.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I remember one specific song from it. And it was actually a mix CD, because I needed the surface area to scribble saccharine musings to my would-be soul mate. I was in high school, so of course, she wasn’t actually my soul mate. Come to think of it, we really didn’t have that much in common at all, but as we are want to do at that age, we tried really really hard to convince ourselves that we had something beyond a nominal understanding of the concept of love. In this particular case, we decided that Tonic’s “If You Could Only See” would be “our song”, despite it being about the singer’s relationship with an older woman (which didn’t describe us) and a reverence for her blue eyes (which my girlfriend didn’t have).

Even long after the melodramatic break up and subsequent teen angst wore off, I found it hard to revisit that song years later. There’s that indescribable twinge of memory feedback we get from things like that, be it a movie we once enjoyed with someone, a building that we now find awkward to walk past, or even a coincidental turn of phrase that has the power to send us back in time for just a few painful seconds. As someone who can be sentimental to a fault, I’ve tried in recent years to distance myself from that as much as possible. If I can actively quell my own feelings of nostalgia for the sake of not unfairly praising something, I should, in theory, also have the ability to shut out those negative associations.

As you may have guessed, Borderlands 2 is the most recent example of one of those associations. A perfectly serviceable game on its own, I didn’t really bother to look at it through a critical lens initially. I played through the entirety of the first game on mute whilst catching up on my podcast backlog, really only interested in fulfilling a need for a loot game. As someone that was once deeply infatuated with Diablo II (though admittedly never enough to make it a mix tape), it’s a craving I find myself having on a fairly regular basis. There’s a primal attraction we have as gamers to getting more stuff, seeing numbers get ever-so-slightly higher, even if Borderlands’ system of generating said loot was never as interesting as it could have been. The trade-offs in the sequel especially felt a bit too limiting, as if not-so-subtly nudging you in the direction of particular specialization.

Playing through the second game, making an active attempt to care about the world and the story, it never really stuck with me. The writing wildly vacillates between clever and grating, but depends so much on snarky memetic humor that it’s much more frequently the latter. It’s well worn territory at this point, but even trying to look at it in the context of 2012, it still feels cheap, which hurts so much more when you see the glimmers of something better. It’s a game that frequently gets in its own way, seemingly too self-conscious to ever commit, often sacrificing character potential for the sake of throwaway gags. For every intriguing lore detail or subtle exhibition of wit, there’s a Tiny Tina sequence or equivalent around the corner just waiting to ruin it all.

All of that said, it’s difficult to fault the actual game design for my discontent. After all, it’s still a satisfying first person shooter underneath those surface level gripes. It just hard for me to go back to, thinking about the time in my life that it represents and the person that I played it with; the things I would have done differently… or not at all. It’s weird, that peculiar stirring in the pit of your stomach that you seem to only get from that very specific anxiety. Going back to Borderlands long after a hope of ever resolving those unsettled feelings, I still didn’t find the sense of closure I was looking for. Maybe that was a foolish pursuit to begin with and there really is no such thing, after all, we are shaped by our experiences and often there’s an encumbrance that comes along with that growth, one we can never truly part with.

I can’t help but wonder if one day I’ll create something that will be shared between people that eventually grow to hate each other. Of course, I would be in no way responsible for that, but it’s still something I think about with the same preemptive regret that shapes a lot of my decision making. Art is supposed to a looking glass; an observation of or distraction from our real lives. Where it gets tricky is when we’re sometimes forced to remember the person we were when we put our eye up to the lens for the first time. If I could talk to that person now, that confused past version of myself, the conversation would probably be similar to the one I’d have with anyone responsible for Borderlands that was somehow aware it was a catalyst for so much turmoil within me.

“It’s not your fault. You did the best you could.”

Metafiction has always been a weird genre to me. While I certainly appreciate the appeal of deconstructing the things that have become ubiquitous in our media, too often it feels unearned, as if created under the assumption that self-awareness somehow granted immunity from criticism. I tend to associate this feeling with the works of Grant Morrison, someone who is clearly very intelligent, but tends to go just a bit too far into the self-indulgent. As I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate attempts to rebuild conventions in the wake of that deconstruction. After all, it's so much harder to create something with meaning if you work within a set of guidelines and can't stop to wink every few minutes.

Games have, for the most part, approached it a bit more gracefully. Part of that is due to the fact that they require us to be at least somewhat of an active participant, so acknowledging that we're a part of the experience creates less of a disconnect than it would otherwise. Main characters are often painfully transparent analogs of us as players anyway, so it doesn't feel as drastic to take that extra step, but as the medium gets older, the novelty wears increasingly more thin. After all, most of us are painfully aware that we're really just controlling a series of numbers in the pursuit of feedback loops and increasingly values. You can only cut so deep until you hit a bone composed of ones and zeroes.

Pony Island very easily could have overstepped completely. Often it straddles that line, and there's one moment in particular where I'd say it flat-out crosses it, but it mostly behaves itself, not overstaying its welcome and giving you just enough freedom to not feel, as with some other meta games, that the whole thing is just some backdrop for the developer to make a clever point. In fact, if anything, the insistence on not delivering some overwrought commentary on the state of gaming as a whole feels like a conscious statement itself. It uses the knowledge we have as gamers to lead us down a narrative spoken entirely in a language that would be foreign to anyone not privy to the conventions of the medium, but at no point does it ask us to ignore that narrative. Irrelevent to any gags or references, Pony Island never forgets that you are a character in the story and that your battle with the corrupted game and/or the unknown force inside is still the focus. That's where the game sticks the landing. At the end of it all, you don't feel lectured or taunted, you simply feel that you've reached the end of a story.

It's a difficult space to work in, for sure. Part of me wishes that Pony Island abandoned the meta aspects completely and doubled down on the ever-present air of uneasiness that exists for the whole of your two hour playthrough, but it's also possible that you couldn't have had one without the other. Embracing yourself as the main character makes that feeling of anxiety and dread more personal, the oppressive isolation one has when leaning forward towards the humming of an overly lit monitor in a dark space. There's a reason the urban legend of the Polybius arcade cabinet has been frequently spoken of in the same breath, because it captures a similar intrique, that potential for discovering something terrifying and unknown.

My bias towards horror asthestics aside, it's still a very worthwhile experience, if nothing else because so few games are likely to ever duplicate it, if they could even attempt to. Sometimes I have to catch myself giving games the critical equivalant of a participation medal for simply daring to be different, but Pony Island is a case where the execution delivers on the promises of that unique presentation, a rare thing given how frequently new oddball titles appear on Steam on a daily basis. It seems unlikely to get lost in that shuffle because it is, if nothing else, a hard game to ignore. That is the basis of Pony Island after all; a game you can't simply walk away from.

How's that for being meta?

I really despise the term “guilty pleasure”. The implication that subjective tastes were something that needed to be defended has just never sat quite right with me. Yet it persists, a common aspect of how we consume media in general, as if the quality of the things we enjoy are a point-by-point reflection of our quality as people.

This is a silly notion, of course, as a majority of us simply don’t care, either because we’re tolerant or just too caught up in ourselves to be worried about what other people do. That said, there’s really no way for me to proclaim my fandom of the Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball games without someone coming to the (rather logical) conclusion that I’m a creepy weirdo. I can’t blame anyone for this, and I’m not really here to confirm or deny that one way or another, but I will say that my appreciation for the series comes from a less obvious place that I will try my damnedest to explain.

As an adult with an internet connection, I am well aware of the existence of pornography and my continued time in ye olde cyberspace has exposed me to the many flavors of that particular Baskin Robbins, whether or not I even wanted that exposure, so just functioning as a “boob simulator”, playing to the basest perverted instincts, there really isn’t a place for it. (Also, boobs don’t work that way.) Even acknowledging that there are many a pubescent youth with much more time on their hands and/or subsets of culture that I’m simply not tapped into that do just want the eye candy, that’s never been why I came to Zack Island.

I suppose one could question if that enjoyment is somehow a byproduct of authorial intent, but you don’t really have to. We know why the series was made. It certainly wasn’t for the gripping narrative or character development. Even if you want to briefly consider Itagaki’s claim that the DOA girls are like daughters to him and that he doesn’t want to exploit them, you don’t feel particularly ashamed of your words and deeds for calling bullshit. So why do I like them? More bafflingly, why have so many of my past girlfriends liked them?

What I seem to tap into with the series is an odd feeling that I can enjoy them irrelevant of their purpose, but also without resorting to a sense of derisive irony. It’s different than my reverence for a bad Ed Wood movie, for example. Underneath the indubitablely gross surface level are shades of an actual good game. It’s a melding of genres that offer a lot of the things we typically look for in other titles; variety, replayability, relationship building, and a bra-full of collectibles. It’s a sports game and a dating sim and a shockingly addictive casino all rolled into one to make something undeniably unique. It’s a leisure platform without a stated endgame. It’s Animal Crossing with passive-aggressive gift giving in place of predatory raccoons and real estate. In a word, it’s relaxing.

After spending a considerable amount of time with the games, I still don’t feel like I’m in a position to argue that they’re “good”. Ignoring that that term means different things to different people anyway, they still inhabit a niche of a niche. In a way, that’s a benefit to them, as there still exists an air of mystery to the sub-systems within, the minute detail of why certain character interactions only work in certain situations. Japanese game design has rightly been criticized for its frequent unwillingness to evolve and the antiquated portrayals of women that are seemingly locked in an anime dimension where it’s perpetually the year 2000, but there’s a certain respect for the unknown, an obfuscation of mechanics that we rarely see Western development pull off anywhere near as well. Yes, Hitomi does like light blue wrapping paper for her cooking gifts, but I’m unsure if she was a morning person or not. It’s silly, but… it needs to be. It’s the only way to really diffuse the otherwise unforgivable presentation that would typically drive away a person like myself.

It’s harmless, in a way, while still being a bit presumptuous. I want to say it’s easier to enjoy because it’s so comfortable in its own skin, but I reach a point where I’m unsure of who exactly I’m trying to convince. It’s not guilt, per say, so much as a need to understand myself and how I can be drawn to such a thing. It’s that contradiction that’s oddly attractive. “No, this actually has merit” I hear one side of my brain arguing.

Meanwhile, the other side snickers, shrugging.

“Whatever man, enjoy your boob game.”

One of my favorite things about art is the fact that anyone can create it.

One of my least favorite things about art is the fact that anyone can create it.

Art, and specifically the critique of it, has been an important part of my life for quite a long time. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I’ve always been impressed by the amount of granularity that exists within that short little word; how much ground it seems to cover. I think most of us like to associate it with something good, something to be admired, but it also accounts for just about anything we create, good, bad, or indifferent. Granted, “work of art” is a compliment, and I surely wouldn’t be offended to ever hear that used to describe something I’ve done, but at the same time we recognize film as an art form no matter how many movies the Wayans brothers make. There is room for distinction and I’ve always felt that an absence of that distinction has been the primary roadblock for the people still unable to include video games in that conversation. There is good art, great art… and bad art.

Hatred is undoubtedly a piece of art. It’s also a terrible video game.

Make no mistake, it's quite obvious the only reason Hatred was made was so that people would talk about Hatred. In that respect, I’m rewarding that effort by even typing this, but I also realize I’m in no position to change anyone’s mind one way or another. If you’re aware of it, you’ve likely already formed an opinion. Critics, on average, saw it as a cheap attempt at creating controversy wrapped inside of a bland gameplay experience. Consumers, if Steam reviews are to be trusted (no comment), were generally more positive, praising its bravery for speaking out against the evils of being PC and SJWs and other pejorative acronyms that have been overused to the point of losing their meaning, if they even had one in the first place.

In the interest of objectivity and… morbid intellectual curiosity, I tried to give Hatred a fair shake. Maybe it was being misrepresented or even had something to say underneath the attractive yet ever-so-thin veneer of something forbidden and dangerous. Within seconds, I was assaulted with exposition delivered in the cringe-worthy tone of a 9th grader’s Livejournal posts before being thrust into a world full of nameless people to maim and destroy. What is supposed to feel offensive and mean-spirited comes off as hackneyed and dull, an attempt to recapture the spirit of Postal without seeming to understand that Postal recognized itself as a parody. Hatred is either self-serious to the point of comedy or a failed attempt at satire so extreme that its derisive message is as biting and caustic as a book of insults written by preschoolers.

As someone that can find value in schlocky and disturbing media, it wouldn’t have been difficult for Hatred to have made some sort of impact on me. Considering how many guys (I would say “people”, but let’s be honest here) I saw championing it for being so “real” and “edgy” in the face of critics that were seemingly unable to handle it, I figured there would at least be a genuine attempt at disturbed catharsis or a self aware practice in bad taste. It somehow manages to be neither. As a piece of art, the only value it appears to offer is a commentary on just how effective marketing can be, independent of quality.