Continuing my trend of picking up ActiBlizz titles after they’re no longer cool, I’ve recently gotten into Overwatch. I’m a little less late to this party than Diablo III, but still, at this rate, I’ll be playing Destiny 2 circa 2047. The funny thing is, I didn’t actually want Overwatch. I’m not a big fan of shooters or competitive-only games. I played the beta back in ’16, and thought to myself “Self, if ever I was to get into a shooter, this would probably be it. But I can’t justify $60 for it, because I’m probably never going to play.” Plus I was always bitter that it could have made such a great MMO, but instead they scrapped that and made a Team Fortress 2 clone.

So why did I end up getting it? My wife bought it for me. She’s not the biggest gamer in the world; she really likes Guild Wars 2, but generally the other gaming we do together involves me dragging her around to Star Wars the Old Republic or Elder Scrolls Online. It’s not that she doesn’t like those games, but new and different games tend to stress her out. So that’s why I was surprised when she started talking about getting Overwatch. The theater where she used to work used to run ads for the game, which caught her attention, and she also has several friends who play. A few weeks ago, we found a couple of copies of the GotY edition on sale for more than half off, so my wife bought each of us a copy, and ever since we’ve been playing a few games every night that we have free time.

As I said, I’m not a big fan of competitive shooters. That’s mainly because I’m pretty bad at them. I’ve played mostly against bots so far, though I’ve been brave enough to try a few normal matches (sorry to anyone who’s been paired up with me). I really like the wide variety of characters available. So far my favorite characters are mostly defensive and support (which should be unsurprising to anyone who plays MMOs with me), specifically Bastion, Orisa, Moira, and Torbjorn. I’m really bad at the squishy DPS characters, so I’ve mostly avoided that whole section, but I really want to spend some more time playing Pharah, because her jetpack seems really fun to me (as long as I can stay alive).

So far, the community has been surprisingly jerk-free. I know they’re out there, and I’ll probably run into them more as I rank up, but I’m enjoying it while I can. My biggest complaint so far? I wish there were a way to earn credits outside of getting dupes from lockboxes. I really want that Nova Terra outfit for Widowmaker (even though I’m not that good with her) or the Immortal Orisa (both StarCraft crossovers). If my luck so far is any indication, I doubt I’ll get either from a random drop. It would also be nice if I could sell costumes that I’m never going to use. I’d also be willing to pay money to buy outfits directly, but this is the Age of the Lockbox, so I doubt either of those things are ever going to happen. But hey, if the biggest thing I can find to complain about is that I’m not getting cosmetics fast enough, I guess the game isn’t doing too bad.