One of the most popular video games on the planet right now is Overwatch. It’s a first person shooter with a frenetic and crazy pace. There is a diverse range of characters that have different play styles from each other, complete with compelling and well-written backstories. The art is great, with a Disney/Pixar feel to it. But the most important part is that the specs needed to play aren’t high that even a basic gaming laptop can handle it.

It’s a fun and popular game that you can play on the go without having to buy a high-end gaming laptop to play it anywhere.

If this is enough to convince you to get a new rig so you can play this among other games, you might as well get some basics about it. Know more info either as a refresher or if by some reason you have no idea about the game at all.

The Heroes

The heroes are the main pull of the game. Overwatch has a whole slew of unique heroes. Currently, there are 21 heroes in the game, but Blizzard announced that they would be releasing more heroes. Those 21 are spread around four distinct roles: Offense, Defense, Support, and Tank.

Offense

Offense Heroes are the main attackers and damage dealers of the game. They are there to kill enemies, plain and straightforward. They have the tendency to be independent from the party. They specialize in flanking, scouting, harassing, and doing clean up after a scrap.

Defense

Defense Heroes are there to defend objectives or suppress enemies into chokepoints. They also have higher than average health and can shoot further as well.

Tanks

Tank Heroes are there to get hit. They have the highest health in the game and have abilities that can help soak up damage even more. They assist the team to get from point A to B. Pretty much a counter to Defense heroes; they can push through chokepoints.

Support

Support Heroes are the healers, buffers, and de-buffers for the team. They aren’t the toughest or strongest characters, but they help out a lot. Having one or two support members in the team can be the lynchpin in any team to give it a win.

All the heroes are made to be balanced, but certain heroes shine when paired other heroes. Blizzard makes it a point to watch out for imbalanced heroes, and they nerf them pretty quickly before it makes a mess of rankings for players.

The Game Modes

There are four types of game modes. Certain game modes are restricted to specific maps. All of which are designed well and, again, balance is important. It may seem like one side has a better starting area but it’s all balanced. The four game modes are  Assault, Control, Escort, and Hybrid.

Assault

In this mode, the Attacking team have to take a particular area and the Defending team will try to stop the other team from taking it.

Escort

Here, the Defending team has to prevent the Attacking team from delivering the payload to a certain area. The Attacking team can make the payload move faster by investing more people into the payload, at the cost of being sitting ducks.

Control

In Control mode, you fight over a series of objective areas in the race to two wins format. This means that there are no attacking and defending teams found in other game modes.

Hybrid

Here, the match starts off as an Assault game then switches [change:into] to an Escort game if the attacking team manages to get the area being fought over. So far, there are only two Hybrid (Assault & Escort) maps.

Everything Else

Overwatch isn’t pay-to-play nor is there a pay-to-win component to it. All the unlockables and purchased items are purely cosmetic. Each match gives you XP (experience points) based on how well you played. With the XP, you level up and each level up nets you a loot box to get random cosmetic items. You can get new skins, voice samples and emotes. Any duplicates you get automatically become credits that you can use to buy specific stuff for heroes you like. Pretty much a level playing field for everyone except some heroes might look better than yours.

The Tech Specs

The minimum requirements to play Overwatch is pretty good. It needs at least Windows 7/8/10 64-bit for the OS, and Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom X3 8650 for the processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, ATI Radeon HD 4850, or Intel HD Graphics 4400 for video, 4GB RAM for memory, and at 30GB available hard drive space. It has been pointed out that Overwatch is a surprise to a lot of players due to the fact it can be played without a dedicated graphics card. That means you can play it on a gaming laptop with little to no issue, especially on the right settings. Gaming on the go!

Go out and get yourself a new gaming laptop, and it doesn’t even have to be the expensive ones. Be part of Overwatch.