Competitive Game

The game chosen is Valorant and is pretty big in the competitive scene currently. The game is a FPS based around the Search and Destroy game mode although there are other modes you can play all with there own little twist. The games unique feature really is that each Agent has their own abilities including flashes, smokes, grenades, heals. etc. The focus is for you to have the better combination of agents than the other team to try and win in a first to 13 win by 2 game for their competitive style. 

 Game Title: Valorant                                                          Publisher: Riot Games

Year: 2020                                                                           ESRB Rating: Teen

Platform: PC/Mac                                                               Genre: First Person Shooter

Fun Factor: 

Fun factor in the game is solely relied on by the people that you are matched with in your games, both the enemy team as well as your own teammates. Although the game alone becomes more fun when you are playing with friends. Even at that it makes the game more difficult the competitive game mode with friends if you rank too far apart from each other, because then you won't be able to play competitive with each other. The game is very similar to other games of the 'Search and Destroy' type where one team plants a bomb and the others goal is to try and defuse or keep the other from planting. The game modes in the game are fun to play some more than others because some of the game features seem broken. The main style is the single life search type game mode and I'd say it is about an 8/10 but can range to 4/10 because of people you may be cued with in the game.

Learning Curve:

There is a steep learning curve when it comes how to aim and use each characters abilities correctly. When playing the game I found that sticking to 2 - 3 characters that I played was the best option because of this learning curve as well as just being able to play those three better than any other because you spend more time on them instead of evenly playing every one. Aiming is a difficult if almost random learning curve because each gun you have to know damage drop off as well as recoil pattern. Another big portion is not moving while you shoot which is a hard habit to break because you strafe while shooting in most other games, instead here it interrupts aim with a larger spread.

Graphics: 

Graphics for the game are very clean cut especially the effort that was put in on the gun skins that are in the game, there is a mix of realism and cartoon style graphics in the game. Although sometimes during games the HUD seems a little crowded even though most of it is necessary to display on the screen when playing. Overall the graphics are an 8/10 since there are some visual bugs that could be fixed in some maps.

Audio:

The audio for this game has made getting kills very satisfying and depending if you have a skin for the gun or not they have different audio for when you get a kill or headshot and it is satisfying to say the least. Audio is a big contributor in the game and it seems the audio doesn't represent what is actually happening in the game occasionally, that being footsteps are heard but they aren't representing where someone is walking and could be on the other side of a wall that the sound didn't come from. Outside of footsteps the audio cues for everything else are pretty spot on and you can tell when someone uses their ultimate ability from anywhere as well as regular abilities in a vicinity. Audio is great but could be better for footsteps of players.

Controls:

Movement in the game is the same as any other FPS on PC as well as looking around aiming and shooting but the abilities have their own buttons. So things like flashes, smokes, heals, trip wires, etc. all range from only a couple buttons on each character but the flash could be different from character to character so the controls could be a little bit different depending on who you play. The game does have a cool feature where you can customize the button layout for only specific characters so this kind of clashing doesn't happen and makes button mapping more customizable.

Story:

There is a little story behind the characters of the game even though it is really just a SnD FPS game. the story isn't completely in the game but from each "Act" you can see that there is a different bit of story added especially when a new character is added the developers seem to like adding a little background on their relation to the rest of the characters in the game. Most of the story can be found online with videos on YouTube for the story of the characters. 

Characters:

Each character in the game has their own unique abilities as well as their own classification as to what they are meant to do during the game. These classes include Duelist, Initiator, Controller, Sentinels. Duelists are more for taking the fights because their abilities help them to do that/ Controllers are more for taking the plant sites and holding them. Initiators are meant to make the initial push onto the enemy team. Then the Sentinels are for recon and getting info and being overall team players for set up or healing and anything else that could help the team.

Level Design:

level or map design in the game is a big hit or miss because there are 2-3 maps that you never want to play when you queue for a game. These maps include Breeze and Fracture as the popular hated maps but could be more depending on preference. The reason the maps are hated is because the game relies pretty heavily on cover and map design, but when there is no cover in big areas if fails to make people happy to play the game which is why these two maps aren't liked because there are large areas that have no cover and the other being there is 4 different areas you can attack from when typically there are 2-3 making it attack side favored pretty easily.

Changes:

I would change the footsteps to try and make them more accurate so it isn't what you heard getting you killed during a round. Then I also would take out the two maps mentioned in the Level Design Section, while playing you learn most people hate these maps since people will dodge the map or leave the game based solely on the map alone. Some of the characters in the game are way too over powered from both being killed by them and playing as them I'd say they need to be nerfed specifically Reyna since they can heal after close to every kill and their ult has no weakness outside of being headshot.

Recommendation:

I'd recommend the game to anyone that wants an updated type of Counter Strike game that is mixed with Overwatch. The game overall can be fun but purely relies on team mates.