[VALORANT] - First Impressions Review

Introduction

Since my last Valorant post I was lucky enough to get a key finally, so I decided to share my experience with around 10-15 matches behind my back.
You should know that FPS games were never my style, I have roughly 200 hours in Overwatch, 50 hours in CS:GO and somewhere between those in Apex Legends. On the other hand, League of Legends, the first game of Riot Games was my main game for 5-6 years, so I was really looking forward to try out their new game.

Gameplay

For those who don't know what the game is about: it is a very similar first person shooter to CS:GO. You are divided to two teams the attackers and defenders,each consists of 5 players. There are some areas on the map in which the attackers have to plant a bomb called "Spike" and logically, the defender's goal is not to let them. Based on the outcome of each round the winner team gets 1 point, and the first team to reach 13 points wins.
The tweak Riot added to this gameflow is that there are 10 different characters, Agents from which you can choose from at the beggining of the match. All of them have unique abilities and add new depths to the game.

What I liked

• The game is really clear. By that I mean that you can easily make a difference between the characters, their abilities and the parts of the maps.
• It runs basically on anything. A 2020 game which is optimized so well even your grandma's laptop is able to run it
• Shooting has more important role than in Overwatch, less than CS:GO
• Art style is simple yet very nice in my opinion
• Agents skills truly make them unique. Even if it seems like some of them were stolen from Overwatch, they feel really different
• Easily learnable and seems fun for casual players as well
• I like the current situation, that it is still in closed beta and everybody is still experimenting, and there is no real meta and pro play. I am looking forward to the esport scene though
  
  
  

  What I did not like

• Vanguard - Riot's anticheat is really aggressive. There have been reports saying it shuts down software on your PC without asking, sometimes even drivers. It really does upset many people, @whack.science wrote a post alerting everybody of the danger
• Maps tend to have too many corners and small rooms. I am not sure wheter that is a problem or not, I just feel like there is very few open/free space in the game. Maybe that is essential for the genre
• Voice chat toxicity - like all games which have voice chat implemented have to face this issue
• There is no quick-game mode implemented yet. If you would like to play some, you will have to stick your butt to your gaming chair for 30-40 mins. This will be addressed with the launch of the game as far as I know
  
  
  

  Overall opinion

I am really having a good time playing Valorant, I feel like this game is the one that can truly introduce me to the FPS genre.
Since it is free to play and also a very good game overall, I expect it to have a very big player-base in the future. I will be one of them, so you can expect lots of Valorant content from me.

Thank you very much for reading!

Time spent writing this article: ~1 hour