To the surprise of video game fanatics at this year’s Blizzcon, a semi-annual game convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote their major franchises, Blizzard announced its first ever first-person shooter game, “Overwatch.” First-person shooter involve situations in which the player plays from the perspective of a character.

With its cartoony appearance and Pixar-like animations featuring magic and firepower, Overwatch is a stark contrast from the usual dark Blizzard worlds such as the World of Warcraft.

Unlike most other games with their serious, more modern graphics, Overwatch’s cartoony graphics provide a more peaceful and playful environment. This allows users to play casually and have fun with their friends, without the intensity that other shooting games require.

The game features 12 different characters split into four roles (assault, support, tank and defender), each equipped with their own distinct weapons and supernatural abilities.

Though each character and the world of Overwatch has its own explicit backstory and origins, the game itself has no plot line. Though this slightly takes away from the gaming experience, most other shooter games don’t have much of a plot line either.

Like many other games made by Blizzard, Overwatch is easy to learn. In-game instructions tell players each character’s key abilities and appropriate controls.

Overwatch matches pits six players against each other on a variety of futuristic maps in places, such as London and Egypt, in their two game modes, point capture and payload.

In point capture, two teams battle over control of the map. One team is on offense, while the other is on defense. The attackers' goal is to capture control points, and the defenders must maintain control over them until time runs out.

In payload, the attacking team's objective is to move a cart to a delivery point, while the defenders must halt the attackers' progress until time runs out.

During a match, players can switch between the 12 characters while they come back after dying, keeping the game interesting. If running around the front lines as Tracer, a speedy pistol poppin hothead, isn’t your cup of tea, try playing as Mercy, a Swiss doctor and heal your allies. If you get bored by sitting back as Torbjorn building sentries while your allies battle on the frontlines, try leading the battle as Reinhardt, an oversized mech, with your energy shield.

Despite Overwatch’s many entertaining features, one of the main concerns is that Overwatch has many similar aspects to another popular first-person shooter “Team Fortress 2” created by Valve. Many of the characters’ items, roles and game-modes seemed to have been plucked straight out of TF2. By having similar characters and weapons, the game will also generate less interest.

Furthermore, with many other firstperson shooter games in the market, Overwatch will already have much competition.  Despite the flaws, Blizzard Entertainment’s first ever shooter looks promising. Be sure to catch the beta release early next year.