Review for Valuing. PC game, the video game came out on 02/06/2020
Riot Games is back. After sitting on the MOBA throne for more than 10 years, she has declared war on the world of esports with a mind-boggling line up of titles. After having had his say on Auto Chess with Teamfight Tactics and having successfully experienced the universe of Card Games with Legends of Runeterra, aim for shooters.
We are talking about Valorant, an exquisitely competitive shooter that collects the very rich heritage of the genre to channel all the experience gained in order to propose a heart-pounding title, where strategy, personal skill, study and mechanics are the masters. After a record-breaking beta period, that mattered more than 3 million players, 470 million hours of streaming watched and, a record breaking, 34 million hours watched in a single day, is ready for release.
Once again Riot Games proposes one Free to Play formula in all respects, where we will be able to go to buy exclusively cosmetic items related to the reskin of weapons with hard cash. No skins and new outfits for the characters, in order to ensure the clearest possible experience for the player, where the identity of each agent wants to be as recognizable as possible in the heated firefights that await us.
The gameplay formula is the most classic proposed by the tried and tested Counter Strike: Global Offensive system. The game takes place in two moments: during the first (or second half) we will be called to defend one of the four maps available at launch against a team with a symmetrical number of 5 attackers, who will have to be able to trigger a Spike (classically the bomb of CS) and defend it until the explosion, to switch roles and become the attackers ourselves.
The areas in which to place the Spike are well delimited and differ from map to map, they are generally two at the antipodes, up to three sites, in a best of 13 round match. Unlike Counter Strike, Riot has chosen an odd number as the end-of-game moment to avoid any draw and decree with certainty winners and losers.
The economy system once again reflects what has already been seen in CS: GO, we will therefore start with a "Pistol Round" in which we will have few credits available and we will be able to choose to buy a different gun or an extra skill for our agent at the beginning of the round, then the winning team of the first round will have access to a stronger economy to play the next round, having access to armor and weapons.
Valorant clearly stands out from its competitors thanks to an intelligent system of special abilities, unique to each agent, which can make the difference between life and death. Unlike weapons, an unused ability will not be lost in case of death at the end of the round, but preserved. However, we will have to go and buy it again in case of use, as the special abilities of the agents have limited charges that must be made the most of in the highlights of the game.
Most of the skills play an important utility role in any case, such as placing hidden cameras to spot enemies, blocking access to a particular area thanks to a wall, deploy tactical drones to explore a dangerous corridor or summon fog blankets to manage the view of the enemy team. There are very few skills capable of causing direct damage, such as the grenades of Raze, our Brazilian wrecking machine.
Each kill or death will grant us a stack for the ultimate ability and once we have accumulated five we can unleash the latent power of our agent. Again (Raze aside), these abilities once again focus on the role of utility. Cypher will be able to discover for a few moments where the agents of the enemy team are hiding, Sage will be able to revive an ally, Viper will be able to create a toxic cloud capable of zoning the attackers and the fiery Phoenix will have access to a second temporary life.
Lethality is almost totally entrusted to the player's ability to shoot with his own weapon, where aiming and reflexes are the masters in a much more predominant way than most of the Valorant competitors on the market. The spray of the weapons must be controlled to perfection, because in most cases only the first shot will hit in coincidence with our pointer and handling the burst is really challenging and takes tens, if not hundreds of hours of training.
Shooting on the run is impossible, to guarantee a steady shot we will have to remain absolutely motionless during the entire period of fire, otherwise we will miss with certainty all the shots directed at the target, even if our aim is fixed on its head. As for the weapons fleet, Valorant is on the safe side and proposes a task arsenal, which provides firing opportunities for all tastes starting with the light machine guns, passing through the automatic and culminating with the inevitable snipers. Almost every weapon has its own style of play and to master them all it will really take many hours of training, as well as understanding which weapon is the most suitable depending on our positioning, the agent and the round in progress is vital.
Valorant looks perfect. It is the natural evolution of competitive shooters, the gateway to the future of the genre that we dreamed of but never dared to imagine, where the ability of the individual and team play embody an impeccable combination. What is Valorant missing? Almost anything other than gameplay. Compared to the contents of the Clesed Beta, only 1 agent and 1 map have been added, while we dreamed of a pharaonic launch able to make us dream thanks to a fascinating lore and immerse us in a very rich narrative universe.
To date we know almost nothing about Valorant, his history and his characters and if it were not for the short jokes that the various agents exchange at the beginning of each round, we would not have even a hint of the lore we dreamed of. We are very far from the launch of Blizzard's Overwatch, where even before we throw ourselves headlong into duels we had already enjoyed dedicated shorts, trailers and insights that were able to make us passionate about the very lively universe of the game enough to even dream of a single player campaign.
Valorant is gameplay, that's all. Will it be like this forever? Obviously not. If we think back to the launch of League of Legends, now more than 10 years ago, A MOBA comes to mind with great nostalgia that thanks to its gameplay was able to bewitch us, with portraits of the characters just sketched, a land of aesthetically out-of-shape evocators and artwork not even remotely comparable to those we can enjoy today.
League of Legends today enjoy Marvel comic book transpositions, dedicated shorts, spin offs and even an upcoming TV series. During our chat with Riot Games, we were reassured that what we dream of for Valorant's future will come, step by step. Although this launch strategy may turn up their noses for many and even we who write have experienced several moments of disappointment for the subdued launch, we nevertheless believe that the beating heart of Riot Games titles is the gameplay and that haste can be bad. councilor. When the Ranked system is live we will climb the rankings sacrificing hours of sleep, at the launch of the competitive we will have our nose attached to the monitor so as not to lose even a headshot and when the story of the game world is ready we will become fond of the vicissitudes of the agents. Because Valorant is an incredible game and we are ready to live every moment of its evolution.
► Valorant is a Shooter-Tactical type game developed and published by Riot Games for PC, the video game was released on 02/06/2020
