Paladins - My First Impressions

So with the massive raging that Paladins was some type of Overwatch clone (or whatever people were yammering on about), I finally decided to give it a go. Having played it all I can say is that I am going to need a lot more practice. The gameplay is the usual Heroes V Heroes in an objective based match and once you pick your character, you stay that character for the whole match and players on your team can't be the same character. I'm fine with this as it helps me get better suited to the characters I would be playing as.

Speaking of which, at least half the roster is unlocked to start with and you can unlock the rest through cash (the in-game currency) or gems (the real-life currency). Again, being a Free-to-play (F2P) game, this is something I'd expect. The outfits are rather limited (it is in beta) so there aren't a lot of cool looking designs, but I'd guess we could see a bunch more in the future (it's how free-to-play games make their money).

Game wise, I enjoyed it. I'm not very good at it, but I had fun. My character was Pip, an anthropomorphic fox/rodent? character who's class was support (cause I always seem to play supporting characters) who's special is to turn enemies he hits with it into chickens for a limited time. I really like Pip. You also have a card deck which you can unlock new cards either through opening chests (from level rewards or from purchasing them with gems) or just paying the cash cost to unlock them. You build a deck of five, but also have a points limit of twelve with them, so my guess is some cards are more powerful then others and this is a way to control that (I didn't have many cards unlocked). You also have a match based currency that unlocks buffs during the match. There a four categories and once you pick a bonus in one, you can't pick any more in that same one (so one per category). That said, each one starts at rank one and can be upgraded to rank three, and you earn the currency for such things from killing heroes, capturing or holding objectives etc. It can get a little confusing and you do find after a few games you will figure out which ones work best with which playstyles.

It feels like a F2P game and it plays like one. This is the kind of game I'd like to play with friends just for a bit of fun with that added drop of frustration thrown in. One might wonder why I'd choose this over a game like Overwatch (you know, apart from the fact it's F2P), but my experiences with that game just rubbed me the wrong way and while I stand by my decision, Overwatch is still a good game. That said, it's not for me. This game however, might be something extra to play here and there for a little enjoyment (as long as I'm playing with a friend anyway).