Valorant is a team-based first-person shooter and the latest game trying to be an eSports mainstay for players. Developed by Riot Games, the guys responsible for the monstrously popular 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:League of Legends,ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ it has similar ambitions. It already has over 3 million players, and has racked up over 500 million hours viewed on Twitch. So, it’s had an exemplary launch.
But just how good is Valorant? As a 5v5 tactical shooter, the game is trying to go after 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Counter Strike: Global Offensive’s crown, which is no easy feat. But with high-stakes shootouts, unique abilities and fast-paced gameplay, the game is already a lot of fun.
Teams play 𝐆as either defenders or attackers in each round, and they go for 25 rounds. Attackers carry a bomb to a design𒐪ated bombsite, plant it, and try to detonate it. The defenders, though, are tasked with thwarting the attackers.
Valorant has taken the gaming world by storm in a brief time, so le🐠t’s take a look at the best and worst things about it.
10 ജ Best: Deep Gameplay
Valorant is not a simple shooter. Each gun feels and operates differently, so players have to try out each one—for hours on end—and decide which ones they are most comfortable with. Players who just rush into each game without doing this might miss out on a lot of kills because they are unfamiliar with their weapon🗹s. In addition, the game encourages tactics; this iꩲs much more than a simple deathmatch.
Players who want a deep, complicated game will have countless hours of fun with Valorant. It rewards mind games, skill and strategies.
9 ꩵ Worst: It’s Punishing 💮
Valorant might be easy to learn, but mastering it takes plenty of time and concentration. If one plays too safely, or constantly runs around without using any tactics, they are likely to die. Players have to balance their playstyle if they want toไ live long enough to win a round. And it doesn’t help that many players one can face are already used to first-person shooters.
One has to spend countless hours learning the layout of each map, and during that time, the more experienced opponents will make oღne feel like quittingꦺ.
8 💎 Best: It’s Free
Just like League of Legends, Valorant is entirely free to play. This means that as long as the player’s system meets t﷽he minimum system requirements, they can install it and play it without ever having to worry about the purchase cost or a subscription. And if they don’t like it,꧃ they can just uninstall it without feeling bad about paying for it.
This pits it against a few other free-to-play shooters, like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite. And being free makes it easier to recommend over games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Overwatch and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, wh🧸ich still charge gamers to play and have microtransactions on top of that.
7 Wors🧜t: Few Maps ✤
At launch, Valorant only has four maps. This can be a good thing for players who want to memorize every nook and cranny of each map. But for t💟he rest, it can make the game feel the slightest bit shallow. The maps also don’t look wildly different from each other. And, to make matters worse, players start each match in fixed positions, so they will quickly internalize the maps, whether they want to or not.
Hopef🍨ully, Riot Games will add more maps to the game, or players might get bored after💟 grinding for a while.
6 🌼 Best𒉰: Art Style
Grim-looking games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds can get tiresome after a while. So, Valorant’s colorful, cartoony art style isꦉ a breath of fresh air. The game is almost as vibrant as Overwatch, with bright environments, beautiful details and a colorful cast of characters.
Because of the cartoony art style, the game will age better than others which try to look ultra-realistic. This is how a game such as League of Legends still looks amazing, even though it was released in 2009. Once the developers start giving the characters skins, Valorant promises to be even more visually striking.
5 🙈 Worst: Shallow Agents
There are 11 agents in Valorant, from all over the world. However, players can only start with five free agents: Sova, Brimstone, Phoenix, Sage and Jett. Even though the character꧙ designs are decent, that’s about it. They barely have any voice lines, their biographies basically consist of their function and country of origin, and they don’t have any cinematics showing their background. The characters don’t have depth, and this keeps players from getting attached to them.
This is one area Valorant easily loses to the likes of Overwatch. Riot Games should consider fleshing ou🐓t their backgrounds to get players more invested.
4 🐷🍌 Best: Runs On Most PCs
Some of the newer free-to-play games are graphically demanding, requiring a hefty PC build. But Valorant isn’t heavy at all. With minimum system requirements of a Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and Intel HD 4000 graphics, the game ▨can run on a “potato PC” with no problems. This means that practically any gamer with a PC or laptop and good internet connection can play the game and not sacrifice the visual aesthetics too much.
The game might get graphically more demanding in the future, but for now, it’s off to a great start, welcoming ไplayers with all sorts of builds.
3 💝 Worst: Dull Default Weapons 🧜
Weapons in Valorant take some time to master. So, it’s strange that their default skin🐟s are so boring: they range from orange to gray and black. This can easily lead to confusion, as a player might pick up a certain type of weapon thinking it’s another.
Getting weapon skins is an obvious help. However, this forces players to either grind a number of hours to get them, or spend real money on the battle pass. This feels like an oversight from the developers, as ౠthey could have made the we🅷apons more visually striking by default instead of relying on skins.
2 💟 ꧑ Best: Impressive Ultimates
Each agent in Valorant has an Ultimate Ability. It varies from one fighter to another, and deals a ton of damage. The Ultimate is refreshed once for each round, and the player earns it by killing enemies o🥀r even getting killed. Players can also unlock two other abilities, which are not as powerful buꦦt still deal plenty of damage.
The abilities work well together, and they don’t feel out of place. If anything, they make the game even more engaging than if it were purely a first-person shooter. This is one way Valorant matches Overwatch, even though its abilities aren’t as striking.
1 🌃 Worst: Toxic Community
Toxic communities are nothing new in online games. However, toxic players are rather frequent in Valorant. These are the players who start getting salty 🅠when you make a mistake, or if the game isn’t going your team’s way. They can make an already tense game much more stressful and less enjoyable.
In the developers’ defence, they♒ are trying to curb this; they allow players to mute others and even report them. However, the community still has more toxic players than it should, and this is something the developers should take more stringent measures to control.