Ah Valorant (or vagorant, as I like to call it). You promised us something new ... but I'm unsure whether your definition of new aligns with reality - but I'm getting ahead of myself. Valorant is the latest Beta-stage IP from Riot games, who is most famous for LOL which, in reality, was a clone of DOTA (which was responsible for creating the MOBA game genre), which is a mod for an RTS called Warcraft 3. Now that I've escaped the acronym soup, I would be okay if it were merely a poor man's amalgam of CSGO, FN, AL and OW (perhaps I'm stretching with a few of those acronyms) - but they didn't stop there, which brings me to the crutch of this article.
... or perhaps not.
I get tired when vendors don't even iterate on a proven formula - they merely copy - like what happened with all the BR's attempting to emulate the success of PUBG (just with slightly different contexts) . <*I promise* that is the last of the acronyms> Where has all the creativity and growth gone in the AAA games industry? I find myself having to lean on the exploits of single-man indies with any semblance of evolution on an original idea. But, anyway, here's the break-down of what vagorant has delivered:
- Tight weapon mechanics (CSGO)
- Weapon buy (CSGO)
- Slow player movement (CSGO)
- Colourful maps and colours (OW/FN)
- Snarky one-liners (OW/AL)
- Power-ups (LOL/DOTA/OW/AL)
- Deagle (CSGO/AL)
- Brimstone = Gibraltar (AL - not even trying)
- Viper = Caustic (AL - not even trying)
I could go on but I won't. You get the point that there's clearly a lack of originality when it comes to this 'New IP.' I could go into the basic map design (very cubist - FN/CSGO) but I think that was intentional; so you could clearly see opponents against the spartan surroundings. In a classic (and unoriginal) modern twist, this game is free ... but it does come at a price. You can (unimaginatively) buy weapon skins and such - but the real price comes in the root kit that's installed to fight cheaters. From what I've seen, it is having great success at fighting the script kiddies but even if it was a good game I'm not going to subject my PC to getting infected with a backdoor just to play something that isn't even fun (VNSFW - sorry).
Even if this were the bees knees of free-to-play (or F2P - sorry) I wouldn't play it. Especially considering Riot games is owned by Tencent which may just mean that the Chinese government (if they were so inclined) could force Tencent to force Riot games to data-mine or create a network of zombie PC's. Tin foil hat off: this actually could be a reality and I'm unwilling to help them with their nefarious plans. You have been warned: treacherous - but dull - waters ahead.
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