The Transport Guy: This is the most addictive game of the year

Steve Kovach May 31, 2016 at 12:20PM

If you needed to find me on a Friday night 16 years ago, I was probably in the spare bedroom of my childhood home playing endless hours of "Team Fortress Classic" online.

"Team Fortress" was an instant hit. Unlike most shooting games where everyone plays the same character and tries to rack up as many kills as possible, "Team Fortress" required a lot of strategy and planning. There were several classes of characters ranging from medic to sniper, and mastering any of them could make you absolutely lethal. I was a terrible student in high school, but I'm pretty sure if I had dedicated as much time to studying as I did to "Team Fortress," I would have been valedictorian.

Now, here I am at age 30 and equally as addicted to the game's spiritual successor, "Overwatch." Instead of spending Memorial Day weekend at the beach or grilling processed meat like a normal American, I was glued to my PlayStation 4, playing endless rounds of the game.

The concept behind "Overwatch" is very similar to "Team Fortress." You play on small teams and tackle objectives like capturing a checkpoint or moving a payload over the goal line. (Still missing: Capture the flag.) The game is beautifully designed and even has a clever back story, which you can check out by watching these animated shorts on YouTube.

But "Overwatch" is even more addictive than "Team Fortress" because of its deep roster of 21 characters with unique abilities and the fact it lets you change your character in the middle of the game to adapt to your opponents. It keeps every round you play fresh and exciting, forcing you to change your tactics on the fly in order to take down your opponents. My colleague Ben Gilbert described it pretty well: It's like an ever-changing rock/paper/scissors battle.

Maybe a checkpoint is overrun with enemies and your team can't seem to get through. Well, switch to D.Va and use her robot suit to boost in the middle of them and blow them to smithereens, kamikaze-style. Maybe you're guarding a payload and want to keep your enemies from coming close at all. Switch to a sniper character like Widowmaker and pick them off from a distance. Maybe one of your teammates is having trouble staying alive long enough to make a difference. Switch to a healer like Mercy and keep their health up as they push through enemy lines.

You get the idea. The deep bench of characters keeps every round of "Overwatch" fresh and exciting, even if the goal of the game never changes. And it's only going to get better as Blizzard, the studio that makes "Overwatch," adds more characters and game modes over time.

If you have a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or a PC and like fun, then you'd be insane not to give "Overwatch" a try. You'll thank me. Your friends and family who want to see you on a regular basis might not.

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This is the most addictive game of the year from Business Insider: Steve Kovach