Valorant Review

Riot Games (who finally earned the name) actually had a dynamic 10-year anniversary of its core legendary game, League of Legends.

They announced their plans to create more games in more genres.

Valorant is Riot’s attempt at an FPS game.

Highly anticipated, the game saw a massive increase in interest when the beta was released and keys were limited.

But how good is it really? Does it deserve all this praise?

As usual, this review will have a Storyline, Gameplay, Visuals and Personal Thoughts sections. Without further ado:

Storyline

We don’t have much in terms of story.

What we do know, is that, set in a future Earth, some people gained superhuman abilities from an event of unknown origins.

A secret organization is trying to recruit these individuals, and anyone who possess technology equal to those individuals’ powers.

Other than that, Riot states that they want the story to be told through character interactions in-game.

Gameplay

Valorant is an FPS. In fact, you will find its gameplay to be very similar to legendary FPS such as CS:GO and CoD.

However, Riot didn’t just want to create another regular FPS, so instead, they drew inspiration from other different FPSs like Overwatch.

The result is a mix of the 2 subgenres.

To start with, each team has a different objective and a different start point.. Fortunately, to stay balanced, you’ll be playing half the game as one team, and for the rest of the game with the other.

Let’s continue with the objectives:

There are (usually) two sites in any given map called the A Site and the B Site. Some maps have a C Site as well.

At the start of the game, you either play as the Attackers or the Defenders.

As the Attackers, you have to take the bomb (called the Spike) in any of the sites and plant it, then protect it until it detonates.

As the Defenders, you have to stop the Attackers from fulfilling their goal.

Generally, a round can be won if every member of one team is dead. However, if all Attackers die, but the Spike is planted, then the defenders have to defuse it to win the round (regardless of any opponent being alive or not).

The Defenders can also win by “playing time”, or in simple words, waiting out the round timer. If it expires, the Attackers haven’t planted the spike and at least 1 Defender is alive, then the Defenders win.

There is a casual and competitive game mode.

The modes are mostly similar between each other, beside the obvious fact that the competitive is essentially ranked, where you will play for your promotion/demotion.

Unlike CS:GO, Riot does give you a clue on how the game’s MMR works, but you still can’t see your direct placement.

The game is extremely competitive due to its complicated mechanics. Despite the objectives, it’s still not just a simple gun fest. The game has many micro and macro mechanics.

For starters, each game has a dedicated economy.

Each player has his own pot. You can earn money (called credits) by killing enemies, and a set amount after losing or winning (obviously you gain more money by winning rounds).

You’ll gain increasingly more creds by lose streaking, but no more than an upper limit, that is still lower than winning creds.

There are many more things with the game’s economy that you’ll learn by playing. One simple thing is an “eco” round, in which you buy (almost) nothing to save money. The economy fully resets when the players switch sides.

Besides weapons, you can buy skills.

Every character has 4 skills. 1 of their skills is always available in each round, and refreshes after every round. Some skills can refresh and used a second time in a round.

There are also 2 other skills for each player that you need to buy. They work similarly to grenades, and most of them are crowd control and AoE skills.

Finally, each player has his Ultimate. This can be recharged by killing enemies, finding black orbs around the map and securing them (making you vulnerable for a few seconds), dying (only once every round) and by defusing or planting the Spike.

The weapons are also quite complicated. As expected, each weapon has a different recoil, magazine, power, etc.

You will need to learn which weapon is optimal in which situation, when to burst fire, continuously fire, or one-tap (throwing a bullet at a time), which weapons can penetrate walls and doors, how much damage you deal and most importantly, where to aim to hit the head.

You can also right-click to get enhanced zoom on most weapons (for the cost of mobility and rate of fire). Some weapons have a secondary attack instead.

The game has friendly fire as well, but only on abilities.

Competitive requires A LOT of communication. The game has in-game voice chat, and you must use this to the fullest lest you want to lose every time. You must use it to give info on the enemy position, or enemy damage taken.

You can also use it when you want to cover a specific point, or trade a weapon, or before you use a grenade. Generally, you’ll want to use it as much as possible, as info is key to victory. I’m not even exaggerating!

It’s even possible to hear someone coming (unless he’s sneaking).

As you see, the game has a lot of macro (economy and positioning) and micro (grenade placement and weapon usage) to handle. That’s why I recommend trying out casual a lot before going to ranked. Maybe even finding a team of friends to make things easier.

Visuals

When we’re talking Riot Games, you can expect a game that runs on very bad PCs and Laptops, which is one of the company’s reasons of success.

That said, the graphics are polished and quite good, despite not being as realistic.

Personal Thoughts

The game definitely looks like a CS:GO clone with some Overwatch elements incorporated.

In fact, I wouldn’t blame you if you call it that.

But Riot seems to have the secret to success, and like their previous “tests” into other genres, it’s probably gonna be extremely popular.

That said, it might not be bad at all. I mean, there isn’t something similar, and if it’s fun, why not?

This game is serious enough to be taken as an actual FPS but also has elements of an RPG for the more adventurous out there.

I suggest you try it out. Besides, as we’re talking about Riot here, it’s completely free of charge.

Final Verdict

Storyline: 7.0

Gameplay: 9.2

Visuals: 7.5

General Rating: 7.9

That’s it for my review. Do you like Valorant? Do you prefer it than CS:GO and/or Overwatch? Leave a comment below.

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The images I used are from this site(s):

www.igdb.com