What is Valorant?
"VALORANT is your global competitive stage. It’s a 5v5 tac-shooter matchup to plant or defuse the Spike in a one-life-per-round, first to 13 series. More than guns and bullets, you’ll choose an Agent armed with adaptive, swift and lethal abilities that create opportunities to let your gunplay shine."
This is what you would see on the front page of Riot Games first shooter Valorant.
Riot games is very well-known for their game League of Legends a 5v5 moba that has taken the world by storm, becoming one of the most popular games over the years.
I myself being a player of League of legends was very excited to hear that they would finally become 'Riot Games' as their name suggests and no longer just be 'Riot Game'. They announced many games going forward, including a fighter that I am very much excited about. But the one in review is the shooter Valorant.
There are a lot of aspects of the game that I can definitely say is quite enjoyable and is done right in order to give a great experience.
First thing to speak about would be the Agents. Agents are who you play the game as and each have their own signature style and abilities that allow you to play the game in different ways.
There are currently 11 in total - my favourite being Phoenix. His control over fire is flashy to say the least and because of that, he appeals to me personally.
The idea of agents seems similar in concept to Overwatch and helps to define different ways to play the shooter.
Some abilities of note would be the Sage wall. Redefining the map to meet your needs and stop possible peaking and cutting off the path to a point.
Your enemy either guns the wall down, wasting ammo and giving away their position or they take a different path where you are ready and waiting for them. Her ultimate gives a revive which she can use to change the tides of a fight changing a 1v1 situation into a 2v1 in some cases to guarantee certain victory.
Phoenix himself has a very aggressive ultimate allowing him to run in and once he dies or the time runs out he goes back to his original position of activation.
Secondly the maps.
There are currently four maps in the game each having its own feel and distinctive design.
One of favourites, Haven reminds me of the designs used in most old Chinese movies. The maps itself is very similar to CS:GO.
In borrowing some of that style, what you can see is that a lot of the players will use similar terminology when calling out information. This means if you have not played CS:GO you might have a slight disadvantage. However, it is something that you can learn with time. So when someone says 'rush B', you don't stand around clueless.
This also means that a lot of gameplay would have generally transferred over from CS:GO as well. The normal rules such as 'Don't shoot' and watching corners then becomes mandatory. Once again, after dying a few times this is something you will learn when adapting your play style.
As for the guns, they are nothing special. The guns that are present are very familiar in feel meaning there is something for everyone. They give off the right feel, spray feels normal and accuracy is pretty much where you would expect it to be, so you will be able to mix it in with your Agents abilities and playstyles fairly easily.
The game is very well developed. The only issue right now would mainly be server capacity along with distance. As the launch was much more successful than expected, there have been some waiting queues to get into the game.
The issue with distance deals with ping. Ping varies based on connection speed and distance from the server. As per normal, Riot servers you are looking at the European one as a South African. So unfortunately this means a average ping of about 200 depending on your line speed.
With regards to game optimisation, there are no issues. You can easily run this game as the minimum specs are fairly lower than what I expected.
To wrap it all up, the dynamic and ever changing style will keep players coming back for more as no two matches will ever be the same. You are always learning, always adapting and always finding new ways to use your Agent to the next level.
