Yup, I’m playing Overwatch.  It’s the winter event and there’s a new Mercy skin to be had.  Don’t have it yet, so no picture.

There was a Mercy skin in an event less than a month ago, too, and I must applaud the artist at Blizzard who decided to slap together a lab coat and some severe black glasses and call it a day.

Classy, yet fetish fuel all the same.

Playing Overwatch isn’t good for the backlog, of course, but this has not been a good year in general for clearing games off the backlog.  Part of that is that I’ve been playing a lot of FFXIV and part of it is that my stress levels have been through the roof most of the year, especially for the last two months.

The short version, if you’re curious, is that my company decided to promote someone to a VP position, but the VP position came with a move. Specifically, the guy had to move from Utah to Oregon, and if you are not familiar with North American states and their overall leanings that may not mean much to you.  I will simply say that there is a significant cultural difference between the two states, and nobody expected the guy to stick around for very long.

Well, nobody was prepared for the idea that someone might want to move back to Utah SO MUCH that they would single-handedly get the Oregon site shut down and all of the jobs moved to a brand new site in Utah so the guy could move home, putting everyone out of work… less 30 or 40 of us that had hyper-specialized knowledge and that were moved to “remote worker” status because we didn’t want to move and they couldn’t replace us there.  So I am managed by a guy in Utah who… well, actually the guy honestly seems like he is trying to do his best for his remote team but the unspoken understanding is that we are going to be fired as soon as they can get people there trained up enough to do so.

Anyway, I was pretty much starting every day off angry, staying angry all day, and going to bed angry.  This was not optimal, so I’ve been channeling the rage into exercise and a LOT of Dead or Alive 6 and FFXIV PVP and occasional forays into Overwatch when they have events.

I checked out both Code Vein and Sekiro from the local library and… I just did not have the patience for them.  I need the sort of immediate gratification that comes from slapping people around as Marie Rose or Mercy.

So that’s where I’m at.  If I can play a game for 30 minutes from the back of an exercise bike, it’s getting lots of playtime.

It doesn’t hurt that there seem to be a lot of people playing Mei.  I’m an awful Mei player but I like to follow them around.

Since the last time I did much Overwatch, they’ve implemented the role queue, where you sign up to play a support class or tank or… huh. No, I can’t think of any other useful roles in a game of Overwatch.  So you can be a support or a tank and both are pretty fun.  My only complaint is that there seem to be a TON of groups that queue with four or five people, so my experience is that I either get dropped into the free spot in one of these premades and get carried to victory or I’m matched AGAINST one of these premades and wind up crushed.  Not a lot of in-between, and neither is particularly satisfying.

Nonetheless, I am racking up the “thank god someone is playing a healer” endorsements and the occasional win and even had enough of the in-game pity currency to buy LAST year’s holiday Mercy skin, so I am OK.

I will never see level 5.  I can count the number of level 5s I have ever seen on one hand with at least the thumb left over.  4 is good times.