World of Warcraft: The War Within Review - A fun yet unambitious underground adventure
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Following in the footsteps of the Dragonflight expansion, World of Warcraft: The War Within has attempted to uplift a variety of side-activities in order to prevent the endgame from being exclusively focused on hardcore content like raids and Mythic+ dungeons. In some ways this has been a success as there is a lot of different things to do for max-leveled characters, though unfortunately some of the solo-focused additions like the Delve mini-dungeons have failed to impress and don't feel like they'll be a true alternative to the usual endgame gear grind.
If you're curious about what exactly makes these Delves so messy, as well as how the rest of The War Within fares, allow me to share with you my thoughts after playing it all rather religiously throughout the past week. Without further ado, let us begin!
Following an avalanche of complaints, the Helldivers 2 team is now rebalancing the entire game
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Helldivers 2's September 17th update is coming with an armor rework, more effective heavy weapons and plenty of buffs!
If you haven't been paying attention, Helldivers 2 has had a bit of a fall from grace over the past few months. Despite starting off with an extremely enthusiastic playerbase, the endless bugs, crashes, nerfs and underpowered Warbond weapons have eroded all of the good will and created a rather adversarial relationship between the players and developers, so much so that Helldivers 2 now sits at a Mostly Negative rating on Steam!
In an effort to mend this divide, as well as bring Helldivers 2 back to its glory days, Arrowhead Game Studios have now announced that they are reevaluating their design choices, as well as working on rebalancing the entire game. The goal, as you might imagine, is to increase the amount of viable weapons and stratagems, while simultaneously reducing the amount of annoyance certain enemies can produce.
World of Warcraft's The War Within expansion has now arrived alongside some severe server problems
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: My review for The War Within is now complete, so if you're curious about what exactly the Delves have to offer, as well as how the rest of the expansion fares when compared to Dragonflight, I welcome you to give it a look.
Following in the footsteps of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, the freshly released The War Within expansion is Blizzard's latest effort at trying to cater to a more casual, solo focused crowd. There's still Mythic+ dungeons and raids as usual, but now you can also look forward to lower difficulty dungeons you can tackle alongside an NPC party, as well as challenging mini-dungeons called Delves that seem to be tailor-made for the crowd that wants to experience WoW's endgame content, just without the time commitment.
What some of this looks like in action, as well as what the actual story is about, that you can check out through the launch trailer below. Have a gander:
In preparation for The International 2024, Dota 2 has now launched Patch 7.37c
- By Ash
- in News
The International 2024 tournament is nearly upon us, and while it's no longer as big of a deal as it used to be, it's still in everyone's best interest to have the games be as close and exciting as possible. So in order to achieve that, Valve has now unleashed Patch 7.37c.
As you would expect from a pre-tournament patch, the changes aren't exactly massive. However, that doesn't mean they aren't impactful as Valve has targeted the recently resurgent healing meta across multiple vectors. As such, items like Pipe of Insight, Mekansm and Holy Locket have been slightly toned down, as has the freshly buffed Omniknight.
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is an unironically fun little visual novel and well worth playing
- By Ash
- in News
As their big April Fools' gag last year Sega released The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - a visual novel based around trying to deduce who managed to kill the fastest creature on Earth and how. Since the whole thing felt like a one-off joke that would get old within five minutes, I must admit I didn't pay it much attention when it first launched. That was a mistake!
After having it recommended to me time and time again, I finally sat down and played through The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog this week, and you know what? It's actually good! And not only is it well made, but it manages to work as both an investigative visual novel and as a fanservicy homage to Sonic games of old. Here's a little peek at what it's like:
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is a surprisingly challenging roguelite auto-shooter spin-off
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
The original Deep Rock Galactic is all about mining for precious minerals, annihilating bugs in the most irresponsible ways possible, and naturally, taking literal years off from mission control's life due to the sheer madness he's forced to witness on a daily basis. As such, I'm sure it'll come as a massive surprise to hear that's also what the somewhat recently released Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, a roguelite auto-shooter spin-off, is all about!
There are some differences since this is a highly challenging singleplayer game, but the concept is mostly the same. You're still mining for minerals, except they're now used to purchase both temporary and permanent upgrades. Similarly, you're still smashing hordes of bugs, except now you also get to loot all sorts of new weapons and weapon upgrades while doing so.
You Should Try: Dragon's Dogma - A difficult yet extremely captivating open-world RPG
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
"You Should Try" is a series of articles where I'll showcase you a game I really enjoy while explaining what exactly makes it fun. This can be any game: new or old, action or strategy, indie or AAA. The only requirement is that it has to be something I've found myself greatly enjoying and in need of sharing with the world.
Today I think you should try Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - a complex, open-world RPG that will truly make you feel like you're exploring a land filled with monsters and excitement at every turn. Since nearly every single encounter requires special tactics and equipment you're most likely going to find yourself dying fairly often, but that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction once you finally succeed in bringing down a giant beast is exactly what makes Dragon's Dogma so compelling. So if you're up for an epic journey that will see your character grow from a lowly fisherman to a nigh-unstoppable dragonslayer, come and join me as I briefly go over everything that sets Dragon's Dogma apart from the rest.