Overwatch experimental update is looking to greatly weaken Crowd Control (stun) effects
- By Ash
- in News
Crowd Control effects, that is to say anything that causes you to lose control of your character, are a bit of a necessary evil in any sort of complex game like Overwatch. On one hand they are incredibly annoying since losing control while enemies mercilessly attack you never feels good, but on the other hand they are immensely important when it comes to balancing fast-moving characters that love to feast on the low-mobility ones.
Striking the right balance between the two isn't exactly easy, as Blizzard has discovered time and time again throughout Overwatch's history. I have to give credit where credit is due, however, as that has thankfully never stopped them from trying again. As such, I am pleased to say they are throwing their hat in the proverbial ring once more with a brand new experimental update, all centered around reducing the power of stuns and freezes.
Desperados 3 is coming this June with Shadow Tactics inspired real-time strategy
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
[Update #2]: Desperados 3 has now arrived, and so far the reception is immensely positive!
[Update]: Desperados 3 now has a free demo available, and it's quite a lengthy one!
Despite knowing very little about Shadow Tactics going in, it quickly became one of my favorite games of the year. As it turns out, Shadow Tactics is not only a worthy successor to the commandos series, but also a damn good real-time strategy game in its own right!
As such, I'm delighted to say that Mimimi Games, the studio behind Shadow Tactics, will soon be releasing yet another character-based strategy game - Desperados 3. And when I say soon, I really mean that as Desperados 3 will be coming to PC and consoles this June 16.
Steam is greatly improving the process of searching for games through keywords
- By Ash
- in News
While Steam allows you to search for games through a variety of means, including keywords, the whole process is a little bit fiddly. Due to Steam's user-driven approach to keywords and tags, there's a whole bunch of them that essentially mean the same thing, yet are spread across games in a haphazard and almost random way.
For example, if you were to search for "3D" and "platformer", you would indeed get a lot of 3D platformers, but you would unfortunately not get any games that might just have the "3D platformer" tag. For bigger games this isn't too big of a problem as they often have an excess of keywords, but for indie games with drastically smaller communities, this can often be the difference between being discovered or completely ignored.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has added Master Rank Kulve Taroth and Arch-Tempered Namielle
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Update 4 has added Alatreon, Frostfang Barioth and a new event.
[Update]: The next patch featuring the mighty Alatreon has unfortunately been delayed.
I hope you're in the mood for some challenging content, because Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has just added two new endgame hunts. The first of these two new events is the Master Rank Kulve Taroth. Unlike the previous Kulve Taroth Siege you might be familiar with, this event will work like a standard hunt where you and up to three other players have to take down the Elder Dragon all on your own.
As you might expect, Master Rank Kulve Taroth will drop a variety of new materials which can be used to craft fancy new armor and Palico gear. More importantly, you can also use the materials to upgrade your weapons even further. So while the hunt itself is expected to be quite tough, the rewards are definitely worth the effort!
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is removing special requirements for flying in old expansions
- By Ash
- in News
[Update #2]: Blizzard is now making it significantly easier to acquire Corrupted Gear.
[Update]: World of Warcraft's Shadowlands expansion has been pinned for a Q4, 2020 release date.
If you're a brand new World of Warcraft player, or even a veteran returning after a long hiatus, acquiring the ability to fly in Warlords of Draenor and Legion content is an incredibly tedious process. Not only do you need to do a lot of grinding in completely outdated zones, but the whole process takes a considerable amount of time - far longer than it would take you to simply level through each expansion with multiple characters without flying at all.
Thankfully, this won't be a problem for much longer as Blizzard is aiming to sort this nonsense out with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. So once the expansion arrives, all you'll need to do in order to fly through Draenor and the Broken Isles will be to learn a cheap skill from the flying trainer at level 30.
XCOM inspired Gears Tactics is coming to PC and Xbox One early next week
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: Gears Tactics has now landed onto PC and Xbox One, and while it's good, it's pretty darn expensive right now.
If you're a fan of XCOM, April is looking to be a pretty darn good month. First the action-packed spin-off XCOM: Chimera Squad will be landing on April 23rd, and then on April 28th, Gears Tactics will be joining the fray on PC and Xbox One with its very own take on turn-based action.
As you might expect given its inspiration, Gears Tactics will be all about leading teams of highly customizable soldiers against overwhelming numbers of enemies. You'll need to upgrade their skills and outfit them with better equipment as they advance through the ranks, help them fight against massive bosses that defy usual strategies, and naturally, get slightly depressed when your favorites inevitably die to a stray bullet.
Artifact devs have detailed what's changing with the core mechanics and progression system
- By Ash
- in News
[Update]: The Artifact 2.0 rework is now heading into Closed Beta!
After being incredibly silent about the fate of Artifact for over a year, Valve recently came out to say that they are not only in the process of reworking Artifact from the ground up, but that they will be keeping the community involved throughout the entire process. And given the amount of developer updates released so far, they really weren't joking!
The latest update, as you would imagine from the title alone, is all about the various mechanical changes coming with Artifact 2.0. I unfortunately can't tell you much about them as I haven't invested enough time in the original Artifact to have something solid to compare them to, but what I can say is that the new progression system seems downright lovely, especially when you contrast it with the current and extremely expensive one.