Gwent's recent balance update has brought in a breath of fresh air to the previously Dwarf-dominated meta
- By Ash
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Gwent's Midwinter update brought in 100 new cards last December, though unfortunately this massive influx of new cards and balance changes did not end up panning out as expected. Instead of having even more archetypes to play around with, the update resulted in only a couple of ridiculously overpowered decks dominating over everyone else, to the point that Scoia'tael represented more than 50% of the ladder!
With that number in mind, I am very glad to say that Gwent's latest update has gone to great lengths to rebalance some of the overpowered cards and bring about a more interesting meta. In other words, most of the problematic Dwarves have been slightly reduced in power, the various Create cards have received minor nerfs to make them less overbearing, and perhaps most importantly for the future, Nilfgaard's Impera Enforcers now no longer deal 2 damage for every spy already on the board.
The naval strategy/adventure game Abandon Ship is coming to Steam Early Access next week
- By Ash
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Abandon ship is an upcoming naval strategy/adventure game that on first glance appears to be quite similar to FTL. You will have to take command of a single ship and its crew, explore a massive and randomly generated world, solve a variety of quests that may or may not end with your crewmen getting eaten, and naturally, fight off pirates and other nasties that might roam the high seas. Unlike FTL, however, if the worst comes to worst and a giant kraken decides to nibble on your boat, you will have the option to abandon ship and see if you can float towards safety in order to start your adventure anew.
Trying to explain all of this through words alone is not exactly an easy task, so allow me to instead show you one of the recent developer previews. Its a fairly lengthy video, so you should get a pretty darn good idea of what to expect from Abandon Ship. Have a look:
Overwatch devs will soon be nerfing Lucio's wall ride in the Capture the Flag game mode
- By Ash
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Overwatch's recent Lunar New Year update brought with it a whole bunch of new cosmetics and bug fixes, as well as a freshly retuned Capture the Flag game mode. Unlike last year, this new version of CTF does not allow players to use most movement abilities while carrying the flag, and perhaps more importantly, ensures that matches can no longer end in a draw because both teams have decided to turtle up.
While these changes have resulted in a noticeably more enjoyable game mode, there are some problems that have managed to get through testing. Most notably, Lucio's ability to keep increasing his speed while wall riding, as well as the possibility for him to wall ride outside of the playable area where very few heroes can actually contest him. As you might imagine, this quickly resulted in most CTF games being decided by which team has the more experienced and better supported Lucio.
The PC version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 is coming to Steam this week
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[Update]: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III will soon be making its way to PC, and it'll bring with it some rather useful improvements like auto-saves and the ability to speed up gameplay.
The original The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel released onto Steam back in August to some overwhelmingly positive reviews. As such, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that its sequel Trails of Cold Steel 2 will be making its way to PC via Steam on February 14th as well.
Much like its predecessor, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 will bring with it a variety of improvements including 50% more voice acted lines, support for ultrawide resolutions, the ability to play with either mouse & keyboard or a controller, as well as a couple of great quality-of-life changes. Most notably, there will be a Turbo button that allows you to speed through some of the more tedious fights, while the instant resume function will let you launch your most recent save file directly from Steam.
Overwatch's Lunar New Year update has added competitive Capture the Flag and various quality-of-life changes
- By Ash
- in News
Overwatch's Lunar New Year update has recently arrived, bringing with it the usual batch of new cosmetics and voice lines to mess around with. What nobody could've expected, however, was that the update would also come with a wide variety of highly requested quality-of-life changes and bug fixes. For example, you can now change the opacity of objective markers so that they no longer block your sight when viewed from a distance, and perhaps more interestingly, Hanzo and Genji's wall climb ability has been made significantly more reliable so you won't just die humping a wall.
The update has also added some minor but still extremely welcome buffs to Doomfist and Reaper. Neither change is so massive that it's going to impact the hero's playrate in any significant way, but it's still a welcome adjustment as it makes both Reaper and Doomfist just a little bit more consistent - something a hero that operates entirely in melee range desperately needs. You can read about all of the changes, as well as the bug fixes, over at the official forums.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth's pre-order offers an early start with 4 out of 6 new Allied Races
- By Ash
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World of Warcraft's recent Update 7.3.5 has brought Legion's level scaling system to every single zone across all of the expansions. So if you ever wanted to level a new character and explore some of the regions you haven't touched since the Cataclysm, now would be a very good time to do so.
If that isn't enough of an incentive to start up a new character, you might also be interested to hear that the pre-order for the Battle for Azeroth expansion has recently gone live, and with it the ability to play as one of the new Allied Races. The full version will feature six races in total, while right now you can only play as the Void Elves, Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne and Lightforged Draenei. There are also a bunch of additional benefits if you decide to go with the more expensive "Digital Deluxe" edition, but it's pretty much all cosmetic fluff so if you're just in it for the gameplay I wouldn't worry too much about it. That said, here's what the new races look like:
Total War: Thrones of Britannia is set to arrive this April with ten playable factions
- By Ash
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Right now is a really good time to be a fan of Total War games. Total War: Warhammer 2 has just added the Tomb Kings as a brand new race, Total War: Rome 2's Empire Divided expansion launched with a whole bunch of new content and features to mess around with, and if that wasn't enough there are two additional games coming this year: the massive Total War: Three Kingdoms and the somewhat more focused Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia.
While Total War: Three Kingdoms is pinned for a rather nebulous "Fall 2018" release date, Thrones of Britannia is set to arrive in the relatively near future, on April 19th to be exact. It'll bring with it the most detailed Total War map to date, ten playable and hopefully highly unique factions, as well as a variety of victory conditions that align with your chosen faction's history. There will also be numerous gameplay improvements, mostly surrounding recruitment, politics, research, and how provinces operate.