All Heroes of the Storm characters are free to play until January 16th
- By Ash
- in News
If you ever wanted to give Heroes of the Storm a try, now would be the best time to do so as Blizzard has made all of the characters free to play. The promotion will only last until 10am PST on January 16th, so make sure to jump in as soon as possible, or else you might not have enough time to give all of the heroes a proper try.
And if you haven't been paying attention to Heroes of the Storm this past year and are now wondering what in the world has even changed, you'll be glad to hear that Blizzard has posted a brief video summarizing all of the recent additions. Have a look:
Brut@l is an upcoming dungeon crawler with a world constructed entirely out of ASCII characters
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
Indie games with a pixel art style are a fairly common sight these days, but I can't say I've seen many that have picked ASCII as their style of choice. But as you can probably guess from the title, Brut@l - an oldschool dungeon crawler with a procedurally generated world constructed entirely out of ASCII characters, belongs to that rather small group.
Since the concept is fairly ambitious, and since most ASCII games were created that way due to technological limitations rather than due to preference, it would probably be wise to first start with a trailer. As such, here's the most recently posted co-op gameplay video to hopefully give you a good idea of what Brut@l is all about. Have a look:
The latest Styx: Shards of Darkness trailer showcases the art of "stealth"
- By Ash
- in News
Styx: Shards of Darkness is an upcoming stealth game heavily inspired by the Thief series. What this means is that it features plenty of open-ended levels crawling with guards, a variety of weapons and tools to either dispatch or bypass them, as well as stealth mechanics that revolve around careful planning and fluid execution rather than brute force.
And what better way to showcase all of that than to have the main character obliterate a whole bunch of guards in the most loud and obvious way possible! So if you're interested in the more action-orientated side of Shards of Darkness, and also love videos set to moody music, you might just enjoy this rather silly trailer. Have a look:
Tales of Berseria demo is now available on Steam
- By Ash
- in News
With Tales of Berseria set to arrive on January 26th Bandai Namco has decided to drum up a bit of excitement by releasing the gaming equivalent of a unicorn - a demo! I haven't had the chance to play it myself, but what I can tell you is that the demo is around ~900MB in size, so the download should at the very least be fairly quick.
But if you need a bit more information before jumping into the demo, I would recommend you check out the recently posted "The Calamity and The Blade" trailer. It doesn't showcase much in terms of gameplay, but it does a good job of setting up the mood and characters. So if you're interested, have a look:
All of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided pre-order DLC is now available for free
- By Ash
- in News
As someone that loves acquiring in-game cosmetics through various challenges and achievements, the constant rise in pre-order DLC has been a massive annoyance. Rather than unlock cool new things by playing the game, these days you unlock new things by blindly throwing your money away, desperately hoping the pre-release trailers weren't of the "vertical slice" variety.
With that in mind, I am very glad to say that all of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided pre-order DLC has now been made available for free, for everyone! What this means is that you'll now have access to the Desperate Measures extra in-game mission, a whole bunch of armor and trench coat skins, a re-skinned pistol and combat rifle, as well as a variety of consumables.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is launching on March 21st in North America, and March 23rd in Europe
- By Ash
- in News
If you were itching to get your hands on Mass Effect: Andromeda, you'll be glad to hear that you won't have to wait for very long. According to a recently posted announcement, Mass Effect: Andromeda will be launching on March 21st in North America, and March 23rd in Europe. As for the rest of the world, there is unfortunately no information, but I'd assume its going to be somewhere in between.
And if you're wondering what exactly you'll get to toy around with, you'll find one of the most recent gameplay previews down below. Do bear in mind that this is alpha footage you'll be watching, so be prepared to see a couple of really awkward animations and textures, which will hopefully be corrected by the time Andromeda finally arrives. Anyway, here's the video:
The Overwatch PTR has been updated with a new batch of balance changes
- By Ash
- in News
The Overwatch PTR has been updated a couple of days ago with a Roadhog hook redesign, a slight nerf to Ana's grenade, a slight buff to Sombra, and a potentially devastating D.Va nerf. Unfortunately for all Roadhog players out there, the new hook redesign was so buggy and broken that it seemed like it would completely remove the hero from competitive play should the change ever go live. And if you're wondering how ridiculous things really got, let's just say that the hook would break if the enemy was hiding behind a traffic sign... a thin, easily breakable traffic sign!
Thankfully, an update has arrived just recently in order to correct these glaring issues, but also to further nerf Ana's Biotic Grenade and buff Sombra's Hack. But rather than simply blabber on myself, allow me to share with you the official "patch notes". Have a look: