The third season of Overwatch Competitive Play has now begun, though the PTR changes are not yet live
- By Ash
- in News
If you've spent the past week moping around in Quick Play, constantly wishing you could be playing Competitive instead, I bring some good news! A couple of hours ago the Overwatch Season 3 has begun, bringing with it the glorious return of Competitive Play, and the ability to once again progress towards your next golden weapon.
But before you dive into the placement matches, allow me to first give you a word of warning. In order to ensure that Competitive Play remains as fair and as balanced as possible, Blizzard has made the placement matches much less generous in terms of initial rating. In other words you're probably going to get placed one bracket lower than where you belong, and you'll need to climb up in order to reach your 'true rating', rather than start off with an extremely high rating and then get pummeled into the ground, over and over again. So don't worry, you didn't suddenly become bad, Blizzard is just shifting everyone's rating slightly downward.
The currently ongoing Humble Bundle features games from the Tycoon/Simulator genre
- By Ash
- in News
Humble Bundle has been doing these types of themed bundles for quite a while now, and even though not all of them have been very exciting, I must admit its a much better system than just piling on a random mishmash of games and hoping they gel together. As for the currently ongoing Humble Bundle, it features games that quite firmly belong to the tycoon/simulator genre.
The bundle contains 7 games in total, of which the most notable are Train Simulator 2016, RollerCoaster Tycoon: Deluxe, Democracy 3, and Big Pharma (the one pictured in the image above). As for the rest, they are games I've basically never heard of, so don't take my ignorance as some sort of condemnation. That aside, here's the full list of games, as well as the pricing tier they appear in:
Sega is offering free copies of Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War to anyone that owns the boxed version
- By Ash
- in News
If you belong to the rather small subset of people that still own a boxed version of Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, you'll be glad to hear that Sega has a small surprise for you. Through a promotion that went up yesterday, they have begun offering free Steam copies of Dawn of War to anyone that has the owns the original boxed version.
You can request your Steam key (or keys) by filing a ticket over at the Sega support website, though bear in mind that you might get a followup email requesting an image, or at least some sort of proof to show that you actually own the boxed version.
The Overwatch PTR has been updated with a brand new King of the Hill map - Oasis
- By Ash
- in News
During this year's Blizzcon the devs behind Overwatch announced two new maps: Echo Point Antarctica (which I then mistakenly believed to be a King of the Hill map), and Oasis - a map which we then knew precisely one thing about, and that was the simple fact that it features jump pads! And now that Oasis is finally available on the PTR (Public Test Realm), I must admit I'm surprised they chose jump pads as their big selling point.
I'm not trying to say that the jump pads are a bad idea, far from it, but Oasis also quite prominently features a giant highway with deadly cars constantly zooming by in both directions, with little regard for tiny people playing on the road! Oh, and if that wasn't dangerous enough, some Frogger enthusiast also decided to place a large health pack right smack in the middle of the road. The results, as you would expect, have been absolutely ridiculous as I've seen entire teams get demolished by a single, seemingly blind driver!
As for the lore and location behind Oasis, this quote from Blizzard is pretty much the entirety of what we know so far:
Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is now available on Steam, and free for all owners of the original
- By Ash
- in News
After being slightly delayed due to some last-minute polishing, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is now available on Steam. But more interestingly of all, if you own the original Darksiders you'll get the new and improved version for free! And if you're wondering what exactly you need to do in order to claim your copy, wonder no more as it should be automatically granted to you the moment you log into Steam.
On the other hand, if you're interested in seeing all of the fancy new graphics, you'll find the recently posted trailer right below. Unlike the previous video this one has actual PC footage, so there is much less pop-in and a lot less blurry textures, though Darksiders is still undoubtedly a fairly old game, so don't get too excited. But enough yammering from me, here's the video:
Angel City's Most Wanted, Titanfall 2's upcoming free DLC, now has a brief gameplay trailer
- By Ash
- in News
Angel City's Most Wanted, Titanfall 2's very first piece of free DLC, will be arriving today for those that have pre-ordered the game, while everyone else will be getting a crack at it on December 3rd. Once it arrives the DLC finally arrives it will bring with it Angel City - a brand new map, as well as numerous Titan abilities, a new pistol, and a bunch of fancy cosmetics to make yourself a much easier target to shoot.
If you're wondering what this new map might look like, here's a recently posted (and unfortunately rather brief) teaser trailer showcasing some of the locations you'll be able to blast your enemies to pieces in. Have a look:
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun Review - A worthy successor to the Commandos series
- By Ash
- in Reviews
[Update]: Shadow Tactics is getting a standalone expansion in late 2021 - Aiko's Choice!
Ever since I first laid my hands on the original Thief I've been in love with stealth games. The constant danger, the thrill of the hunt, and the knowledge that all of your plans can go awry at any second - all of this makes stealth games so much more absorbing than your run-of-the-mill strategy/puzzle game.
As such, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that I had an absolute blast with Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - a Commandos inspired strategy game that's all about sneaking around, making elaborate and well-thought-out plans, and then trying to resolve the mess that occurs once those plans inevitably fail. And since that description doesn't really do it justice, allow me to show you why exactly I've spent the past week toying around with Shadow Tactics.