- By Ash
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While I haven't played it in quite a few years, Total War: Shogun 2 holds a very special place in my heart. Not only was it my very first Total War game and the one that got me hopelessly addicted to the entire series, but it was also a pretty darn good game in its own right, and one that kept me entertained throughout a very long and very boring summer.
As such, I'm more than happy to say that Shogun 2 is entirely free to grab until May 1st! All you have to do is head on over to Steam, click on that giant green button, and you'll be ready to fail conquering Japan in no time!
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[Update]: Blizzard is also looking into tweaking Moira and the support category as a whole.
As with any team-based game, whether you win or lose in an Overwatch match depends heavily on how well your team can coordinate. However, despite this being the case since the very beginning, Overwatch currently has fairly lackluster communication options. Sure, the voice chat feature is great, but outside of that there's really no easy way to get your point across.
Luckily, this won't be a problem for long. According to the latest developer update, Blizzard will soon be greatly expanding the Communication Wheel by not only adding a variety of new actions and commands, but also voice acting for each of them in order to make them truly stand out.
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After spending a fairly short amount of time in Early Access, the Age of Sigmar inspired Warhammer Underworlds: Online has now been released in full. The launch version brings with it six distinct warbands with their own unique units and combat style, a whole bunch of cards and effects to help twist things in your favor, and most importantly of all, plenty of little models to smash into each other.
The concept is fairly simple, so if you're wondering just what Warhammer Underworlds plays like, you'll get a pretty good impression through the recently posted launch trailer. Have a peek:
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[Update]: The Gears of War flavored XCOM game, Gears Tactics, has now landed onto PC and Xbox One - just in case you're looking for a little bit more turn-based action!
Instead of a full-blown XCOM experience, the newly released XCOM: Chimera Squad is more of an action-orientated spin-off. The missions are shorter and have much simpler objectives, the combat is more frequent and hectic due to the breaching mechanic, while the pre-made characters offer a bit more personality and unique combat options when compared to the usual XCOM grunts.
If you're wondering just what all of this might look like in gameplay terms, you can get a pretty good impression through two of the recent trailers. The first one sets up the various characters and the overall storyline, while the second one is all about the actual battles. Have a gander:
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[Update]: After two years of patches, development on Battlefront 2 is now also coming to an end.
If you're a fan of Battlefield V, I'm afraid I come as a bearer of bad news. According to the latest developer update, Battlefield V's final major content patch will be coming this June.
While the details are few and far between, you can expect the June update to bring with it new weapons, a new map, game tweaks, as well as various events and rewards. For example, there will be new weekly rewards that grant you Battlefield Currency, which should give you a chance to unlock any gear you may have missed so far.
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[Update]: Right on cue, Age of Wonders: Planetfall's Invasion expansion has now landed.
This May 26th, Age of Wonders: Planetfall will be getting thoroughly shaken up with a brand new expansion - Invasions. At the front and center of Invasions is the arrival of the Shakarn, a highly militaristic race of Lizardmen that uses trickery and holographic technology to sow chaos and mistrust before launching an all-out attack.
You can get a bit of an idea of what the Shakarn look like in-game, as well as what sort of tricks they might have up their sleeves, through the recently posted trailer. Have a gander, they're a delightfully cheesy race:
- By Ash
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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.
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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.
- By Ash
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[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!
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[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.