- By Ash
- in News
If you ever wanted to make your own mark on the Mass Effect universe, now is your chance. Bioware's Explorers Wanted contest is looking for talented voice actors to breathe life into one of the characters in an upcoming Mass Effect game, most likely Andromeda.
All you need to do is download one of the two available scripts, record and upload your best performance by September 28th, and send all of that to Bioware. Its just as simple as it sounds, but if you're still confused here's a brief 'tutorial' video Bioware provided. Just bear in mind, shooting rockets at the Bioware HQ is not an accepted way of submitting your entry... just in case you were wondering after watching this. Here's the video:
- By Ash
- in News
Ever since Mercy got buffed as a part of Overwatch's Season 2 patch she has suddenly become almost as popular as she was back in the Pharmercy days of early Season 1. While I certainly appreciate having more healers around, especially ones that can turn the entire course of a battle on their own, her dominance over the Play of the Game system has become downright annoying. Over the past two weeks I have seen exactly one game where a non-Mercy character got POTG, and it only required them to get five solo kills as a nano-booster Reinhardt!
Thankfully, the latest Overwatch patch (1.3.0.3) seems to have corrected this problem and once again brought balance to the POTG system. Oh, and there's also a whole bunch of important bug fixes in there as well, especially for Junkrat as his RIP-Tire should no fail to award him kills and assists! Here are the full patch notes:
- By Ash
- in News
With Shadow Warrior 2's October 13th release date just around the corner, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that there is a brand new gameplay video out there. As with all other Shadow Warrior videos, this one contains plenty of demons getting sliced into teeny weeny ribbons, horrendous attempts at making "Wang" jokes funny, and most importantly, a nice showcase of the arsenal you'll be able to toy around with.
Before you hop in, do bear in mind that this video isn't one of those "cut between a whole bunch of action shots" type of ordeals. Its just 12 minutes of someone playing the game, shooting down a ton of demons and other nasties, and accidentally falling off buildings in a completely hilarious fashion. Have a look:
- By Ash
- in News
Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, a Warhammer 40,000 themed strategy game, launched back in April with quite possibly the best "early adopter" incentive I've seen to date. Instead of locking away content behind pre-order bonuses and store exclusive deals, the developers decided to offer two free DLC packs to everyone that purchases Battlefleet Gothic: Armada within two months from launch!
The first of these two DLC packs added the Space Marines as a playable faction, complete with all new ships and customization options to play around with. The second DLC, this time around featuring the Tau Empire, is currently undergoing a public beta test and will soon be joining Battlefleet Gothic: Armada's multiplayer roster.
- By Ash
- in News
If you've been playing Overwatch since the very beginning you may have noticed that the past month featured a lot less players shouting: "ARGH, HE JUST SHOT ME AROUND A CORNER". The reason for this is the relatively recent introduction of high bandwidth servers and the upgrade from 20 ticks (server updates per second) all the way to 60 ticks.
Since netcode is a pretty damn complex topic, even among people who might otherwise be well versed in computer science, Overwatch devs have decided to release a short but informative video explaining the implementation of high bandwidth servers. And more importantly, how exactly high bandwidth servers can improve your Overwatch experience! Here's the video, courtesy of Blizzard's Tim Ford and Philip Orwig:
- By Ash
- in News
Card games are notoriously difficult to get into. Not only do you have to learn all of the cards and mechanics added over the course of many years, you have to do all of that while fighting with a completely sub par collection. As such, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Blizzard will soon be introducing the Welcome Bundle as a potential route for new players wishing to kick-start their collection.
The Welcome Bundle will contain within it 10 Classic packs, each featuring 5 cards of random rarity, as well as a guaranteed class Legendary card - many of which are quite good even today! All of this will set you back $5 which is well under standard price, especially if you consider that the bundle brings with it a guaranteed Legendary card. You will only be able to purchase the Welcome Bundle once per account, however, but even so this should go a long way towards making Hearthstone just a bit more welcoming towards new players.
- By Ash
- in News
For those of you that might not have been around during Blizzard's early years, Chris Metzen was one of the key game designers behind some of the most famous Blizzard franchises of all time: Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft. He worked as an artist on numerous games you probably know and love, he invented the Diablo universe as we know it today, and also heavily influenced the course of both Starcraft and Warcraft. Best of all, he was a voice actor for some of Blizzard's most awesome characters: Skeleton King, Terran Marine, Thrall, Nefarian, Saurfang, and most importantly, Bastion from Overwatch!
To put all of this simply, Chris Metzen was a major influence behind some of the biggest franchises we know today. With that in mind, I have a bit of bad news, or rather good news depending on who you ask. According to a recently posted announcement over on the Blizzard forums, Chris Metzen is retiring from game development in order to spend some quality time with his family. Here's a few choice quotes from his announcement:
- By Ash
- in News
If you've spent the past few days like me, living on the underside of a rock, you may have missed a very important milestone in Hearthstone - Blizzard officially recognizing how broken Arena currently is. The good news doesn't end there, however, as Hearthstone's next patch is bringing with it a bunch of changes to finally curb the infestation of Mages and Rogues in Arena.
Rather than simply nerf Mage and Rogue, Blizzard has decided to handle this problem with an uncharacteristic amount of grace. A couple of good Mage and Rogue cards will be leaving the Arena format, while a whole ton of incredibly bad cards from other classes will be taking their leave as well, essentially giving the weaker classes a much better chance at drafting useful cards!
Here's the full list of cards leaving the Arena with the next patch:
- By Ash
- in News
What little information I've been able to gleam about the upcoming Space Hulk: Deathwing, a Warhammer 40k themed shooter, has mostly revolved around the singleplayer campaign. However, after many months of waiting Focus Home Interactive has finally release some details on Deathwing's five co-op classes, as well as a couple of screenshots showcasing the Space Marines in action.
Before we move on to the multiplayer, allow me to first show you the one and only gameplay trailer for Space Hulk: Deathwing, just so you can get a good idea of what the Warhammer 40k world is all about:
- By Ash
- in News
While it has been known for many months that ReCore would be coming to PC, its Windows 10 exclusivity has never been officially confirmed... until now. According to the recently posted system requirements, ReCore is going to be releasing only for the Xbox One and Windows 10, though there is some hope for this changing in the distant future.
Quantum Break, also a Windows 10 launch exclusive, is soon going to be available for Windows 7 and 8, effectively making the whole thing a timed exclusivity. Hopefully the same will apply to ReCore as well, because while I have nothing against Windows 10 I do like seeing seeing games available across a wide variety of platforms, without any silly barriers put in place.
That massive tangent aside, here are the full system requirements, straight from the Microsoft store: