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After a week of testing and numerous changes to how the ranked system operates, the Overwatch Competitive Mode is now fully available for everyone on the PC. As for the consoles, they will receive this update at some point during the week once it finally goes through certification.
The first season of the Competitive Mode will only last 1.5 months, after which there will be a two week pause before Season 2 kicks into gear. If you would like to participate the only prerequisite is that you need to be Level 25 or above, which is somewhere in the ballpark of 10-20 hours of playtime, nothing truly unreasonable for what is supposed to be a serious mode.
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We're currently on Day 5 of the Steam Summer Sale, and if you're hoping the end is near so that your wallet can finally rest, I'm afraid that we're not even half way through just yet.
As before, let's skip the pleasantries and get right down to it by showcasing which games I believe are worth picking up during today's Summer Sale. My recommendations are based on two things, the game's quality and the depth of its discount, while the order of it all is completely and utterly random:
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After the atrocious Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the Sonic Team vowed to make the next game worthy of its once-prestigious title. Ever since then the team was mostly silent about this as of yet unannounced game, but rumors started floating around earlier this month that the next mainline Sonic game would be arriving in 2017.
As it turns out, the rumors were completely correct. During the recent 25th Sonic the Hedgehog anniversary celebration in Tokyo, the Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka revealed that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game will be launching in 2017. You will find the video of the celebration below, though unfortunately its entirety in Japanese without any subtitles to fall back on, but thankfully Gematsu managed to translate the most interesting part of the whole celebration - the Sonic game announcement.
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Grim Dawn has been in development for a very long time now, initially only by a couple of people in their spare time, but after the successful Kickstarter in 2012 things started to speed up significantly. The small team was expanded, and soon enough Grim Dawn landed on Steam Early Access.
While it all started off shaky and somewhat unpolished, Crate Entertainment managed to continuously update Grim Dawn to the point where it became one of the best ARPGs released in recent years. Thankfully, all that hard work and dedication ended up being well worth it as Crate announced today that they have sold over half a million copies worldwide.
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Escape From Tarkov is a Stalker inspired MMO that aims to combine FPS/TPS gameplay with RPG elements and a fully fledged story campaign based around open-ended levels. Its heading to Alpha in August, and while there is little information available right now, I have to admit that the very concept had me intrigued from the get-go.
Unfortunately, watching the 15 minute pre-alpha gameplay demo recently posted by GameSpot has significantly dulled my excitement. While I won't say anything just yet in order to not "pollute" your viewing experience, I will just mention that you should skip to around 9 minutes in order to get to the "actual" gameplay:
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LA Noire is these days synonymous with development hell, and even though the team behind it had the best of intentions the end result was a rushed, buggy mess that didn't even begin to scrape the potential of the initial premise. While LA Noire ended up being a mediocre game, hopes were risen high when Team Bondi announced that they are working on a spiritual successor, Whore of the Orient, that would take all of the good stuff from LA Noire and then further improve upon it.
This was all the way back in 2012, however, and unfortunately it seems the Whore of the Orient will not be seeing daylight as the whole project seems to have been canceled. As spotted by the aptly named Finder.com.au, a producer at Team Bondi recently did a podcast interview over at Gamehugs where he essentially confirmed the project's cancellation. Here's the full quote:
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The standard life cycle of a total conversion mod usually consists of a few weeks of pure hype, followed by the creation of a single-page website with two pieces of concept art, and then a couple of months of silence as the developers slowly realize the gravity of the task before them. In other words, creating an expansive and ambitious mod is an extremely hard task, one that requires both dedication and experience, not something many are able to offer up.
With this in mind, you can now hopefully appreciate how impressive it is that the folks over at SureAI have managed to construct Enderal, an entire new world within the Skyrim engine. It features new and unique landscapes, different gameplay mechanics and abilities, and unlike Skyrim, a heavy focus on storytelling. Here's the recently posted trailer, and while it is in German there are embedded subtitles, so you should still have a grasp on what's going on:
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The fourth day of the Steam Summer Sale has rolled on by, and already the value of those silly trading cards has gone down straight through the floor. Oh how I long for the Steam Sales of old where you actually had interesting mini-games and prizes to look forward to, rather than a pointless little badge you won't even look at until the next Summer Sale.
Slight rant aside, its time to once again dive into the cavernous depths of the Steam Store and see which games are worth grabbing on Day 4. As always, my recommendations are based on the game's quality and the depth of its discount, while the order is completely and utterly random:
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As you've most likely heard by this point, Mass Effect: Andromeda will be taking place centuries after the events of Mass Effect 3. Usually this wouldn't be much of an issue, but Mass Effect 3's endings offered vastly different ways of handling the situation, with each one presenting you with far-reaching consequences that could directly shape the course of the universe.
So how do you go from a potential unity between man and machine, to Mass Effect: Andromeda where humanity is searching for a new home amidst the stars? While I personally don't have the answer, we will be able to find out through a newly announced series of Mass Effect novels that aim to bridge the story gap between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda.
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[Update]: After nearly seven years in development, the System Shock Remake will finally be launching in March 2023!
System Shock is by all accounts an excellent game, but due to technological advances in both graphics and gameplay its not the most... pleasant thing to play these days. This is where Night Dive Studios and their plans for a Remastered version come in as they are offering improved gameplay mechanics, impressive visuals, and a bunch of new features to make playing System Shock a fresh and enjoyable experience.
The Remastered version, now known simply as System Shock, is set to arrive next week, June 28, on Kickstarter along with a playable demo showcasing the team's progress so far. If you're wondering what the demo might look like, here's a gameplay trailer featuring pre-alpha footage from about 3 months ago: