Nathan Grayson

Overwatch‘s Sombra Is Fun To Play And Very Powerful

Sombra is basically the Overwatch version of the DDOS script kiddies who bring down services like Steam and PSN. She takes shit you rely on, she breaks it, and then she disappears. In the right hands, I think she’s gonna be devastating. During BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, I got to play a couple games as…

After Nine Years In Development, Owlboy Is Worth The Wait

When Owlboy first started making waves nine years ago, indie games were barely A Thing. Minecraft and League of Legends hadn’t even begun to take over the world. Netflix was still a DVD-by-mail service. There were, like, two memes, both spread via telegraph and the US postal service. Now, finally, Owlboy is here. I find…

Overwatch Halloween Event Ends Early, Leaving Some Players Hanging

Yesterday, Overwatch’s Halloween event came to a conclusion. All those snazzy skins went back into the vault, never to be released again until society reaches sufficient levels of spookiness. Problem is, the event ended a bit earlier than Blizzard forecasted, and some players were banking on those final few moments. You might think, “Why the…

Steam Bans Misleading Store Page Screenshots

We’ve heard rumblings of a big Steam update on the horizon, and details are beginning to trickle in. Apparently it’s “a couple weeks away” and will, among other things, require developers to advertise their games with real screenshots, rather than art, CGI, or pictures of their spring break vacation to Cancun. A member of the…

Overwatch Pharah Cosplay Is Fully Operational

Czech cosplayer Germia describes her cosplay of Overwatch rocket queen Pharah as “the most challenging costume I’ve ever done.” It’s not hard to see why. Over the course of many months, Germia crafted a costume of Pharah’s Anubis skin that’s fully operational. Well, minus real rockets (I hope). Among other neat tricks, the propulsion wings…

Four years after the release of Journey, thatgamecompany has begun taking the wraps off their next project. On Twitter, creative director Jenova Chen revealed that thatgamecompany’s next game—which they’re currently calling “thatnextgame”—will be “a game about giving.” It will involve candles, unless it doesn’t.

Skyrim Halloween Mod Makes The Whole Game Spookier

Unpopular opinion: the biggest problem with Skyrim is that everybody’s not Draculas. Skyrim’s been around so long that it just got a remaster. Don’t get me wrong: it’s nice to revisit old stomping grounds, but eventually the deja vu becomes deja too much. You’ve gotta spruce up the place. In the spirit of the season,…

86-Year-Old Grandmother Accused Of Pirating PC Game, Liable For $5,000

Christine McMillan, an 86 year-old woman from Ontario, was pretty surprised when she received an email claiming she’d pirated post-apocalyptic FPS Metro 2033. She was even more surprised about the part where she was liable for a fine of up to $5,000. Itsy bitsy problem: she didn’t even know what Metro 2033 was. Grandma Shirley…

Elite Dangerous Player Uncovers Biggest Alien Secret Yet

Somewhere in Elite Dangerous’ gargantuan (and, some might say, dangerous) universe, there are aliens. Or there were. Nobody’s entirely sure yet. But players keep finding clues, and the latest discovery—or at least, the way it occurred—even shocked the game’s developers. A played named xdeath (not to be confused with Elon Musk’s character, Spacexdeath) discovered a…

Steam Is Having A Big Halloween Sale

It’s almost Halloween! You know what that means: video games for scary cheap prices. Or just regular cheap prices, but there’s a big picture of a spooooky cauldron full of eyeballs and hands and PC gaming components behind them. The Steam Halloween Sale runs until November 1, and it discounts a bunch of scary games…

Undertale action figures are out now, and they got one heck of a trailer. It’s very, um, Undertale, is the best way I can think to put it. Also, I’m pretty sure I need Lesser Dog with karate neck action in my life.

The First Tree looks like Journey: Fox Edition. It’s about the intertwining stories of a fox searching for her missing family and a young couple dealing with tragedy. According to its creator, it will be short, but bittersweet. It’s on Steam Greenlight right now and will be out early next year.

One Year Later, Those Two Perma-Permadeath Games Aren’t Doing So Great [UPDATE]

Last year, I covered two different games with an awesome (and also terrifying) central conceit: if you die, you can never play again. Upsilon Circuit and One Life both touted forms of perma-permadeath. People loved the idea. My two posts were viewed nearly 1.5 million times. Unfortunately, those games have hit some nasty bumps on…

Still no Smash Mouth 🙁

My Summer Car, As Told By Steam Reviews

My Summer Car might sound like a game about the fine art of crafting jank-ass automobiles, and to an extent, it is. But it’s also an open-world conduit for stories. Many of those stories involve beer and pee. My Summer Car is far more than just a car game. As I discovered while playing it…

Dozens Of Sega Mods Suddenly Removed From Steam Workshop  [UPDATE]

Earlier this year, Sega opened the floodgates on mods of its classic games, enabling Steam Workshop support for Sega Genesis & Mega Drive Classics. This week, dozens of those mods made like the cast of Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) and vanished. As PC Gamer points out, some mods were uploads of entire games like NBA…

A Few Good Mods For Mafia III

Open-world games benefit massively from thriving mod scenes, and while Mafia III is no Grand Theft Auto V, it’s seen a trickle of mods since launch. Here are a handful of good ones. Mafia III’s mod scene is still pretty tiny (Mafia Mods lists 26 Mafia III mods total), but there’s some solid quality of…

Overwatch Player Gets Revenge On Cocky Symmetra Troll

In Overwatch, certain people pick Symmetra for the sole purpose of placing teleporters near ledges and watching gung-ho allies with stars in their eyes and dreams in their hearts plunge to their deaths. The first time it happened to me, I laughed. These days, though, the joke’s old. In this clip, Will-e M nearly falls…

22 Life Lessons I Learned From A Permadeath Car Game

Surprise Steam global top seller My Summer Car bills itself as “the ultimate car owning, building, fixing, tuning, maintenance, AND permadeath life survival simulator.” It’s taught me a lot. Find your center My Summer Car really is an open-world survival game. Sure, my goal is to take the shell of an old junker and fill…

Overwatch’s Third Competitive Season Will Make Skill Ratings More Fair

If you began Overwatch season two as a high-tier hotshot, only to plummet into silver or bronze as time went on, don’t worry: you’re not alone. Season two completely overhauled the occasionally loved, often loathed skill rating system, but players still aren’t satisfied. Many don’t love the feeling of plateauing at a certain skill rating…