Nathan Grayson

Battlerite, As Told By Steam Reviews

Battlerite is a new arena brawler that’s been near the top of Steam’s charts for a week, with no signs of slowing down. It looks like a MOBA, walks like a MOBA, and even talks like a MOBA, but reviewers love it because it actually isn’t a MOBA. Battlerite takes the basic MOBA foundation and…

Here’s the first 20 minutes of Gears of War 4‘s campaign. It’s got scripted action, roadie running, Lancers, grunting, and very detailed explosions. Looks like the Gears of yesteryear(s), but with more hardware muscle behind it. If that’s what you were hoping for, this video will probably make you pretty happy.

Oversnatch: The Kotaku Review

Brazzers’ porn parody of Overwatch, titled Oversnatch, starts strong, but by the end it’s sweaty, spent, and sagging. Warning: this post is NSFW. Oversnatch begins promisingly, in an abandoned theater that almost doesn’t look like a porn studio. Widowmaker lurks, and Reaper skulks. Widowmaker (played by Aletta Ocean) is introduced with Overwatch-style text displaying her…

Weapons Nerfed After Elite: Dangerous Players Protest With In-Game ‘Terrorism’

“This game deserves a better class of criminal,” a member of Elite: Dangerous’ player-run Smiling Dog Crew wrote in a plea for a nerf of the game’s heat weapons. “We hope to fix that with this operation,” they added, calling their plan “terrorism.” The plan’s name? Operation SpicyBois. Heat weapons were introduced as part of…

Overwatch characters, re-imagined as off-brand Halloween costumes. Artist Nina Matsumoto has been drawing characters like Tracer, Genji, and Reaper in the grand tradition of costume manufacturers trying to get around copyright laws. Who doesn’t love characters like “Futuristic Tea Time Cop” and “Blue Balls Zen Lover”?

Ubisoft Buys Ketchapp, The Studio Behind Mobile Clone 2048 And Other Games

Mobile game publisher Ketchapp is an absolute force on the App Store. Since 2014, they’ve released a salvo of arcade-y hits like 2048, ZigZag, Stack, Stick Hero, Twist, and Jelly Jump. However, they’ve also been accused of cloning games on a handful of occasions. Ubisoft shelled out for Ketchapp to gain a stronger foothold in…

Game Developer Finds Where Pirates Are Downloading Their Game, Leaves Thank You Note

It’s like somebody always says, probably: If you can’t beat ‘em, convince them to join you. We’ve got a new entry in the increasingly lengthy saga of clever developers realizing that, shit, piracy is never gonna go away, so we’ll make the best of it, I guess. Upon discovering a few pirated versions of their…

The Triple Tank Strategy Is Taking Over Competitive Overwatch

The meta of a competitive game is a curious thing. As balance and tactics evolve, so do the prescribed best practices for coming out on top no matter what your foes (and the greatest foe of all, life) throw at you. That’s natural. It keeps the game interesting. When one strategy becomes too dominant, however,…

That’s a lot of D.Va. Blizzard recently gave Overwatch’s D.Va an in-game stream overlay for her sitting emote, which GraphicFeedback recreated for their friend, streamer Hanaday. The result? D.Va streaming D.Va, who is, in turn, also streaming. Perhaps we’re all being streamed by larger, realer versions of ourselves. A chilling thought.

Blubber Busters is a combat platformer about venturing inside space whales to cure their illnesses. Seriously. You lead a crew of intergalactic infection fighters, and you can swap between and upgrade them. It comes from devs who worked on League of Legends, Darksiders 2, and Enter The Gungeon. It’s on Kickstarter

Overwatch Test Patch Adds Tons Of New Voice Lines

Yesterday, Overwatch’s public test server got an update that added new spectator options and tweaked the balance of Ana, Widowmaker, and Junkrat in ways that may or may not make it into the regular game. But that’s not all. Overwatch players have spent the past 24 hours digging up heaps of new voice lines for…

Star Citizen‘s First-Person View Is Based On Birds

Star Citizen’s first-person view isn’t like other games, where you’re essentially in control of a floating camera. That approach is tried and true, but not wholly realistic. In the preposterously ambitious space game, your view and your body are one-in-the-same, just like in a real human body. Problem: turns out, human bodies have a lot…

Modders Add Multiplayer To Stardew Valley Before The Game’s Developers

Steam farming sensation Stardew Valley finally has multiplayer! Well… unofficially, anyway. Stardew Valley players have been waiting for multiplayer since shortly after the game came out in February, but that particular update is still a seed, rather than a blossoming pumpkin patch or a field overrun by sprightly Pokemon. It might be in the game…

Steam’s Digital Homicide Fiasco Is Valve’s Fault

It’s been a dramatic handful of days for Steam. Infamous shovelware developer Digital Homicide sued 100 Steam users for $18 million and subpoenaed Valve for their information, at which point Valve booted them and all their games from the service. The worst part? This was all painfully avoidable. The Digital Homicide situation is the culmination…

Valve Changes Steam Reviews Again

Last week, Valve made some big changes to Steam reviews. Developers, especially, didn’t love them Developers were worried by the part where Steam would default to not showing reviews by people who received game keys from places like Kickstarter, as opposed to directly purchasing from Steam. Valve made the change to counter fraudulent reviews and…

Yono is a game in the style of classic, top-down Legend of Zeldas, but also it stars an elephant. It’s got combat, puzzles, and treasure hunts, as well as “delicate cultural and political situations” among humans, zombies, and robots. It’ll be out on PC at… some point. Definitely worth keeping an eye on until then.

Mod Turns RimWorld Into A Lovecraftian Nightmare

In Steam sci-fi colony-building hit RimWorld, sanity is precious. Colonists have to deal with a lot of shit—from deceased loved ones to rampaging space turkeys—and they sometimes snap. H.P. Lovecraft also knows a thing or two about driving people to madness. Modder Jecrell added one of the more influential storytellers of the past century to…

When Steam’s Tagging System Goes Wrong

Come with me, friends. Come with me on a journey Study that image for a moment. You might notice that something’s not quite right about it. If you go to Steam’s front page, that “psychological horror” tag sticks out like a sore thumb as it clings precariously to True or False, a cute, animal-themed trivia…

Someone Is Making A Game Where You Can Romance Overwatch Characters

If Overwatch fan culture is anything to go by, there’s only one thing people want to see Overwatch characters do more than fight: date. That’s where fan games come in. But with lawyers hiding in bushes and trees, waiting to spring their DMCA traps, making video game characters kiss ain’t easy. Loverwatch is one of…

Overwatch Players Are Terrified Of Getting Powered Up By Ana

You’re playing Overwatch, and the match is going well, all things considered. You’ve got a ten-elimination streak going, and your team just reached the second checkpoint with time to spare. But then you hear the words. The doom words. “You’re powered up! Get in there.” Fuck. Beloved sniper mom Ana’s ult gives any single ally…