Nathan Grayson

XCOM 2‘s New DLC Adds A Dash Of Shadow Of Mordor To The Game

XCOM 2 just got its biggest DLC expansion yet, Alien Hunters. It adds three new “ruler” aliens, which function as bosses who, unlike other XCOM 2 enemies, can escape and appear in multiple battles. I was surprised to find that it’s kinda like the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor Alien Hunters focuses on three…

Blizzard Vows To Improve Twitch Chat After Hearthstone Racism Fiasco

During the recent Dreamhack Austin event, Hearthstone pro Terrence “TerrenceM” Miller came in second. It was quite a moment, a breakout performance for a relative unknown. And while many viewers were impressed, others in the thousands-strong Twitch chat refused to stop pointing out the obvious: Miller is black. You can probably guess which slurs were…

Shaq Is Shilling Counter-Strike Now

Oh how far we’ve come. Turner Broadcasting is kicking off the spring Counter-Strike tournament in their eSports initiative, ELEAGUE, so they got someone as big as their ALL-CAPS LOGO to promote it: retired basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. Because sure, why not! It’s actually a pretty funny video. Or at least, you know, a couple parts…

PC Modder Says It’ll Take Months To Get Final Fantasy X Running At 60 FPS

Final Fantasy X originally came out on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. One modder is trying to make it conform to modern PC gaming standards—with mixed results. Naxshe has posted a couple videos of their effort to give the recently released Steam version of Final Fantasy X a full 60 frames-per-second makeover. Here’s the game’s…

Overwatch‘s New Animated Short Explores Hanzo And Genji’s Tragic Rivalry

Overwatch’s series of excellent animated shorts just got another entry. The stars this time? Samurai arrow-slinger Hanzo and cyborg ninja everything-blocker Genji. Here’s the short: Here’s Blizzard’s description of it: “‘Dragons’ explores the history of conflict between the scions of the Shimada clan: Hanzo and Genji. In this episode, we follow Hanzo as he returns…

Seven Steam Games Whose Reviews Have Changed A Lot

Valve recently overhauled Steam’s review system, putting a larger focus on recent perspectives. The move made sense. Games are no longer static works. They constantly evolve thanks to updates and programs like Early Access. The system is, by and large, very useful, providing percentages that give narrow and wide snapshots of games. But numbers only…

Serial Cleaner is a game about stealthily mopping up murder scenes. Think Viscera Cleanup Detail, except it’s a) set in the 1970s, b) a stealth game, and c) played from an entirely different perspective. So maybe it’s not much like Viscera Cleanup Detail at all. Except for the whole, you know, cleaning-up-gory-murder-scenes part.

Someone Recreated The Warcraft Movie Trailer In World Of Warcraft

Against my better instincts, I’m crossing my fingers for the Warcraft movie. It’s being directed by the guy behind Moon and Source Code. He is also technically a Bowie! If all else fails, though, when the dust settles, we’ll have at least gotten this cool in-game trailer out of it. Ivan Kuzkin crafted a shot-for-shot…

Inspired by the announcement of Civilization VI, buccura added a certain familiar face to XCOM 2. Why’s he nicknamed “Nukem”? It’s a long, exceedingly amusing story

Free Sidescrolling Permadeath MMO Is Surprisingly Fun

I didn’t expect to get so into StarBreak. It’s a free-to-play sidescrolling MMO—think Contra, but with, like, 30 other people swarming around you—where every death counts. If you die, loot and stats go out the window. Despite that, it’s weirdly relaxing to play. I picked up StarBreak from Steam on a whim yesterday, thinking I’d…

Mod Turns Steam War Game Into A 64-Player Mass Effect Battle

Running With Rifles is basically top-down Battlefield. Thanks to a mod, you can turn it into top-down Battlefield: Mass Effect, aka the game you never knew you wanted. Running With Rifles recently got Steam Workshop support, bringing its mercenary band of mods into the same bunker. People have made some creative-ass (ass!) stuff for the…

Fabular is an open-universe medieval space folktale set in a surreal galaxy. It’s got a techno-classical vibe, randomly generated text-based elements with strange characters, and a spaceship that can PUNCH other spaceships. Assuming it does well on Steam Greenlight and Kickstarter, it’ll be out next year.

XCOM 2 Mod Gives The Game Its Own Survival Mode

Usually, XCOM 2 is a game where you battle aliens in missions, pray to god (who is probably also an alien) that your precious troops don’t get perma-killed, and purchase upgrades between missions. This mod changes that entirely. This week’s popular new XCOM 2 mod is called Wave COM. It’s a survival mode, but with…

Even Undertale‘s Official Merchandise Has Secrets

Undertale is a game jam-packed with secrets, to the point that players are still discussing them and hunting for new ones. They’re even in official merchandise. Thanks to Dominic Tarason, I heard that you can cut open the official Toriel plush, dig through the stuffing, and find a white heart. I did a little searching…

World Of Warcraft Designer Gets Real About Complaint That Blizzard Doesn’t Listen

World of Warcraft is not just massively multiplayer; it’s massively multi-faceted. There are all sorts of different kinds of PVP and PVE, not to mention pet battles, alts, role-play, dungeons, and more. These aspects cater to different people, but when Blizzard changes anything, it seems like everyone’s upset. Responding to a forum thread about expensive…

The People Making Cyberpunk 2077 Would Like To Correct A Misconception About Game Development

A couple weeks ago, a rare dribble of info about Witcher creator CD Projekt’s next game, Cyberpunk 2077, hit the web. Multiple outlets reported that CDP is not working on the game in earnest, that they have to complete a major dev tool overhaul first. Problem: that’s not how game development works. As CDP has…

Game That’s Totally Not A Cthulhu Dating Sim Gets DLC That Totally Is

Army of Tentacles: (Not) A Cthulhu Dating Sim is a Steam visual novel/RPG loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. In it, you recruit Eldritch horrors and fight conversation-based battles. When it first came out, it went to great lengths to proclaim that it wasn’t a Cthulhu dating sim. Now it has DLC…

Three Hours With The Witcher 3‘s Final Expansion, Blood And Wine

If you ask me, The Witcher 3 is the finest RPG of our time. I don’t want to bid it farewell, but CD Projekt’s got quite an expansion lined up to help ease the grieving process. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine is set to release on May 31, and I got to play it…

Popular Counter-Strike Streamer Fails Hilariously At Pro Event, Becomes Meme

Jaryd “summit1g” Lazar is one of the most popular Counter-Strike streamers, with more than 1.3 million followers. Over the weekend, he subbed for a pro team. It did not end well. Summit was subbing for a member of Splyce, a not particularly accomplished American team. He’s competed before, but it’s not his main claim to…

Long-Distance Relationships Suck, But VR’s Made It Easier

I looked into my girlfriend’s eyes as I reached out to gently touch her face. In that moment, I felt something. A rush of warmth from my head to my toes. Comfort. Contentment. It should be noted that my girlfriend was, at the time, a floating ball robot. Since early April, my girlfriend has been…