Nathan Grayson

Overwatch‘s Unique Art Style Began With Torbjorn

It’s well-documented that Tracer was Overwatch’s first playable hero, but before the game was ever playable, another character helped hammer out Overwatch’s identity. Surprisingly, it was Torbjorn. During a GDC panel earlier today, Overwatch art director Bill Petras and assistant art director Arnold Tsang explained, among other things, how Blizzard molded the game in Torbjorn’s…

Look At This Ridiculous Space Submarine Game

GDC’s “alt.ctrl.gdc” section is a lawless land unified only by a single question: “why not?” It’s living proof that anything can be a game controller if you just believe hard enough. And while many of the games on display can be gimmicky, Objects in Space feels like a game I’d play even without all the…

Celeste, A Platformer Covered In Spikes

Celeste is a game about climbing a mountain. A mountain covered in spikes. As part of a recent Nintendo showcase during GDC, I got to try out a bunch of indie games that are coming to the Switch. Of those, Celeste was my favorite. It’s from the creators of very good multiplayer archery fighting game…

Torment: Tides Of Numenera: The Kotaku Review

“What does one life matter?” is the question at the heart of Torment: Tides of Numenera. Initially shapeless, the question solidifies around heady concepts like legacy. Not so coincidentally, few games can boast a more lasting legacy than Numenera’s spiritual predecessor, Planescape Torment Tides of Numenera is the Kickstarter-borne spiritual follow-up to Planescape, a 1999…

A Game Developer’s Digital Fight Against Fascism

In these turbulent times, it can be hard to focus on making video games. The world is on fire! Tightening up the graphics on level three probably won’t do much to put it out. Ramsey Nasser was feeling that way, so he decided to make games about punching nazis. “It’s something that has come up…

Pixel Privateers Is Like Squad-Based Borderlands

Do you like loot? Do you enjoy having so much loot that you don’t know what to do with it? Does the thought of drowning in a sea of loot, images of loved ones scrolling like a credits sequence as a laser gun digs deep into your esophagus, appeal to you? Then yeah, you should…

One Month Later, Guy Recovers $10,000 Worth Of SNES Games That Were Lost In The Mail

Last week, I reported on Byuu, an emulator developer and game archivist who was trying to preserve every single SNES game ever made. He declared his plan “dead,” however, after $10,000 worth of rare games went missing in the mail. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Today, Byuu finally received his package. A European…

I thought I was getting sick of ‘80s-inspired retro-future aesthetics, but then I saw Narita Boy. Yeah, it goes back to a well that’s been tapped countless times, but it does so with style, playful weirdness, and cool dimension-hopping mechanics. It’s currently on Kickstarter

We Debate What’s Best For Overwatch’s Bastion

This week on our semi-regular Overwatch show, Let’s Break It Down, Cecilia, Heather, and I discuss the upcoming Bastion changes, as well as custom games and, for some reason, ‘90s anime classic Neon Genesis Evangelion. I, personally, am not a huge fan of Bastion, but I will admit that the walking tuna tin piloted by…

AMD’s Ryzen 7 series of processors is launching on March 2 They range in price from $329 to $499. AMD hopes they’ll be able to directly compete with Intel’s high-performance processors, despite costing a lot less.

Watch Blizzard Create An Overwatch Highlight Animation

Overwatch highlight intros are just one small part of a very big game, but that doesn’t mean they’re an afterthought. This one Mei animation, for instance, took four days to make. Highlight intros play, well, before highlights—for instance, when you’ve gotten Play Of The Game. Artist David Gibson, who we’ve featured before, recorded himself making…

Twitch Streamer Dies During 24-Hour Marathon Stream

World of Tanks streamer Brian “Poshybrid” Vigneault died from unknown causes on February 19 after streaming for 22 hours. He was 35 and a father of three. Vigneault was streaming to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Vigneault would spend multiple days in the same week streaming for upward of 20 hours. The charity stream…

Hands-On Nintendo Switch Impressions From A Dream I Had Last Night

The Nintendo Switch is about to come out, and people are equal parts excited and wary. Can it live up to expectations? Is it worth the price? Fear not, for I’m here to answer all of your questions. Last night I dreamed I had a Nintendo Switch. It was alright. First, the basics: the Nintendo…

Your Best Stories Of Getting Rescued In Video Games

In video games, we’re used to being heroes, saving hapless innocents from villains, monsters, and their own demons. Sometimes, though, we need a hero to save us. Here are stories of players coming to each other’s rescue, not because they had to, but because they could. Earlier this week, I asked readers to tell me…

Blizzard Shuts Down Fanmade Overwatch Playboy Parody

Overwatch and porn (or, in this case, “artful eroticism”) have quite a history. Blizzard’s never seemed entirely comfortable with it, but the burgeoning Overwatch porn scene has raged on without its explicit approval. An Overwatch Playboy parody, however, apparently went too far. Playwatch Magazine began as nothing but a series of Playboy-style covers featuring Overwatch…

Cheater Ends Up In Match With Pro Overwatch Players, Gets Wrecked

They say karma’s a bitch. I say it’s pretty friggin’ cool sometimes. During a recent stream, Overwatch pro Brandon “Seagull” Larned, who currently plays for NRG, assembled a truly fearsome six stack. His team was made up of Brady “Agilities” Girardi, who plays for Immortals, Christopher “GrimReality” Schaefer, who also plays for Immortals, CLG player…

Valve Fixes Accuracy Bug That’s Been In Team Fortress 2 For Ten Years

Video game bugs are like a foul odor. The cause might be some tiny thing, but if you can’t isolate it, it’ll stink up the whole dang place. Such was apparently the case with a Team Fortress 2 bug that took Valve ten years to finally eliminate. Here’s how the bug worked: if you joined…

Mothergunship is a game that mixes over-the-top first-person shooting and bullet hell projectile avoidance. It’s all about movement. Oh, and also crafting ridiculous guns, like a twelve barrel monstrosity that fires rockets. It’s from the person who made Tower of Guns, and it’s releasing… eventually.

Valve Is Training AI To Detect Counter-Strike Cheaters

There’s nothing worse than going on a tear in Counter-Strike, only to get gunned down by some asshole who’s spinning around, one-tapping everybody. He’s obviously cheating. Why hasn’t he been caught? According to Valve, it’s complicated, but they’re working on a new system to bust fun-killers. First, here’s the reason Valve hasn’t augmented their Overwatch…

$10,000 Worth Of SNES Games Goes Missing In The Mail

Byuu, a revered SNES emulator developer and game archivist, had a plan. With the help of an avid collector from Europe, he would archive hundreds of SNES games, some of which are exceedingly rare. Unfortunately, that plan recently hit the skids when a package worth thousands of dollars went missing in the mail. Byuu’s goal…