Cards Unbound, Game Uninstalled

Every player likes card customization. Thus, the first thing to go is meaningful card customization. Bravo. Implementing this five-points per card, twenty-five-points per loadout system, aside from causing hilariously broken and unbalanced cards that allows characters to deal around 23k burst damage when the maximum possible effective champion health is 5500 demolishes any meaningful customization. Now, just select the highest-leveled cards you have and you’re set for the next round. And once every card you own (or just those you cared about) is level 5, or you’re playing Ranked where every card is level 3, card customization is now almost as… [Continue Reading]

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The Problem with Riven Mods

When the War Within came out, it introduced Riven Mods, often just called rivens. The idea was that you’d receive a veiled mod with a challenge on it. Equipping this mod on a weapon and completing the challenge would unveil the riven and produce a mod for a specific weapon with randomized stats on it. These mods would cost about the same as rare/gold mods to upgrade and would ideally be a huge buff to unpopular or bad weapons, since the randomized stats included would give you more space for other mods, allow you to experiment more and try out… [Continue Reading]

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BarrierWatch

I’m finding myself playing less and less Overwatch these days, and while part of it is the new workload from preparing for my Master’s program in game development later this year, another part of it is me getting pretty tired of a mechanic that seems to have been Blizzard’s answer to too many balance problems. I don’t think there’s a single element of Overwatch that’s been buffed as many times as the barriers have. When the game was first announced, there were only two barriers among the initial twelve characters, and Winston’s sucked. Now, it’s perfectly possible (heck, downright common) for the defensive… [Continue Reading]

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aabicus’ First Time in Warframe

As mentioned in this article, a few weeks ago Medic and I tried an experiment where we played a free game of each other’s choice, in the hopes of expanding our horizons. Medic played Planetside 2 with me and I played Warframe with her. The conclusion? She didn’t like her new game very much and I unfortunately have to say the same. 🙁 I really, really wanted to like it, which is the weirdest thing. I’ve loved games that are decidedly worse. I can’t even point to anything in particular the game did wrong, instead I’ve just got this laundry list of positives. The… [Continue Reading]

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Complaining Across a Very Small Sea of Games

I have two siblings, both of whom are better at games than I am. Particularly platforming games and anything with precise timing, which I hate with a passion. They are both fans of first person shooters. They both started playing FPS games at the same time I did, starting with Left 4 Dead and Garry’s Mod. They’ve always played similar games. They both adore class-based shooters. They are Terroxy and Nommy. Nommy is the youngest of the three of us. She plays with a small group of friends. Mostly Overwatch these days. She’s gone off Team Fortress 2, because she… [Continue Reading]

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Paladins Update OB44 Disappoints Playerbase

Last year I reviewed Paladins: Champions of the Realm for our YouTube channel, and while my review was overall positive, I noted that many players were wary of immersing themselves in the new IP because the developers have a bad habit of ruining their older titles in the name of making a cheap buck. Well, as far as I’ve heard from my friends who took the plunge anyway, that day had sadly come. For those who don’t know anything about Paladins, it’s a hero-based shooter with gameplay very reminiscent of Overwatch. Everyone selects a hero and then both teams fight over… [Continue Reading]

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The New Vaccinator

During Tough Break, Valve reworked the Vaccinator again. As a Medic main, I felt it was my duty to try the thing out so I can see for myself if the poor thing has finally reached the lofty echelons of the other mediguns, or if it still sucked. I first tried it out on King of The Hill, a game mode that lets me quickly switch from offense to defense. I found that it served its job decently well in both categories. If I were taking on a single enemy with my pocket, I could easily switch to the correct… [Continue Reading]

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Scouts are prissy little babies who get whatever they want

You know what? I don’t hate Spy. He works hard to do his job, with so much threatening to screw him over. Even when Spy is strong, he has plenty of weaknesses. I don’t actually hate Sniper the most either. He’s got a good personality. He has somewhat defined weaknesses. I brought the bastard back to life. He’s somewhat bearable. But Scout? Fuck him. Actually, no, don’t fuck him. Scout doesn’t deserve to lose his virginity. Plus, rule 34 messes with Scout enough as it is. But Scout is so fricking hateful. In fact, the only similar character I hate… [Continue Reading]

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It’s not just about adding new content

Let’s face it, we’re still in a giant content drought. Literally nothing has happened to TF2 that’s even worth talking about. That’s why you’ve seen so much non-TF2 stuff here lately. It’s why people like Star_ are moving away and making videos about other things. While competitive TF2 is still there, it’s not really going anywhere special. Modding and SFM communities still exist, but there’s little else going on. Smaller TF2 communities are lagging behind, while larger ones like Reddit and SCUD are filled with nothing more than memes, chatter and balance for the lowest common denominator. It’s reached a… [Continue Reading]

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The Awkward State of Demoknight

The Demoknight is in a really awkward place within TF2, despite being the closest thing TF2 has to a tenth class with its own mobility, strengths, and weaknesses. The main issue with this is Demoknights were never as good as their sticky launcher brethren at dealing large amounts of damage, taking out fortified barricades, and overall keeping the enemy team suppressed. However in exchange for this loss of firepower the Demoknight gets a close range, high risk high reward charge mechanic that allows him to get to places no Demoman could ever dream of getting to. At least he could… [Continue Reading]

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