Daryl Mault

Most conversations about incoming patches have to do with how it's going to change the meta. Ana's getting nerfed and Reinhardt is a must-pick, always. Even the professional e-sports teams start to look the same in their lineups. This is why some fans have been arguing to legitimize a narrow but popular niche community within Overwatch : The 3v3 players. Currently, 3v3 is in the Arcade and only has one map, but with any combination of three heroes to choose from there are countless possibilities for a quick win or a long drawn out battle. It's arguably more dynamic, which is why many 3v3 players want to see a competitive mode made, and more attention given to this game mode. Without knowing your opponents' hero selections, it becomes more about teamwork and how your team's heroes can compliment each other. Oh, and of course it's also about who can melt the most fa

If you talk to players who queue up in Competitive Mode, they all agree to hate one thing: Leavers . But when you delve further into that topic, the conversation gets skewed, and people start talking about accountability. There seems to be two main camps, those that want to make it easier to rejoin a match once you've been disconnected, and those that want to increase the penalty for leaving a competitive match. The problem with leavers is that they force the remaining players to continue the match with five players versus six. Even if for a small amount of time, this can have drastic effects on the outcome of the FPS game missions. So though a minority of players feel like they shouldn't be punished for disconnecting, most other players agree that maybe they shouldn't be playing Competitive Mode in the first place with a shoddy connection. In the end, it's a team game, and can seem rather unfair when a teammate lea

GAME OF THE YEAR Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment) Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment) Inside (Playdead) Dishonored 2 (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks) Firewatch (Campo Santo / Panic) Honorable Mentions: DOOM (id Software / Bethesda Softworks), The Witness (Thekla), Battlefield 1 (EA DICE / Electronic Arts), The Last Guardian (JAPAN Studio / Sony Interactive Entertainment), Titanfall 2 (Respawn Entertainment / Electronic A

BEST VISUAL ART Firewatch (Campo Santo / Panic) The Last Guardian (JAPAN Studio / Sony Interactive Entertainment) Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment) Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment) Inside (Playdead) Honorable Mentions: The Witness (Thekla), Battlefield 1 (EA DICE / Electronic Arts), Abzu (Giant Squid Studios), Thumper (Drool), DOOM (id Software / Bethesda Softwo

Overwatch doesn't do storytelling in the traditional sense. The game has no campaign mode, but the origins and history of the heroes featured have been slowly revealed via comics, trailers and animated shorts. The Tracer Origin Story short was first shown at BlizzCon 2014 and gave fans their first taste of the game's unique way of spinning a y

In SimCity , the player's goal is to create a harmonious environment for the population. Players can build all sorts of different buildings and locations and they can also help the city survive natural disasters – or put them through disasters on purpose. It was a little ironic then, that one disaster SimCity couldn't get itself through was its own server troub

Ever been matched for a game that you felt was unwinnable? Those that solo queue feel it worse than others, but when teams face an MRR disparity of 300-500 SR points, it can be frustrating to think you were matched to take the fall. A lot of fans' complaints allude to many levels of 'unfairness' including larger 'grouped' groups playing smaller or ungrouped teams, or that a good matchmaking system should feel like a win rate of 50%. Scott Mercer, principal designer of Overwatch tried to explain how the matchmaking algorithms work , while remaining committed to make the experience better. The situation often arises when it would take more than the ideal amount of time to make a fair match, or when players are playing in off-peak hours and there is simply not the right competitors online. This results mostly from the smaller pools of available players at either the extreme bottom or top of the ranks. The 'Stay As A Team' option has definitely helped immensely, but all players can agree the game is much more fun when you feel like you have a fighting cha

According to the developers, Tracer, Reaper, and Widowmaker were the initial three heroes worked on by the team, with Tracer being the first. Her design is all about speed, which is why her iconic look is inspired by both fighter pilots and track athletes. As the character was refined, the creative teams ended up liking Lena so much that she automatically became the game's "mascot" despite not being intended as one. Creative director Chris Metzen even likened her to a certain wall-crawler, saying that Tracer became a " Spider-Man type character" for them, saying "She's so rad, and it feels good to leverage her in the front of story ide