Kristan Whitlock

As Blizzard's first foray into a first-person shooter -- and built from the remains of its long-gestating MMORPG Project Titan -- Overwatch is both classically "Blizzard" and yet an entirely new and fresh experience from the company's previous franchises: especially as the first company's first new franchise since StarCraft debuted in 1998. With that kind of history and development behind it, Overwatch is as much a title that honors the numerous games and genres that influenced it, while forging ahead a path as one of the most exciting and fresh multiplayer titles I've played in quite some time. Coming from the house that built games like Warcraft , Diablo , and StarCraft this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though (in my eyes) Overwatch 's key attribute comes down to one thing: accessibil

Bundle up for a journey to Ecopoint: Antarctica, the former Overwatch installation where climatologist Mei-Ling Zhou was once stationed. While researching severe weather anomalies in the region, the station was hit by an intense polar storm. Running out of options and low on supplies, the team decided to cryogenically freeze themselves until the storm passed. They believed that it would only be for a few months, but Mei awoke nearly a decade la

I don't think there was ever any hesitancy, but there was a realization that this is freaking terrifying. Because it's not just important to us, right? Being in the COD family it really means a lot, but dude I remember skipping school for this game. So it's one of those things that it means a whole lot to be playing that game and it means a whole lot be able to bring that to the fans and trying to figure out 'what's the most important thing to me as a gamer,' and 'what's going to resonate with the community,' because there's actually a really healthy community out there. Like 20,000 people still playing on Steam pretty regularly. It's crazy, but dude they love it. If you haven't played some of their mod severs they're friendly, it's fun to play, but they're really really engaged. The Steam forums will let you know that. It is a daunting task and it has been. I would probably say regularly it was like 'okay is going to make a fan pissed off?' I think we got out in front of that really early with that 'don't f*ck with the gameplay,' as our number one tenet, and that coincides with Raven's mantra of gameplay first. So our entire team already had that mentality of we're not going to mess with what the designers say is important. We were pushing for you keep the timing the same, you keep the feel, you keep the spacial design/the level design cannot not change, but we can add personality and we can add character to it.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered had a tough job to complete. Not only did it have to match player’s nostalgic expectations, but also remain fun after nine years, and in some ways, it's successful. The campaign resonates today as much it did nine years ago, the Multiplayer is still a blast, and the visual overhaul is the best any remaster has ever received. What Raven has accomplished is impressive, but it has its limits. Their strict dedication to not tampering with the original formula means that the flaws from 2007 are clearly visible. Issues that were fixed in later Call of Duty titles are left unchecked in Modern Warfare Remastered, and it can drag the experience down. In the end, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered is a solid remaster that enhances the original game with beautiful new visuals and a little bit of extra multiplayer content, but Raven Software may have stuck to the original a little too much. A few tweaks would have gone a long way to fixing some balancing issues, but for those looking for a blast from the past, this works just fine

Voting started on December 24th, and ended on January 21st. Each voter was asked to give ten preferences in order, with the first game scoring four points, second and third scoring three, ranks from four to six scoring two points, and the rest only one. Two honorable mentions were also allowed, but scored no points.

So I'm going to show my colors here. I am PC MR for sure. That's where I got my start in gaming. There is no way in the world I would the PC version of the game ship if it was poor. It plays amazingly, I love it. When we do our play test I do play with a controller, but I get owned so bad. But it's so satisfying trying to play PC for our play test and come out with a two to three KD and I'm like 'there bches. Don't give me any more sht. I'm okay!' Cause I'm not a console FPS game story guide guy I just can't move my thumbs and fingers and hands the other people can. I'm amazed that people can do it, but you get me on a mouse and keyboard I'm going to wreck some sht up. So yeah it's really good. It's great. The frame rate is fantastic. Now I also have a killer rig, so I'm not playing on the lowest common denominator for sure, but I am really enjoying it. So for someone who comes from that background I think that anyone who plays this on PC is going to be really happy.