Overwatch Leads 2016 s Game Awards Winners

To top all of this off, none of my teammates were communicating whatsoever. Needless to say, I was extremely frustrated and decided to start playing quarterback, directing my teammates through my microphone. After getting one Tracer and one Reaper to switch to Reinhardt, who rocks a giant shield that blocks enemy bullets, I hung in the background, healing everyone possible and positioning them on the control point in a way that I felt would be successful. Granted, my tone was far more authoritative than I would like to admit, and I'm sure that my teammates probably thought I was a huge jerk, but something very funny happened after I started to take control: we won. We had a completely unbalanced team that was doomed from the start, I chose a character whose main role isn't inflicting damage and somehow I ended up empowering the team as a whole. This was such a different experience from anything that I had ever experienced in a shooter, and despite the initial frustrations, it was the single most satisfying multiplayer match I was a part of (in any game) in the past two or three years.


Now, Heroes of the Storm has rolled out another patch – and this time, it has added a feature back to the game that has been gone for almost five years. Heroes Brawl, originally introduced as Arena Mode, is officially back in Heroes of the Storm as Brawl Mode . This game mode features special maps with drastically different rules, ranging from the all-Nova Ghost Protocol snipe fest to the Escape from Braxis PvE map. Brawls will rotate every two weeks, on the 1st and 15th each month, with the first one, Lunar Rocket Racing, available now until mid-Febru

Overwatch’s tutorial system does an excellent job at introducing players to the basics, but the lessons don’t end there. Every menu and on-screen cue does an excellent job of doling out information to the players at a comfortable pace; character select screens detail and explain each character’s roles, whether that be support, offense, defense, or tank. Specific abilities and weapons for each character can be accessed in-game, and you’re able to switch characters on the fly if need be. The game also assigns a difficulty rating for each character, allowing newcomers to shy away from more complex heroes. Better yet, the game will often tell you when your team is unbalanced, letting you know what roles your team is lacking.

When developer Pixel Titans released a new trailer for upcoming nostalgia-bleeding, fast-paced shooter STRAFE, safe to say what they unveiled could be regarded as material that goes against the tide of contemporary "gameplay" promotion, trailers and all. The decision to take its blocky, pixelated aim at this thematic and quote-unquote cinematic direction modern games have often approached and blindly lavished over worked wonders for two completely opposing and quite ironically-positioned reasons. One: the developers are clearly confident enough to add a an extra flair of presentation and direction to their still ongoing project. And two: they’re more than willing to be the butt to their own joke -- opening up the flood-gates guarding not just the industry they’re a part of, but more prudently, of themselves as but one more studio in a grand sum of thousands.


The update also squashed quite a few bugs in Blizzard’s MOBA. Beyond some pathing problems with experience globes, visual effects for rooting, and the interaction between crowd control reduction and gradual slowing effects, nearly three dozen heroes had issues resolved pertaining to their abilities and tale

Maybe it's a little naive to say it, but, for me, I've been playing the game now for two years at home, and I come back to it every night because it's fun. We are trying to make, first and foremost, an incredible fun and exciting game, and on top of that, we have other systems in there. We have a progression system and it works together with a loot box system that we have so that you can unlock different cosmetic items for your character. We also have a competitive mode, which is sort of like a ranked mode. So we definitely have a lot of systems in [Overwatch], but at it's heart, we just want the game to be incredibly fun.
Overwatch was released earlier this week to critical acclaim and it’s not hard to see why. Blizzard’s newest title is a slick online shooter that manages to be both incredibly deep on the strategic side, but widely accessible for newcomers who don’t have a lot of experience when playing shooters or MOBA-style games. Like most games from Blizzard, it’s also incredibly polished and runs well on both consoles and low-end PC systems.

There's a number of good explanations as to why Overwatch is such a fantastic game, but none greater than Blizzard's clear emphasis on making a shooter that feel awesome to play. Every character is immediately readable, meaning that the more that you play, the more knowledge you gain and, thus, the more your strategy evolves. Throughout my time with Overwatch 2 Pride 2025, I have yet to encounter a dropped frame or a moment of lag, despite having every graphics setting maxed out and the servers existing in a beta state. Its shooting is as tight as a Call of Duty or Counter-Strike game, and the sheer number of colors on screen at any given moment finds a way to fill me with glee during even those frustrating moments when your team is getting throttled. Outside of playing Overwatch at the past two PAX Easts, it found a way to completely fly under my radar, and I couldn't feel dumber for brushing it off. At this moment, the only negative thing that I can say about it is that I do not want to spend a moment playing it on a console, as Overwatch feels far too good with a mouse and keyboard.