It’s been a while but for a couple of weeks now I’ve returned to Overwatch, been playing and improving my skills every time. The last time I played was months ago and had to quit because the toxicity in the competitive mode got to me. I couldn’t tolerate the level of abuse teammates and opponents levelled upon each other for the most meaningless of reasons. Continue reading Back to Overwatch – I love Quick Play!
Tag: Blizzard Entertainment
Diablo III – The Necromancer – Impressions
The Necromancer DLC pack for Diablo 3 released this week and as it usually happens when I play Blizzard games, I paid for whatever it was they wanted me to buy and got the new implementation of my favourite character in Diablo 2.
In the olden days of Diablo 2 and its expansion Lord of Destruction, I used to play Necromancer almost exclusively, except for that one Assassin I built once, which I’ll admit was incredibly fun. Continue reading Diablo III – The Necromancer – Impressions
Overwatch – Season 3 Placement Matches Done!
After 10 matches, ten mostly terrible matches, I made it through the placement stage for the latest season of Overwatch Competitive, with a 3 win, 7 loss record and a 2000-ish rank.
As it tends to happen with Overwatch competitive, you sometimes have amazing matches, where even if you lose, it’s an intense fight from start to finish. And sometimes, you have a team filled with abuse-spewing nincompoops who focus on themselves and not the overall team effort yet find ways of making everything other people’s fault. I know I screw up, a lot, and I can accept that and move on, learning from my mistakes, but I’m continually shocked at how people refuse to accept their parts in a loss, opting for just vitriol to hide the fact. Continue reading Overwatch – Season 3 Placement Matches Done!
Overwatch – Back in the Game!
Overwatch, I’ve mentioned in the past, is the first first-person competitive/multiplayer game I’ve truly loved. Between cool characters, awesome mechanics, a fun universe and just being downright addictive, I always come back for a few matches.
But in the past few months, as I was preparing to get a new computer and struggling to do anything about recording and/or streaming, I stopped playing Overwatch altogether, ignoring the second competitive season—not just for this but because at its worst the competitive community is composed of monumental bastards—and even the PTR. Continue reading Overwatch – Back in the Game!
World of Warcraft: Legion – Raid Season – The Emerald Nightmare
I’ve been enjoying the new World of Warcraft Expansion, the main reason I haven’t returned to Overwatch. And considering the Raid Season just started, I’m not likely to go back to it anytime soon!
Every expansion in World of Warcraft has one or more Raid Tiers, with an introductory raid early in the expansion’s lifetime to train newer players in what raiding is like and introduce new and old to some of the new boss mechanics that will surely become a staple of the expansion. Continue reading World of Warcraft: Legion – Raid Season – The Emerald Nightmare
Why I love Hearthstone
There’s a reason I decided to make the Hearthbrawl series, a reason why every week I show you the current brawl and my misadventures in completing quests while taking part in them.
It’s because I love Hearthstone. And I’ve come to realise that my love for the game is not in its mechanics—or not just. It’s not the cards themselves, their abilities, the combinations I can think of in decks—which aren’t that many to be honest. It’s not the ladder or the competitive scene. It’s not even because it pulls at that part of me that played Magic the Gathering, Pokemon TCG, World of Warcraft TCG and even Star Wars TCG.
It’s how whimsical it is. Continue reading Why I love Hearthstone
Game Building – Homebrew or Third Party Engines?
Video Game engines are at the core of any video game development. They provide the tools the content creators will need to build the game the audience will enjoy. Engines also come with constraints, limitations that often drag games down or make further entries in a series a harder task.
We all know of the popular engines such as Unreal and Unity, but there are dozens out there we never hear of, as they are homebrewed creations by the developers, built from the ground up to serve the need for a specific game. It’s not unusual for developers to use these private engines once and then switch to a new original engine or adapt an existing one. Continue reading Game Building – Homebrew or Third Party Engines?
Bring a Gun to a Brawl
Last Friday I shared with you the first episode of my new weekly video series, Hearthbrawl, where I go over the week’s Tavern Brawl on Hearthstone, showing you some of the best and worst games I played while completing quests.
But as I worked on that video I realised that it’s not just Hearthstone that has a weekly brawl mechanic with crazy combinations that lead to some fun and chaotic moments. Overwatch has one as well and it’s a mode I’ve been enjoying a lot lately.
So, in my never ending quest to create even more fun content for The Mental Attic’s YouTube channel, I’m starting yet another weekly series, Overbrawl—yeah, my imagination isn’t that good when it comes to creating catchy names, sorry. Much like the Hearthstone series, I’ll play a few matches of the weekly brawl and show you what happened. Continue reading Bring a Gun to a Brawl
Overwatch Community – We need to talk…
I’ve been playing Overwatch since the Beta, and the moment the game released I picked it up and haven’t put it down. I enjoy the game a lot, but the community around it is turning into any other shooter’s community: toxic. But the design and concept of Overwatch breeds a different kind of abuse, not just the usual name calling and shaming—though that is still as rampant in this game as it is in any other online multiplayer title.
So, because I like this game a lot and want things to improve, let’s have a chat. Over the past week I’ve noticed certain trends when it comes to the Overwatch community’s responses to certain subjects, particularly to any opinion that doesn’t blindly praise the game. But let’s go over the points. You can consider this an open letter to the community.
Continue reading Overwatch Community – We need to talk…
Review: Warcraft: The Beginning
A father and chieftain doing the best for his people, a General and King doing their best to keep their kingdom safe, a Guardian with great secrets and an evil Warlock bent on conquering Azeroth, what do all these things mean? Warcraft!
Continue reading Review: Warcraft: The Beginning