Ethan is fresh off the boat from Blizzcon, which is good because Matt, Ricardo, and Amber haven’t played any new games! So lets listen to the thrilling details including not playing Overwatch, being in line only to find out items are sold out, and watching more Heroes of the Storm than ever!
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Is a later and shorter podcast really a bad thing when it gets you two Pixel Podcasts in five days? Matt, Ethan, and Ricardo talk games they have and haven’t played such as Splatoon, Heroes of the Storm, and Galaxy Trucker. Plus, stick around as we discuss the news and try to find out what item is the “Heroes of the Storm” of its medium.
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Matt, Ethan and Ricardo return to talk the end of Broken Age, the joys of Diablo, the downfall of Konami, and a future where everyone eats bugs. We also talk more about Puzzle and Dragons (and Mario) than we do about games we actually played! Join us, won’t you?
Show note: This is how ethan checks the news.
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The announcement of “Overwatch” took many BlizzCon attendees by surprise — myself included.
The game is reportedly being built from the remnants of project “Titan,” a near-future themed MMO that was cancelled after seven years of development.
The upshot: for the short time I played it, “Overwatch” was captivating. The multiplayer shooter is frenetic, twitchy and thoughtful, all at the same time.
“Overwatch’s’ cartoonish-but-sharp art style and class-based gunplay is likely to strike a chord with fans of “Team Fortress 2.” But the game has a character all it’s own.
It’s whimsical but explosive — think Pixar’s “The Incredibles” mixed with the aesthetics of “StarCraft II.”
Teams of six square off against each other in objective-based matches. Attacking teams are tasked with capturing zones and delivering a slow-moving bomb to the enemy base. The defending team must hold the attackers at bay until the match timer runs out.
The game includes four hero classes: offense, defense, tank and support. Offense heroes are nimble but weak, while tanks are powerful but lumbering. Support heroes heal teammates from behind the front lines.
Each hero has an ultimate ability which can be charged by dealing and receiving damage — the latter is handy for tanks and defense heroes who absorb fire with shields.
Reaper, an offense hero, is a speedy, dual shotgun-toting death machine. His “wraith mode” allows him to pass through characters and avoid damage for a short period of time.
After activating the Reaper’s ultimate ability, he becomes a spinning instrument of death, dealing damage to all nearby enemies with a powerful but short area of effect attack.
The camera pulls out to a third-person view, so players can watch Reaper’s chaos.
But offense players won’t survive for long in the open. The class is best used for hit-and-run attacks.
The tank, on the other hand, is built to control the flow of battle. Reinhardt, an armor-clad behemoth with a battle hammer, can handedly push back enemy advances with his forward-facing shield, and kill enemies with a devastating charge.
But tanks are slow and vulnerable to defensive classes. Bastion, a bipedal robot who can transform into a stationary turret, tears through Reinhardt with ease.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of “Overwatch” is the number of heroes, classes and abilities. The floor demo felt surprisingly balanced, however.
While Blizzard hasn’t confirmed the pay structure, some suspect “Overwatch” will be fueled by a micro-transaction model.
If successful, “Overwatch” could bring a colorful, hero-focused flavor to a mostly olive drab genre.
BlizzCon 2014 kicked off Friday morning with a flurry of announcements.
Major expansions were detailed for titles such as “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” and “StarCraft II.” The Irvine-based publisher also had plenty to say about the upcoming Warcraft movie and an entirely new, team-based first-person-shooter, “Overwatch.”
“Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,” a wildly popular digital-trading-card game, is getting it’s first major expansion next month. Titled “Goblins vs. Gnomes,” the expansion will feature 120 new cards and “explosive” gameplay.
Players can win cards in the arena, or buy packs with in-game gold or real money.
A “Heroes of the Storm” closed beta has been announced for next year. The multiplayer online battle arena will feature a few new, but familiar, heroes. Notables include Jaina Proudmoore and “World of Warcraft’s” Thrall.
But fans cheered loudly when The Lost Vikings, a trio of quirky Norse warriors from a 1992 SNES game of the same name, were announced in a sizzle reel.
“Legacy of the Void,” the third and final expansion for “StarCraft II,” will be released as a standalone game, Blizzard announced. The game will focus on the technologically advanced Protoss faction and will feature a new co-op/PVP mode called Archon Mode.
A release date for “Legacy of the Void” was not mentioned.
Finally, and with much crowd anticipation, Blizzard announced it’s new first-person-shooter franchise, “Overwatch.” Set on a near-future Earth, the Pixar-like trailer shows cartoonish heroes battling through a war museum.
“Overwatch” takes cues from the class-based warfare of “Team Fortress 2.” Players can choose between offense, defense, tank and support classes to battle through 6v6 objective matches.
Each class contains a handful of characters with unique abilities. For instance, the offense character “Tracer” can dart across the map to get the drop on enemies, while tank character “Winston” lumbers along with a shield, dealing massive melee damage.
“Overwatch” gameplay is fast and frenetic, but streamlined abilities keep it simple. The hero-focused format has led many to speculate whether Blizzard will release the game under a free-to-play model — Blizzard could not comment on pay structure of the game just yet.
Sign-ups are currently open for the “Overwatch” beta, which is set to open next year.
Look for more Pixel Legends coverage today on the show floor!