Overwatch: Rise and Shine

Two Overwatch shorts in as many days? It's Christmas in August. Speaking of Christmas, it's getting pretty close to Christmas time.

Yeah, I know I sound like an insane person. But a large part of my job consists of projecting estimated sales 3-4 months in advance and guess what's 3-4 months from now? Plus the other day at Costco they were already selling Halloween costumes. Crazy huh? Pretty soon we're going to have two shopping seasons. Christmas and January.

I'm pretty pumped for Christmas. This will probably be the first year my daughter gets it 100% and the last year my son is still going to believe in Santa. I've already heard some kids he knows talking shit about the jolly guy so I wouldn't be surprised if actually had issues this year.

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, this Overwatch short is pretty cool. Like I said yesterday Blizzard put so much work into the history and background of these characters. It's pretty amazing. I can't think of another first person shooter that cares about the characters as much as Overwatch does. Sure some shooters build these really incredible worlds but more often than not they don't put half as much thought into the characters than inhabit it. You can take the main characters from Gears of War, Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield and they're completely interchangeable. They're not so much as characters but a projection of what the developers think is hero wish fulfillment.

Of course well developed characters doesn't keep me from wanting to smash my keyboard in every time Hanzo hits me with a scatter arrow from across the map. Stupid Hanzo.

Junkertown: "The Plan"

Blizzard announced a new map for Overwatch yesterday. As per their usual they did it with some flair. Over the last year a few people have asked me what I like so much about Overwatch and I'd say the biggest reason is that the game has TONS of personality. There are plenty of great FPS out there but short of Boarderlands I can't think of a game with such interesting and fun characters.

I mean I've been playing Halo for 15 years and I can tell you maybe 2 things about Master Chief. I've been playing Overwatch for just over a year and I can tell you a ton about all 25 playable heroes. Sure, a game has to be fun to play. That's like rule one about making video games. But if you can make the game fun to play AND have a bunch of fun, interesting, diverse characters? That's where you really strike gold.

Overwatch League Players Will Get Paid

Quite a few months ago I passed along the info on this new Overwatch League thing Blizzard is trying to create. Essentially they're setting up their own Lingerie Football League but it's for video games and there are less wedgies (I assume). Since the official announcement details haven't exactly been flying from camp Blizz but today they had a big blog post that highlights some specifics of the new league. The big one is how much players will make.

The League minimum is 50K and they're requiring team owners to offer health insurance, some sort of 401K/retirement program and housing during the season. That's not bad. I mean it's weird/not weird that they expect you to move into a house with your team. That's pretty standard stuff for professional gaming I guess, but it's certainly not ideal if you want any sort of family life.... which I guess if you did you wouldn't be a professional video gamer, but whatever, I digress.

The minimum salary will be boosted by winnings earned in the league and tournaments. $3.5 million is supposedly up for grabs during the first season. On paper it sounds great, it will be interesting to see if Blizzard can make it all work in practice. One of the big obstacles I see stopping it is presentation. You need viewers for a league like this to work and there's a pretty big difference in watching streams on twitch and actually watching an entire 6v6 match up. Fighting games and strategy games lead themselves to showing all or most of the action on one screen. With an Overwatch tournament you have to be constantly switching first person points of view to tell what's actually happening in a match. The one tournament I watched was ok but it was less than ideal. The presentation leaned heavy on the announcers explaining what was happening.

I wish everyone involved luck, the more professional video gaming out there the better. My son is going to need a job eventually.

Blizzard Shuts Down SEXY Playwatch Magazine

So you are away, I copied the title of this video direct from YouTube so the fact that SEXY is in all caps was their decision not mine.

Also it should be noted that I'm posting this video without having watched it. It just popped up in my subscription feed and it's mostly relevant to my Overwatch interests.

This is 1000% no surprise to me. Blizzard has been very active at trying to squash all the porn associated with Overwatch, League of Legends and World of Warcraft. I mean they're not doing a great job of it. It's still everywhere, but I'm just plugged into the digital art scene enough to know that they'll get your tumblr or twitter account shut down for a while. The funny thing to me here is that Playwatch wasn't porn, again I have no idea if the video points that out or not. Yes Playwatch cribbed their name from Playboy and the while the cover to the magazine (which is being generous, it was just a fanzine you could download as a pdf) did usually feature a character from Overwatch in a suggestive pose the inside of the magazine was pretty innocent. It had interviews with cosplayers, and some fan art and articles on gameplay. Typical fan-zine kind of stuff.

My guess here is that the magazine was just a bit too polished for Blizzard's liking. It certainly looked like a real magazine and while it was free the creators were "cashing in" on Blizzard's intellectual property. I'm never a big fan of some big fancy moneypants corporation getting all bent out of shape over fan created stuff but at the end of the day they own Overwatch not the guy drawing D.Va in a her underwear.

Christmas Wish List: Overwatch Loot Boxes

Every day in December (work schedule permitting) I plan on posting one thing from my official DevilDinosaur Christmas Wish List (patent pending). Why? Because I can.

So yesterday was the launch of the big Overwatch: Winter Wonderland event that runs through 1/2/17. These seasonal events just keep getting better, sure I could probably have used a Kwanzaa or Chanukah skin thrown in there but holy cow, that Santa Torbjorn. I must have him.

When Blizzard did their big Halloween thing in October I actually bought a few loot boxes (they're about a dollar each) because it was taking so long to grind for them. But for the Winter Wonderland event I'm close to hitting level 100, which is when your levels reset, you earn a star and the next 1-25 levels all come a lot faster. I'm hoping to hit 100 by this weekend and by next weekend I should be back up to level 25. That's a lot of loot boxes. I swear if I don't get that Santa Torbjorn...

Overwatch: The League

I don't know just how plugged into video games you are but this last weekend was Blizzcon, the yearly event where Blizzard gets you hyped about World of Warcraft expansions and I don't know... something for Diablo? Anyway this year Blizzard has a fresh new property to promote in Overwatch and did they ever. First off they had a big "Overwatch World Cup" tournament (spoilers, the South Koreans won), then they announced a new character and some new modes of play.

Their biggest news however was pretty gosh darn big. They announced that they were starting a professional Overwatch League. The league will be comprised of city based teams any joe-roadhog can qualify for, with players earning actual money for their play. We've been living in a world of professional video gamers for a while but this isn't really like anything I've seen before. It's not really comparable to the NFL but it's like the MLS or some other communist based sports league where the league owns all the teams. By no means do I have any delusion into thinking that I could qualify for a professional video game team (my player ranking puts me in the 19th percentile at Overwatch) but I'll sure as heck watch me some professional Overwatch games. Especially if they can dial in the format a bit. As it is most broadcasts I've seen jump from player to player so quickly it's hard to tell what's going on.

What a crazy world we're living in, right? Maybe I should make my kid play more video games? Did you hear that Logan? Put down those books and start working on your twitch reflexes. The only math I want you to practice are dps calculations.

Welcome to Overwatch Halloween Terror

Hey kids, Blizzard just dropped a bunch of spooky new loot for Halloween. Good for them, I've been looking for an excuse to buy some loot boxes for a while.

For those of you not in the cult of Overwatch, it has a system where every time you level up you get a loot box. The loot boxes can be filled with new characters skins or poses or snappy banter the characters say. They almost never have the exact thing you're looking for in them. If you're too impatient to just earn them you can buy them for like a dollar a piece or something. It's kind of ingenious, el-cheapos like myself feel like they're getting something new and cool to keep them playing and obsessives will spend hundreds of dollars trying to get that really cool new Reaper skin.

I mean I guess it's not great for the obsessives but it's not like anyone is forcing them to buy the loot boxes. It's like the people who spend thousands of dollars on candy crush, that ish is on you my friend.

Let's Break It Down

This guy is playing Overwatch with the DJ controller from DJ Hero. Meanwhile last night I'm playing with my mechanical keyboard and fancy gaming mouse and just getting throttled on Gibraltar. It might have been the worse beat down I've ever been in. I got a silver in eliminations with 4. There was a guy in our group complaining about how someone wasn't playing well and I was like "we all sucked, that's why we got destroyed".

If you hadn't heard Overwatch has a "competitive" mode where you play against people for even higher phony internet points. To really start playing it first you have to play a series of ranking matches. So far I'm 2-2-1 in those matches and the quality of games has ranged from complete ass kicking to actually playing like a team and scraping together a win. I have 5 more matches to go until I'm official ranked. I'm trying to get ready for a massive blow to my gaming ego. Years of doing really well on multiplayer Halo have tricked me into thinking I'm a better gamer than I really am. I'll bet I get ranked with the dregs. Can't wait to be kind of the dregs.

Overwatch Break Down: A Story of REDEMPTION!

Youtubers The Game Theorist (my son's favorite YouTube channel) did this short for them video on Overwatch. I thought it was going to go into the plot and the backstory of the game revealing clues that unwrap some sort of mystery or answer challenging questions because that's the normal thing they do. Instead this is more of a brief history of how one projects failure at Blizzard led to the creation of Overwatch. There's a bit too much OVERWATCH IS THE BIGGEST SHINIEST STAR IN GAMING RIGHT NOW sort of hyperbole going on but it's still interesting to hear about this project Titan that failed pretty hard. Blizzard isn't exactly known for churning out a bunch of clunkers so like I said, it makes for an interesting story.

Also if you're still not sure what Overwatch really is and what the appeal is they do a pretty good job describing it's appeal and where it really innovates in a genre that feels pretty oversaturated.

I Watched a Professional Video Game Tournament

Sunday morning I woke up at about 6am to drive over to a friends house to watch the finals of the Overwatch Atlantic Showdown. In case you didn't hear... after losing to them in an earlier round Rogue beat Reunited in the finals. Just look at how happy they are. They get some money and a shot at a bigger tournament in Germany later in the year.

I was confused during most of it. It didn't help that I was watching it with friends so we were talking over a lot of the commentating. Also most of the commentating was terrible.

I've seen professional gaming on TV before but I've never actually sat down and watched it. It was interesting. Being a team based FPS I can't imagine Overwatch is the easiest game to broadcast. It certainly isn't the easiest game to watch. The feed switched players quite often so just when you thought you were starting to understand what was happening on screen it would change. I guess that's good practice for playing Overwatch itself. Every once in a while there was a static camera that overlooked certain strategic points, I probably would have liked to have seen more of that camera. Still, it was interesting stuff.

My main reason for watching (other than an excuse to see my friends) was to try and pick up some tips or tricks to improve my game. The teams playing however were so out of my league I don't think I really learned anything. I took away a bit of info about the maps and the best spots to try and hold high or low ground but that's about it. It's funny, watching someone pull off a series of headshots doesn't actually help you aim any better. It's almost like I've been lied to by every Hollywood montage ever.

I'll probably check out another tournament if I get a chance to. I doubt I'll be replacing any of my other hobbies with electronic sports but maybe I'll free up a half hour every now and then. Maybe I'll stop watching Little People Big World or something. Ever since the Roloffs got a divorce that show has just been depressing.

Nice Links

The Official Ranking of the Most Bullshit Characters in Overwatch. Good list that really emphasizes one of the points I was trying to make yesterday. Every character in Overwatch is just the right amount of fun and frustrating. Of course I would have put Hanzo higher on the list. Shooting through walls is total BS, every time.

Seattle burlesque dancer cries misogyny after JetBlue deems her shorts inappropriate. Those are some really short shorts. I mean they're not really obscene or anything but it does look kind of like she's just walking around in underwear, or maybe some sort of Cosplay. The weirdest thing I took from this article is that the pilot gets final say on what the passengers can wear? That seems really arbitrary. Jet Blue should just have some sort of official dress code, leaving it up to one person seems like you're asking for trouble. Frankly, I think she should put on some longer shorts for her own health. Airplane seat do not get cleaned very well, they're kind of gross. Who would want to sit on those with bare skin. Yuck.

Shane Black On ‘The Nice Guys,’ Mel Gibson, And Why A Female ‘Iron Man 3’ Villain’s Gender Changed. I've heard the Nice Guys is really good. I really want to check it out.

FX Orders 8 Episodes of X-Men TV Show, Legion. Wow, have fun with that. Legion is a super weird character. I can't imagine anyone reading a couple stories with him in it and thinking "this character is just made for a TV show". Let's see how Wikipedia describes him:

Legion is the mutant son of Professor Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller. He takes the role of an antihero and has a severe mental illness, including a form of dissociative identity disorder, with each of his personas controlling one of his many superpowers

Yep, that sounds like him all right. Legion is a fun character and all, but I can't imagine reality warping powers and split personalities will make for the most accessible show. He's one of those classic X-Men foils where he can do pretty much anything right up to the point where the X-Men discover just the right MacGuffin that allows them to stop him. Your guess is as good as mine as to where this one goes.

Overwatch: The Review

Over the last week I've put in about 15 hours on Overwatch. Impressive considering I've also changed the oil in my car, done 4 loads of laundry, painted a wall, organized a shitload of comics AND mowed the lawn. Or maybe it's not impressive. I have no idea how you binge play games. 15 hours in a week might be chump change. With everything else I had going on this week it felt like 100 hours.


Overwatch is a team based, multiplayer, first person shooter. There's a big emphasis on teamwork. There's no deathmatch or even a team deathmatch. Players that go to work for themselves will find themselves on the losing end of most matches. There are no RPG elements either. You can tinker with how your character looks and sounds a bit, but there's no leveling up for increased firepower or better weapons. Matches are quick and if you don't work as a team they will be even quicker. It's a lot like Team Fortress, TF2 or TFC, take your pick. In that aspect the game feels like a bit of a throwback. It's the anti-Call of Duty.


The graphics probably aren't going to drop any jaws, but the worlds and the characters are bright and vibrant. Everything is sharp and crisp, regular attacks look cool and special attacks look cooler. Each character feels like it has it's own personality. It doesn't just feel like you're switching guns or load outs. There is no one unbeatable character. It reminds me a lot of SFII in that regard. Sure some characters are easier to pick up, but everyone has a bad matchup. Everyone is vulnerable and everyone is potent at the same time. You might find yourself stuck in a match where one character feels invincible but a new game and a new map and it's like everyone starts over as square one. After playing for a few hours you discover that certain combinations of characters can work better than others. It's not just enough to have a "tank" and a "healer" on your squad but you need to have the right tank and the right healer. There are a couple tweeks I'd like to see down the road. But Overall I feel like Blizzard has developed a very balanced game.


If there's any criticism to the game it's the lack of maps and game types. There are 4 different game types, and each type has 3 maps. That's not a ton. Especially since games are in the 10 minute range, if you play for a few hours you will see the same map a lot. Also the maps themselves don't hold a lot of secrets. They're probably a bit too straight forward for their own good. Still, Blizzard has promised that new characters and maps are coming and they're included in the cost of the game, not DLC. Hard to beat that for a game that's only $39.99.

Final Verdict: Overwatch is a must buy. Everyone should have a copy. I might get one for my parents.

I bought Overwatch

Last night I put my foot down and politely asked my wife if I could buy Overwatch. It was kind of funny. She first asked me how much it costs, then before I could answer she said that she couldn't say no considering she just got back from a week in the Philippines. Oh yeah, last week my wife was in the Philippines for work so I was home alone with the kiddos all week. It was fun. I took the week off so while they were at school or daycare I was able to do the mundane things like grocery shopping and laundry plus work on some projects around the home I've been meaning to get to. I thought it was going to be tougher than it was. I mean it wasn't easy or anything but it was still kinda fun. I felt like I was more engaged with the kids than I usually am and I'm hoping I've started to develop some good habits for keeping the house clean and organized. Anyway, not the point.

Turns out I haven't bought a video game for myself since the last Steam Summer sale and I haven't bought a new FPS since Battlefield 3. I can't even remember the last FPS I bought for the PC. Half Life 2 maybe? I've played some Fallout 3 but that hardly counts, plus when I played that I didn't use the mouse keyboard, I used my Xbox controller. I am sooo rusty.

I started playing the Overwatch tutorial with the Xbox controller and without some sort of aim-assist I couldn't hit anything. I never actually made it out of the tutorial last night, by the time I had downloaded the game it was already sort of late. I dinked around for about 20 minutes and called it a night. I figured it was probably my last good nights sleep for the next month or two.

The game looks great and plays really smooth. I was getting about 60fps on high graphics settings with my new gaming rig. I like all the character designs and the controls seem easy enough, nothing to complicated to have to try and remember on the fly. I get the feeling just from the tutorials that this is one of those games that's easy to learn but is going to be tough to master. It looks like memorizing and figuring out the best tactics on each level is probably going to be the key. There's like 20 or so characters you can choose from each with a special ability, but after sampling a few of them I'm not 100% sure that who you play is going to be more important than how you play.

I'll try and keep everyone updated on how the game goes. Maybe do a proper review at the end of the week. If you want to hit me up on Battle.net my username is Newbachu.

Blizzard Says No to Sexy Butts

Strap on your tinfoil hats, we have a video game controversy brewing.

I've blogged a little bit about Overwatch recently. It's an upcoming FPS from Blizzard that's been in beta for what seems like forever. The hook with Overwatch is that instead of playing as a generic space marine or vault hunter you get too choose one of several different characters to play as, each with their own personalities and skill sets. Think Halo meets Street Fighter. While I don't have time to participate in Betas or anything, I think the game looks really cool and was hoping to try it out on my new rig when it comes out.

Enter the controversy. Someone participating in the beta complained to the Blizzard developmental team that one of the characters "victory poses" was just a gratuitous ass shot and really wasn't true to the character (see above picture, the pose on the far left). Blizzard agreed and said they were going to change the pose. I know, what you're thinking WHAT A LOAD OF HORSESHIT! I'M OFFENDED AT YOU BEING OFFENDED!

Or if you aren't a Trump supporter, you probably couldn't care less. Talk about a tempest in a teapot. If you look at all of the character designs and victory poses for Overwatch you'll find plenty of fan service, so it's not like Blizzard took away all the butts. They just changed one pose for one character. Of course this led to tons of outrage on reddit and twitter. Suddenly our first ammendment rights to look at digitally rendered asses are being trampled and if you don't agree you're just a tumblrina or dirty SJW. It's so ridiculously silly.

It's funny, since Pac-Man was corrupting the minds of the youths, video gamers have been fighting a battle over how mainstream culture looks at video games. For the most part we've come a long way but every once in a while something comes along like this that just reinforces the basement dwelling, Cheeto eating, virgin stereotypes. Good job "hardcore gamers", this is exactly the kind of attention you want your hobby to attract.

Overwatch: Recall

I'm not sure how excited to get over the upcoming Blizzard FPS Overwatch. It looks really cool, I love a good squad based FPS, especially one that has varied characters with unique skills and abilities. The thing that gets me is that it's a multiplayer fps AND it's a Blizzard game. I can't devote hours and hours just grinding away at this just to become a competent player. I need a casual game I can pick up and dick around with for an hour maybe 4-5 times a week. I mean people playing the beta are already posting these epic team kill videos on reddit.

I guess we'll wait and see. If Overwatch turns out to be a bust or just way too much of a time commitment there's always No Man's Sky to fall back on. Have you guys heard about No Man's Sky yet?

Delicious Links

Twenty-Four Years Ago Today: The Start Of The Image Comics Revolution. Technically it was twenty-four years ago yesterday but close enough.

Whenever I'm having a conversation with myself in the shower about Image comics, I like to use the analogy that Image is to comics what the Tucker was to the automobile industry. If Tucker had been successful. They didn't invent the idea of independent publishing and creator owned properties in comic books but they were the first to really succeed at it on a broad scale and challenge the status quo established by DC and Marvel.

An Incredibly Delicious And Super Scientific Ranking Of Girl Scout Cookies. With all due respect to Ashley Burns this list is complete horseshit. Here's how you rank Girl Scout Cookies:
1. Tagalongs
2. What's the point? Get me more Tagalongs

18 Extremely Awkward Christian Album Covers. Dude, I would buy an album Karatist Preacher any day of the week. Except maybe Sunday. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to practice Karatist on Sundays. It's in Leviticus.

Reboots, remakes, and sequels need not apply—Ars’ most anticipated games of 2016. First off, hilarious how you included Doom in this list, Ars Technica. Second off, how is it that I've slept on Overwatch for this long? That game looks super dope. Like a combo between Team Fortress and Unreal Tournament. I'm most definitely checking that out when it ships.