Winston's first ability, his Jump Pack, functions both as a way deal massive damage and a method for increasing mobility. This ability allows him to launch a large distance based on whichever direction the reticle is facing. Not only does this allow Winston to escape battle or get to an objective quickly, but it also gives him the power to harm any enemies in the immediate vicinity of his landing spot. While new players will often just launch forward, more experienced players know that vertical boosts will allow for localized damage.

Imagine my surprise when I was looking through the cast of characters and stumbled upon Symmetra, a support character who has the ability to bend and reshape light into mechanical constructs. While there are a growing number of characters of Indian descent in video games ( The Order: 1886 and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate feature a few), it’s very rare that they are featured as playable characters. I immediately took her for a spin, and after I decided to check out the complete roster of playable characters.

Yesterday evening (December 1st, at the time of writing this) was the night of the annual Game Awards show, a lavish live-streamed spectacle where the best and brightest of the video games industry gathered in Los Angeles - in order to receive awards voted on by industry peers and journalists, celebrating the year in gaming. It was a good night for big-name hits like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End , the reboot of DOOM and Blizzard's mega-selling team shooter **Overwatch ** , as well as respected independent titles like That Dragon Cancer - and it was a chance for those in attendance to show off all-new trailers for upcoming tit

Mercy's Caduceus Staff allows her to attach a healing beam to a single ally in her immediate area, and this should be done as much as humanly possible. There isn't necessarily a point to playing Mercy if the Caduceus Staff isn't the main focus of your activities, especially considering that Mercy's secondary abilities all play into her knack for healing Customization teammates. Guardian Angel is both Mercy's most useful ability and the skill that most players completely forget to use. By pointing your reticle at one of your teammates, you'll be able to rapidly fly towards them, allowing you to either get right up in the action or heal a distant enemy. The one thing to keep in mind with Guardian Angel is that you need a clear path towards your teammate, so you're not going to be able to warp through walls or ceilings.

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.

Widely publicized, truly open betas for games this high-profile are still relatively new to the video gaming world, but that doesn’t in any way diminish what Overwatch accomplished when it compelled 9.7 million participants to try the game. To put that in perspective, The Division’s record-setting beta had 6.4 million players, and Destiny’s had 4.6 million. Overwatch’s world, characters, and polished gameplay have clearly attracted people that normally ignore other multiplayer-heavy shooters, which is especially interesting becaus

While it seems like an obvious statement that good players are lethal and weak players are easy to kill, this seems most applicable to Hanzo, Genji's brother and the resident archer of the group. A sniper whose arrows do massive damage upon contact, Hanzo is the type of hero that needs a bit of practice time before one feels totally comfortable. Still, those who put in the required practice with Hanzo will find themselves mowing down enemies left and right.

When you're new to Overwatch, Bastion is the absolute bane of your existence. Inexperienced players far and wide complain that he's overpowered, but thanks to Overwatch's mechanic of enabling in-match hero swaps, savvy players can get some really simple kills off of everyone's favorite bird-loving robot.

Despite the fact that Reaper's core weaponry is extremely simple to use and understand, his abilities require far more planning and strategy. Shadow Step gives you the ability to teleport from your current position to one of your choice, which is extremely useful for sneaking behind opposing players or getting to an objective quickly. The twist is that teleporting using this method isn't instant like, say, Tracer's Blink. Because there's a one-to-two second delay where you're completely vulnerable at play here, Shadow Step is a terrible choice for escaping losing fights. Luckily, Reaper's other core ability, Wraith Form, gives him the ability to becime completely invisible and glide for a brief amount of time. While you cannot shoot while using Wraith Form, it's a wonderful ability for getting out of trouble, assuming you aren't just going to be followed after a one-on-one gunfight. Wraith Form is also outstanding for setting up Reaper's devastating ultimate, Death Blossom. A spinning 360-degree barrage of shotgun bullets, Death Blossom is great for clearing out an objective, assuming that distance-based heroes aren't able to pop a few bullets into him at range (Reaper is totally vulnerable during this attack).