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 also boasts a slightly passive perk known as Angelic Decent, which allows her to fall slowly when in the air by holding the jump prompt. This not only allows her to hide in plain sight, but it will also allow for moments of Ana Healing Tips without being right in the thick of the action (survival is the name of the game with Mercy). Finally, Mercy's ultimate seems simple to use, but it's a wonderful way to frustrate your team if you're careless. Resurrect gives Mercy the power to revive fallen teammates, which is exceptionally useful when trying to take over an objective or win in overtime. However, simply spamming the ultimate button whenever a teammate dies isn't the most effective use of this ability, as it can often mean causing a swift second death. We recommend waiting for either multiple teammates to be down, or timing it for a massive push on an objective. As always, remember that Mercy is there to help, so in order to play this character effectively, you need to be committed to the success of others, which might not be your style if you're always seeking your next triple kill.

Pharah's first core ability, known as Jump Jet, allows her to rapidly boost into the air. Aside from the fact that this is an awesome tactic for maneuvering around the map, it also presents Pharah players with a huge advantage, as most players are concentrated on ground-level encounters. Needless to say, any rockets that come from above will generally take the other team by surprise, so use this to your advantage. Her second ability, Concussive Blast, doesn't do a great deal of damage, but it has the ability to push enemies a significant distance. If you're looking to annoy the hell out of opposing snipers (or anyone during the second round of Capture on Nepal), try using this to push them off of the map. Finally, her ultimate, Barrage, causes her to remain stagnant while she unleashes an insane amount of rockets in the direction of her reticle. This is best utilized in combination with Jump Jet, but you should be aware that you're going to be a relatively easy target for those behind you, so try to plan accordingly.

In addition to the Concussion Mine, Junkrat's Steel Trap is effective when used strategically. By placing a large bear trap on the ground, Junkrat has the ability to lock any foe who walks over it in place for a set amount of time. Not only does this make it super simple to eliminate players with the Frag Launcher, but it also is going to enable other players to get easy eliminations as well. Finally, Junkrat has one of the most devastating ultimates out of the entire roster, as his Rip-Tire can be steered into groups of enemies before it's remotely detonated. Needless to say, the keys to the Rip-Tire are pretty simple: guide it into a group of enemies (often on the objective) and ensure that Junkrat is hidden while he's controlling it.

She's pretty interesting because her two primary abilities do not work without each other. What kind of makes her Tracer is how the Blink and the Recall work together. We have some heroes where the abilities might compliment each other, but they might not be as tightly tied together like that. From the beginning, she originated as a "whole" hero with those three abilities (the Blink, the Recall and the Pulse Bomb). With other heroes, we've gone through iteration where we thought, "Hey, we really like these two abilities, but we're going to work on this third one and change it all later."

With Overwatch, the charming hero shooter from Blizzard, launching this week, we want to make sure that you're as prepared as possible to help your team dominate. Overwatch's main focus is clearly on the interplay between its dynamic characters, so in order to become competent, you'll need to understand how every character works. Throughout the week, we'll be publishing guides on each of the twenty-one launch heroes, three at a time, with the hopes that you'll be able to recognize certain patterns on the battlefield.

It's kind of interesting, since the way you phrased the question almost makes it seem like we were driving towards making an eSports-caliber game, and that actually wasn't the case! We just wanted to make it great, but it's awesome now that it's there. The big thing that we need to do is make sure that it's balanced between all heroes. We need to make sure that all maps are as balanced as possible, and we do a ton of work on that. I think what sets [Overwatch] apart from other games, and where the true competitive magic really happens, is the interaction between all the heroes on the field and the way that you coordinate with your team. It's a team-based game, so as long as you're coordinating with your team and you guys are picking the right heroes to not only accomplish your objective, but also to counter the enemy team's composition, then you're kind of playing it the right way.