In the grand tradition of releasing a new thing for a game just as we're beginning to forget all about it, iD software have bolted the official toolkit for Rage onto Steam. You can finally build your own environments, guns, mutants, cars or whatever else. Perhaps you could swap John Goodman's character Dan Hagar for one that looks more like John Goodman, or create a mod that changes the colour palette from 'very brown' to 'less very brown' - whatever your heart desires. However, there are a couple of things to bear in mind with the download, not least the fact that it's a whopping 35+ GB in size.

There's a welcome document accompanying the toolkit, which makes clear that the kit is "provided on an 'as is' basis only for the technically sophisticated and adventurous." iD's John Carmack tweets that "The toolkit release is not something that we consider consumer friendly, but it does let you get a look inside the construction process."

To download the toolkit, head to Tools section on Steam (it's helpfully listed as Rage Tool Kit).

Thanks, Eurogamer.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Ace of Spades’ indie-developed alpha version was broken in many small ways, but the sandbox shooter’s foundations were remarkably solid. It was Minecraft spliced with Team Fortress 2, a shooter that let players slowly build and destroy a blocky environment. Runescape publisher Jagex took the game and some of its developers in-house, and promptly broke it.

Ace of Spades lets players modify their environment. Interaction is similar to that of Minecraft: spades, picks, and other tools dig out blocks, a disembodied hand places them. Players are encouraged to build structures: each of the four classes – commando, rocketeer, sniper and miner – gets pre-made fortifications that they can plonk around the cuboid maps. Game modes encourage blowing things up as much as people; Destruction is the best of these, asking a team to wreck an enemy’s house before their own home is demolished.

But the speed of the game means that time spent building or planning is time wasted. Ace of Spades is a twitch shooter, and the malleable environment is entirely pointless. Games only last around 15 minutes at most, meaning grand building projects are off the table. Players can jump and sprint around the maps at a lightning pace, mounting carefully placed defences in a single leap. The Rocketeer’s inclusion is particularly galling: the bastard can just hop over any geometrically intricate structures that are in his way.



The act of destruction is more enjoyable. The miner gets access toa spinning drill bit that can take out a giant wodge of blocks in a few seconds, and I had most fun alone in a corner of a map carving massive holes into rock faces. Blocks make satisfying sounds when they pop, and severing a structure from its foundations has tactical benefits: gravity kicks in and levels it.

I could forgive Ace of Spades’ pointless environmental interactivity if the shooting was top-notch. It’s not. The speed of opposition players meant I found myself reduced to guessing where I’d be attacked from. There are no battle lines in a game where people can attack from above or below. The latter approach offers something tactically intriguing – burrowing under an enemy’s base and killing them from behind – but it’s minutes of digging for a slim chance of reward. Just as likely, the opposition team will spot you and plug you for a one-shot sniper kill. Instead, most battles take place in the air or at extreme range, with the tiny time-to-kill and respawn counter making death an inconvenience rather than a strategic consideration.

In trying to be two excellent things at the same time, Ace of Spades unfortunately approximates neither. Ace of Spades as a class-based shooter is too open and aimless to thrill; Ace of Spades as a Minecraft-esque builder’s paradise is too fast-paced and destructive to satisfy.



◆ Expect to pay: $11 / £7
◆ Release: Out now
◆ Developer: Jagex
◆ Publisher: In-house
◆ Multiplayer: Up to 32
◆ Link: www.aceofspades.com

Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, it's that time of the year again - time to celebrate love, life, overpriced chocolate and all that other happy shit. Bah, teddy-bear-with-heart-on.

Ah, Aching Solitude Awareness Day once again - our yearly dive into the romantic side of PC gaming. We've had one for the guys and one for the girls. This year, it's time for one where everybody can supposedly find love and companionship - as long as they're straight, not too choosy, and prepared for the worst at every turn. This is a game with a section for "PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES" in its credits. The only question is whether they were hired for the designer himself, or his game...



You've got to give Romantic Encounters points for moxie, at least. It's a text-based game, mostly parser driven, which claims "I am flexible enough to respond to anything." Technically, this is true. As long as you include responses like "Huh?" and "I don't understand..." It also really wants to be seen as deep, with instructions like "Your life inside the Dome will be controlled by random factors of TIME, FATE, your INPUT and TEMPERAMENT," it also adds, before puncturing all of that by adding "To avoid FATE and TIME and assume really false GOD-LIKE powers over your destiny, select G."

Personally, I'm a big fan of having god-like powers over destiny. It's the kind of thing I crave, while working out how I'd defeat Superman and catch the Road Runner. Still, to begin with it seems a little unnecessary. After all, my terrible romantic track record is obviously just a series of flukes. I can quote Monkey Island. Chicks dig that, even if the chicks who claim chicks dig that are usually laughing when they say so, before walking off with a cry of "And stop calling us chicks, bitch!"



Before setting foot in the Dome, you have to tell it who you are - Male, Female, Guest or Other. The first two are obvious. Saying Guest produces easily the slickest explanation of the game one of these things has ever had, explaining that this isn't simply about sex, but "a chance to experiment with different relationships, to take dramatic risks in matters of the heart, to TRY-ON LOVE in a variety of situations and settings. It is sincerely hoped, by management, that your experiences at the DOME carry over into your daily life, broaden it, and make it a richer place for you to be."

This is a game with some serious aspirations, and a hilarious sense of class... especially if you know what's coming up. To navigate for instance, it insists you type things like 'approach bar'. If you try to treat it like a standard text adventure - "go north" for instance - you get this...



And also, you're probably not even wearing a tie, you philistine.

It's often sarcastic like that. Go into the elevator and fail to find the right command to bring up the control panel, and a couple of turns later "an elderly couple" wanders in and does it for you. Or if you just stand around not accomplishing anything, a guard will decide you're being suspicious and kick you out of the club. Better to avoid the word 'fuck' entirely too. It's a sensitive game. And also odd.



But anyway, enough standing outside the bar, waiting until exactly the turn of the hour to step inside, then pretending to read a text message that hasn't actually arrived and deciding to hang on until quarter-past for good measure - it's time to jump into the dating pool and 'rock' this 'joint'.



The evening's seduction starts in the Reception, with promises of ENCOUNTERS - honestly, it's like having Beneath A Steel Sky as a wingman - at the Mezzanine Bar, on Floor 3, the Penthouse, and... the parking garage? That does sound like a sexy, happening kind of place. Or indeed, not.



Since this is supposedly a fantasy, the squalid Mezzanine Bar can screw itself. I head to the Penthouse, and am immediately faced with a key dilemma - approach the bar and try to get lucky, or go to the bathroom and pee. I immediately start feeling a little curious about the writer's priorities.



That's probably the longest description of a toilet I've ever seen. In contrast, leaving it sums up a nearby event as simply "On the distant dance floor a frantic young danger loses her halter, exposing her huge breasts. This causes a near riot of pleasurable excitement for everyone." Groovy. But how about that Armitage Shanks porcelain, eh? Freshly fitted, I hear. They even made three animes about it!

A man in a tux approaches and offers the help of a nice lady, Maxime, willing to make introductions with available damsels. I accept, and am immediately less than impressed by her idea of a hook-up.



"If it looks like a girl digs you, she's literally ill." Thanks, Maxime.

Of the set, only one hangs around afterwards - the Dome's secretary, Cathy. She asks to talk, and that seems fine, so we head outside to a balcony to enjoy the scenery. Which she almost falls off, necessitating what would be a fast catch if not for the game doing it automatically. Afterwards, she asks if it was scary. I reply not, because she doesn't actually exist and thus caring would have been silly.



Well, that's not potentially worrying at all. To celebrate, Cathy steals a bottle of champagne from her employers and invites me to her room. It's essentially empty, and she's silent until she offers a toast "To us." Huh. Then she comes in for a big squeezy hug to show her attraction to this apparently handsome stranger, and the game sternly warns "There is nothing particularly sexy about this."

"Yeah, well you'd know about things not being sexy," I reply.



Who the hell talks or thinks like this? And it gets worse if you actually take her up on her offer of sex. Never has a game about going to a bar and having a one-night stand been so... whatever this is:



"Necessary lubrication." Eeew. When Ikea Erotica is just a little too hot. Anyway, it's clear the game really disapproves of this, and that Cathy is a crazy person who's already decided we're soul-mates destined to be together forever. I take the hint, and politely excuse myself from her presence. It seems like the gentlemanly thing to do, and she takes it pretty well. The night ending in a bust, but not the good kind, I head down to the garage, collect my car, and head back home, content that-



Goddamn. This is why I don't date. Also, the lack of charisma, social confidence and good looks, and refusing to bathe on the grounds that the government controls our brains via the rust in the pipes.

Well, let's try again! Once more into a breach, or at least, to attempt to...



This is Jeri, and once again, I query whether the narrator of this game is supposed to be a human male or some kind of broken sociology robot from the future. This is a first impression here:



...

O-kay. Talking to her, the game asks for an opening line.

There's clearly only one possibility.



She looks up from this introduction with a half-smile and sounds bored, which is easily the most realistic part of the game so far. Monkey Island hadn't been released by this point after all, so how would she get my reference? I approve of this attention to detail. Not something you often saw in the 80s.

Less realistic is that talking to her more results in her eyes opening and an invitation to the nearest lounge. She orders a Tom Collins. Given a free choice, I order Klingon Coffee. The waiter doesn't even bat an eyelid, and a still-attentive Jeri is clearly primed for more of my suave techniques.



Eh, could have been worse. Could have been the old "Day Of The Tentacle" gambit. Though that one's a bad idea now that everyone knows about those dodgy anime movies and stuff. One reload later, we get on better, talk about TV for a while, and she squeezes my arm, and end up in her suite. A kiss later...



Darn, so close. But if Leisure Suit Larry told us anything, it's that having sex without protection will lead to your cock exploding, and also you should never flush toilets. Hypothetically though, if you go through with it, Jeri starts to cry, then kicks you out of the apartment on the grounds that she was feeling a little off-balance throughout it all, that it's her, not you, and so on and so forth and never call, thanks.

Hurm.

You know, I'm starting to get a little suspicious of this game. When one date ends in suicide or having to submit to an emotional remora, and the other's sex ending is a hollow experience that finishes with tears, it's time to start asking some serious questions. Or better still, use God Mode to cheat.



This menu lets you skip to any part of the game, simultaneously showing off how little of it there actually is, and how much bullshit all of its claims of being more than a Choose Your Own Adventure that doesn't tell you the options actually are. You type the right thing to progress the story within at most three vague prompts, or get it forcibly severed like John Bobbit's manhood.

There are eight women to have an encounter with - Bobi, Jeri, Tanya, Kitty, Cathy, Julie, Priscilla and Roxy. Roxy is a hooker, which is something everyone except the hero knows - failing to recognise her eyes, her hair, her teeth, her boobs, or her nose. Unsurprisingly, no good comes of that relationship, with her two endings being kicking you out in a rage, and successfully doing the deed but without using protection - leading to this rather unusual bit of introspection on the drive home.



On the plus side, maybe he'll become a vigilante and fight crime. Swings and roundabouts.

Bobi is a manager at the club, who takes the initiative herself - kissing you, dragging you around her office by the penis, making with the sex and then distractedly saying "Oh, you're still here." Possible attempted social commentary there, though I think we can probably assume anyone who bought this game probably isn't the Barney Stinson type. You get laid, but it's hardly a romantic encounter - especially when the narrator follows this up with.... just read it. These are words someone wrote.



Jesus. And this is what he's like after getting laid.

Tanya turns out to be the ex-girlfriend of the club manager, who bursts in on the two of you with a gun. You have two choices - be a man and get shot, or wuss out and have it all turn out to be a practical joke that kills any chance of you ever knowing dignity again. Not the greatest choices.



There's a problem with that somewhere, but I can't put my finger on it.

Kitty has a happy ending, apparently, though I'm not sure what you have to type to get it. By default though, it's as creepy as the rest. She takes you to her room for some sex and drugs and probably no interest in catching an episode of Adventure Time first, promptly gets naked and:



Oh, the raw passion of young love. Not that you have to let this stop you, of course.



Well, still healthier than 50 Shades Of Grey. Moving on. Julie's lover also has a gun, and shoots you dead. As for Priscilla... well, Priscilla just wants to jump your bones to get back at her ex-boyfriend, leading to a seriously sociopathic bit of internal monologuing from our supposed hero.



Goddamn, game, quit with the 'lubricating' talk already. And the rest. This is supposedly about fantasies, and my only one right now is that this guy gets his cock caught in a wood chipper.

The other ending is that you get caught having sex in the closet by some onlookers, leading to the options 'run', 'hide' or - no kidding - 'die'. Despite this supposedly being a game about living vicariously through this strange little man, there are no 'get high-fives' or 'say excuse me, can we help you?' type options. But if you decide that you'd be mortified... the game takes you literally.



So, what have we learned? Basically, once again, even in a virtual universe where anything can happen, you're screwed... but probably won't be. Anything that suggests romantic success will be a trap, possibly a lethal one, or end up in pain, recrimination, humiliation and shuffling home in shame.

Semi-related, I'm selling these fine Aching Solitude Awareness Day survival packs. £25.



Just out of interest, I also ran the female side of the game to see if it was any different. The answer - nope, not really. The men have different names to the women, obviously, and there are a few differences in the text, but most stories and basic resolutions are the same. One exception is that where the man could see a prostitute, the woman can be tricked into filling in for one. So, yeah.



Another involves falling for a charmer who takes you out, then knocks you out and steals your purse. You can also get kicked out for getting into a fight, resulting in this strange 'take that' to gamers.



Weird. Me thinks the designer doth protest too much.

Overall though, the message of the game is pretty clear - according to Psychology, nobody out there is actually getting any worth having, and any evidence to the contrary is just a lie from the greetings card industry to sell more heart shaped chocolates. Ignore that this year. Buy the regular kind, which are cheaper, easily bought in bulk, and can be shoved into your face-hole until your snot comes out as little brown bubbles and your blood tastes of frosting. It's the true meaning of the season. Right?

Right. Well, close enough, anyway.

This week's "Why" video acknowledges that not everyone was playing RTS games in 1996, and that even those who were may not realize how much fun they'd be having if they took a quick time-trip back to Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The game isn't just a highlight of the series (and no one's discounting the original or the Tiberium series), it's a highlight of the RTS genre, and it holds up so well 17 years later that it's just as fun as modern RTSes. That's my argument—see and hear it in the video above.

Yesterday, we mentioned a certain area of Dead Space 3 where players can generate an endless bounty of crafting supplies and health kits for constructing the best weapons. Although calling it an "exploit" is more fun, EA contacted PC Gamer to explain that it's all by design.

"The resource-earning mechanic in Dead Space 3 is not a glitch," EA PR rep Jino Talens told PC Gamer. "We have no plans to issue a patch to change this aspect of the game. We encourage players to explore the game and discover the areas where resources respawn for free. We’ve deliberately designed Dead Space 3 to allow players to harvest resources by playing through the game. For those that wish to accumulate upgrades instantly, we have enabled an optional system for them to buy the resources at a minimal cost."

In other words, if you want the most impressive arsenal sooner rather than later, it's grind or pay the fine.

The smoke had barely cleared from Evan and T.J.'s Face Off over the future of the RTS genre before readers and industry folks began sounding off on the matter. In a blog post, Stardock founder Brad Wardell claims the demand for RTS games still exists—it's just pent up from the wait "the adoption of the hardware to implement the next-generation RTS designs."

"It's easy to forget how closely tied video game innovation is to the technology that it runs on top of," Wardell writes. "We didn’t even have first-person shooters until Castle Wolfenstein 3D because the computing horsepower wasn’t there. The hardware drove the creation of an entire new genre of game."

According to Wardell, the primary bottleneck keeping RTS developers from innovating on their designs is the 2GB memory limitation of 32-bit games straining the need for rendering hordes of units on-screen. He compares the visual chops between Demigod and Supreme Commander, saying the former benefits from improved graphics simply because MOBAs—a sub-genre of RTS—"don't have to deal with hundreds of independent units running around at once which reduces memory use."

Though Wardell says it's "technically possible" for an RTS game to boast massive scale, hundreds of units, and razor-sharp graphics, the profitability of such a game isn't likely to be high because of hardware limits. "Their design requirements revolve around a player with DirectX 11, a 64-bit Windows OS and 4 cores (minimum)," he states. "They could do their innovative design with much lower visual fidelity and get most of what they want, but then it becomes a budget title."

Still, Wardell thinks "breathtakingly beautiful" RTS games aren't a total pipe-dream. He predicts a boom for the genre when 64-bit systems and a DirectX 10-compatible videocard are considered to be low-end on the hardware scale. "Once that has become mainstream, it’ll be a race by studios to position themselves," he writes, citing Uber's Planetary Annihilation as a possible vanguard of the new, heavier breed of RTS offerings.

"The RTS game concept is compelling," Wardell concludes. "It works as a single-player experience and can be played as a multiplayer game. Gamers want these games. They’ll pay for these games. But they also have to be measurably superior than what’s already out on the market. To do that, the hardware has to catch up. The good news is that it’s almost ready."

True terror: awakening in a decrepit asylum with incredibly smooth hands, armed only with iOS 6 Maps to save you.

Zombie Studios sent word last December that it'd licensed the powerful Unreal Engine 4 for an unnamed "psychological thriller game." Now, the studio behind Blacklight has a totally-non-ironic name for its project: Daylight, a horror-wanderer of Amnesia: The Dark Descent ilk set in a decayed, procedurally-generated insane asylum.

With no name and no memory of unceremoniously arriving at the asylum, players piece together the events of the past while seeking escape from the building's tangled ruin. The procedural generation tech, Zombie claims, means no two playthroughs will be the same. The studio says each session lasts around half an hour, which suggests a need for multiple runs to figure out the full story.

"Different players will have a totally different experience," Creative Director Jared Gerritzen says. "You’re essentially a rat in a cage, but the cage is an asylum and it’s scary as hell. You need to find your way out, and each time you do it it’s completely different."

Instead of weapons, you're given a cell phone that warns you when psycho phantoms are lurking nearby and acts as a compass and makeshift flashlight. It also occasionally becomes "possessed" to play snippets of expository video or show images. This is the true power of 4G LTE.

Contemporary torches like as flares and glowsticks stave off ghostly foes for a short duration, but Daylight's clear directive, like Amnesia, lies in avoidance and moments of panicky cat-and-mouse chases. And with an expected 2013 release date and $20 price on Steam, it should be one of the first Unreal Engine 4 games you'll get your hands on.

Below, a couple exclusive screenshots Zombie shared with us:

Last week, Valve boss Gabe Newell visited the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs and spoke about the "bottleneck" of Steam's current approval process and possible solutions for getting rid of the red tape. Part of the problem, Newell explained, is the mediocre headway from the Steam Greenlight voting system, "a bad election process" that may even be axed in the future.

"It's probably bad for the Steam community, in the long run, not to move to a different way of thinking about that," Newell said. "In other words, we should stop being a dictator and move towards much more participatory, peer-based methods of sanctioning player behavior. Greenlight is a bad example of an election process. We came to the conclusion pretty quickly that we could just do away with Greenlight completely, because it was a bottleneck rather than a way for people to communicate choice."

Greenlight certainly suffered a rocky launch back in August, with scores of fake submissions peppering the genuine efforts from indie developers. Valve implemented a $100 submission fee as a quick fix, but a larger question looms: are voters part of Steam's "dictatorship"? Are good games going unnoticed simply because someone gave a thumbs-down for arbitrary reasons such as "too anime" or "looks dumb," and would replacing it with something else entirely transform Steam into the publishing paradise Newell envisions? Let us know what you think of Greenlight in the comments.

Thanks, Gamasutra.

Lee asks another citizen if he's the lead character of The Walking Dead's second season.

Though a followup saga to the first season of The Walking Dead is as sure as a zombie-shaped surprise behind a blood-smeared door, Telltale has yet to determine the exact direction the series' second season will take. Speaking to Polygon, CEO Dan Connor says that the first season's heavy conclusion means "anything is possible" for a return to The Land Where Zombies Roam.

"We're talking through different scenarios, though I don't think we've talked through one where we just start with a new set of characters," Connor says. "For us, it's just really important to make sure we are delivering on what people have played and liked in season one."

Connor believes The Walking Dead's second season will be shaped by the series' staple of hooking an audience through intricate narrative and character relationships, saying, "A huge goal for us is what happens between episodes. How do you carry the experience through? How do you use this ability we have to keep people engaged and talking."

Future Walking Dead episodes could tie more closely with characters from the AMC TV show: "There's nothing saying our characters couldn't cross over with their characters at some point in the timeline," Connor suggests. "It's a very interesting concept for us."

Overlapping with the TV show is the least interesting of these possibilities to me because it runs the risk of feeling referential—a cameo by Glenn in the first episode demonstrated that Telltale's game doesn't need to rely on existing characters to get us to care. But whatever approach they take, I'm confident Telltale's writing team will find a way to turn me into an emotionless husk once more.

This week in eSports: League of Legends Season 3 hits the ground running, MLG is already hosting competitive Heart of the Swarm, In Dota 2, only four teams are still standing in the upper bracket of The Defense 3.
StarCraft II


Heart of the Swarm creeps closer, and at least one major eSports organization is making the switch before it's even officially released. For the first time ever (outside of streams), you can watch high level play of both Swarm and Wings in the same sitting.
Upcoming Events
The GSL 2013 Season 1 Code S Round of 16 in Wings of Liberty is well underway, with Squirtle, MarineKing, DongRaeGu, and Bomber having been knocked out already. InnoVation, TaeJa, Soulkey, and Symbol have secured their spots in the playoff bracket, with the quarterfinals scheduled to begin on February 21. There are still two groups of four left to be decided, however, with the likes of MC, LosirA, Life, and PartinG competing for the final four playoff slots.

Watch it: GomTV

MLG is doing things a little differently for its Winter 2013 season, leaving Wings of Liberty behind in favor of the Heart of the Swarm beta. This has led to some controversy, considering the expansion isn't out yet, and balancing patches are still being dropped in fairly regularly. The format of the Winter Showdown throws each of the 56 players into a best-of-five match against a single opponent  The 28 winners will be guaranteed a spot at the Winter Championship at MLG Dallas in March. Qualifiers so far include PartinG, herO, and InnoVation.

Tonight's match is Rain vs Flying, beginning at 5 p.m. EST/1 p.m. PST.

Watch it: MLG on Twitch
Other Stuff
If you're looking to dip your toe into competitive play for the first time with Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard is trying to make it as gradual and painless a transition as possible. Here's how.

Day has carried his Sky Terran Funday Monday over to the Protoss, requesting that viewers send in videos of playing with only one Gateway and one Robotics Facility. Moral of the story: Phoenixes are really, really "balanced."

Axslav breaks down the HotS Winter Showdown matches between PartinG and Fantasy and RoRO vs. herO on Rules of Engagement. He'll be putting his usual weekly topics on hold to continue recapping these matches throughout the Winter Showdown set. If you're confused about what all these new units are and what it is they're doing, it's not a bad place to get up to speed.
League of Legends


Is Riot's Season 3 a "new beginning" for League of Legends as an eSport? The viewership numbers for Season 2's World Championships seem to suggest that competitive League has already pretty well begun. At the same time, 2012 and early 2013 were laden with player controversies. Though, to be fair, the same thing happens with athletes in just about every other sport imaginable... so it's possible that player bannings and ego trips are a part of the game's growing up. In any case, I'm anxious to see how much higher Riot's shooting star can go.
Upcoming Events
Season 3 of Riot's Championship Series is live. The kick-off was last night, with Counter Logic Gaming besting Team SoloMid and Good Game University, Curse taking a match off of Dignitas, and SoloMid defeating Vulcun. The action continues tonight with Curse vs CLG, SoloMid vs Dignitas, GGU vs Curse, and Vulcun vs Dignitas.

Watch it: League of Legends Championship Series
Other Stuff
In a continuing effort to reward positive behavior in the community, some changes are being made to the Honor Initiative. It's now easier to unlock the Great Teamwork, Leader, and Mentor crests, but more difficult to get Honorable Opponent. This change will retroactively remove Honorable Opponent from players who earned it under the old criteria. You can read about the reasoning behind this change on the official site.
Dota 2


Only four teams remain in The Defense 3 playoffs: Dignitas, No Tidehunter, the come-from-behind Virtus.Pro, and Evil Geniuses. Virtus vs EG will be take place on February 11, and Dignitas vs No Tidehunter has been postponed. Fan favorite teams that still have a shot at the lower bracket (and thus, the overall championship) include Team Liquid, mousesports, Na'Vi, and Fnatic.eu.

Watch it: The-Defense.com
Other Stuff
YouTuber ReevoHGames has put together a set of "visual patch notes" giving you in-game illustrations of the changes made in the most recent balance patch. Check it out at the beginning of this section.

That's it for this week, eSports faithful. Let us know in the comments what you think of this week's stories, if there's anything we missed, and what eSports events you're most looking forward to in the coming weeks.