Overwatch hero Brigitte Lindholm, daughter to Torbjörn and squire to Reinhardt, is now live for players on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Brigitte’s abilities take inspiration from both her father’s and her mentor’s abilities. Like Torbjörn, she tosses out armor packs for her allies, though hers heal, if possible, and only then provide armor if the user is at maximum health. She also heals her nearby allies while dealing damage with her main weapon, the Rocket Flail. Like Reinhardt, she swings her flail in an arc in front of her, knocking anyone in its path around. Brigitte is an engineer, however, so as an added enhancement she can launch the head of her flail out to nail an enemy at distance in a nasty “Whip Shot”.
Like Reinhardt, she also has a Barrier Shield that can absorb a limited amount of damage when raised, but hers only covers her body and anyone standing directly behind her, rather than the extensive coverage that Rein provides his team. With her shield up she can also perform a Shield Dash, charging forward to stun an enemy similarly to how Reinhardt pins people (though likely less damaging, and with a greater focus on the stun effect). Her ultimate ability, Rally, gives her a temporary speed boost in addition to providing armor to all of her allies, which lasts until enemies damage it away.
Introducing Brigitte—an engineer turned valiant squire ready to protect her allies on the front line.
Learn more @ https://t.co/JCSkZJGOzc pic.twitter.com/me59upxJYU
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) February 28, 2018
Brigitte’s origin story video (above) describes how while growing up she was inspired by her father and Reinhardt’s stories of heroism, and how that desire to help manifested in her becoming a support engineer for the team, fixing their armor and developing weapons. Eventually, she could no longer sit on the sidelines and felt compelled to join the battle herself. We see a moment of a young Brigitte doing padded weapon training with Reinhardt, explaining why she would take so much after him in battle.
Blizzard began teasing Brigitte with a letter that many (ourselves included) interpreted to mean out next hero would be a newly mentioned Turkish man. Leaks over the next few days, however, pushed community consensus toward Brigitte. Blizzard also included a few sly nods toward “Jetpack Cat,” a scrapped hero concept that the community has embraced. Brigitte is shown tinkering with a jetpack for her family cat in her origin video, leading many fans to hope that Jetpack Cat will actually make its way into the game, perhaps as part of Brigitte’s ultimate ability. Even if not, it’s a fun example of Blizzard’s playful embrace of the community.
Updated to note that Brigitte is now live for all players
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.