RIP you brilliant, brilliant Playable Teaser. We lost you too early.
Fuck Konami
This might be the most borderline, on the fence entry to the Level Design Hall of Fame, but I don’t really care. The minimalism on display here works extremely well for what the game is trying to do, and I appreciate that. I mean, yeah, you could have designed a hallway too, but it’s not the hallway exactly, it’s what you do with it. So just remember that, because it’s a sketchy way for me to just talk about P.T. being genius.
I got a letter in the mail from Japan, I wonder what it says…
So yeah, out of nowhere I got a letter in the mail from an anonymous member at Nintendo. It’s a pretty high ranking and prolific figure at the company, and I wanted to share it with you all, because I think it’s pretty important we send them some help. Things aren’t looking so hot, but I’ll let the note explain:
Dearest Jared,
Hearing that there is mail going out this afternoon, I thought I would risk the opportunity and write you a most urgent warning of our circumstance currently. Rumors are spreading like wildfire around the halls here, and morale is quite low. We all refuse to acknowledge it, but deep down we all know it to be true. Soon is to be the era of our demise, no matter how much it pains me to say, and therefore you are the only one I can confide in, a harbinger of truth and prosperity in these harsh waters we navigate through known as the world wide web. We live in deadly times, and I fear this is to be our last stand on the battlefield of technology. These are the most dire of circumstances, so I take my gamble writing to you behind the backs of my superiors.
With the launch of Arms around the corner there is no telling of the drought that is to come, and it will surely rob many at Nintendo their livelihoods as the company scales back, further and further, until it blinks out of existence, a wisp in the winds of history. Mario Kart 8 will begin the starvation, then weeks later Splatoon 2 will undoubtedly begin the conversation of panic. “Is this a real sequel, or an update to the original?” they will all ask, but from there it only gets worse for our plight. Months will pass, day by day the pressure will mount, and the only words on the tips of the blogger’s fingers will be about connectivity issues, the death of our 3rd party support, the original version of Skyrim being full price, screen scratches, and overpriced accessories. Soon, there will be no more good will or Mario trailers to quench the thirst of the diehards.
Do not get me started on our online experience, that is a dead end covered by hearsay and public relations gobbledygook. Our first major loss at the hands of the enemy came when people caught on to how abysmal friend codes are, and soon they will turn on us for the Switch’s online features, communication, reliability, and lack of virtual console support. It is the beginning of the end, I know this to be true as the day is long and the sky is blue.
What will happen to us when we delay Super Mario Odyssey out of 2017? We cannot afford to lose the momentum of our only real victory in years, Breath of the Wild. And once news breaks we have no intention of patching weapon durability, our oldest soldiers might turn to the other side, for good.
We have fought valiantly yet we cannot escape our mortality in an ever changing battlefield, a war that rages on faster than we can adapt to. The campaign plan frightens me, as it has been the same one written in crayon for decades, but the map has since transformed under our feet. We stand on quicksand, unable to claw out of the mud with precious oxygen disappearing. It is getting harder to breathe when you do not know what Retro Studios is working on. Is this not inhuman? Is it a Metroid or not? The silence is deafening, I expect some one cleaned house to rob the jewels and plate of the corpse.
I sometimes awaken from my slumber and clutch my Slippy doll in the face of nightmares. What have I done? What have I become? Where is the next idea for an F-Zero game, or will I have to bury Captain Falcon on the field of valor, tears and all? We have lost so many already: Paper Mario, Olimar, Samus, Pit, Ice Climbers, Chibi Robo, Little Mac, Captain Toad, Fox McCloud, I anticipate more will fall before the calendar ends. Is Tom Nook next? Yoshi? Donkey Kong? Kirby? I loathe to think of the dominoes that will tumble if we are not careful. Who made the decision to give the Paper Mario games a sticker battle system? With no experience to gain? How was that a good idea? And do NOT get me started on Star Fox Zero.
As I look into the future, I wonder about our strengths and weaknesses as an army that once conquered the entire world. Our name ruled this fine industry, but if Rome can fall so too can the Mushroom Kingdom. What will our power look like when Microsoft brings out the big guns? Scorpio is a cannon and we have no artillery strikes left in our possession. I am filled with dread that our time in the limelight is not only over, but is on the verge of oblivion. I am a ball of twisted steel and nerve thinking about my men, wretched inside when they ask me about the next Mario Party game. I look into those poor designers cold, dead eyes and ask myself, ‘what have we become?’, and then I hear news that we estimate to sell 100+ million Switches lifetime. We said something similar about the Wii U, and were off about 90 million give or take.
“Not good. Not good at all. Not smart. Failing Nintendo, sad!” That’s what they’ll tweet out at our funeral.
Our eulogy will be a tweet. God damnit, that is depressing.
The Switch is our waterloo, and if we do not capitalize on the small amount of momentum we have in this current moment in time it will evaporate before our very eyes. Then what next, a Switch XL? A New Switch? A Switch Lite? Where will we go from there? We have more questions internally at Nintendo then answers, and Reggie is too headstrong to notice the glaring Achilles’s Heel that is bleeding all over the place. I have never spoken to the new CEO, he never says anything, even when I meet him and try to pry some knowledge loose. Nothing. Stone faced, a man who knows the ship is sinking and the Universal Studios deal is not enough to attract new younger fans, and not enough to keep the old ones asking for Mother 3 and Netflix support. We are a company trapped in time, a standstill of innovation and desperation, longingly looking at competitors once so insignificant we never thought to prepare the defenses. Now, our guard is down and they have the upper hand. It is all but over, and the few titles we put out a year, regardless of their quality, is nowhere close to the quantity of Sony, or the genius of Apple. Skirmishes spark, casualties mount, hope sinks with each muster. Disillusion is profound and plentiful, something I never imagined would happen to us. We made the SNES and the Super Scope!
So I sit here, in my office, in hiding and retreat, while the NES Classic and Switch reinforcements get lost in the wind. They are never coming, like Godot, and our ability to manufacture and market is long perished. My insides ache and my mind is a trap, ready to slam shut on the world. Conflicting interests clash with proud tradition and stubbornness, there is no firm command of strategy anymore, and I grow fond of dreaming about a time once filled with R.O.B. the Robots flooding the shelves on toy stores. These philistines will never truly appreciate good ol’ Rob, long may he rest in peace.
Weary, disappointed, saddened, the weight of this loss is like a black hole of misery. It burdens my bones every time I make a sketch of Mario’s new hat with the eyeballs on them. Is that all I have left in me? Can I not salvage anymore ideas worthy of triumph? Nintendo is forever dampened with the brutal, harsh, cold winds of winter and the Switch will collect snow and dust and ridicule before you know it, I am sure of it.
You can smell the hostility in the air, and it is only a matter of seconds before fingers start getting pointed with reckless abandon. Tear filled eyes and pounded desks simply hail in comparison to master works like The Witcher 3. Nintendo can never have a game like that on our console, so what is even the point? Why bother creating years of anticipation and hype to have it boil over in turmoil and whatever the hell Federation Force turned out to be? Try as I might, the twinkle in our collective eyes have burnt out, and faced with the reality of a modern landscape that is ever adapting, advancing, open, honest, and becoming smarter, Nintendo is a stick in the mud in comparison. A swamp where no seeds can grow, a desert with a single Zelda oasis. I am humbled by this experience, and have found that video games, war, and women do strange things to mortal men. The brigade that marched onto prosperity with the Wii was a gold mine filled with fool’s gold. The Switch is going to be our last console, and we don’t have enough Pokemon games in the ammo clip to reload fast enough. Our outlook is grim, and the night is full of terrors yet to come…I see it coming from a mile away. Am I the only one who senses this? It must be, since I’m writing you in secret using candlelight.
Send my best to the diehards, and make sure I am not forgotten. May I be remembered as a leader of men, a creator of a great many things, and a stubborn detractor of Miis. I was never for them. They forced me to like them, twisted my arm into releasing Wii Music. May the gods have mercy on my soul.
I no longer wish to have my Ranked lists published on Deadspin and/or Kotaku. Well, that’s bullshit, because I do, but instead of trying to rank things in a reverse ordered list I figured I would do something new that leads to less arguments: doing a tier list!
Tier lists are something I encountered in the fighting game community, where people would rank from F to S the strength of characters in a fighting game. So, why not incorporate that system to other things?
Now because I LOVE Scorsese movies, and cameos from his family, and because we’ve already done enough lists on Stan Lee cameos on the net, this should suffice. I’ve seen almost all of his films (I can’t bring myself to watch Kundun guys, sorry), read Ebert’s book on him, and wrote several essays about the man himself in film school. I’m about as good a person to do this job.
Not to hate on Stan Lee, by the way, he’s my idol, and the man is a legend. It’s just that they’re all funny! There are no bad Stan Lee cameos, and Scorsese’s are NOT all great. So there’s a need to do this. And I know this is because when doing research, I found its a fucking ghost town on the internet. No joke, for a famous person with a big following, doing a fun thing people love, why hasn’t this been catalogued before? What the hell are you all doing with your lives, I’m very upset at you stupid people and now I get to be the official Neil Armstrong of ranking Scorsese cameos.
My criteria for these is somewhat arbitrary: how good the material you’re in is, how funny the role is, how much screen time, and how memorable. That’s about it. And also, you must be a Scorsese family member doing a cameo. Doesn’t matter what, and heavy points off for playing a character with a name in the cast. There is a difference between acting and cameos, we all know this. For instance, Marty played a puffer fish in Shark Tale. That is not a cameo, that is a role. So this list also includes his mother and father Catherine and Charles, because they are Scorsese’s too and their cameos rival Martin’s own. Deal with it, this is my article and if you want to do your own, go for it, I got all the SEO traffic before you, so there.
F TIER — NOBODY HAS SEEN THESE, NOT EVEN ME, LET’S STOP KIDDING OURSELVES HERE PEOPLE
Marty as Mafioso #1 in Cannonball
Marty as the TV director in The Pope’s Eye
Marty as Vincent Van Gogh in Dreams
Marty as Martin Rittenhome in Quiz Show
Marty as the accountant in Search and Destroy
D TIER — HE WAS IN THAT? WHERE? DID I MISS IT?
Marty as Thug #2 in Who’s That Knocking at my Door?
Marty as Jimmy Shorts in Mean Streets
Marty as the man in the cafeteria in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Marty as a gigolo in Shine a Light
Marty as the man in the green van in King of Comedy
Marty as the man walking a dog in Color of Money
Marty as Isaiah in Last Temptation of Christ
Marty as himself in With Friends Like These…
C TIER — FOR CINEPHILES AND SCORSESE NUTS ONLY
Marty as Charlie in Mean Streets
Marty as the projectionist for Hell’s Angels in The Aviator
Marty as the dude having his picture taken with Lionel in New York Stories
Marty as the guy playing pool in Color of Money
Marty as John on the phone in The Wolf of Wall Street
Marty as this random dude in Silence:
We don't talk enough about Scorsese's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in the closing chapter of Silence. pic.twitter.com/NsUWJghNtK
Marty as this wealthy homeowner in Gangs of New York
Marty as the brothel customer in Boxcar Bertha
B TIER — MARTY’S PARENTS GET IN THE MIX NOW
Charles Scorsese as the first man at the bar in King of Comedy, Charlie in Raging Bull, and a high roller in Color of Money
Catherine Scorsese as the woman in the cafe in Godfather 3, woman on landing in Mean Streets, Piscano’s mother in Casino, and the customer at the bakery in Moonstruck
Marty plays himself in The Player
Marty plays himself in Curb Your Enthusiasm
Marty plays himself in Entourage
Marty as the TV director in King of Comedy
Marty as the dispatcher in Bringing Out the Dead
A TIER — NOW THAT’S A SPICY CAMEO
Marty as the photographer in Age of Innocence
Marty as the man with the searchlight in After Hours
Catherine Scorsese as Rupert Pupkin’s mother in The King of Comedy
Marty as the cameraman in Hugo
Catherine Scorsese as the lady in the cafe in After Hours
S TIER — DID YOU EVER SEE WHAT A .44 MAGNUM CAN DO TO A PUSSY? WHAT A .44 MAGNUM’S GONNA DO TO A WOMAN’S PUSSY THAT YOU SHOULD SEE!
Charles Scorsese as Vinnie in Goodfellas, the guy who puts so many onions in the sauce
Catherine Scorsese as Tommy DeVito’s mother, in the best scene in Goodfellas:
The Taxi Driver magnum guy:
Whatever this is, from The Muse:
Don’t like my list? Don’t @ me. Do like it? Don’t @ me. Just retweet.
I have another Level Design Hall of Fame video for you, and one of the first inductees I did (years ago) is back, and I remade the video so that not only is the footage from the HD remake version of the game, my audio commentary is also clearer. So if you watch the old, original video of this, don’t watch it! Or do, I don’t care. This is the one you want to check out.
In an effort to get my work published on Deadspin and/or Kotaku, which quite frankly is not going super well, I am going to now rank all of the fake video games that appear on The Simpsons. As a ’90s child who has been raised on all things Simpsons (shirts, pajama bottoms, bed sheets, lunch boxes, I could go on and on), the entire show has been ingrained in me. And when I first starting playing games in the early ’90s, The Simpsons games were obviously go-to choices. When watching the show, some of my favorite jokes and gags were about the fictional games the writers made up, because they could see how big the merchandising empire had become.
My criteria for these is somewhat arbitrary: essentially it’s how funny the joke is, how cool the game looks, whether or not I would want to play it, and how iconic the game is to the episode/show. If there is some gameplay, that really helps the ranking out considerably, but it isn’t 100% necessary. You can kind of tell what type of game each is, the genre or what it’s spoofing.
There are a ton of names on arcade machines throughout the show’s history, and a ton of fake games in their E3 parody episode, but those don’t really count because that would be downright impossible to cover all of them.
Shout-outs to some noteworthy runners-up that I couldn’t quite put on this list but really want to: the Itchy & Scratchy handheld gameBart plays while getting a haircut, Bar Brawl 4, Guts of War II, Astro Blast, Pack Rat and Pack Rat Returns, the Devil’s Advocate arcade machine Homer plays, the Pachinko machine Bart plays when he buys it with the credit card he found, and that one unnamed game Grandpa Abe played once in “Lisa’s Pony”.
30. Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge
29. Kevin Costner’s Waterworld
28. Word Jammers
Who wants to play Word Jammers?
27. Triangle Wars
The ship poops triangles!
26. Escape From Grandma’s House I and II
The original is better than the sequel.
25. Virtual Doctor
24. Stickball
Even the dog wants to play.
23. Rocky III vs. Clara Peller
Where’s the beef?
22. Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster
Shoot the heathens!
21. Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories
You get to destroy all human life in the first level.
20. Bowling 2000
Cannot believe Nintendo didn’t sue them over this.
19. Tandem Bike Ride With Your Mom
I can believe Nintendo didn’t sue them over this one, though.
18. Halloween Hit and Run
The footage is so messed up they took it down from YouTube. It’s a car running over kids in costumes on a sidewalk.
17. Fruit Shoot
Why is the Prince of Persia in Beverly Hills?
16. Low Blow Boxing
This would be at Moe’s.
15. The Iceman Killeth
The amount of modes here is astounding for a parody game.
14. Cereal Killer
13. Cat Fight
“Bitch!”
12. Disembowler IV
What happened to the first three?
11. Larry the Looter
10. Panamanian Strongman
Winners don’t use drugs.
9. Hockey Dad
8. My Dinner With Andre
7. Touch of Death
This was the inspiration for Dive Kick.
6. Escape From Death Row
Don’t take the insanity plea.
5. Dash Dingo
4. Super Slugfest / Super Slugfest Arcade Edition
Not a bad placing for the first ever fake Simpsons game.
I brought back an old series I used to do and now I’m cranking out new episodes and remakes of old ones. It’s called The Level Design Hall of Fame, and I induct great levels, stages, and maps into a canon I’m compiling. Here is an episode about Sen’s Fortress in the original Dark Souls.
I’m now a Gwent gent, so get bent while I vent about the dent Gwent has put in my…..tent? Scent? Clark Kent? Okay, I’m done now.
I picked up the cash flow Then we played Gwent, and I’m yellin’ domino
I am a Gwent addict now. I am cheating on my wife, Hearthstone, with a better looking, smarter, and more exciting Eastern European mistress.
After unexpectedly getting into the closed beta for Gwent one fine day, which I tried while I was bored, I have not stopped since. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to buy The Witcher 3 and role play as a Geralt who is a Gwent addict like me, and has to murder every merchant to collect every card and win every tournament or else he’ll burn down every town and village until he is the Gwent champion.
Too extreme?
Maybe. But here is where the intense passion comes from: as a former card game junkie, my youth was filled with enough lands, energy cards, tokens, coins, dice, gems, and Exodia pieces to last a lifetime. Then after a few years hiatus I became a newborn CCG player when I got into the closed beta for Hearthstone. As you can read in this companion piece here that I’ll plug because it’s relevant I’ve been playing that game everyday for years, and only recently have I begun to get burned out on the meta and lack of intelligent support/updates from the developers.
(Of course that would come back to bite me because they announced some sweeping changes and the new expansion with lots of new goodies but I digress).
This is me, and the hook is Gwent.
If Hearthstone was the beginner level game to get me back in and invested, Gwent is the game that takes my knowledge and skills to the next level, which is a phrase that I dislike but it’s apt here. The hooks are in me deep, and it’s so bizarre to see how little my experience with Hearthstone has helped me with Gwent since those games have almost nothing in common.
But the areas where Hearthstone comes up short recently, Gwent has in spades. Let’s do a quick side by side comparison of each game, apples to apples, that is full of jargon that only CCG players would understand. Sorry, it’s hard to separate all of this from the inside baseball:
Hearthstone — It’s incredibly common for an HS match to end within the first two turns, either because of a bad match-up, or a very cheap and fast start, or because of a bad mulligan.
Gwent — It’s incredibly rare for that to happen in Gwent.
HS — Board clears have little to no risk, can destroy an enemy board entirely and can quickly end any potentially cool decks, combos, strategies, or anything experimental involving buffs or tribes.
GW — Board clears, and to an extent, spells in Gwent are very situational, have drawbacks, and there’s so many it can be hard to find a ‘one size fits all’ like the Flamestrike in HS. In fact, there are so many kinds (weather, deuterium, shackles, scorch, etc.) that can backfire on you, you need to fit your deck with specific kinds of removal to enhance your tribes, or your buffs, or combos without sacrificing blowback.
HS — There is no cap on how many legendary cards you can fit into a deck, and pro players have more rares and epics than casual players.
GW — There is a cap on how many gold and silver cards you can put into a deck, which means the percentage of useful cards in your collection are obtainable. Pro and casual players alike will undoubtedly use the same basic commons and rares, with only the 6 silvers and 4 golds being the thing that stands in the way. Choose wisely when crafting your deck!
HS — When you pick a class to play, there is a good chance you can only run one viable archetype because that’s how it’s designed and meant to be played to win. Some classes are horrible and will not win no matter what you do.
GW — All classes are worth playing and each one has a number of different ways to build them. It’s all in the design.
HS —Curves to decks are not only important, it’s vital to have strong tempo to outpace your opponent in most match-ups. Aggression is rewarded and running out of cards means only ‘top-decks’ can win you the game, if you string enough of them together.
GW — There are no curves to decks. Play what you want and have fun.
HS — Everything can be silenced or destroyed somehow. Nothing has meaning.
GW — Not everything can be removed from play, but since the game has rounds to them, those cards don’t stick around to see the light of day.
HS — If you play Wild, Arena, Tavern Brawl, or Adventures, you aren’t playing the mode supported by the eSports circuit.
GW — You’re always playing the mode that’s set for eSports. You can now watch and not be confused!
HS — The primary way to balance cards is by changing how much mana they cost, thereby linking cost to power, so you’ll see powerful neutral cards in almost every deck run on ladder. Tired of Defender of Argus or Patches? Fuck you!
GW — There is no mana, so each card is only limited by how it fits in with your deck and how you use it. Patches is not in Gwent.
HS — You can heckle and spam emotes to your opponent, and THEY have to turn that off every single game! Let the BM commence!
GW — You cannot interact with your opponent in any way. There is no trolling or bad manners. You can even give them a GG afterwards to get rewards! It’s really easy; every game I’ve ever played was a mutual ‘good game’.
HS — When you level up, you get some cards that everyone else will also get. It’s a wash. When you rank up, you get stuff at the end of every month tied to your performance.
GW — When you level AND rank up, you get rewards. Some are random, and eventually you get free epic and legendary cards.
HS — It’s hard to counter-play, and most times there’s nothing you can do to stop what’s about to happen, or predict it and punish. You can only really react and punish. Cool counters like Loatheb are gone now, and secrets aren’t great for the classes that have them. You know what’s run in all other decks, you know what to expect and when to expect it based on mana and other factors.
GW — Counter-play is the name of the game. Anticipate, react, predict, gamble, hell you can even bluff! It’s like poker and Magic the Gathering had a baby that was the first in the family to get a degree. Psyche outs, mind games, pure and utter mystery to ever turn based on the events unfolding!
HS — As many cards can be played in a turn, as long as the mana is there. Including all the 0 mana ones. Turns can last a while and the animations will not catch up in time, sometimes fucking you in the process.
GW — One card per turn. That’s it. Sometimes more actions or decisions are required, but it’s one a turn. Choose wisely.
Ciri don’t fuck around, don’t mess with her
Right after I published that piece on the current state of Hearthstone, the following happened, like an answer to my calls. Or a sign my traitorous actions of playing Gwent were being validated, praised by a peer agreeing with me, taking action where I didn’t have the strength to do so. And yes I just called the legend Lifecoach my peer. A man can dream, can’t he?
It’s hard to go through all of this without teaching someone to play this game, it’s really tough since it’s in closed beta, and there is another version of Gwent, the one from Witcher 3 (it’s very different and not as fleshed out). So I could link videos and get into the nitty gritty mechanics, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to do that. And soon you’ll be able to play when the beta goes open, and everyone’s progress gets reset.
But Gwent is a game where every moment matters, no victory cannot be achieved, and where the ending is always tense and draining. It’s pins and needles, risk and reward, as you egg your opponent on and dare him to one-up you, or vice versa. Hearthstone is a game about momentum and there are lots of dead moments and wasted opportunities. As long as CD Projekt Red supports their game, listens to feedback, is fast to patch the game, and makes the single player campaign worth it, then this is going to be the main rival to Hearthstone and to my time. And that’s pretty nuts since I didn’t see this coming, and if I had been playing something else, I could have missed this one and never would have known.
No matter how cool you look, please get to the fucking payload. Please. And stop picking Hanzo for goodness sake people.
Zenyatta has the best skins, collectively, so he gets the top shot.
In an effort to get my work published on Deadspin and/or Kotaku, which quite frankly is not going so well, I am going to now rank for you, dear reader, the best legendary rarity costumes in the game. Not the epics, sorry, color swaps don’t count. And I’m not going to divide this list into two just for the slight differences in most of the skins, since a lot of them are the same just with different colors. I ain’t got time for that, so deal with it.
Here is the rubric for my grading: how cool each one looks, the colors, the cleverness of the reference, the way each one suits the character, any changes to the weapon, and whether or not I unlocked them in a loot box. I have a lot of Zarya drops I don’t want and I’m salty about that, so sorry Zarya mains, I have a grudge with RNG.
Thanks to the fine people at Gamepedia for the images, go there to look at everything, they did a great job and have no idea I’m taking from their site but at least I’m attributing my source: http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Skins
73. Pharah — Mechaqueen / Raptorion
What is this supposed to be? Is she Samus? Why not just use the regular armor?
72. D.Va — B.Va / Junebug
Is she a bee? Why is the alternate color blue then?
71. Widowmaker — Noire
This is not nearly different enough from the regular costume, but it is black, so
70. Lucio — HippityHop / Ribbit
Why is he a techno frog again?
69. Bastion — Gearbot / Steambot
This one is cool but fuck Bastion and his turret form
68. Genji — Sparrow / Young Genji
Out of all the younger versions this is the worst
67. McCree — Mystery Man / Vigilante
Good idea, poor execution, he looks dumber not cooler
66. Ana —Wadjet / Wasteland
There is a neat Mad Max thing going on but it’s just a little off color wise
65. D.Va — Junker / Scavenger
This beats the Steam punk Bastion one because D.Va has no turret form
64. Genji — Bedouin / Nomad
I don’t know what this is supposed to be but alright
63. Symmetra — Architech / Vishkar
Half Portal inspired, half dentist look here
62. Hanzo — Young Hanzo / Young Master
A pretty boring skin for Hanzo. Also stop picking Hanzo please everyone
61. Pharah — Security Chief
Another whatever throw in for pre-ordering the game
60. Mei — Abominable / Yeti Hunter
I like her boots
59. Soldier 76 — Strike-Commander Morrison
Man the pre-order skins were bad in retrospect
58. Tracer — Slipstream
Really bad in comparison to the rest of the list
57. Zarya — Arctic / Siberian Front
This is one of the first legendary ones I got. Fuck you Blizzard I don’t even play her!
56. Widowmaker — Odette /Odile
Every time I see this one I yell BIRDMAN BIRDMAN
55. Zarya — Cybergoth / Industrial
I was once goth too. I still will not play Zarya, sorry Blizzard
54. Zenyatta — Sanzang
This would have ranked higher but his face is too creepy
53. Zarya — Champion / Weightlifter
Finally a good Zarya one. I got this in a loot box and will still not play her, really stop it now Blizzard HQ
52. Widowmaker — Comtesse / Huntress
Bonus points for the sick gun
51. Bastion — Antique / Woodbot
Would be funnier if you didn’t hate-scream at Bastion all the time
50. McCree — Gambler / Riverboat
Man, McCree got stiffed hard on legendary costumes
49. Orisa — Megaosoma / Dynasinae
It’s like a cow, and also a beetle, in the other color. Pretty cool.
48. Sombra — Cyberspace / Augmented
For a Tron knock-off this isn’t half bad
47. Junkrat — Hayseed / Scarecrow
Let Junkrat be a new Batman villain
46. Lucio — Selecao / Striker
The mascot of Lucio Ball and host of the Brazil Olympics
45. Reaper — Blackwatch Reyes
This outfit makes me less angry at Reaper players because you don’t hide behind that skull mask
44. Soldier 76 — Commando / Night Ops
I remember Vietnam too
43. Bastion — Overgrown
Is this the best pre-order one? Really? You gave it to Bastion?
42. Torbjorn — Chopper / Deadlock
This one works best on the Route 66 map
41. Tracer — Mach T/ T.Racer
I wish I had this one for Tracer
40. Mei — Chang’e / Luna
Mei is looking a little slimmer, no?
39. Mercy — Sigrun / Valkyrie
Thor is going to be pissed when he sees the plagiarism on hand
38. Reinhardt — Blackhardt / Bloodhardt
This is some boss looking armor
37. Zenyatta — Djinnyatta / Infrit
Spoilers: by the end, Zenyatta has pound for pound the best legendary costumes in the game, by a mile
36. Winston — Wukong
Is there another popular eSports game with a Wukong in it?
35. Sombra — Azucar / Los Muertos
Reminds me of that one guy from Suicide Squad
34. Roadhog — Islander / Toa
The hook gets changed when you pick this one
33. Reinhardt — Lionhardt / Stonehardt
No helmet = fucking awesome for him
32. Tracer — Sprinter / Track and Field
The Union Jack flag is a nice touch
31. Reaper — Nevermore / Plague Doctor
Actually somewhat intimidating
30. Soldier 76 — Daredevil / Stunt Rider
Evel Knievel is going to sue someone
29. Ana — Captain Amari / Horus
This is the best Ana costume by far, she looks legit
28. Tracer — Punk / Ultraviolet
I used to be punk, once upon a time
27. Orisa — Protector / Carbon Fiber
This shit looks like the original Xbox 360 dashboard, hella cool.
26. Winston — Frogston / Undersea
The O2 tanks sell it
25. Lucio — Breakaway / Slapshot
What’s better than roller blades on Lucio? Ice skates!
24. Mei — Firefighter / Rescue Mei
The irony here is amazing
23. Winston — Yeti
This is brilliant
22. Junkrat — Fool / Jester
This fits him so well. I’m a Junkrat main, I get to be biased on my own list
21. Reinhardt — Wujing
I want that necklace
20. Mercy — Devil / Imp
This shit is hot
19. Hanzo — Lone Wolf / Okami
What puts this over the top is the wolf that comes out of his ult
18. D.Va — Palanquin
If only the other D.Va ones could be this detailed
17. Reinhardt — Balderich / Greifhardt
This is the epitome of badass
16. Roadhog — Junkenstein’s Monster
Beyond a perfect match, Roadhog and Frankenstein’s Monster
15. Torbjorn — Barbarossa / Blackbeard
The turret is pirate themed too
14. Winston — Explorer / Safari
Love his hat, mustache and stickers
13. Genji — Oni
Makes me hate Genji players a little less when I see this one
12. Junkrat — Dr. Junkenstein
I am beyond upset I never got this one, as a Junkrat main
11. Mei — Mei-rry
Classic, simple, and festive, almost makes the top ten
10. Reaper — Pumpkin
Anything that resembles Spidey foe Hobgoblin is okay in my book
9. Roadhog — Mako / Sharkbait
One of the strongest, most fleshed out legendary skins to launch with the game
8. Symmetra — Devi / Goddess
This actually makes me want to play Symmetra. I won’t, but I want to.
7. Tracer — Jingle
Cute? Sexy? Funny? Apropos? All of the above?
6. Pharah — Raindancer / Thunderbird
I choose to ignore the possible racism on display here because this is too stunning
5. Mercy — Witch
We all know the best Halloween costume is this one
4. Zenyatta — Ra / Sunyatta
I told you Zenyatta had the best skins in the game
3. Reaper — El Blanco / Mariachi
Mucho bonito
2. Torbjorn — Santaclad
The trees, the turret, the glasses, the bells, the fit, it’s all too perfect. Ho ho ho indeed
1. Zenyatta — Nutcracker
HE THROWS NUTS AT PEOPLE. NUTS
Do you disagree with my list? I don’t care. Don’t @ me on Twitter.
Site Title 