Way Point by Rubildo Lopez

WAYPOINT Magazine • March 2019 SPECIAL ISSUE: WOMEN’SWaypoint HISTORY MONTH 2019

WHAT’S THE LATEST WITH

GOOGLE?

FEBRUARY’S

PLAYER’S CHOICE FOR BEST NEW GAME

how the shanghai dragons got their first w

MARCH 2019

Waypoint Magazine • March 2019

Letter from the editor elcome to our first and weekly edition of Waypoint, a magazine designed especially for people with an interest in everything pop culture, with a heavy emphasis on gaming. Our magazine catters to readers who want to know what’s the latest - whether it’s sales, updates for their favorite games or occurrences in the world of gaming, - Waypoint will keep you up to speed. While we continue to grow bigger, we want you to join us in this journey, too; and for those who already have, we thank you indefinitely. It is our duty to provide you with the latest, reliable information from writers and experts that you can trust. We want it to be entertaining and informative, but above all useful. Inside you’ll find a mixture of news, features and regular columns on a wide range of pop culture related topics. Be sure to check out our official website for exclusive details and to follow us on our social media to be the first in the know! I hope you enjoy this first issue and do let us know if there are any topics you’d like to see covered in the future. Signed,

Zahair Parker

The Waypoint Team print edition director

publisher

Kara Whitney

Tony Savedra

creative director

editor-in-chief

assistant print editors

deputy editor

Leandro Pena

Zahair Parker

Tori Hale Ruby Valdez Jacob Harding

Simon Seed

film editor

Hiroto Sawa

designers

Rosemary Sandoval Jacob Pineda Noemi Valenzuela

illustrators Sofia Tapia Felix Padilla Hazel Ponce

games editor

Shirley Sanders

contributing editors Ezequiel Rivera

founder & uk editor Emmett Brown

copy editor Yael Landry

advertising director

Yujin Park

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Waypoint Magazine • March 2019

CONTENTS FEATURES •Player’s Choice: February’s Best New Game • Google’s New Streaming Gaming Platform • E-SPORTS: Shanghai Dragons and the anatomy of 1-42 • New Apex Legends Legend Revealed!

• Red Dead Online’s next update adds more story, world events, and anti-griefing • Nvidia bringing new ray tracing tech to GTX graphics cards Visit our official website for more exclusive news.

Waypoint Magazine • March 2019

Stadia is not a console, it’s streaming access to games from billions of devices

FEBRUARY’S BEST NEW GAME

Apex Legends By Justin Massongill Social Media Manager, SIEA

It was a fierce competition among the multitude of games that dropped in February, but early entrant Apex Legends has emerged as your champion. This tightly built evolution of the battle royale formula won the hearts of players worldwide with its smart, accessible approach to team communication, its colorful roster of playable Legends, and, obviously, the sliding.

Our 2019 has had a surprisingly eventful February, with the release of BioWare’s long-awaited shared world shooter Anthem, as well as Respawn’s surprise battle royale launch Apex Legends.

“Respawn’s addictive new A few more highlights from last month: manga brawler battle royale decimated the Jump Force, post-apocalyptic sequel Far Cry New off-road racer Dirt competition, handily earning Dawn, 2.0, and a whole bunch more. the Players’ Choice crown for Vote for your pick on the Congratulations, Respawn! February.” PlayStation Blog, but don’t Bask in the glory of this victory — you’ve earned it.

dally — polls close March 7 at 11:59pm Pacific!

Stadia: Google's New Gaming Service Stadia is not a console, it’s streaming access to games from billions of devices Google announced Stadia, a new cloud-based gaming platform, at its GDC 2019 keynote Tuesday morning. It’s a major move for Google into the video game business, which is increasingly building toward streaming as a solution. Stadia is not a dedicated console or set-top box. The platform will be accessible over the internet on a variety of platforms: browsers, computers, TVs, and mobile devices. In an onstage demonstration of Stadia, Google showed someone playing a game on a Chromebook, then playing it on a phone, then immediately playing it on PC, picking up where the game left off in real time. Stadia can stream games in 60 fps, with HDR and 4K resolution, said Google’s Majd Bakar. In the future, Bakar said, Stadia will achieve resolutions up to 8K and frame rates up to 120 fps. Google showed AAA games like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and id Software Doom Eternal running on Stadia.

ritories, streamed over hundreds of millions of miles of fiber optic cable, Pichai said. Executive Phil Harrison, previously at PlayStation and Xbox, now at Google, said the company will give developers access to its data centers to bring games to Stadia. Harrison said that players will be able to access and play Stadia games, like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, within seconds. Harrison showed a YouTube video of Odyssey featuring a “Play” button that would offer near-instant access to the game. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the new platform at the Game Developers Conference, saying that Google want to build a gaming platform for everyone, and break down barriers to access for high-end games. Google offered a glimpse of its new gaming initiative in 2018 with the public test of Project Stream, a technology that made it possible to stream Assassin’s Creed Odyssey through its Chrome web browser.

Google will have a hardware component, however: the Stadia Controller. It’s a traditional looking gamepad, with dual analog joysticks, four face buttons, and shoulder buttons. The controller will connect to the cloud via wi-fi, and includes a “share” button to connect to YouTube and a Google Assistant button.

Stadia will be powered by Google’s worldwide data centers, which live in more than 200 countries and ter-

Waypoint Magazine • March 2019

i watched the shanghai dragons win, and i loved it. A once in a lifetime experience as an esports fan

- ashley parrish

The anatomy of 1-42: how the Shanghai Dragons got their first W The end of a legendary streak Overwatch League fans have witnessed history. Against all the odds and mounting pressure, the Shanghai Dragons have finally won a game of competitive Overwatch. To put this into perspective, seven out of the eight new expansion teams that have played just over one week in OWL have managed to pick up at least one win. The Dragons came dead last in the League’s inaugural season with a 0-40 record. The new, reinvigorated Dragons might cause a few more upsets as we advance through the season. The Shanghai Dragons’ upward trajectory began last summer as they released all but three players on their roster, essentially starting from scratch once again. The team’s most influential pickups were diem, DDing and latecomer Gamsu. Now with a fearsome tank line and arguably one of the best DPS partnerships in the league, the Shanghai Dragons looked like they could pull significant punches moving into OWL season 2. In the Dragons’ first couple of games this season, they looked like an entirely different team, yet they still fell short of victory. One of the major improvements displayed was coordination; the Dragons in season one were easily one of the most scattered and incohesive units that took the stage. This is in part due to their mixed Korean and Chinese roster which stunted communication. Picking up Gamsu not only gave them insight on the Boston Uprising, his previous team, but forged a tight tank partnership that could contend with some of the best teams in the league. Gamsu’s debut led to a 4-0 loss to the Vancouver

Titans, but he joined the team with short notice, and the Dragons still showed visible improvements. The Dragons also picked up BluehaS as the Dragons’ head coach. Previously on the Korean Contenders squad Kongdoo Panthera, BluehaS has helped forge the Dragons into a cohesive unit. This is in no small part due to BluehaS carrying over some of his former squad from KongDoo: YOUNGJIN, DDing, Coma and Luffy. Add in the fact that Boston’s main tank, Fusions, was disqualified only hours before the match, and the difference in coordination became clear. Fusions was not only one of Boston’s best players, but also their main tank — the most crucial role of any Overwatch team. From the start, the Dragons dominated on Illios. Gamsu’s Primal Rage scored multiple environmental kills, zoning Boston off the Control Point. Shanghai’s cohesion shone in the second map of the series with DDing’s Sombra enabling the Dragons to take King’s Row. Sombra was Shanghai’s secret weapon, as Boston couldn’t answer the hack specialist. Every EMP was devastating, hitting the majority of the Uprising and making them easy pickings. DDing’s performance on Sombra throughout the series was masterful; he would finish the game with a staggering 152 enemies and hacked and 89 enemies on the receiving end of his EMPs. Shanghai remained one step ahead of the Uprising. It took seven minutes for Boston’s off tank Note’s flex

onto Reaper to provide results, only to have him shut down and Whip Shotted off the map during his Death Blossom. With Boston’s weak attack leading to their round completing in overtime, the Dragons had two and a half minutes to capture one tick of the point in King’s Row. With the help of diem’s quick Graviton Surge and an EMP from DDing for good measure Boston were quickly overcome. Horizon Lunar Colony was, in comparison, a much tighter affair. Although Boston completed the map with time to spare, they still had no answer for DDing’ Sombra’s EMPs. Both teams were tied at 4-4 with Shanghai needing just over two ticks on the first point to seal a historic win. Despite Boston’s best attempts, the Dragons captured the point giving them their first ever win in the Overwatch league. The final round in the series on Rialto was merely a formality, and although Boston showed some signs of life and took the map, ultimately it was already the Dragons’ series. It would be nice to chalk the Dragons’ win up to a steady improvement over stages, but it bears more of a resemblance to the Ship of Theseus. Has a team with so many components replaced over time stayed the Shanghai Dragons? Right now, that strategy seems to be working for them. With the new KongDoo Panthera core complimenting standout players such as Geguri, diem and Gamsu, we can anticipate some further upsets ... and maybe even a spot in the playoffs.

Waypoint Magazine â&#x20AC;¢ March 2019