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Jonathan Ferguson, a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries, breaks down the weaponry of the TimeSplitters franchise, including a silenced Luger pistol, the Walther WA2000 sniper rifle, and a particularly cursed hybrid of a Desert Eagle and a Beretta 92 pistol.

By Dave Jewitt , Adam Mason , and Chris Morris on August 14, 2021 at 7:00AM PDT

Back in K-12, Pokemon was the most popular game there was. We would rush home from school as fast as we could and try to level up our Pokemon as much as possible so that we could brag to our classmates the very next day. But there was one kid who always had the highest level Pokemon every single time, and none of us could ever keep up. That kid was always coy, but it turns out they were using cheats!

Who else knew “that kid”? Who wouldn’t be annoyed knowing we had had no chance to keep up? But looking back, those kids saved hours every day of grinding the most boring aspects of the game and only focused on what they enjoyed most. And today, you can do it too with a lifetime subscription to Cheat Happens .

Cheat Happens will give you the best and most recent PC game cheat codes. Unlike websites that just compile tips from different users, Cheat Happens employs programmers whose jobs are to find the best exploits to help you with your game. As a premium user, you get access to the whole host of this information for over 6,000 different PC games, in addition to all of the trainers and cheats from in-house specialists (numbering over 27,000) you could ever want. There is also a forum where users can discuss new cheats and strategies, with an average of 170 new cheats a month for games both new and old.

You can get a lifetime subscription to Cheat Happens for just $50 . This subscription includes unlimited access to the trainer manager and CosMOS memory scanner/hacker, access that is essential for anybody who wants to start cheating at a high level in their daily gaming life.

Price subject to change

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Danny DeVito’s take on the Penguin from 1992’s Batman Returns is nothing short of iconic. This fall, DeVito is returning to the role, but he won’t need any make-up for it, because the actor is writing a Penguin-focused story for the upcoming Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant #1 one-shot anthology, GameRant reports.

DC is pairing DeVito with artist Dan Mora for the story according to Batman group editor Paul Kaminski. The comic will also feature stories from writer/artist Wes Craig, writers G. Willow Wilson, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Joshua Williamson, Stephanie Phillips, Dan Watters, and Mairghread Scott; art for these stories comes from Emma Rios, Riccardo Federici, Max Raynor, Max Fiumara, Skylar Patridge, Ariela Kristantina, Khary Randolph, Jill Thompson, Christian Ward, Gabriel Walta, and more.

Batman Returns is remembered for its villains above all else, and especially for DeVito’s creepy take on the Penguin. While many other portrayals of the character make him more of an outcast-turned-criminal than anything else, the Batman Returns version turned him into a sewer-dwelling monster who planned to steal all of Gotham’s first-born sons and kill them when his plan to discredit Gotham’s mayor and Batman didn’t pan out.

This announcement comes on the heels of the release of the new Batman ’89 comic, which continues the story of Tim Burton’s version of the Batman character, as portrayed by Michael Keaton.

The Gotham City Villains Anniversary Giant #1 releases in November. Meanwhile, more and more hints suggest that Michael Keaton, while not officially confirmed in so many words, will reprise his role in the upcoming Flash film starring Ezra Miller and directed by Andy Muschietti.

In the past, solid-state drives (otherwise known as SSDs) were optional, expensive PC storage devices that you might install your operating system onto for some overall performance benefits, but the flash-based storage has now been around long enough to become a viable option to incorporate throughout your build. From SATA to NVMe, PCIe Gen 3 and Gen4, SSDs come in various shapes, speeds, and, most importantly, price points, which can make finding the best SSD for gaming a little confusing.

Why are SSDs best for gaming?

First, it’s important to know just why SSDs are so much better than those chunky, traditional HDDs you might still be using. SSDs use flash memory, which, aside from being much, much faster, is also more reliable. Without all of the mechanical parts that make up an HDD, SSD failures are far less common when moving your PC or coming into contact with magnets. SSDs are also smaller, making them easier to integrate into a build. They’re silent, too–no more annoying vibration noise when trying to load up a game of Apex Legends, for example.

Types of SSDs

SSDs come in a variety of types and form factors. SATA SSDs are still incredibly popular and are most likely what you have in your PC right now. They require you to connect them to your power supply and motherboard’s SATA ports. M.2 SSDs are a faster option and require you to plug them into the M.2 slots on your motherboard–you’ll want to make sure your motherboard has M.2 slots prior to your purchase.

M.2 SSDs also come in a number of different configurations. M.2 SATA is the slowest, as it uses the same standard that hard drives and early SSDs have used for years. M.2 PCIe, on the other hand, is much faster. Most M.2 PCIe SSDs make use of the NVMe memory standard, offering blistering speeds as they interface directly with your CPU across PCIe lanes. Nowadays, you’ll probably only have to choose between Gen3 and Gen4 drives, with the latter requiring either the latest Intel CPUs or AMD’s Zen2 or Zen3 CPUs (as well as a compatible motherboard) to access their ridiculously high speeds. M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs typically cost more, but you can often find NVMe SSDs at a lower price than their regular, thanks to sales.

A few things to look out for

Be sure to consider the type of flash storage an SSD is using. This heavily influences endurance, the number of read and write operations that the memory can support before becoming unreliable or damaged. The more bits stored per layer, the more storage a memory module can offer at the expense of a shorter lifespan. High-endurance flash memory is also expensive, offering far less storage per GB but promising a longer life. If you’re just using your PC for light work and gaming, endurance shouldn’t really factor into your purchasing decision. This is a concern reserved for intense workloads where you’re constantly moving files around, such as with servers and some content creation workloads. Most SSDs listed below use either TLC or QLC flash memory, both of which offer their own pros and cons depending on your most critical use case.

Also important is ensuring that your chosen SSD features an on-board controller. This is mainly an issue when looking at extremely cheap SSDs, many of which manage to cut costs considerably by shipping without a controller. These are generally poor SSDs to invest in, and none on our list are of this type. Equally important is a cache, which is often made with much faster flash storage, such as SLC. A cache speeds up transfers of files by first making use of the faster memory before it’s offloaded to regular flash storage by the controller. These can make high-capacity drives operate at high read and write levels, which eventually taper off as the drive fills up. Sabrent uses this effectively to offer competitive prices for high-capacity drives, for example, but it’s a compromise you should consider carefully.

The last thing to consider is whether or not you need a heatsink. Many modern motherboards come with at least one M.2 slot with an on-board heatsink, but if you happen to have one without that, then you should consider buying an SSD with one attached already. This is not especially important for PCIe Gen3 SSDs, but it’s arguably essential for PCIe Gen4 drives that get notoriously hot during operation. Without an effective heatsink, you can find speeds throttled during use and, in some worse cases, full drive failure as the flash memory gets damaged.

WD_Black SN850

The Good

• Just ridiculously fast all-round
• Included heatsink is effective and striking
• Works with the PS5

The Bad

• Very expensive
• If used just for gaming, advantages will be slight

PCIe Gen 4 is the latest and greatest in terms of high-performance storage, and while not required for gaming on PC just yet we are already seeing some of its advantages in consoles such as the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. If you want to take advantage of such speeds right now, then the best SSD on the market is WD_Black’s SN850. It features blisteringly fast 7,000 MB/s read speeds and 5,300 MB/s write speeds, making it suitable for even the PS5’s high requirement for internal SSD expansion. On the right compatible motherboard, you can take advantage of those same speeds in games, although its true performance won’t be evident until PC games themselves start taking advantage of it specifically.

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus

The Good

• Also really fast
• Strikes a great balance between performance and price
• Works with the PS5

The Bad

• Although cheaper, still quite expensive
• SLC cache will become less effective as drive fills

There’s no debating that PCIe Gen4 SSDs are expensive, but there are some options that offer large capacities for less. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a great example, offering competitive pricing with only marginal compromises in speed. It achieves this by using TLC flash with an SLC cache, which can achieve performance just shy of the WD_Black SN850–at least, when the drive is empty. As you start filling it up, the performance of the SLC cache will diminish, meaning you’ll likely get closer to PCIe Gen 3 speeds when you’ve finally topped it all up. That compromise might be too high, but considering PC games aren’t really utilizing these speeds yet anyway, it might not matter if you just want a fast drive for your most-played titles.

Samsung 970 EVO Plus

The Good

• Pushes the limits of PCIe Gen3 speeds
• Much more affordable now thanks to PCIe Gen4
• A great balance of performance you can actually use in games

The Bad

• It’s already a generation old
• Not cheap enough that it’s an impulse purchase
• No included heatsink

It might seem strange to have one of Samsung’s EVO SSDs here over one from its Pro line, but the truth is that when it comes to PCIe Gen3, there isn’t a drive faster than this improved version of the 970 EVO. The 970 EVO Plus retains the same controller as its predecessor but works with Samsung’s newer 9x-layer flash memory. The result is an SSD that pushes the limits of PCIe Gen3, with sequential read speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s and writes of 3,200 MB/s. If you aren’t willing to invest in the pricier PCIe Gen4 drives just yet or don’t have a compatible motherboard to take advantage of them, then the Samsung 970 EVO Plus is as close as you’re going to get today.

Adata XPG SX8200 Pro

The Good

• The best balance of price and performance for gaming
• Speeds close to the pricier Samsung drive

The Bad

• No included heatsink
• Also a generation behind already

Being the fastest PCIe Gen3 SSD doesn’t leave much room for value, however, and that’s where the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro delivers. It offers speeds just shy of what the Samsung 970 EVO Plus does, with sequential reads of up to 3,500 MB/s and writes of up to 3,300 MB/s. Samsung’s flash storage doesn’t slow as much as the Adata when the drive starts filling up, which gives the 970 EVO Plus the overall edge, but it doesn’t slow down enough to make the price difference between the two a worthwhile factor for the trade in performance. If you want the speeds of NVMe SSDs but also have enough flexibility for capacity, the SX8200 is a great choice.

Sabrent Rocket Q

The Good

• Up to 8TB on a single M.2 drive
• SLC cache will aid the QLC NAND flash, but…

The Bad

• …once that fills, performance will be drastically reduced
• QLC has bad endurance, making it poor for some workloads

Sometimes you just want the most storage possible with an NVMe drive, and for that you will face compromises one way or another. But there are some drives on the market that still manage to find a balance between performance and value, like the Sabrent Rocket Q. With its capacities reaching up to 8TB, you’ll struggle to find any other M.2 drives with the same storage capabilities. The Sabrent Rocket Q achieves this by using QLC NAND flash, which does impact endurance considerably. But if you’re just looking for a drive that can store pretty much everything you have digitally and don’t plan to do strenuous reads and writes daily, you’ll likely not notice. What you might notice is the slower performance as you fill up the drive, reducing the effectiveness of the SLC cache, but that’s why this is a great drive purely for large storage requirements, not necessarily performance.

Adata XPG Spectrix S40G

The Good

• About as beautiful as an SSD can get
• Still respectable speeds despite not being the focus

The Bad

• Generates more heat, throttles faster, and consumes more power
• More expensive for worse performance

This is PC gaming, so of course there’s an SSD with RGB integrated. And that makes sense, especially if you’re planning to mount a drive like this front and center on your motherboard. If aesthetics are top of the list when shopping for storage, then the Adata XPG Spectrix S40G ticks all the boxes. It’s flashy and bright, first and foremost, but also just a great SSD outside of the flair. It’s a PCIe Gen3 SSD, with write and read speeds like the XPG SX8200. However, the more power-hungry lighting does produce more heat, which can lead to thermal throttling in more situations. Make sure to place it away from your GPU if you can.

Samsung 870 Evo

The Good

• Pushes the limits of SATA in terms of speed
• A fantastic choice for mass storage of games
• Sleek and easy install

The Bad

• Much, much slower than NVMe drives
• Still requires cabling, which can be annoying

If you’re looking to squeeze the absolute best performance you can out of the aging SATA standard, then Samsung’s reliable 870 Evo is still the best option out there. It features sequential read speeds up to 550 MB/s, reaching the top of what SATA has to offer, while also using TLC 3D NAND flash for great endurance. What this means is that you can rely on this SSD to store up to 4TB of your games and media for years to come, even if you are in the habit of moving data daily. Its price is still premium, but you won’t get better on the SATA front today.

Crucial MX500

The Good

• Nearly as fast as the Samsung drive for less
• Plethora of capacity options
• Comes in an M.2 SATA format for motherboard installation

The Bad

• Design is very dated
• Still much slower than NVMe drives

The Crucial MX500 is one of those rare timeless SSDs that has existed on lists like these for years, and for good reason. It strikes the perfect balance between price and capacity, with performance that comes close enough to the fastest in this field that makes its compromises miniscule. If you’re looking for a SSD that can hold most of your games, either to play directly off or to provide speedy transfers for a faster SSD in your system, you’ll struggle to find a better option than the MX500 and its range of capacities.

If you don’t like the 2.5-inch form factor, Crucial has you covered too, offering a SATA M.2 form factor for the same drive. This lets you install it directly onto your motherboard, which can save some space and cable routing complexity in your build. You won’t get faster speeds, and you do pay more for this form factor, but it’s another option to consider if you can.

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Call of Duty’s Season 5 is live in Warzone, and players may want to investigate the mysterious new structures on Verdansk ’84. Warzone‘s Red Doors are also starting to behave differently. As previously mentioned in Activision’s blog, Warzone will have a Red Door-themed mid-season event, but it’s worth speculating if all of the new map changes will be related to the event, or if there are other mysteries or Easter egg quests to uncover before then. So, what’s happening in Verdansk?

Mobile Broadcast Stations

Just glancing at Verdansk ’84, Season 5’s map changes are pretty subtle. Don’t expect any drastic landscape changes or major points of interest. Instead, players can investigate Mobile Broadcast Stations, which are like the Bertha cargo trucks, but with a giant antenna on the truck bed. It’s not certain what these mobile antennas will be used for, but some of them are emitting a hum or some kind of radio frequency. This could very well be tied into the Red Doors and the Numbers brainwashing narrative of Season 5.

In Call of Duty’s Season 5 preview blog, Activision’s description of the Mobile Broadcast Stations explains that the stations spawn randomly in each match, and it encourages players to “see what they’re all about by going closer to them, but be sure to keep your head and tune out the broadcast each one emits…”

These stations don’t have loot drops, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to activate these antennas, yet.

Shipping Containers

Players will also notice stacks of red shipping containers are now popping up all over Verdansk. These mysterious crate structures are very noticeable not only by their size, but also because they are extremely loud. The structures can be found at the Stadium, one inside and outside of the Downtown area, and a few other points of interest. Each one has a generator and what looks to be a fuel tank connected to whatever is hiding beneath the stack of shipping containers. The sound is possibly the generator powering up whatever the mystery item is, or perhaps it’s the object itself. It’s all very odd, and there doesn’t seem to be anything to interact with here.

The Mobile Broadcast Stations and the crate surprises could be something that’s just being teased, but the developers haven’t pulled the trigger yet. This could tie into the heavily leaked but not confirmed Call of Duty: Vanguard reveal event, which might possibly arrive as early as next week.

If this is not tied to any separate Easter egg hunts and a Vanguard reveal doesn’t happen next week, there’s still the Red Door event teased on the Season 5 roadmap as a mid-season event.

Red Doors

And speaking of Red Doors, they are still accessible, but they’re now behaving differently. Previously, the doors sent players to a random loot-filled room. Now, players are being sent to a hallway filled with Red Doors. Some doors are simply teleporting players back up into the air above Verdansk, leaving them to parachute back into the fight. Other doors will take players to a loot-filled room, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication of which doors you should be selecting.

YouTuber and Easter egg hunter Geeky Pastimes has a video that shows the new Red Door hallway, and some of the dialogue you can hear while inside. Each door seems to make a slightly different sound, and some doors give you dialogue from either Stitch or Adler. There’s also the image of a bell, which could tie into Black Ops Cold War’s campaign, where you play as a character named Bell and the narrative revolves around the brainwashing Numbers.

This could be just another tease, and the doors might not be functioning as the narrative intends, yet. We’ll keep monitoring the doors and updating if any changes happen prior to the mid-season update.

It’s unclear if all these new Warzone mysteries are tied together, or if we’re being teased several different things at once. Hopefully any Easter eggs or events will progress faster than last year’s bunker mystery that eventually led to Warzone’s Know Your History in-game reveal of Cold War. Again, leaks have suggested that Activision will officially announce Call of Duty: Vanguard on August 19, so maybe players won’t have to wait much longer to find out what’s coming.

These Season 5 updates and Vanguard rumors swirl as Activision presses ahead with Call of Duty amidst the sexual misconduct and harassment lawsuit against the giant publisher, and the next entry in the series is still coming later this year.

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South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are buying Casa Bonita. The much-loved Mexican-themed entertainment restaurant in Lakewood, Colorado, has featured in South Park and was facing bankruptcy.

As reported by CBS Denver, Parker and Stone revealed that they had reached a financial agreement with the owners of Casa Bonita in a live-streamed Facebook interview with Colorado governor Jared Polis. Stone explained that the deal was still pending legal proceedings, but the pair seem confident it will go through.

“We know that there have been a lot of people in Colorado that love Casa Bonita and have been working on this and we’re excited to work with everybody and make it the place we all want to make it,” Parker said. You can watch the moment the pair announce the news in this video, at around the five-minute mark.

Casa Bonita was a chain of restaurants that dated back to 1968, but the Lakewood branch is now the only one remaining. It has been closed since March 2020 and had filed for bankruptcy protection. The restaurant is notable for such spectacles as a pool with diving gorillas, a puppet theater, a haunted tunnel, an arcade, and a magic theater. Colorado-born Stone and Parker told Polis that they used to go there as kids, and it featured in the Season 7 episode of South Park titled “Casa Bonita.”

However, there’s one thing the restaurant isn’t as renowned for, and that’s the quality of the food. Or as Polis said, “survive the food, stay for the experience.” Luckily, Parker and Stone told Polis that they plan to improve the venue’s culinary offerings. “I think everyone knows the potential of what that place can be and we certainly do, and I think it’s going to be an awesome Colorado thing,” said Parker.

This news follows the announcement that Parker and Stone have signed a $900 million deal with CBSViacom to create 14 South Park movies as well as 7 more seasons of the show. The series has been running since 1997.