Captain Marvel Twitter First Reactions Are Glowing

Captain Marvel is coming on March 8, and the studio has started to screen the film for critics. That means we’re seeing the very first impressions rolling in via social media, and they’re by-and-large very positive. Even Goose the Cat has attracted a fanbase.

This film takes place in the 1990s, and introduces a brand new hero to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful characters in Marvel comic continuity. Following the disastrous events of Avengers: Infinity War, Nick Fury sent out an emergency distress call to her just before he faded into dust. This prequel explains just how Fury came to know Captain Marvel, and more importantly, why she’s his trump card.

The reactions on Twitter are glowing, praising its fresh approach and sense of humor. Aside from that consensus, some critics shared more specific reactions. Collider EIC Steven Weintraub remarked on how far Marvel’s de-aging tech has become.

“The de-aging technology being used has become so seamless that I forgot it was being used,” Weintraub said. “We are on the precipice of something both exciting and scary. Can only imagine what Scorsese will do with it in ‘The Irishman’.”

Check below for a roundup of reactions. Captain Marvel releases on March 8.

An erroneous tweet referencing post-credit sequences originally included in this story has been removed.

Apex Legends Update Adds Havoc, Its First New Gun–See It In Action

Respawn Entertainment has said it intends for Apex Legends to be a live-service game, and that means we’ll see changes and events pop up in the future. What exactly those are isn’t quite clear yet–the game’s first season, and the new content Respawn has teased with it, doesn’t come until March–but players are just getting their first taste of long-term Apex Legends today, along with a new update that makes a few fixes.

In a new trailer, Respawn showed off the first new gun it’s adding to Apex Legends since the game’s launch earlier this month. The weapon is the Havoc energy rifle, which looks to be a fully automatic assault rifle that handles in a similar way to current weapons like the R-301 Carbine or the Devotion light machine gun. The Havoc is live in the game now–check it out in action in the trailer below.

The most interesting thing about the Havoc as seen in the trailer is that it’s different from the rest of the guns in Apex Legends. It accepts two kinds of “hop-up” attachments; these are rarer items you can add to certain guns that change the way they perform, but usually guns only support one kind of hop-up. For the Devotion LMG, for instance, you can add the Turbocharger hop-up, which speeds up the charge time when the gun begins to fire. The Prowler submachine gun can take the Select Fire hop-up, which can switch the gun from its default burst-fire mode to a fully automatic mode that makes it even more deadly.

The trailer shows that the Havoc can handle either the Turbocharger hop-up or the Select Fire hop-up, and each has a different effect on the gun. The Turbocharger speeds up the rate at which the gun hits its top speed in fully automatic mode–like the Devotion, the Havoc seems to have a short charge time before it gets up to its full energy bullet-spewing potential. With the Turbocharger, the gun looks pretty effective at short and medium ranges.

The Select Fire hop-up allows you to switch the Havoc to a single-fire mode, which fires one charging shot. In the trailer, Select Fire makes the gun effective at longer ranges and, from the looks of things, can turn the Havoc into a sniper or scout rifle.

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That’s a whole lot of versatility in one gun, and more than we’ve seen so far in Apex Legends. The Havoc also suggests that future additions to the Apex armory could offer even more customization depending on the attachments and loot you find in the game once you drop into a match. That could make the potential changes coming with Apex Legends’ first season pretty powerful, but we’ll have to wait until March to find out for sure.

Unlicensed Fortnite Festival Company Shuts Down After Epic Lawsuit

The UK-based company, Exciting Events, has been “forced… to cease all trading activities immediately” following an unsuccessful and unofficial Fortnite-themed event in Norwich.

As reported by the BBC, Fortnite Live was billed as the “Fortnite event of the year,” though it wound up angering parents who demanded refunds when it failed to live up to this promise. The festival consisted of a £12 ($16) entry fee, and additional £20 ($26) wristband for unlimited access to a single climbing wall tower for three people, a four-person archery range, four go-karts, and other activities.

Speaking to The Guardian, attendees likened the attractions to “the sort of thing you see at a school fete.” Photos from the event also show a “cave experience” that amounted to a truck trailer “no bigger than a car, with a tunnel through it.” There was also the opportunity for visitors to play the free-to-play game, but this was allegedly also a paid attraction. The festival attracted an estimated 3,000+ attendees.

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The Division 2 PC Players Are Getting a Technical Test This Weekend Ahead of the Open Beta

Ubisoft has announced a PC-only technical test for this weekend as a dry run for the platform’s open beta.

“Our goal with this Technical Test is to assess a certain amount of fixes we implemented based on your feedback following the Private Beta,” the dev said in a Reddit post. “This will help ensure that your Open Beta experience will be as smooth as possible.”

It won’t be open to everyone, but players who have been selected will be receiving email invites today. Ubisoft has stressed that pre-order customers are not guaranteed to get in, as the invites are being “distributed at random to ensure a wide range of participants.”

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Everything Leaving Netflix in March

Netflix’s official “Last Call” list for March, featuring all the expiring TV and movie titles, includes comedies like Baby Mama, Role Models, Bruce Almighty, and ’80s classic The Breakfast Club.

March also comes with a massive Ghostbusters purge, as not only are Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 leaving the site, but also all five seasons of animated series The Real Ghostbusters!

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Finally, a guest no longer, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast is taking a permanent powder. As is the studio’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

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Rich Vreeland Talks About Composing Music for Games

In Episode 6 of Humans Who Make Games podcast, host and comedian, Adam Conover chats with composer and musician, Rich Vreeland – better known as his stage name, Disasterpeace – about composing the indie games like FEZ and Hyper Light Drifter, and how he decided on becoming a musician for his career.

Listen to Humans Who Make Games Episode 6.

Vreeland comes from a family of gamers and said, “apparently my parents were playing Legend of Zelda while I was in the womb. That must have seeped in somehow.”

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Kingdom Hearts 3, Resident Evil 2 Topped January 2019 Game Sales

January’s NPD report is in, and Nintendo pipped its competitors to the post in both hardware and software sales.

The Switch was the only console to show a year-on-year increase in both dollar and unit sales, despite an overall decrease in spending of 28% in the category as a whole, compared to January 2018.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was the best-selling game of January 2019, and while Kingdom Hearts 2 also topped the charts in its launch month back in 2006, the latest installment has it beat on the revenue front, with a 2.5-times increase in dollar sales.

The game was also the fastest-selling in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, shipping over 5 million units in one week.

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Great Deal on Xbox One Controllers and PC Adapter, More Xbox One Controllers

If you buy something through this post, IGN may get a share of the sale. For more, read our Terms of Use.

If you ever have people over to your abode, then you probably know you can never have enough controllers. Here’s some good news for Xbox One owners: a wide range of controllers are currently on sale right now. Whether you prefer the standard wireless controller that ships with the system, something with a splash of color, or you want to get retro with Hyperkin’s replica of the mighty Duke, you can find deals on an array of Xbox One controllers.

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Final Fantasy 15’s Last DLC Episode Releases Next Month

Square Enix has announced a release date for Final Fantasy XV‘s last DLC chapter, Episode Ardyn. The expansion arrives on PS4, Xbox One, and PC next month, on March 26. Some mild Final Fantasy XV spoilers follow.

Episode Ardyn casts players in the role of the eponymous Final Fantasy XV villain. According to Square Enix, the story is set 35 years before the events of the main game, after Ardyn is freed from his centuries-long imprisonment by Niflheim researcher Verstael Besithia.

Much like previous Final Fantasy XV DLC chapters, Episode Ardyn features some unique gameplay mechanics. As Ardyn, players will be able to speed around the environment using his Shadow Move ability. He can also Daemonify enemies, turning them into daemons.

Ahead of Episode Ardyn’s release, Square Enix shared an animated prologue video that sets the stage for the DLC. You can watch it below.

Excluding the multiplayer Comrades expansion, Episode Ardyn marks the fourth DLC chapter Square Enix has released for Final Fantasy XV. The previous three, Episode Gladio, Episode Prompto, and Episode Ignis, each revolved around protagonist Noctis’s retainers.

Episode Ardyn wasn’t intended to be Final Fantasy XV’s last DLC. Square Enix originally had three other DLC episodes planned for the game, but the publisher announced back in November that those have been canceled, and Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata has left the company. Square Enix also said that Luminous, the subsidiary developing the DLC, is now devoting its resources to making a new AAA game, although no further details were shared.