Stephen King’s Castle Rock: Exclusive Look at Casting the Perfect Villain

Hulu’s Castle Rock, a psychological-horror series inspired by the written works of iconic American author Stephen King, is set for release on Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

We have a first look at some of the bonus content, featuring a segment on how the creators chose the series’ primary villain, “The Kid,” played by Bill Skarsgard (IT). You can check out the clip below:

Per the press release, “The first season of Castle Rock, from Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, will be available to own on Digital October 15, 2018. Consumers can enjoy all 10 episodes in high definition and standard definition along with never-before-seen bonus content.” Castle Rock Season 1 will also be available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on January 8, 2019.

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Fortnite’s Ghost Portal Back Bling Is Easier To Get For A Little While

As part of a recent update Fortnite developer Epic Games introduced Halloween-themed cosmetics to unlock. The coolest among them is the Ghost Portal Back Bling, which emits ghostly apparitions when equipped. However, players complained that unlocking it was too difficult and, in response, Epic has made it easier for a limited time.

As detailed on the Fortnite subreddit and on Twitter, from October 12 at 10 AM ET / 3 PM BST / 7 AM PT until October 14 at 11:59 PM ET / 4:59 PM BST / 8:59 PT, simply playing 20 matches is enough to get the cosmetic. You don’t have to win, as merely taking part in 20 matches is enough, and next week the challenges attached to the Back Bling will auto-complete and the item will unlock. However, this is only available if you already own (or purchase) the Skull Trooper skin.

The original method required players to complete the Skull Trooper Challenges, which involved finishing seven of the Daily Challenges, playing 50 matches, getting at least one elimination in 14 matches, searching 10 chests in a single match, and dealing 1,000 damage to an enemy in a single match. Understandably, people felt that this was asking a lot.

In addition to the Ghost Portal Back Bling, Fortnite’s in-game shop now has the Skull Trooper (Male) and Skull Ranger (Female) skins. The former is a returning skin that has been much requested. It costs 1500 V-Bucks and has color customization options. The latter, meanwhile, is a new skin for the female character model and is available for 1200 V-Bucks. The Skull Sickle Harvesting Tool will set you back 1200 V-Bucks and the Crypt Cruiser Epic Glider is priced at 1200 V-Bucks. You can see all these cosmetics here.

Epic Games has revealed a new vehicle coming to Fortnite soon. The Quadcrasher is described as being useful for players who want to “charge the boost to crash through structures or get some air,” which we imagine is pretty much everyone.

Fortnite’s Season 6, Week 3 challenges have unlocked and you can use our breakdown to see what they are. The most difficult among them involves completing time trials, but we’ve done the legwork to find the trials so you don’t have to. Check out our time trial location guide for all that information. Fortnite is now in open beta on Android, which means you can download it without an invite, however you’ll need to go through Epic to get it.

The Modders Keeping Madden ’08 Alive

In 1984 the Baltimore Marching Colts (an NFL marching band) were abandoned by their team. In the middle of the night (literally) the then-Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis. Their fans and the Marching Colts were stunned. Team-less, the band continued to practice and play at events, hoping football would someday return to their city.

In 2007, EA Sports decided to discontinue Madden on computers, leaving PC gamers without a modern football title. But, like the Marching Colts, the Madden PC community played on.

Thanks to the dedicated (and slightly obsessed) Football Idiot modding community, there’s been an updated mod of Madden 08 every year on computers during the 11-year hiatus.

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Darksiders 3: 2 DLC Packs Announced

THQ Nordic announced two new pieces of DLC for Darksiders 3 on Twitter this morning.

Titled The Crucible and Keepers of the Void, the DLC packs will feature new puzzles, weapons, and armor, according to THQ Nordic. Neither The Crucible nor Keepers of the Void has a price or a release date, with THQ only stating that both will be available some time after Darksiders 3 is released.

THQ Nordic revealed back in July that Darksiders 3 would be getting two DLC packs, but it didn’t announce the packs’ names or any details about them. Today, the publisher reiterated its original announcement that both packs will be included as part of the $90 USD Darksiders Blades & Whip Edition, the $150 USD Collector’s Edition, and the $400 USD Apocalypse Edition.

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Call Of Duty Black Ops 4 Early Review Impressions Video

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Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Early Review Impressions

As a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 both benefits from and is limited by its past. Its standard multiplayer mode feels only tangentially related to what came before, rather than explicitly building upon it, and the bigger changes lose impact as a result. Zombies, too, mixes old and new; it’s overflowing with content at launch, offering a brand-new story and a continuation of the existing one.

While Black Ops 4 doesn’t have a traditional single-player campaign, it does have a training mode with story cutscenes based on the characters from multiplayer. Because I played Black Ops 4 at a pre-launch event for these early review impressions, I haven’t yet had a chance to try it. Of course, the most intriguing of the three main modes is Black Ops 4’s take on the battle royale genre. Blackout is a big step forward for Call of Duty, and while it undoubtedly captures what makes battle royale so popular, I still need to play a lot more (and on live servers post-launch) before finalizing my review early next week.

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Multiplayer

Multiplayer is the most straightforward of the modes, and Black Ops 4 attempts to be more tactical than previous entries. The wall-running and thrust-jumping of Black Ops 3 is gone, replaced with a weighty, grounded feel that forces you to be a bit more thoughtful about positioning. Healing is now manual, too, and on a cooldown timer, adding another layer of consideration as you approach a firefight. Matches overall have a slightly slower, more cautious pace, but time-to-kill is still low and respawning still near-instant. Maps follow the familiar three-lane structure and are longer and narrower than those in Black Ops 3, with a mix of open areas and tighter spaces that provide opportunities for both long-range and close-quarters firefights.

Black Ops 3’s Specialists return with some tweaks; there are 10 total at launch, some new and some imported from the previous game. Each still has a unique weapon and ability, but instead of choosing one or the other, you now go into a match with both. The weapon is tied to a longer cooldown and functions as a superpowered attack, while the ability is a piece of equipment, like a grenade or a trap, with a more strategic purpose. More so than in Black Ops 3, the Specialists are clearly geared toward certain roles; Battery, for example, keeps her War Machine grenade launcher from 3 and trades her old defensive ability for a Cluster Grenade, making her an obvious offensive choice. Other Specialists fill defensive and supporting roles, and having the opportunity to take a step back from just shooting is a welcome one.

There are two new game types, Heist and Control, that join the core roster. Heist has you competing against another team to grab a bag of money and extract it, and each player has only one life. Killstreaks that can take out an entire team at once, like the Hellstorm missile, feel overpowered and out of place in Heist. The low time-to-kill coupled with no respawn makes it hard to implement any real strategy, too, since most rounds are over in a few short minutes.

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Control, on the other hand, is an objective-based mode that is far better suited to and actively encourages you to use Specialist tactics. Each team, one attacking and one defending, shares 25 lives; you win by either exhausting all of the enemy team’s lives or maintaining control of the two objectives. A defensive Specialist like Torque, who has Razor Wire perfect for placement under windows and a Barricade “weapon” for extra cover, is a great option if you’re trying to hold an objective, for example, while offensive Specialists can aim to wipe out the enemy team.

But most of Black Ops 4’s multiplayer game types–the typical Call of Duty suite, including Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, and Domination–don’t require you to follow a Specialist strategy too closely. This isn’t a hero shooter, and your success is more dependent on the gun you choose and how good you are at shooting it than your skill with a particular Specialist or your team’s composition. As a result, the more tactical aspects feel robbed of their impact, and committing to them isn’t any more rewarding than a normal kill.

Zombies

Black Ops 4’s Zombies is as broad as it is deep, with two separate storylines across three maps–four if you have the Black Ops pass included in the game’s special editions. The first two, IX and Voyage of Despair, are part of the brand-new Chaos story; the third, Blood of the Dead, and the optional Classified make up the returning Aether story. It’s a lot to take in at once, and I still need to really dive into each map. I’m most intrigued by Voyage of Despair, though–partially because of its Titanic setting, but also because its small spaces pose a greater challenge than IX’s more open arenas.

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Over in the Aether storyline, the Ultimus crew hasn’t aged particularly well, even considering that each of them is stereotyped to the extreme. The jokes just don’t land anymore, especially Takeo’s overdone Japanese accent where Ls are replaced with Rs at every opportunity. Aside from that, slowly uncovering the secrets of the homage maps is a tantalizing prospect.

The new Rush mode is a much faster-paced version of Zombies where you don’t have to do any thinking or puzzle-solving; you’re just there to kill the undead, horde-style. There’s no money, so you don’t need to save up to unlock a door or buy a weapon. You’re instead told which area will have the next rush wave, and you’re directed from room to room as you go. It’s too intense to be a tutorial, per se, but it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with the map, test weapons, and maybe figure out which rooms you should aim to reach first in Classic mode.

Blackout

Since it’s the brand-new mode, Blackout is obviously the most intriguing aspect of Black Ops 4. But because there was a limited number of people at the pre-launch event, I didn’t get to play many rounds or experience matchmaking on live, populated servers. My initial impression is that it’s similar to PUBG, but I need to spend a lot more time with the mode before I can fully evaluate it. That said, Blackout undoubtedly captures the intense, shaky excitement that makes battle royale so popular, with Call of Duty’s tight shooting and movement mechanics as a strong foundation. Areas with zombies add a PvE element that helps distinguish Blackout from the likes of PUBG, too, offering powerful loot at the risk of dying from an undead mob or attracting human players to your position. Perks and specialist equipment are present as items that can be looted during a match, providing another small but distinct Call of Duty twist (and one that I want to experiment with further).

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Sure, there isn’t a traditional single-player campaign, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 isn’t short on content, and its three main modes are substantial. With standard multiplayer and Zombies, it struggles to fully commit to moving forward, and the mix of old content and new ideas doesn’t always gel. From what I’ve played so far, Blackout more successfully incorporates elements of Black Ops’ past while forming its own take on trends of the present. But because each mode is deep in its own right, I’ll be spending more time with Black Ops 4 post-launch before posting my final review.

Halo: Master Chief Collection Shows Off New Matchmaking Feature

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming up on its fourth anniversary following its launch in November 2014, and believe it or not, the Xbox One game continues to get exciting new updates.

The first of these is the previously teased “Match Composer,” which lets you have greater control over the games and modes you play beyond the existing game- and mode-specific playlists that currently populate the hopper. In the latest Halo Community Update, developer 343 shared an image of what the Match Composer looks like.

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As you can see, this lets you select the game(s) you want to play, as well as the modes within those. After that, the magic of the Match Composer places you into matches. “This should be a great next step towards helping players tailor their matchmaking experience to their specific tastes,” 343 said.

Halo: MCC features multiplayer support for Halo 1, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4, so it’s exciting to think about making a tailor-made playlist for yourself instead of needing to select the playlists individually after every match.

It’s not the only new matchmaking feature 343 is working on for Halo: MCC. The studio is also building a “robust custom game browser” to the title. However, “that feature is going to take more time to implement,” 343 said.

Note that the new Match Composer will only ever place you into Social matches, not Ranked ones. 343 plans to test the Match Composer first with those who are in the MCC Insider program on Xbox One with the aim of gathering feedback before pushing the feature out to everyone.

The other big new feature for Halo: MCC is expanded controller customisation options. With a new update, players will be able to independently changed the horizontal and vertical look sensitivity, as well as look acceleration and look dead zone. 343 is adding this because it’s what some fans asked for.

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“Some players have expressed that some games within MCC don’t ‘feel right’ compared to the Xbox 360 originals and while the code itself is identical between the OG and MCC versions of each title, the ‘feel’ of each game can vary based on a number of factors including TV latency, 60FPS frame rate, online latency, and the nuanced differences between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles and controllers,” 343 said. “The team hopes that by offering more refined controller settings options, players will be able to better find the sweet spot that feels right to them.”

The Match Composer and new controller settings are now being tested internally at 343, with the expectation that they’ll be available to MCC Insider testers potentially next week.

In other news, 343 said it will bring back the zombie-themed Infection mode next week to kick off the Halloween celebrations a little early.

Halo: MCC is in the Xbox Game Pass program, so it makes sense that 343 wants to continue to support the game to give players more reasons to play and keep coming back.

The next big Halo game is Halo: Infinite, which is coming to Xbox One and PC. We don’t know much about it, though 343 has confirmed it’ll run on a brand-new engine called Slipspace. We also know it will feature microtransactions in some form.