One Harry potter fan has recreated Harry Potter’s magical sport Quidditch in Halo 5: Guardians.
Halo Forge user xXHugabearXx created a custom Grifball level and game mode to emulate the game, which involves flying on broomsticks across a field and throwing balls through the opposing team’s hoops, which are high in the air, while avoiding aggressive defenders. Though players use jetpacks instead of broomsticks, the rules of the Halo 5 Quidditch game are very similar to the original. Players score three points for throwing the ball through one of the opposing team’s hoops, and one point for killing an opposing player with a gravity hammer. First team to 15 points wins. There is no version of the Golden Snitch in this version. There are also no assigned positions, though teams could potentially assign them on their own.
In fact, one might argue this version might even surpass the real-life version of Quidditch, which has accrued a cult following among Harry Potter fans on college campuses. While the IRL version of Quidditch emulates the version of the novel more faithfully — according to U.S. Quidditch, a non-profit organization which offers standardized rules for the game — the Halo 5 version offers a certain amount of intensity and superhuman wonder the original just can’t achieve.
Modders seem to have a penchant for adapting games for Halo 5 multiplayer. Since 343 released its Forge modding tools in December, players have created their takes on Rocket League and a Star Wars podracing analogue, among others. This mod comes almost two weeks after developer 343 Industries added Grifball to Guardians, a cult-favorite mode that’s been in the series since Halo 3, in a downloadable update.
Players looking for Quidditch in Halo 5: Guardians should search for the level “Quidditch Arena” and the game mode “Quidditch.”
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.