Lucky fans at this week’s Comic-Con International in San Diego got their first look at Halo: Nightfall, a live-action episodic series that is meant to bridge the gap between the events of Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians. It’s included as part of Microsoft’s upcoming Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which gathers together all four of the numbered Halo games into one package, freshly remastered for the Xbox One.
What we’ve got here is a collection of stills from the in-production series as well as a first look trailer that shows some finished (or near-finished) footage. You’ll get your first look at Mike Colter, the Zero Dark Thirty actor who stars in Nightfall as Agent Locke. A new character in the Halo universe, Locke is said to be a major player in 2015’s Guardians.
In addition to being feature-complete — multiplayer modes and all — the Master Chief Collection also includes access to Nightfall. The first episode of the Ridley Scott-produced series ships with the collection, with additional episodes to follow weekly, leading into the Halo 5: Guardians beta (access to which is also included in the Master Chief package).
If you’re one of many attending Comic Con this week, take a look at our rundown of all of the video game-related events from the show. You’ll find the Nightfall trailer below:
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 One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it.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.