The Oculus Quest 2 has so far been the best value when it comes to VR gaming. It has phenomenal tracking, it doesn't need to be tethered to a PC, and it boasts a huge library of games. It's also the best VR headset to buy if you want to get into Beat Saber, one of the best VR games out there (as well as a fantastic exercising tool). The biggest reason to jump onto the VR bandwagon with a Quest 2, though, is the fact that it is hundreds of dollars cheaper than its competitors. The Quest 2 normally starts at $299.99. Oculus recently doubled the amount of storage on the base model (from 64GB to 128GB) and, for a limited time, they've sweetened the deal even more if you buy two.

Last Day to Buy an Oculus Quest 2, Get a 2nd for $100 Off at the Oculus Store

Today is the final day to take advantage of the Quest 2 promotion exclusive to the Oculus Store. If you buy an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset at the regular price of $299.99, you can get a second one for $100 off. The Oculus Quest 2 had always been an attractive purchase from a VR standpoint. As a comparison, the HP Reverb G2 and HTC Vive Cosmos cost $600 and the Valve Index costs $1,000.

On a personal note, I own the Oculus Quest 2 specifically for Beat Saber. I purchased the original Rift CV1 headset back in 2016 and since then I've clocked 400 hours in Beat Saber. As a player who values tracking fidelity and controller ergonomics above all else, I was a firm believer that nothing could match the 3-sensor setup of the Rift. I skipped over the Rift S and original Quest for that reason. The Vive, Index, and Reverb G2 were simply too expensive for me, since I only really play Beat Saber and little else (the exception being Half-Life Alyx, which is an exceptional game). When the Quest 2 came out, I was happy with my Rift, but the price point had me intrigued. I purchased it expecting to be disappointed, but was I wrong.

In my opinion, the Quest 2 has superior tracking over my Rift 3-sensor setup. Whereas on the Rift I could score at least an "S" on every song in Expert+ on Beat Saber's official setlist (including all the DLCs), on the Quest 2 I've been able to score an "SS" and/or full-combo most of them. If you've played Beat Saber for a while, you're probably aware that the offical setlist is very limited and you'll want to download the thousands of modded songs available on the internet. I purchased the Oculus Link cable so that I could play all of my modded songs that I've accrued over the years (I have almost 1,000 downloaded songs). As of now, it works perfectly at the full Quest 2 native resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, and no perceptible lag. It also allows me to play my Rift copy of Beat Saber without having to buy a separate copy for the Quest 2. Nowadays I exclusively play in PCVR mode.

The Quest 2 and the controllers are definitely heavier than the original Rift and Touch controllers, but I was able to get over that after a couple of days. To be perfectly honest, buying a VR headset to play essentially one game is still a pricey proposition. In my defense, it was and still is my preferred form of exercise. I'm a pretty lazy guy when it comes to exercise, and I've tried to break that habit by getting at-home equipment like a pair of adjustable dumbbells, a power tower, and a fancy rower, but Beat Saber is really the only form of exercise that I return to again and again. So if you're like me and you're looking to get a VR headset specifically for Beat Saber, in my opinion there is no other headset to consider.

The Titanfall 2 community is once again being roiled by issues with hacking, with rumors on Twitter and other social channels of a major security vulnerability.

The rumors appear to stem from this screenshot of a Discord announcement, which has been making the rounds for most of the day.

Several members of the Titanfall 2 community incl. @DirectXeon are reporting that Titanfall 2 is currently massively compromised.

If you own Titanfall 2 on PC, *DO NOT* launch the game. Uninstall it for now until a fix is released. pic.twitter.com/lNZGbufOL1

— Wicked Good Gaming (@WickedGoodGames) September 8, 2021

The bug reportedly allows local code execution from Respawns' servers, potentially affecting both PCs and consoles with Titanfall 2 installed. While there are still plenty of unknowns, several community members have raised the alarm and encouraged players to uninstall the game until the vulnerability is fixed.

Respawn responded on Twitter, "We are aware of reports of a security vulnerability affecting Titanfall 2 and are investigating. We have no other information to share at the moment but will update once we do."

We are aware of reports of a security vulnerability affecting Titanfall 2 and are investigating. We have no other information to share at the moment but will update once we do.

— Respawn (@Respawn) September 8, 2021

The rumors of Titanfall 2's vulnerability follow months of server issues, denial of server attacks, and other problems. In early July, Apex Legends was hacked by a group ostensibly trying to raise awareness of Titanfall's woes, but who were then accused of having their own ulterior motives by other community members. Needless to say, it's been a strange time for the Titanfall community.

The constant barrage of wild rumors has seemingly led some members of the Titanfall 2 community to treat the rumors with ambivalence. "You are all panicking over a tweet of a screenshot of a discord post claiming the existence of a zero-day multi-platform RCE in a moderately popular game," one Reddit poster wrote.

Amid all this, Titanfall 2 has enjoyed renewed attention of late thanks to critical praise, the ongoing popularity of Apex Legends, and an extended run on Xbox Game Pass. But as a five year old game, it reportedly only has "one or two" people working on its various hacks.

IGN has reached out separately to Respawn and EA. We will continue to monitor the situation and update with additional information.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN.

While Benedict Cumberbatch will be donning the cape once again for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, some players from the original film will not be returning for the follow-up — namely director Scott Derrickson. In January 2020, the filmmaker announced that he had departed the Marvel sequel due to "creative differences."

Now, Cumberbatch has offered his own thoughts on marching forward without Derrickson in a profile in The Hollywood Reporter. The actor also recounted his experience collaborating with Sam Raimi, who took over as director on the Marvel sequel.

“I was sad to hear about it, but that was not my decision,” Cumberbatch says. “I completely respected the studio’s decision, and it was done very amicably. The grown-ups called and just talked me through it. And that was that.”

Cumberbatch dug into Raimi's approach on the project, saying that the Spider-Man trilogy director encouraged him to improvise while filming. While the freedom intimidated the actor at first, Cumberbatch explained that he had gained experience improvising banter while filming his Avengers: Infinity War scenes with Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland.

"I remember on the [Infinity War] set when I called [Robert Downey Jr.] a douchebag, there was this sort of ripple effect. ‘Oh my God. Did you just call Iron Man a douchebag?’" Cumberbatch said. "They kept it, good for them. And then, it got the same kind of response at the cinema."

"I got bored of being compared to Liberace or whatever other retorts the guy with the same camp goatee had opposite me, so I tried to knock him down," he continued. "It’s great fun to play with that stuff. You find your feet. The more times you do it, the more familiar it becomes.”

Cumberbatch also explained how a Doctor Strange sequel left more room for improvisation, as the production had fewer worries about establishing its characters and world.

“With the first film, you’re always locked into a script, because it’s the origin story,” he said. “But there was a lot more freedom this time around… Marvel has this amazing ability to come into production: ‘We really just have to start shooting now. It doesn’t matter that the third act is not quite where you want it to be.’ You really do things on a wing and a prayer sometimes.”

Derrickson praised the selection of Raimi when Marvel announced the director would be taking over the Doctor Strange sequel, calling Raimi "a true living legend."

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to hit theaters on March 24, 2022, but Marvel viewers will be reacquainted with Cumberbatch's Sorcerer Supreme a bit sooner. The character will appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home this December. For more about the Doctor Strange sequel, catch up on the rumors that the sea monster Gargantos will play a role in the film.

J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

After being spoken about for years, a live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop is almost here, premiering on Netflix on November 19, 2021. And despite showing off the cast of heroes led by John Cho’s Spike Spiegel, fans have wondered where the fourth member, Ed, might be.

In a new interview showrunner and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol screenwriter André Nemec tells Polygon that fans looking forward to Ed shouldn’t worry.

“Ed — everybody wants to know about Ed!” Nemec says. “People will be… very delighted when they watch the season.”

The people behind Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop have said previously that the hacker known as Ed (full name Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV) will be in the series. But with the main cast revealed there’s still no Ed anywhere to be seen, nor any news about casting.

Still, Nemec seems pretty confident that fans looking forward to Ed will be pleased with the live-action Netflix series, which is as strong a confirmation as we’ll likely get before the series premieres in November.

The full interview is worth a read for anyone curious about the direction of the live-action series. According to Nemec, the live-action series is not going to “ape the anime” but “live in the spirit” of the series. “There are obviously things that we cannot achieve with real people that an anime can,” Nemec says. Instead, the series will “build out the continuing stories of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black and Faye Valentine.”

One area from the anime that was vital for the team to bring back was the music of anime composer Yoko Kanno, who will be composing the original soundtrack for Netflix’s show. According to Nemec, Kanno has “completely reimagined” the music for the series, and old favorites from the anime will return in the Netflix show but in new ways.

Cowboy Bebop is shaping up to be a different kind of anime adaptation than the ones we have seen from Netflix so far. John Cho also recently spoke about taking on the role of Spike, including acknowledging the questions some might have about his age.

We’ll have to wait until November to see if Nemec and his team — which includes writers from Thor: Ragnarok, Sons of Anarchy, and Lost — will stick the landing.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Clid the Snail, a bizarre twin-stick shooter by the appropriately named developer Weird Beluga, makes a promising first impression with its odd setting and anthropomorphic character design. But it doesn’t take long for it to fall woefully short of its potential. Repetitive level design, muddy graphics, and arduously boring enemy encounters make the choice of a snail as the main character a little bit on the nose when it comes to the pace of the action.

The eponymous Clid is an ornery, cynical snail who loves to drink and tinker with weapons. The latter gets him kicked out of his settlement and sent into a blasted, post-apocalyptic world full of mutants and monsters who've used the discarded scraps of the old human world to create a newer, smaller one. Conceptually, this micro post-human world is an interesting place. Villages and outposts use discarded computer parts as building materials and CD’s as furniture. Every so often you’ll pass a human skull in the wild and someone will remark about the old Giants that used to roam this world.

The visuals often hamper themselves, though. Lighting is dark, each of the handful of locations all look like they're in the same range of colors regardless if it's a snowy mountain or an arid desert. A bloom-like effect lingers over everything, too, further muddying all of the environments. The little details of the slapdash constructs in the world get lost in this unfortunate effect. It’s hard to appreciate any small ornamentation when your point of view looks like a snail crawled over your camera lens.

The story of this wandering rogue, the group of outcasts he meets, and their shared interest in saving their tiny world and making money doing so is predictable, but enjoyable. The writing is solid, with some clever quips here and there, but the Simlish-style gibberish voice acting doesn’t do the story justice. There is also a lot of expository monologuing to fill us in on past events that feel inessential to what’s happening in the present. Meanwhile, the characters in your ragtag group are all tropey yet enjoyable, well-written creatures that make all the other NPCs you meet feel shallow by comparison.

Besides sightseeing, you’ll spend a lot of time shooting your way through each stage in order to push back a plague that turned the local slug population into violent, berserk monsters. Clid’s arsenal is varied, with weapons like a flamethrower, lighting gun, and a shotgun at your disposal… but the problem is that aside from the shotgun and a few others, many of these weapons don’t feel very powerful. I almost never used anything but the main blaster’s charged shot because it often felt like the most efficient tool for nearly every job.

Enemies are very dumb, often just sprinting at you in a straight line, ripe for the shooting. Occasionally, an enemy arrives that forces you to think outside of the box, like big slug gladiators with tower shields that can’t be destroyed simply shooting at them, but that only pushed me as far as Clid’s secondary arsenal of grenades and mines. Outside of the more elaborate boss fights, the majority of the enemies in Clid the Snail are just various forms of melee goon that could never overcome the simple technique of being kited across the map and blasted one by one.

Level design and enemy encounters are largely repetitive over the five-hour journey. Most stages have a linear path to travel with the occasional branch to find weapon upgrades and the like, but they always culminate with Clid exterminating the slug menace in the local “lair,” a hive where waves of enemies spawn to stop you from destroying the core. These sections go on far too long, and there are no checkpoints during them, so if you die you have to start from the beginning. This horde-wave scenario finds its way into other non-lair portions as well, and it never feels fun or welcome.