This week’s Red Dead Online update, the now standalone online component of Red Dead Redemption 2, includes a new Legendary Bounty, a new Outlaw Pass, and a rank expansion for the Bounty Hunter role. Newly available, the Prestigious Bounty Hunter license adds 10 new ranks to the original 20 Bounty Hunter ranks. Players must already own a Bounty Hunter license to obtain the Prestigious license, which can be purchased at any Bounty Board.
Prestigious Bounty Hunters can also track down this week’s Legendary Bounty, Gene “Beau” Finley. Dressed in dapper suits, the villain stages robberies in the south and causes general criminal havoc. Finley and his gang are based in a dilapidated colonial property in Bayou Nwa. To apprehend him, you’ll need to fight your way into the base.
This week’s update also includes the fourth Outlaw Pass, a 40 Gold Bar purchase that gives players winter clothing, new gear and skill pamphlets, advanced photography enhancements, bonus cash, 30 Gold Bars, special gifts, and more. Players who buy the new Outlaw Pass will also get an extra RDO$400 and a 10 Gold Bar rebate.
Nine-thousand-thirty-six. That’s the number of pieces in the LEGO Roman Colosseum. It has a higher piece count than any other set in the company’s history. The prior record holder, 2017’s massive Millennium Falcon build, came in at 7541 pieces. The 1500-piece difference between these two sets is large enough to encompass its own expert-level set.
I’m struggling to explain how impressive this build is, once complete. Its measurements–10.5” high, 20.5” wide, and 23.5” (59cm) deep–don’t convey its presence. And that’s because this model is more than big; it is aesthetically pleasing, in the way that the actual Colosseum in Rome, Italy, is aesthetically pleasing. However, it is not a 1:1 scaled model. The height is slightly exaggerated–a deliberate, forgivable creative license. The LEGO set portrays the Colosseum as it exists in the public’s imagination: as one of the New Ancient Wonders of the World, where gladiators fought to the death in front of 50,000 to 80,000 spectators.
Today, the real Colosseum, completed in 80 AD, is surprisingly intact. A sizable portion of the outer wall collapsed in the 14th century, although it did not compromise the remaining structure. And Rome has undertaken multiple restoration and repair efforts for centuries; the most recent one began in 2013 and took three years. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, attracting over 6 million visitors each year.
LEGO packaged the Colosseum in a massive black box. Inside are four smaller boxes, numbered I, II, III, and IIII (sic), each of which contain their own instruction booklet. It’s a great way to approach this build: as four individual experiences that create a summative whole.
The LEGO Colosseum is mounted on a black and grey elliptical platform, which comprises the first quarter of the build. Prior, massive builds, like the LEGO Fairground rides, were built on multiple LEGO plates, which made them difficult to move and prone to falling apart. The Colosseum, on the other hand, is built on a mesh of LEGO Technic pieces, which gives the final model both solidness and stability. Next, you build a number of right-angled wedge pieces, which attach to the sides of the base and give it a smooth, rounded finish.
Photo by Kevin Wong
After building the platform, you build the Colosseum–starting with the Hypogeum, the building’s underground area filled with twisting corridors. In ancient times, this was the backstage area for the larger amphitheater; it’s where the animals and gladiators would be held prior to the fights; wooden elevators could transport them above ground in theatrical fashion. The LEGO designers portrayed the ruined appearance of the Hypogeum by flipping the bricks upside down, showing us their bottom tubes rather than their signature studs. It’s a small, but effective subversion of expectations; any LEGO builder typically aspires to hide the seams and imperfections of their work. But in this model, the visibility of the bricks’ undersides–not to mention the bricks’ crooked arrangement–is a clever reference to the actual Colosseum’s ruined state.
Photo by Kevin Wong
Then, you build the Colosseum’s interior wall. Think of the LEGO Colosseum as a series of individual cake slices, which you bind together with multiple balls and sockets before mounting them onto the platform. You slowly work clockwise around the model, eventually reaching the part of the outer wall that’s still intact.
The real Colosseum has three types of columns on its outer wall: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The designers created corresponding LEGO interpretations for each of them; they used pre-existing bricks to convey the Ionic columns’ curled, scroll-like appearance When you build each wall, you’re continually alternating traditional LEGO bricks with studs; the resulting shadows evoke the real structure’s pock-marked appearance–created when robbers tore the bronze clamps from the stonework.
The bulk of the LEGO Colosseum’s build is repetitive. To be fair, no “slice” is exactly alike; likewise, each corresponding part of the real Colosseum has crumbled differently. But they’re similar enough that by the end of the build, the foundation for each slice becomes rote; it’s the surface details that have the more interesting variations. Then again, the entire point of the real Colosseum was its symmetry; you ought to know what you’re getting yourself into if you’re building this.
The solution is to space the build out. Once you finish one bag, take a break–for several hours or even a day–before resuming with the next bag. To attempt this build in a handful of marathon sessions would quickly turn from play into labor.
Photo by Kevin Wong
The last step is to build additional, enhancing details, such as additional archways, a piece of the floor that’s still intact, and the jagged rim of the interior wall. The latter is accurate enough to real life that when I looked at photos of the Colosseum after building its LEGO counterpart, I recognized individual imperfections.
Some additional, important notes: The LEGO Colosseum contains no mini-figures; this is LEGO at its most “adult” and self-serious.
The model is self-reinforcing. When you bind all the slices together, the Colosseum’s own elliptical shape will push back on itself, keeping it from falling apart. The final build is sturdy, but until every piece is in place, it’s fragile. You do not want to get into a situation where you bind two slices together, find some small detail that you missed, and need to take them apart. When you connect the slices, push firmly but evenly, lest they come apart from the pressure.
Photo by Kevin Wong
The LEGO Colosseum does not take any shortcuts; there are few “long” pieces that would simplify the build process or make it more efficient. Instead, the entire build is composed of small bricks– many of them three studs wide or less–that build to a larger, cumulative effect. Assembling 9036 pieces feels like assembling 9036 pieces. No doubt, this was the point–to drive home what a physical undertaking it must have been to build the real building in ancient times. The micro process of assembling this model gives it incredible detail. Despite the monochromatic appearance, it is fascinating to look at, from every angle.
As stated previously, it is difficult to understate the presence and size of this model; the promotional photos don’t do it justice, because there’s very few images that demonstrate its comparative size. Here is an attempt: I took the photo below, which shows the LEGO Colosseum alongside my six-year-old son. It comfortably occupies half of my dining room table.
Photo by Kevin Wong
When I visited Rome in 2008, it struck me how the Colosseum was integrated into the modern city that surrounded it. Cars drove past it. Roman citizens, desensitized by seeing it constantly, paid no mind to the close-to-2000-year-old structure in their midst. The LEGO Colosseum takes those modern trappings away. There are brick representations of cars, trees and bushes surrounding the building, but they are dwarfed by the main attraction rather than co-existing alongside it. This is the Roman Colosseum as it exists in our minds, and bringing it to life was well worth the effort placed into it.
The LEGO Colosseum, Set #10276, was created by LEGO designers Jamie Berard (Lead) and Rok Zgalin Kobe. It’s composed of 9036 pieces and retails for $549.99.
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Kevin Wong is a LEGO aficionado. Talk about your favorite sets with him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
Fortnite’s big Galactus event has come and gone, and it was an exciting, if somewhat brief, live event. It concluded with the confirmation of when Season 5 will begin, but perhaps more notable right now is that you can’t play Fortnite. Servers are down, and that’s by design.
The live event concluded with a “to be continued in Season 5” message, along with a seven-hour countdown that reveals a start time for Season 5: 12 AM ET on December 2. However, rather than sending players back to the menu to continue playing or grinding away at the battle pass, the only option is “exit.” That closes out the game, and re-opening it only replays this short message from the end of the event. There’s no way to access any component of the game right now, even including something like Fortnite Creative or Save the World, let alone the Battle Royale mode that functions as the game’s main aspect.
As Epic said in advance, you can’t replay the event, but it turns out you can’t do anything. Hopefully you didn’t have plans to play Fortnite tonight. This isn’t the first time Epic has done this–previously, it shut down Fortnite for days, which proved to be quite the unexpected viral moment. It’s not often a massively popular game is shut down in that fashion. In this case, the wait won’t be quite so long–following the conclusion of the Galactus event, there were just over seven hours until Season 5 begins and Fortnite returns.
Watching Charlie Brown and his pals celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas has become a holiday tradition for many over the years. With Apple acquiring the rights to these classic movies, you might be wondering how you can continue to participate in this time-honored tradition. Here’s how you can watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and all other Peanuts Holiday Specials.
Where to Watch A Charlie Brown Christmas Special
Just in time for the holiday season, the beloved classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas special, will stream exclusively on Apple TV+ beginning on December 4, and on PBS and PBS Kids on December 13 at 7:30/6:30 pm CT.
How to Stream A Charlie Brown Christmas Special For Free
A Charlie Brown Christmas will be available to stream for free (without a subscription) on Apple TV+ from December 11 through December 13. Apple TV+ is currently available in over 100 countries and costs $4.99 per month for a subscription.
You can use the streaming platform on a variety of services, including iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac, select Samsung, LG, Sony, and VIZIO smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV and Roku devices, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and at tv.apple.com.
No one predicted that Fortnite’s Galactus event would have players flying battle buses in a mission that felt like it was straight out of Star Fox. The event, which played like a souped-up Disneyland ride, was a lot of fun, but it only added to the random jumble of themes that makes up the Fortnite universe.
The event saw the entire lobby, along with Iron Man, Galactus, and other heroes, get sucked into what’s called the “Zero Point” after Galactus tried to absorb it. The Zero Point has been a part of Fortnite’s storyline since Chapter 1’s Season 4 and is said to be a singularity that doesn’t abide by the laws of space and time. That’s the reason why different realities from the Marvel and Fortnite universes collided this season.
Galactus trying to absorb the Zero Point.
The event ended with Jonesy, one of the mainstays of Fortnite’s narrative, lying face down in his office. He wakes up right before the screen cut to black. We saw Jonesy two seasons ago during The Device event in the same office, although he wasn’t knocked out that time. Players believe that Jonesy works for a company that runs Fortnite as some sort of simulation and Season 5 may explore more of his background.
After the Dark Universe debacle in 2017, the success of this year’s The Invisible Man showed that Universal’s catalogue of movie monsters could still produce a box office hit. The studio has several other classic monster movies in development, and it’s been revealed that Conjuring and Aquaman director James Wan is working on a new movie about Van Helsing.
As reported by Deadline, Wan will produce what is described as “an original horror/thriller” featuring the iconic vampire hunter, who was created by writer Bram Stoker and first appeared in his classic novel Dracula. The film will be directed by Julius Avery, who previously helmed the JJ Abrams-produced World War II horror Overlord. The movie does not have a release date yet.
This isn’t the first time that Universal has produced a Van Helsing movie in the last couple of decades. In 2004, Hugh Jackman starred in the critically-panned Van Helsing, and a “present day” movie about the character was in development back in 2016.
December is officially here, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can snag a couple of new seasonal items in the Switch life sim this month. Two new wintry items are now available to purchase from the Nook Shopping catalog: the Aurora wall and the Midwinter sweater. Like other seasonal items, however, these will only be available for a limited time.
The Aurora wall costs 7,000 Bells and lets you gaze at a beautiful aurora borealis localized entirely in your own kitchen or other room at any time of year. The Midwinter sweater, meanwhile, costs 1,200 Bells and features a cute reindeer design. Both items can be found under the Seasonal tab in the Nook Shopping catalog and will be on sale until December 31.
In addition to the new seasonal items, Nook’s Cranny has begun selling festive toys ahead of Toy Day, the game’s Christmas event. You’ll find a different toy on display in the seasonal corner of the store each day until December 25. Toy Day itself falls on December 24, and as part of the event, you’ll need to dress up like Santa and help Jingle the black-nosed reindeer deliver presents to your villagers.
