Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is currently on offer to gamers via the Microsoft Store, with the bundle package including more enhanced versions of Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

The deal is only obtainable for the Xbox One and will require an Xbox Live account to download, oh and it's free!

At this point, it's not certain as to how long the offer stands, or whether the game will expire after a certain period of time. What we do know is that it's ready now, for further information visit the Microsoft website.

A variety of apps are used today to send tens on billions of messages every day. We use chat apps, like Facebook Messenger, Viber, WeChat, and WhatsApp, to communicate with our friends, family, and colleagues.

On this day, October 29th, 1969, 47 years ago, the first ever electronic message had been sent. The message was sent by UCLA student programmer Charley Kline trough ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet.

At the time, ARPANET was used for testing new network technologies, and it connected many universities and research centers. The first two nodes of the ARPANET were the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute, between which the first ever message exchange took place.

2014 saw the release of hit-racing game: Mario Kart 8 for Nintendo Wii U. Since that time the title has gone on to sell 8 million copies around the world.

Comparison against other Wii U games:

Whilst this is just a list of several titles compared against the 2014 game, it proves that the classic racing game is still a smash-hit amongst gamers, 2 years after its release.

A remake of the popular iOS blaster "Hyperlight" by CatfishBlues Games, will be available this coming November for the latest Nintendo 3DS XL.

The new an enhanced version of the original base game, has been developed specifically for the updated Nintendo 3DS XL system.

New game features:

Facebook introduced Halloween reactions to help their users get into the Halloween spirit. Now, they have announced another Haloween-themed feature - masks in Facebook Live.

Masks will be rolling out over the next few days for people using Facebook Live on iOS in the US, UK, and New Zealand. In the coming months, the masks will be available to people sharing live video via Android devices and in more countries.

The limited edition will feature masks like a skull, an evil queen, a pumpkin and a witch. A selection of masks will continue to be available after Halloween.

NASA's Kepler has made yet another astonishing discovery, just in time for Halloween - pumpkin stars.

Astronomers using observations from NASA's Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than a hundred times the peak levels ever seen from the Sun. The stars spin so fast they've been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes. Scientists believe they are the result of close binary systems where two Sun-like stars merge.

Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and leader of the team explained the discovery.

It's the scariest month of the year, and Facebook knows it. The internet giant has announced they are launching a set of limited edition Halloween reactions that turn the regular reactions into Halloween-themed symbols.

The limited edition reactions won't be available in every country, just a few select ones. Facebook said in their official announcement they hope these features will help their users celebrate Halloween with friends.

The Halloween edition of Facebook reactions will turn the Like reaction into a skeletal thumbs up, Love reaction will become a candy, Laugh will turn into a laughing witch, Wow reaction will be a ghost, Frankenstein will replace the Sad reaction, and Angry reaction will become a scowling pumpkin.

Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc. and Bigben Interactive have released Sherlock Holmes: Devil's Daughter, an interesting walk in the Sherlock Holmes franchise.

Benoît Clerc, Head of Software Group at Bigben Interactive had this to say: "Collaborating with Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc. on the distribution of Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter in North America is a great pleasure and an amazing experience."

Officially developed by Frogwares Games, Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter provides gamers with the thrills and adventure from a single player perspective. Here gamers will solve crime mysteries and put their best detective skills to work.

NASA has provided new details of the scene near the Martian equator where Europe's Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface last week.

The new images show three impact locations within about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) from each other.

League of Legends is now available as a fully programmatic tabletop game. Riot Games has taken the already popular title and created another version/genre from which players can enjoy with the same theme. The YouTube video provided showcases a quick glimpse of the official board-like game.

"Mechs vs Minions" utilizes programmatic movement from a shared draft. The 2-4 multiplayer game lets users challenge opponents and co-op together against the army of minions.

The full set contains:

Halloween has certainly captured many headlines in the past week or so, between all the extra scary-themed content available for gaming titles, it comes as no surprise. The next to be "spookified" shall we call it, is the Grand Theft Auto Online Halloween event, which commences this Friday, October 28.

The special event gives players access to the brand new motorcycle formally known as the "Sanctus" The Rockstar blog post had this to say about it:

"With its eerie skull-studded design, the Sanctus is a dread-inducing piece of machinery, guaranteed to strike fear into passersby on your next midnight ride."

Nintendo's new Switch hardware melds the worlds of handheld and console gaming in a single transforming package. But what about gameplay? There's usually a pretty big disparity between Nintendo's consoles and handhelds as far as gameplay performance...however Nintendo now affirms that the Switch will deliver console-quality performance even while taken on-the-go.

Recent reports state that the Nintendo Switch will offer better performance while docked for home console play, with the handheld portion possibly being underclocked while used out and about.

But according to Nintendo's President Tatsumi Kimishima, the Switch's handheld will deliver high-quality gameplay even while used outside the home, likely mirroring the exact same gameplay as when docked.

This month has certainly proven to be all things Halloween, with October alone racking up a good number of spooky-themed packages and game deals on various platforms.

Though Xbox fans in particular, will be pleased to know that Microsoft announced their Shocktober sale, a full week prior to Halloween. The sale gives customers great discounts on numerous horror-themed games in celebration of the scariest night of the year, for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.

The prices can be viewed via the official Microsoft Xbox website as well as the Major Nelson website. Dont miss out as the sale will only run from 25th-31st of October. Get your spook on with some great steals!

Nintendo's new Switch console and mobile handheld hybrid will be the nexus (or NeXus, if you will) of an ecosystem with a lot of software and accompanying hardware accessories. Although we saw a few of these during the Switch preview trailer, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima says "by no means is that everything."

Photo credit: Ryan Salamanda

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima revealed that the Switch will have a "wider array" of what he refers to as "add-on hardware." He also hints that the Switch will offer more ways to play than what we were shown during the trailer, and that some software could go beyond traditional console and mobile gaming.

Quantic Dream is one of the only game developers left that makes games that feel oh-so-different, but Quantic Dream boss David Cage recently talked with GamesIndustry.biz and had some interesting things to say about VR.

Cage said: "We have all VR systems installed in the studio, and I encourage my teams to try them out. We've downloaded every game on every system to try and understand where people are right now, what works, and what doesn't work, and what we could bring to this medium". Cage added: "The idea is not to do VR for the sake of doing VR. It's about saying something on this medium that hasn't been said already".

When it comes to the sense of presence that VR can give gamers, game developers will have to do more to trick gamers' brains into thinking that the virtual reality they're in, is more real than 'just a game'. Cage continued: "If there's a character in front of you, your brain thinks they're actually there. So suddenly there's a distance you're trying to keep when you talk to them".

Today has been a big day for Apple, with the announcement of their next-gen MacBook Pro laptops coming in 3 models: two 13-inch MBPs, and a higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro which rocks AMD's new Radeon Pro 400 series graphics - but the fun doesn't end there.

LG has unveiled its new 4K and 5K displays, specifically designed for Apple's new MacBook Pro models. The new UltraFine Displays feature 3 x USB-C ports that will power additional devices, with LG's new monitors rocking built-in stereo speakers, a camera, and a microphone.

LG's new 5K UltraFine Display requires a Thunderbolt 3 connection, and we originally reported that LG's new 5K display was an Apple exclusive, but our friends at Fudzilla have informed us that it's not exclusive to the new MacBook Pro. This is a big hint at Apple's future, as it seems as though the company won't be making any more monitors - gone are the days of Apple's Cinema Displays, guys... sob.

Since Nintendo's new Switch hardware is both a console and handheld, there's some major concerns that the Japanese console-maker will retire its ultra-popular 3DS. But that won't happen any time soon, and the 3DS will continue on.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima affirms that the Switch won't "cannibalize" the 3DS, and the 3DS handheld will continue onward alongside the Switch even after the new console's release.

"Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still growing. So that business still has momentum. And certainly rather than being cannibalized by the Switch, we think the 3DS can continue in its own form," Kimishima affirmed in the interview.

Nintendo has already confirmed that it hasn't revealed everything about its new Switch console handheld hybrid, and now some of those features have apparently come to light: namely the Switch handheld's 6-inch 720p multi-touchscreen.

As millions of gamers watched the Nintendo Switch preview, a lot of us sighed in relief when no sort of touch-screen gimmick was shown. But internal sources close to the Switch have told Eurogamer that the Switch will indeed have a touchscreen, but it'll be both new and old territory for Nintendo.

Eurogamer's Tom Phillips reports that the Nintendo Switch's 6.2-inch handheld display won't be full 1080p, but 720p, and will support modernized multi-touchscreen with up to 10 points of capacitive touch, which is head over heels better than Nintendo's previous touchscreen endeavors (the Wii U and 3DS, for example, use pressure-sensitive resistive touchscreens with only one-point touch).

Twitter is going through troubles of its own, but now the social media giant has announced it will be shutting down the Vine app in the next few months.

Vine wrote in a blog post: "Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we'll be discontinuing the mobile app".

Twitter announced it is restructuring itself, laying off 9% of their global workforce, and working on other methods to reduce cost. Vine users won't feel the pinch immediately, with their Vines still accessible, with Vine adding it will continue working with creators on answering any questions.

After a decade of waiting, Final Fantasy 15 has gone gold and is completely finished and ready to be shipped off to millions of gamers.

Final Fantasy 15 has gone from barely running at 30FPS on consoles to a competent and polished build known as the "final master version." Square Enix has proudly proclaimed the game has gone gold, meaning the main game is totally wrapped up.

But that's not it; Square Enix also revealed that the huge open-world adventure will allow four friends to team up for some online co-op. The co-op mode will be available following the game's release on November 29, and is one of the six DLC packs that are included in the $25 season pass. The co-op mode allows four players to take the roles of Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus and Prompto and take part in in-game battle sequences.