Author: News Room
The roguelike genre is feeling the Hades effect. The acclaimed action game has now been around long enough for its design ideas to seep into other titles, which isn’t surprising given how strongly the original game and its sequel, currently in Early Access, have been received. What is unexpected is that one of the biggest imitators I’ve seen yet would come in the form of a sequel to 2021’s Lost in Random, a game that is very much not a roguelike. But Lost in Random: The Eternal Die represents a significant change for the series in more ways than one.Although…
The New York Times has plenty of word games on its roster today — with Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, there’s something for everyone — but the newspaper’s standard crossword puzzle still reigns supreme. The daily crossword is full of interesting trivia, helps improve mental flexibility and, of course, gives you some bragging rights if you manage to finish it every day. While the NYT puzzle might feel like an impossible task some days, solving a crossword is a skill and it takes practice — don’t get discouraged if you can’t get every single word in a puzzle.…
Connections is one of the best puzzle games from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends. Some days are trickier than others — just like other NYT Games favorites The Mini and Strands. If you’re having a little trouble solving today’s puzzle, check…
Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle. Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below. How to play Strands You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters.…
The first time I encountered someone listening to their phone out loud in public, it was on a city bus and I was taken aback for two reasons. First, the volume level on the phone wasn’t just audible to the person sitting next to them; our entire section of the bus could hear it. Second, it was a FaceTime call, and neither the person on the bus, nor their caller seemed to be the slightest bit hesitant to carry on their conversation in public. In fact, they appeared completely oblivious. That was a few years ago. Since then, the problem…
Love crossword puzzles but don’t have all day to sit and solve a full-sized puzzle in your daily newspaper? That’s what The Mini is for! A bite-sized version of the New York Times’ well-known crossword puzzle, The Mini is a quick and easy way to test your crossword skills daily in a lot less time (the average puzzle takes most players just over a minute to solve). While The Mini is smaller and simpler than a normal crossword, it isn’t always easy. Tripping up on one clue can be the difference between a personal best completion time and an embarrassing…
When AMD launched its Ryzen processors on a newly minted AM4 socket in 2017, it was a game changing moment. Finally, AMD was bringing back real competition to Intel. But while Ryzen was killing off the relevance of the venerable quad core, it was also introducing a new idea of socket longevity that would see gamers able to evolve their PCs over time, rather than ripping their guts out every few years. AM4 went on to be AMD’s flagship socket for more than half a decade. But while team red has since moved on to newer sockets and CPUs, AM4’s…
The summer movie season has always been a time for Hollywood to release the most anticipated films of the year. Watching blockbusters in a relaxing, air-conditioned theater is the best antidote to the blazing sun outside. And while people were worried that the COVID-19 pandemic would ruin the theater industry forever, in-person theater viewing is back and stronger than ever, half a decade after its dip. The summer movie list is usually filled with Marvel and other comic book films, but this year there’s only one big superhero release. Dinosaurs, racing, karate, and Tom Cruise running around shirtless (for the…
It’s an undeniable fact that smartphones have gotten larger and larger over the years. Samsung is trying to turn back the years with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, a smartphone that embraces everything we love about modern phones, but tries to make it just that little bit more svelte. The result is a phone that’s just 5.9mm thick, making other flagships look like lumbering brutes. The Galaxy S25 Edge’s slimness is going to mean compromises, of course — chiefly, the battery size is smaller than its competitors, and while the build is thinner, there’s a worry that could make the…
Academy Award nominees Chris and Paul Weitz know the key to a successful book-to-movie adaptation is collaboration. Can everyone involved get on the same page? If one person falls out of line, Chris says it can lead to problems. Luckily for the Weitz brothers, the creative team all shared the same vision on Murderbot, a new sci-fi comedy on Apple TV+. Based on Martha Wells’ book series, Murderbot stars Alexander Skarsgård (The Northman) as the titular robot, a security cyborg programmed to protect and obey humans. Murderbot, who believes humans are “idiots,” hacks his security construct to give it free will.…