The New York Times is known primarily for Wordle and its crossword, but that doesn’t mean its other games won’t get some love. Case in point: Connections, the word game that tasks players with recognizing patterns among a group of 16 words or phrases. It’s known for being fun but sometimes obscenely difficult, and thanks to a new stats feature, you can now see how many times you’ve failed. The newspaper announced Tuesday that Connections players will now be able to see their stats in the app, “including the number of puzzles completed, the number of ‘perfect’ puzzles, win rate, streaks and more.” It’s available on iOS, Android, the New York Times news app, and in the browser. Players can check these out by clicking on the stats icon in the toolbar (it looks like a bar graph). This is similar to how it looks in other NYT Games apps; Wordle and Spelling Bee have similar features. You can also see your stats when you finish a game. The New York Times has been putting a lot of work into its Games app, adding more games like Strands, along with more community features. Wordle got a bunch of updates in May, with the addition of the archives. It also launched WordleBot in 2022, a bot that will analyze your Wordle games and attempt to give you hints on how to improve. The app also got a redesign in March. “These new features are all about deepening the delight of the game, keeping the challenge fresh, and fostering long-term engagement,” head of games Jonathan Knight said in a press release about Connections. When the PlayStation 5 first launched back in November 2020, it was nearly impossible to get your hands on the highly anticipated console. Despite demand being through the roof, chip shortages heavily cut production — and due to sustained consumer interest, it was a problem that plagued the PS5 for years after launch. Thankfully, we’re happy to report that those issues have largely been resolved, making it pretty easy to grab a PS5 these days. The launch of the PS5 Pro has ignited another buying frenzy, and with Black Friday coming up, Sony has even cut the price of the base PS5. Astro Bot is an undeniable win for PlayStation. It’s not just a celebration of the brand and many of the franchises that built it into what it is today, but it’s also a fantastic 3D platformer that uses the PS5 hardware in creative ways. As a Sony-published game spotlighting the history of the company, it’s obviously not on Xbox. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of people lamenting that Xbox does not have a lot of good platformers in the wake of Astro Bot’s well-received launch. Although it’s accurate to say that Xbox doesn’t have an exclusive quite like Astro Bot, a few excellent 3D platformers are available on Xbox Game Pass. Many of them are even IP now owned by Microsoft or outright published by Xbox Game Studios. If you have an Xbox console and Game Pass subscription and feel like you’re missing out on Astro Bot, consider playing one of these games to make that feeling a little less painful.
Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2 FINAL FANTASY XVI “DELIVERANCE” – PC Trailer Final Fantasy XVI is finally making its way to PC. The official X (formerly Twitter) account announced Monday that the former PlayStation 5 exclusive will release September 17 on Steam and Epic Games Store.



