Kalakshar US

The Strong National Museum of Play has revealed this year’s inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Asteroids, Myst, Resident Evil, SimCity and Ultima have made the cut. While that means the likes of Guitar Hero, Metroid and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater miss out from the slate of finalists, it would be hard to make a case against any of the five inductees.

Games are selected for the hall of fame based on a number of criteria, including cultural impact and their influence on the industry. Asteroids absolutely fits the bill. The 1979 game was an enormous hit. Atari sold more than 70,000 arcade units, making Asteroids its best-selling coin-op machine. The home version on the Atari 2600 was very popular too. While the vector graphics were rudimentary, that didn’t take away from the immensely satisfying gameplay loop of blowing up a ton of space rocks.

Slow-paced puzzle game Myst was also a big hit in the ’90s, selling more than 6 million copies. Resident Evil is probably the most relevant name on the list for modern audiences. The series is still going strong nearly three decades after the original 1996 game popularized the survival horror genre.

Back in 1989, Maxis released a city builder game called SimCity. Its intricate systems of urban design and problem management spurred a bunch of sequels and inspired the creators of other real-time strategy games, such as Command & Conquer and Age of Empires. As for Ultima: The First Age of Darkness, that 1981 game is one of the foundations of the role-playing genre. The developers of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are among those who’ve cited it as an influence, as GamesBeat notes.

These five games are joining a whole bunch of other notable names in the World Video Game Hall of Fame, including last year’s inductees The Last of Us, Wii Sports, Barbie Fashion Designer and Computer Space. The inductees are on permanent display at The Strong in Rochester, New York.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/asteroids-and-resident-evil-join-the-world-video-game-hall-of-fame-154647663.html?src=rss 

Dead by Daylight‘s next chapter isn’t too far away and it’s another crossover rather than an original creation. Behaviour Interactive likes to keep fans on their toes with some unexpected partnerships and the latest one is no exception. This time around, Dungeons and Dragons is entering the fog. It’s a bit of a surprising turn as D&D isn’t normally associated with horror, but there’s enough connective tissue for it to make sense.

Behaviour revealed the crossover in a short teaser trailer with no further details about what to expect. It remains to be seen what the chapter will bring in terms of a killer, survivor and/or map. But you won’t have to wait too long to find out.

The Dead by Daylight anniversary stream will take place on May 14, starting at 11AM ET (for what it’s worth, a new player test build will go live that day). You can tune in to find out more details about the Dungeons and Dragons chapter as well as what’s ahead for Dead by Daylight as a whole in the coming months. Perhaps we’ll find out a bit more about the spinoff games that are in the works. And given Behaviour’s track record, it may just have some other surprises in store…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dungeons-and-dragons-is-coming-to-dead-by-daylight-161537165.html?src=rss 

Ember’s highly-esteemed Travel Mug 2+ has dropped to a record-low price of $128, which is a discount of $72. The actual sale price is $160, but there’s a clippable coupon for the remaining $32. This is a pretty great deal for those in the market for a tech-heavy travel mug.

To that end, the Travel Mug 2+ integrates with Apple’s Find My technology, so you’ll always know exactly where your beverage is. It even has a built-in speaker that’ll ping when you’re looking for it. Anything can happen while traveling, so it’s good to have a little peace of mind, particularly because the usual price of this mug is $200.

Otherwise, this is a fantastic mug that keeps beverages hot for up to three hours and boasts a 12-ounce capacity. The battery’s on point, allowing for three hours of use on its own and a full day while resting on the included charging coaster. You also get access to the Ember’s proprietary app for setting the temperature, customizing presets and more. The mug does feature a little touchscreen for this, so the app’s not always necessary.

Ember makes great products, which is why we often recommend the company’s mugs. However, the Travel Mug 2+ isn’t perfect. You can hand wash it, but don’t put it in the dishwasher, unless you want to turn it into an expensive mug-shaped thing that doesn’t actually work. There’s also the price. At $200, it’s very hard to recommend this product because, well, it’s a mug for drinking tea and coffee. It’s easier to recommend at $128, and it makes a great gift, but at the end of the day it’s still just a container for liquids. 

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/embers-travel-mug-2-with-find-my-support-drops-to-a-record-low-price-163054893.html?src=rss 

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy came out right around the time movie studios decided everything needed to be a big franchise that exists in perpetuity. From that perspective, it’s a little surprising that Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t milked Tolkien’s work more than they already have. That’ll change soon, though, as the company just announced that there are two new Lord of the Rings films in the works (you can read the full press release here).

The first is tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and it’s being directed by Andy Serkis — you may remember him for his landmark performance as Gollum in Jackson’s prior movies. The fact that Serkis is on board, and working from a script by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (who co-wrote the prior Middle-earth movies along with Jackson) has me feeling a bit better about this not being simply a crass cash grab. Peter Jackson, along with Walsh and Boyens, are set to produce as well. Serkis previously served as second unit director on The Hobbit films and also directed 2022’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

Given the working title of the film, you won’t be surprised to learn that Serkis is also starring again as the titular Gollum. While part of me was interested to see how another actor might take on the character, Serkis so defined Gollum for the big screen that it’s almost impossible to put anyone else in the role. As for what the movie will cover, there’s no official word yet — but again, the title indicates it’ll take place between the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as Gandalf and Aragorn search Middle-earth for Gollum, trying to learn more about the ring that Bilbo and then Frodo possessed. 

Given Hollywood’s insatiable thirst for Content based on Popular Franchises, it’s a little surprising something like this didn’t happen sooner. Jackson and company followed up the original trilogy of films nine years later with the bloated and overly CGI-reliant film series based on The Hobbit and corresponding events from Tolkien’s LOTR appendices. And, of course, Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series debuted in 2022. And before The Hunt for Gollum arrives, we’ll see another intriguing project: an anime-style film called The War of the Rohirrim. That movie arrives this December and covers events in Rohan a few hundred years before The Lord of the Rings.

As a massive Lord of the Rings fan, I’m both skeptical and excited by this announcement. The sad reality of the entertainment world is that projects like this are going to happen no matter what; there’s too much money wrapped up in things like Lord of the Rings to not try and extract more. But Serkis seems like an excellent choice to direct this movie, and hopefully they’ll find a tight, self-contained story that works as a standalone film. The mess that was made in the Hobbit films has me wary, but even in those movies I found plenty of things to enjoy — and this feels like a good opportunity to chart a positive course forward for more movies in Middle-earth.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-new-lord-of-the-rings-film-the-hunt-for-gollum-will-hit-theaters-in-2026-140141386.html?src=rss