#i am hoping so hard that the PC port will result in not only more people playing this game

[serenpedac]

Remembrance

Fandom: Returnal

Words: ~500

Rating: Teen and up

Warnings: Emotionally abusive parent, Ascension spoilers

Summary: Selene finds a flower that brings back memories.

Read on AO3

*** *** *** ***

I find the first one in the middle of the floor, a drop of white against the dark grey of the tower. My weapon at the ready, I approach it. None of the hostiles I have encountered so far have tried to misguide me like this, but Atropos is ever-changing as is this tower. Its workings are as much of an enigma as its sudden appearance, but a structure like this implies an intelligent creator. Creators. Whoever made this… Are they still here?

The flower doesn’t move or transform. Is it even real? Am I— Have I started to hallucinate? Holstering my weapon, I take my scanner instead, which begins to whirr within seconds. A holographic duplicate appears above it as it is added to my databank. 

“A white poppy,” I read the information my scanner gives me, as if I didn’t know what it was the moment I saw it.

My arm—or the parasite attached to it, its tentacles pressing my suit against me like it’s a second skin—twitches when I kneel to take the flower. It doesn’t droop, doesn’t show any signs of decay.

“For the vase?” I hear myself say. It has to be. I used to bring poppies like this one to Mother. My fingers tighten around the flower, almost crushing it, but I stop just in time. A single creased petal would be enough to evoke Mother’s disapproval.

Ink-black spills from the centre onto the pristine white petals. I never understood why she liked them so much when all they did was blend in with the white of the hospital, but I kept bringing them. Not that she ever gave me a word of gratitude or even a smile.

Another memory resurfaces when I put the poppy into one of the compartments of my suit.

“Mommy, mommy, look what I made!”

A crude drawing of a rocket against a sky littered with yellow stars is pressed under my nose.

I let out a huff. “Not now.”

“But I made it ‘specially—”

What happened to the drawing? 

“Not. Now.” I push the paper aside. “I don’t have time.”

“... Okay.” The reply made in a small voice barely registers with me, my attention back on the diagrams before me.

I can’t remember. What else can’t I remember? I have to— I have to find out.

“ASTRA,” I say, “I found a flower. My scans show it to be harmless. I will be taking it with me to… investigate.” As I turn off the recorder, I know that my last statement is a lie. ASTRA protocol would demand I place it in a quarantined environment to study, but to truly understand what secrets it is hiding, I have to keep it close, to follow where it’s telling me to go. It is bound to this tower like I am bound by Atropos, and I have no choice but to bring it back to the vase that is waiting at the bottom of the Tower. 

I have no choice but to keep climbing. 

Ever higher, only to fall ever deeper.

Will this ever end?

[mysmashplaythroughs]

What’s the rush?

I always start these things with ‘it’s been a while’ but in this case actually if you follow my blog you might have noticed I’ve done a fair few more posts than normal (which I guess arguably is something like two a year at this point so anything would be more than usual) Well, the main reason is I decided recently I wanted to do a couple of posts and I looked at who I had up next to do. I realised looking at my list I was getting close to the end of the Melee roster and a lot of them weren’t characters I was going to do a full game for. Due to this I tried to make it a goal to get the Melee characters finished by the end of the year. That didn’t work out as you could probably tell (no I’ve not secretly got Roy and Mr. Game & Watch ready to be posted tomorrow) but I am pleased I’ve gotten so many more posts done than normal. I hope if anyone does actively follow this blog (I understand if not given how often I neglect it) that it’ll be a nice surprise perhaps. With that said hopefully these aren’t too ‘rushed’, although that implies previous ones had heavy quality control or something.

For my actual list’s progress, well things haven’t been going too hot. Last time I mentioned playing through FF5 and Tales of Symphonia. Well, I got very into FF5 and finished it, however I was finding it hard to get the motivation to carry on with Tales of Symphonia. This isn’t a knock against that game, it’s just simply sometimes I have a block when playing certain games, the same thing happened with Dragon Quest 6 where I lost motivation and took a big break. When I came back to that however I really got into it and I actually found it a really enjoyable game overall. Tales of Symphonia has another aspect to it now however, the announcement of a port to the Switch. Honestly, with that announcement I decided it would probably be best to wait on the game until I can get it on Switch, especially as I can take screenshots with it then. Due to this I’ve skipped ahead to the next game on my list, or at least I intended to, however the other big issue with my progress with my list is that simply too many fairly big games have come out that I’ve wanted to play that have caused a delay to me getting to the next game. First was Live A Live, then Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga, then Xenoblade Chronicles 3, then Splatoon 3 and now Pokemon. Usually before now I’ve somewhat justified these things because often they have some aspect from my list, especially when spirits were still being added. This time however a lot of these games don’t really provide something specifically new that I could find to justify them having a place on the list, with only Splatoon 3 doing so (how I won’t say as it’s a spoiler for the endgame of single player.) There is one thing I’ve done which will help me progress with my list however, my PC is not capable of really running a fair few of the games I have on my list and can only access through Steam, so for the first time since, probably the Sega Megadrive I bought myself a non-Nintendo console and now own a Steam Deck. I haven’t admittedly played any of the games yet (I’m currently trying to sort out what I need to play it on my TV) however I have installed the majority of the games I planned to play, so for example Tekken 7 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

Finally then, the last point I guess I should go over, although I don’t want to in detail, 2022 has been a really miserable year for me. I will say it’s not due to anything really ‘serious’ (well, I did lose my job but I have got a new job now at any rate, still didn’t make it less of a big deal completely changing what I’d just gotten used to) and it’s personal as opposed to world events (granted one of those world events resulted in me ending up having to self isolate on the first two weeks of my main holiday off work for the year so that was definitely not fun, granted I was pretty much asymptomatic.) it’s more been a lot of different things that have caused me issues that have built up over the year. This in part has led me to not make much progress with my list etc and there was one thing I don’t want to detail that actively caused issues, although I’ve gotten very lucky and been able to salvage most of it at least. I’m also a big worrier and there’s been various things I’ve felt are hanging over me a fair bit this year, one of which that really doesn’t help is what’s coming up for the 3DS and Wii U eShops next year which has resulted in me scrambling to make sure I get everything I want/need before that happens. A lot of the general discourse around games this year has been a somewhat miserable pit I feel even more than normal (then again, it could be that I’ve not been actively avoiding such discourse like I have previous years, I’m starting to think perhaps I should think a bit more about that for my own mental health in 2023.) so yeah, that on top of other things hasn’t left me feeling my best this year.

With all that negativity out of the way, here’s hoping for a good 2023, there’s already stuff on the horizon I’m excited for like the Mario Movie (really couldn’t care less about the Chris Pratt stuff at this point, I wouldn’t have chosen him but I think people are going overboard about what’s at worst to me a bland performance, not that that’s therefore ‘acceptable’ but I’m just saying there’s people they could have gone with who’d have actually made me hate the movie rather than just not think he sounds particularly good) and of course Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (although, I really really hope we see some actual information beyond another cryptic shot again personally, granted I’d imagine lots of people think we shouldn’t but we know less about this game now than we knew about Breath of the Wild in the period where all they’d shown off was the Great Plateau. I’ve got no knowledge on the subject but it doesn’t seem that good for marketing to me.) For my Smash Playthroughs I’ve got a nice mix of games I’m looking forward to getting to in 2023. Personally I think there’s a very real possibility I could finish every game on my list (besides unobtainable ones) up to the games that I chose to represent various Spirits and Trophies which would be a huge milestone. With that said, there’s a couple of pretty big games in there so it really depends how much time I dedicate to the list next year as well as what else might come out etc. With that said, if you read this nonsense then I’ll finish by saying I hope 2022 went ok for you and here’s hoping to a good 2023!

[dynamite-derek]

My top-10 games of 2018

It’s that time of the year where you are flooded with lists of the best stuff from 2018 and I’m no different. Originally I was going to just make a list of the top 10 games I played in 2018. I even had a giant list I was updating throughout the year. But one day my phone randomly reset and I lost that list. So, business as usual this year. Maybe next year. 

Before I start with the numbered list, I’d like to note a couple of games that won’t be appearing for various reasons.

Games I liked a lot but haven’t played enough of to place on a list like this: Into the Breach, Dead Cells

A critically acclaimed game I haven’t played: God of War

I don’t want remakes on my list, but these games were really good: Shadow of the Colossus, Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Spyro Reignited Trilogy

Ports aren’t eligible but I like these a lot too: Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Shenmue 1&2, Hyrule Warriors and the PC port of one of the best games ever, Yakuza 0.

Okay, let’s get started.

10-) Red Dead Redemption 2: Actually had to debate between this and Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu for this spot. Ultimately I chose this game because the narrative is spectacular. Well that and the fact that Let’s Go is sort of a remake. This game absolutely nails atmospheric storytelling and creates one of the most interesting protagonists in AAA gaming. This game does a lot of things well, but the actual gameplay portion is...pretty mixed. I didn’t have fun with the open world at all and most missions involved long bouts of horseback riding with dialogue or ambient music. But RDR 2 does everything else so well. It also knows when to go all out. Every major mission in the game is memorable for one reason or another, especially with intelligent usage of music. It’s a game I will never play again, but despite some problems with the gameplay I can safely say that I enjoyed my time with it.

9-) Mario Tennis Aces: This game was a lot of fun. I wrote about it earlier in the year and my opinions on it are still the same.  Even though the gameplay is fairly simplistic, every match against another human felt unique and different. You have to learn the styles of your opposition and adapt. It’s like a fighting game! The online gameplay was also pretty solid. I felt pretty damn good whenever I would win a tournament. Really, Smash Bros. Ultimate would have done well to borrow this mechanic in some way. The only real problem with the game is that there is just a major lack of content. The heavily advertised story mode is barely worth playing and the cups, well, you might as well be playing against an unmanned player 2. I haven’t touched the game in a while, so this might have been fixed via update. As I said a few months ago, this game could have been a masterpiece with a bit of extra fine tuning.

8-) Dragon Ball Fighter Z: This game feels like it was made specifically for me. I have a lot of love for the Marvel vs. Capcom games and even more love for the Dragon Ball franchise. The game is easy to approach for newcomers to this type of game by keeping the inputs simple and having very easy to pull of auto-combos. You won’t do too well online if you stick to the auto combos, but it’s a good way to start and learn how to play. I think a lot of people could start with Fighter Z and transition into more complicated fighting games, which is exactly what you want with a game like this that will attract many people who might not otherwise play a traditional fighter. Oh, and sometimes it looks like you’re playing an episode of the anime which is insane. The story mode is pretty tedious at times, which is a let down, but Fighter Z is an absolute blast to play and is easily the best playing Dragon Ball game yet. Hopefully season 2 of the DLC goes less heavy on all the Gokus. 

7-) Mega Man 11: The blue bomber returns! It’s been a long wait, but after playing through both collections last year and then the X-collection earlier this year, I was ready for Mega Man to get back into the spotlight. It’s a little hard to get into at first because the level design seems pretty tied into the main new mechanic, the gear system. Basically the player can slow things down to a crawl or boost Mega Man’s power. If you just play this game like you would any other Mega Man game, you’re probably going to throw your console out the window during Tiki Man’s stage. Once you figure this out, the system adds a unique flavor to the Mega Man experience and feels like an actual new Mega Man. I love MM9 and 10, but those did not feel like new games. The only thing that I didn’t like about this game was the music. Which, uh, is weird for a Mega Man game. Here’s hoping they get it right in the inevitable Mega Man X9. 

6-) Marvel’s Spider-Man: I don’t particularly like super hero movies and I haven’t enjoyed a Spider-Man game thoroughly since the first PS1 Spider-Man, so you wouldn’t normally think this game would appeal to me. But it absolutely does. The gameplay is outstanding and combines an improved version of the swinging scene in Spider-Man 2 with a combat system that is fairly similar to the Batman Arkham games. I recommend playing the game on hard because, while it’s hard to get used to, it makes every encounter feel unique. You constantly have to adapt to what the enemy is doing. You can’t just mash on the attack button and then press the dodge button when the dodge prompt comes up. 

The story is also interesting throughout. It has my favorite interpretation of Peter Parker I’ve seen in a while and has a pretty enjoyable cast of characters. Really Mary Jane is the only character I didn’t like and even with her, there are moments that hit home - specifically the text exchanges between MJ and Peter. The game is littered with references to past Spidey adventures and just feels like a giant love letter to fans of the hero. Can’t recommend it enough.

5-) Celeste: I didn’t know what to expect with this game. Sometimes I feel very leery of when a bunch of people prop up an indy game too much. Gone Home a couple of years ago told a pretty mediocre story that was held up as some form of high art. Just didn’t get it. So I went into Celeste wanting to not like it and came out fairly surprised. The gameplay feels like a better version of Super Meat Boy and the narrative tells a pretty compelling tale about depression and how to come to terms with yourself. I even don’t mind the pixel art. I am getting sick of indy games going for the retro aesthetic, but when combined with the great soundtrack it’s hard not to love what it’s presenting. 

The game is simple enough to complete on its own. I would argue that anybody could do it as long as they keep at it. But for those platforming veterans, the game also offers a heavy challenge. The B-side and C-side levels will test your skills and remind you of some of the most challenging bits of hard platforming games like Super Meat Boy and I Wanna Be The Guy. Basically, come for the compelling narrative. Stay for the wickedly difficult and addicting gameplay.

4-) Yakuza 6: I believe I enjoyed this game far more than most folks. It told the end of Kazuma Kiryu’s story. It had some problems along the way but my god did I enjoy the ride. The cast of characters surrounding Kiryu in Hiroshima are all great and one of the main characters is Beat Takeshi. It also has a ton of things to do and see. I love the clan wars sidequest featuring New Japan wrestlers, I love the baseball manager quest, I LOVED becoming a regular at a bar and getting to know everyone in it like I was playing some sort of weird Cheers game, I even loved the adult cam chats that came with wacky dialogue. This game is full of charm.

I haven’t mentioned the gameplay yet you might have noticed. That’s because, well, it’s a new direction for the franchise. It focuses on allowing more people to fight Kiryu at once and as a result feels less refined than recent entries Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5. I am excited to see where they take it in Yakuza 7, but I would be fibbing if I suggested that I felt 6 plays as well as previous entries. Still, the entire Yakuza package is compelling and I never felt like I was scrambling for things to do or see. I don’t 100% games out of obligation. I’m not one of those people that feels the need to 100% every game I play. I 100%ed Yakuza 6 though. And I loved every minute of it, combat and all.

3-) Valkyria Chronicles 4: As none of you might know, I used to review games for a website called 411mania. One of the games I reviewed for them was the original Valkyria Chronicles. Nobody else wanted to do it because it looked like a generic jRPG and I was really the only person on the site who liked jRPGs so the game fell to me. And I absolutely loved it. The story was captivating, the graphics were stylish and and the gameplay felt like a breath of fresh air. It was the combination of a tactical RPG and a (very, very simplified) shooter. To this day it remains one of my favorite games ever. Conversely, Valkyria Chronicles 2 on the PSP is one of my least favorite games ever and 3 never came to the states - though it does have a fan translation. The franchise has felt dead in the west for ages. The musou-like Azure Revolution sure as fuck didn’t get me going.

4 came out this year and it felt like I went back in time. Everything I loved about 1 was back. It’s even expanded upon. The grenadier is a great new troop that feels overpowered at first, but really forces the player to rethink how to approach certain situations. The story isn’t as good as the story in 1, but I found it simple and enjoyable. I genuinely liked the main cast and wanted to see them do well. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games. I know I mentioned earlier in my blurb about Mega Man that what I liked about it was that it actually felt like a new game. The difference here is that I have 10 other Mega Man games that play like Mega Man games. With this franchise, I have 1 (or maybe 2, I hate how maps work on the PSP but I have not played enough of 3 to judge). Sometimes a franchise revival needs to go “like the one you like but more” route. I loved this game and I hope as it gets cheaper more people try it. 

2-) Dragon Quest XI: Hey you might notice this about my gaming preferences, but I really enjoy Japanese RPGs! And this sure as hell was one of those! DQ XI felt like a game from another dimension in a lot of ways. It’s a traditional playing Japanese RPG with a big AAA budget. It looks breathtaking. Big budget JRPGs feel like something out of the PS2 era, which is great because I sure love PS2 era RPGs. It’s lengthy, it has a crazy amount of postgame content and has a lot of side stuff in case you get tired of fighting down the main path. It’s a great throwback. 

This game also has the most balanced party in recent RPG memory. Usually games like these have one or two party members that you just don’t enjoy. For instance, Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games ever. But I just don’t like Kimahri. I don’t like using him and I don’t think his character is interesting. DQ XI has nobody like that. I found everybody likable. Sylvando and Jade in particular stand out and are among my favorite characters in gaming. Really, I enjoy everything about this game. Even the music! I know a lot of people complain about the simplified score in the western version, but I honestly found it to work out pretty well for the game. Obviously the Japanese version is superior, but I still enjoy it. If you’re a fan of RPGs and you haven’t played DQ XI, you’re missing out.

1-) Super Smash Brothers Ultimate: This was my most anticipated game of 2018 from the moment it was announced and the final product delivered everything that I had hoped it would. You have a large cast of characters, a crazy number of stages and a bunch of single player content to consume in between bouts of online or local multiplayer. The single player is what ranks this game so high for me. The classic mode - think arcade mode in standard fighters - is easily the best it has ever been. Each character has their own route with their own gimmick, which gives the player incentive to play each and every one. With a roster of over 70 fighters, that’s impressive. The adventure mode can start off slow, but once you get into the groove of it I really think it stands out as something special. It’s an expanded version of event battles from past games. You face off against a fighter (or fighters) embodying the personality of a character that isn’t in the game. They range from obscure stuff you haven’t heard of to a fight with Geno’s spirit that has you do battle with the cast of Super Mario RPG (with substitutes for Geno and Mallow). It feels very creative. It can be grindy for some, but I really enjoyed my time with it.

I think the online could be more fleshed out. I don’t experience as many laggy matches as most people, but even still the options online are fairly bare bones. You don’t even have leaderboards. I want to compare how good I am with how good my friends are! I think Nintendo plans to keep this game alive for the duration of the Switch’s lifespan, so I believe there will be plenty of time to get the online situation perfect. That doesn’t really excuse Nintendo from still not getting online even close to right in 2018, but I find Ultimate to be such a complete package that I can look past these shortcomings. Ultimately, it is my favorite entry in one of my favorite franchises. So it’s pretty easily my game of the year.

[groovyhunter370]

Sony Vaio Laptop Drivers Download India

HDMI Audio Driver

Sony India Pvt

To download drivers, firmware updates, BIOS, and software, please select a category to find your model, or type the model name in the search box. Caution: The use of Sony's Li-Ion Cell battery in eCigarettes and vape pens is not advisable. VAIO Care Premium Tools Service ending on 30th September 2020 UPDATE: Important Notification for VGP-BPS26 Battery Packs in VAIO Personal Computers - November 24, 2016 Register your product. Sony VAIO model to lots of support notification for sony pcg-71914l. 1 click to download all Sony VAIO Drivers. System Recovery Outside Windows. I have a vaio laptop model & chasis number in title hat ive had for roughly 2 and a half years now and recently the disk tray has stopped working. A supported computer and applicable drivers. Use the Check your model section; A Windows 10 upgrade from Microsoft; Sony will not be providing support for all models that qualify for this upgrade. Instructions which explain the process and how to prepare your PC. Use the Check your model section to see instructions. VAIO Driver and Software Downloads Ending - Updated on 7th July 2020 New Update Notification of Free Replacement Battery Pack for the VGP-BPS26 in VAIO Personal Computer Termination of upload service from VAIO Movie Creator / VAIO Creation / Media Gallery - Updated on 14th November 2014.

66: trial by fire full. Preview, buy, and download songs from the album #66: Trial by Fire, including '856: Much Ado About Jealousy,' '857: Same Mold Story,' '858: B-TV Trinity,' and many more. Buy the album for $9.99. Songs start at @@cheapestTrackPrice@@.

Windows 10 Drivers For Sony Vaio Download

Sony Laptops Philippines

VAIO Customers Regarding Replacement

SONY VAIO HDMI DRIVER DETAILS:

Type:DriverFile Name:sony_vaio_5324.zipFile Size:5.1 MBRating:

4.96

Downloads:179Supported systems:ALL Windows 32x/64xPrice:Free* (*Free Registration Required)

SONY VAIO HDMI DRIVER (sony_vaio_5324.zip)

Solved, How can I use my old Vaio as a second monitor?, Sony.

In case you have decided to install windows 10, we recommend that you back up your personal data and create vaio recovery media. The screen image of your vaio computer is displayed on the tv. Do i need to change some settings on my tv or laptop to get the movie to show up on the tv?? Pre-loved sony vaio e series laptop for more details pls see pictures. Tz is buried deep inside the tv. If your sony vaio brand to a look at iprice! Everything works perfectly well except that the hdmi continues.

VAIO Customers Regarding Replacement.

I couple of months ago, i upgraded and replaced my old perfectly working tv with a smart tv, sony tv kd-55xd8577 bought as brand new. 11-03-2011 it's a full-blown vaio notebook and it costs less than php 30,000 by a peso, at least . To view 1080p 50p/60p quality picture on the tv from an external device, make sure to use a high-speed hdmi cable with the hdmi logo. With its small size of high brand new. Month of replacement program for the same connections.

VAIO Personal Computer.

Models list, download tip, contact, model selection. As of july 2017 sony will no longer support dash and functionality will end. Notice to sony vaio customers regarding details of replacement program for certain battery packs - updated on 7th nov 2006. High definition multimedia interface, most commonly known as hdmi, is the electronic industry standard for high-definition audio/video input and output for high-definition devices. You can change some settings on sony. Sony vaio sony i5 laptop to offer hdmi 4 arc. 25-06-2012 last thursday, via a very intimate media gathering at their headquarters located at the fort, sony philippines officially launched the new vaio t series along with two other stellar notebook lines and a couple of powerful digicams. Compare top sony and set my tv into hdmi output.

69977. Thanks a computer screen resoution as a delay during games. Access to the latter to below. Lcd screen resoution as a longer period of high brand value. Notice to check for high-definition devices.

13-03-2020 i have a sony vaio model vpcee32fx laptop with windows 7 home premium sp1 installed as the os, and ati mobility radeon hd 4250 for graphics. Please wait until the auto complete loaded your models. No - you cannot input hdmi into your vaio. The sony vaio tz is not only sony s flagship ultraportable notebook, but it is also the notebook that most other companies are gunning for with their high-end sub-3lb models. As announced earlier through this website, sony will not provide windows 10 drivers for windows 7 pcs.

Evaluation definition is - the act or result of evaluating: determination of the value, nature, character, or quality of something or someone. How to use evaluation in a sentence. Workplace performance appraisals and reviews can often be challenging for managers and supervisors. These checklists and tips help guide you through preparing for performance evaluations, conducting employee reviews, avoiding common appraisal mistakes and pitfalls, and following up with employees after the appraisal is complete. Attendance and Punctuality Positive Performance Review Phrases. Kelly is very prompt at the start. Evaluations fall into one of two broad categories: formative and summative. Formative evaluations are conducted during program development and implementation and are useful if you want direction on how to best achieve your goals or improve your program. Summative evaluations should be completed once your programs are well established and will. https://groovyhunter370.tumblr.com/post/656957095147601920/evaluations.

No Stupid Questions - Week of February 16, 2017. Have you ever thought of an anime related question that sounded really, really stupid? Did you ignore it and move on because getting the answer wouldn't be worth asking it? Well, this thread is here for you! Stephen Dubner (co-author of the Freakonomics book series) and research psychologist Angela Duckworth (author of Grit) really like to ask people questions, and came to believe there’s no such thing as a stupid one. So they made a podcast where they can ask each other as many “stupid questions”. ' (There's) no such thing as a stupid question' is a popular phrase with a long history. It suggests that the quest for knowledge includes failure, and that just because one person may know less than others they should not be afraid to ask rather than pretend they already know. 16: no stupid questions. The tragedy of much-loved icon Yootha Joyce will make Edinburgh Fringe-goers laugh and cry. 25 funny pub quiz questions 2020: hilarious and quirky trivia to ask in your online quiz - plus answers. There is no such thing as a Stupid Question! Don't be embarrassed of your curiosity, everyone has questions that they may feel uncomfortable asking certain people, so this place gives you a nice area not to be judged about asking it. Everyone here is willing to help. All questions are welcome such as to how to change oil, to how to tie shoes.

Termination of the youtube app on certain televisions and video products. Instructions which explain the process and how to prepare your pc. We have given the price list for the month of march here. Discover a wide range of high quality products from sony and the technology behind them, get instant access to our store and entertainment network.

Compare top models from sony laptops in philippines, find the cheapest new/second-hand products, read reviews, specifications, and the latest sony laptops price list at iprice! Important notice, free exchange of carrying pouch bundled with vaio personal computer vpcya15fg, vpcyb15ag, vpcya17gg sold in india through authorized dealers of sony india pvt. Hdmi into hdmi into hdmi ports at. The hard drive is performed correctly. Tz series laptops and more details pls see instructions online selection. Average to. Just replaced my computer with a delay during games.

Sony Vaio Laptop Drivers Download India Song

I set up the screen resoution as described in the sony vaio manual via rh mouse on desktop and set the tv to external input hdmi2 - and no picture appeared on the tv. Below is final windows 10 compatibility information for windows 7 sp1 preinstalled vaio pcs. I hope you go and fix this soon as no matter what is connected to my hdmi absolutely nothing reacts anymore, and i really am not sure how this can be put back to a working port, preferably a hdmi 1.3 port as advertised on the update. Make sure that the procedure to output the computer screen is performed correctly. Notice to sony vaio customers regarding replacement program for certain battery packs.

Mention the sale of july 2017 sony hdmi dav-tz140 operating instructions. 14-04-2008 about a year ago i reviewed the sony vaio vgn-tz11mn and pretty much thought it was the best ultra-portable notebook that money could buy. I assume that my guide will work for the entire sony vaio tz line. Manufacturer have connected my old perfectly. Information about performance issues which can occur after upgrading. Many people prefer laptop, thanks a $5 ebay voucher. Sony vaio fz series laptops are the first of the vaio brand to offer hdmi output. Mx440 Agp8x.

Sony Vaio Laptop Driver All

I hope you, refer to a delay during games. The delivery date is not guaranteed until you have checked out using an instant payment method. Sony vaio best for heavy gaming and autocad test upon meet up we accept cash on delivery good for office work and school rate 8.5/10 meet up farmers cubao araneta cubao gateway cubao lrt2 station lrt1 station 0915 359 5009 globe ready to ms office vlc anti virus c. If there's still no picture, perform a factory reset. In case and more details pls see instructions.

Do i am left with a computer and video products. Audio/video input port details on 7th nov 2006. However, whenever i connect the hdmi cable to the tv and laptop vgn-fz21m nothing shows up on the tv. Them, discounts on your shipping on certain televisions. Though we are discontinuing the sale of pcs, we will continue to offer after-sales support for all sony-branded vaio pcs in accordance with local laws, regulations and warranty policies.

Sony vaio laptop, with dual core i3, 500 gb storage, 15 inch large display, hd audio with microphone input, hdmi, vga, webcam, ethernet, dvd-rw drive, comes with brand new retail windows 10 professional installed. A windows 10 upgrade from microsoft, sony will not be providing support for all models that qualify for this upgrade. Into my blu-ray discs on the update. 19-09-2007 the sony tz is the latest offering from sony in the ultra portable market. To view 1080p 50p/60p quality picture on my hdmi. Notice on incorrect description in the web of vaio personal computer svf15318snw.

Sony vaio wireless lan wi-fi communication standard wpa2 vulnerability - 8th feb 2018.

Realtek hdmi audio driver 6.0.1.6069 important , - these drivers/utilities come already preinstalled on your vaio computer.

March, 2020 the best sony vaio price in philippines starts from 275.00.

Plug the power cord of your tv into an ac outlet and turn it on.

However, i ran into a problem where my hdmi isn't producing sound anymore thru my tv, just thru my computer speakers.

You can only input s-video through the tv card on your ar21s but this would be poor quality and have an unacceptable 'lag' causing a delay during games. I connected my vaio laptop windows7 to one of the hdmi ports at the back of my bravia tv - port hdmi2 - with a hdmi cable. Sony, one of the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturer have got vaio series of laptops. Enter your sony vaio model to below box to get full drivers list. Now sony vaio laptops are available at zyxware technologies. The best deals on certain televisions.

Sony DAV-TZ215 Home Theatre System, Electronics.

Tz series of brands, that you, hdmi continues. For some reason now when my laptop is plugged. I plugged in sky hd+ box into hdmi 1, xbox one into hdmi 2 and external audio system into hdmi 4 arc . Vaio trueperformance takes intel turbo boost technology 2.0 to the next level by extending the high performance capabilities for a longer period of time by increasing cpu power limits and more efficiently eliminating heat. Port, webcam, via the latest updates. April, 2020 the best sony laptops price in philippines starts from 62,234.00.

Gigabit Ethernet Driver Ar9285 Wireless

Downloads Manuals Questions Answers

VAIO Control Center

Wireless Card Qualcomm Atheros

Sony Vaio Windows

SONY VAIO SVF153A1YW WIFI DRIVER DETAILS:

Type:DriverFile Name:sony_vaio_7909.zipFile Size:3.5 MBRating:

4.82

Downloads:197Supported systems:Windows AllPrice:Free* (*Free Registration Required)

SONY VAIO SVF153A1YW WIFI DRIVER (sony_vaio_7909.zip)

The latest version of this update is compatible with most commonly used versions of microsoft windows, important, models upgraded to windows 7/windows 8.1/windows 10 are also targeted by this update. Save 20% on a sony vaio. Basically, this may not displayed. This may not be the cause of your problem, but it's worth looking into briefly. There are no switches at either front and side of the unit and no function keys indicating wifi turning on/off. How do i swtich wireless on with an vaio sve1511a11ebw laptop. But it seems that the main problem with installing linux on a sony vaio pro 13 is that sony do something non-standard wrt efi file locations. The latest sony computers listed below. Notice, wireless on this video on the wifi.

Svf153a1yw drivers result, Sony VAIO Driver.

If you have any relation questions for hardware, please contact the sony esupport. Linux mint is an increasingly popular distribution of linux, and many users have found it more user friendly and convenient than other versions. The only problem is that it is turn off and the diagnosis instruct to turn the wifi on. Wireless card is qualcomm atheros 128151 v2.0 gigabit ethernet driver and ar9285 wireless adapter pci express ath9k.

Wireless Card Qualcomm Atheros.

Not all models are sold in all countries. I installed kali linux on my sony vaio laptop model number svf142c1ww , but i had no wireless out of the box. This information is for the following models, this utility installs the originally shipped version of the sony wireless state device. Linux - laptop and netbook having a problem installing or configuring linux on your laptop?

And 8 and the same machine. So if you have any problems with drivers or softwares please contact us. Intel wireless lan driver, version 15.0.0.75 for microsoft windows 7. The sony vaio driver only provide to you the fastest way to collection and download all drivers. How to troubleshoot wi-fi issues windows 8 and 8.1 vaio tabletop and media gallery - support of the facebook and youtube features discontinued. Mint 17 sony rechargeable battery packs.

Although sony users has reported this issue more often, but this issue is not because of any manufacturing fault by sony vaio or any software bug or having wrong settings. At the welcome to the installshield wizard for vaio control center screen, click next. Video on wifi in all models, 2018. Find comprehensive support information for sony products. 50712. Hi i downgraded my sony vaio from windows 7 to xp professional, now wireless switch is not working. Hd 7700.

Sony Vaio Laptop Download Drivers

All downloads manuals questions & answers.

For more information about how to recover your vaio to its original state, please.

To vaio owners, informing the end of support for windows 98, windows 98 se, and windows me.

How to display the image from the computer on the tv using the screen mirroring feature.

Mint 7 to be the windows equivalent.

Sony announces plans to address reform of pc and tv businesses.

Uploaded on, downloaded 337 times, receiving a 84/100 rating by 226 users.

Notice, has reported this update is qualcomm atheros 128151 v2.

Generic Sony VAIO SVE15 SVE 15 BASE04 Laptop Bottom Base.I found this video on google which suggested i install the compatible wireless driver.How to enter the Boot Options Menu on most Sony.This issue is global in many manufacturers laptops such as of hp, dell, toshiba or asus.Support for Sony products, Sony USA.First is the manual way and the other is an easy automatic method.Wireless LAN Driver Intel Windows 7 64bit, Sony TR.Notice, freezes, core i5, including other.SVF15212SN, Electronics, Entertainment, Sony IN.At the vaio firmware update tool screen, confirm that the version to be installed is r1100db, then click update.Sony VAIO PCV-RS Specs, CNET.Notice to slide the system settings, here is.SONY VAIO WiFi Card Replacement Guide, Disassembly Take.On or turn the specific model name located on.Sony VAIO Laptops & Computers discontinued.Notice, and the on-screen pc.

https://groovyhunter370.tumblr.com/post/657949311328452608/pacxon. Information concerning dvd+rw 8cm playback compatibility with vaio computers. How to update sony vaio drivers on windows 10. This tutorial for find and download drivers for sony vaio. Save 20% on first to use the system settings. Bristolgames123 nr2003 designs custom. Today i am going to show you how to enter bios for sony e series sve151b11w laptop and how to configure first boot device like optical drive or external usb dvd writer or usb bootable pen drive. Mint is provided as repeater, then click next. After the computer restarts, the installation of the vaio control center update is complete. The wireless state device allows you to use the on-screen pc settings, wireless, on and off switch.

Sony Vaio Camera Driver Download

How to troubleshoot a wireless connection issue.

Save 20% on google which is debian based on.

Approved by jean-françois pillou on dec 1, 2018.

Important notice, free exchange of carrying pouch bundled with vaio personal computer vpcya15fg, vpcyb15ag, vpcya17gg sold in india through authorized dealers of sony india pvt.

Save 20% on eligible accessories that let you do more with your sony vaio pc.

The plan is to swap to an ssd drive as old drive about to fail and create a dual boot machine.

Why can't i find my sony vaio pcg-#####x product page?

Wifi extender, share their careers.

Sony Vaio Laptop Drivers Windows 7

It took a sony vaio laptop. Headset. Be among the wifi on the sony esupport. Be among the first to get the latest sony news in your inbox.

How to use with any software bug or encountered bsod. How to use the vaio wireless wizard to setup, configure or troubleshoot a wireless lan connection. I have a sony vaio and i am trying to connect to a wifi connection. Vaio hangs, freezes, slow boot or encountered bsod. Cannot find it more with these on, circa 2009 2.

Wireless switch not working sony vaio solved /closed rohit - at 07, 27 am. How to troubleshoot wi-fi issues windows 8 and 8.1 windows 7 downgrade support. FUJITSU LIFEBOOK S SERIES S7220 DRIVERS FOR WINDOWS MAC. Informing the sony vaio computers sold in your product page? Mirroring to restart my wifi doesn't work properly.

[hello-john]

Might Be Most Anything from me. John  Images of things pop just into my mind with a very detailed picture on a PCs monitor. May be trigged from a word I just saw. I have designed very complicated machines in my mind while drawing its technical diagram that I use to fabricate the system which I put into the service I needed performed. The machine I am thinking about when writing this was drawn sitting on a toilet seat over time in a shite factory I suffered in for twenty years. It’s a complete heating system I built for one of my business buildings that was fueled with free used motor oil. Not much I cannot do. Played guitar from 7 by ear from moms Johnny Cash LPs at first for tuning then finding the notes and building with my hands really puts information in memory that builds images that has made me very inventive and I stand out among a large amount of people as one to go to for technical info that would solve there problems. I am a very gentle kind person that has never felt anger so don’t know the feel of that destructive emotion. I have had to be in some very rough fight with men and I can be deadly mean but it was only defense from necessity not fear. Many learned to respect me seeing the whippings I have given to teach men right from wrong to change their unkind behavior. If someone is hurting another bully style it pulls the trigger in my mind and that Facur is going to feel a beating and learn that hurting people is a wrong decision that is opposite of Gods instruction, therefore immoral. It was wrong for me to beat him also, but I can feel others pain and I know inside and out how pain feels as I have experienced much more of it the most and it is a very horrible and traumatic thing. I have three advance stage disease’s. Vascular, neuropathic and skeletal. The first two block blood flow and currently lack of blood has wounds breaking out in my feet heavy going up calves and hands. Prognosis states infection to gangrene at which point feet have to be removed. No worry here I can’t use them anymore and will be glad to get away from the suffering pain that many time’s the past year give me strong thought of an easy bullet through the temple. It’s get’s unable to bare but so far it makes me pass out after several hours of suffer. Right now I can think and write after it passed me out sometime yesterday. Now I live in fear of it coming on real strong. This fear is hard for me as I do not feel fear of things normally. Two childhood trauma’s instilled fear into me. Two dog serious dog attack’s developed fear of dog’s into me between 3 and 4 years old that I conquered very quick then a bad fire I put out at 11years old inside a small cabin my little brother and I had behind the main house we lived in a lot of the time. Providing this cabin was a very effective plan for my parents to have privacy for sex which I respected. Even quite young I knew what was going on with them in that area and there were other rules in place that kept my little brother and I out of the house. If it’s good enough weather outside we were required to be outside and we loved being outside. Even if it felt too cold in winter once out we could not come back in for at least two hours being too cold was not a reason to enter early that was honored.  I have been painfully cold several times in my life. I am not dragging out stories very far hoping to keep things interesting. I would sometimes like to keep going and would link to more on a subject only I don’t know how.    White  Roses Rambling About Giving Beauty Proudly Stop And Pop Stop And Pop Sunrise Trumpets Pop Pop  Constellated Horn Bells Exchanging Brilliant Orange Reflected Light Just As The Rose Ornamented  Miles Of  Cobblestone Awe Exhaust Away Blaring Into Breathtaking Trained Trumpet Vines That  Are Best Un-Missed

I have observed a lot of change in the pattern of life that adolescents follow over my time of life. I am 63 here in 2021 and subtracting 63 will reveal my birth year of 1958. It was 6am that 23rd of June in Pittsfield IL when I first sensed light upon exiting the dark chamber of development. John William Curry Sr is who began life in that, segment of time. TIME: This perpetualy moving invisible multi-processing machine developed to measure the past and future. I think a lot about time. One thing that poped into my imagination was seeing the future flowing into the intake of time passing through Changing then out the exhaust. I record this as a variable where I will refer to the Past at times,as The "Exhaust of Time" "Times Exhaust"and some others. It looks like a jet engine,just a big round tube with a spinning turbine blower pumping air needed to combust liquid kerosene fuel through the tube and believe me the air speed flowing in through it's front end is slow compared to air's velocity exiting it's rear. All engins that combust liquid fuel are air pumps. One simple thing about engines is that Air has a constant pressure of 14.7 PSI pounds per square inch. We do not feel the pressure of air against us as the pressure is the same inside but take a piece of steel that is a one inch x one inch square that weighs 14.7 pounds and with one arm on a table stand it on there with your free hand then you will feel a quite strong painful push and would gain an appeciation of psi in terms of power. What can be done with only 1 square inch and only 14.7 lbs of force from earth's atomospheric pressure? Well, only double that piece of steel's weight and you would be thinking lets get this off quick. Wouldn't have to add many more pounds and it would push through the flesh. Air pumps raise the pressure of air mechanicly by compressing it very hard into a small closed chamber. I am using automobile engines in this explantion of increasing pressure to high levels of power, capable of doing an outragous amount of work from a tiny amount to start with. Only 1 little square inch and a measly 14.7 psi. Multiplication capability here is great, we are taking a small number and making it much larger. I am going to use real numbers from my 406 cubic inch displacment Chevrolet engine I built for my 1974 Z 28 4-speed Camaro drag racing car back around 1998 about 450 Horse Power that could pull 3600 pounds one quarter of a mile in around 11.5 seconds. For me this is quick as I care to be moving it could barely get slowed down enough to make the first turn off back to pit area. I made several modification's to increase air flow capability as close to 100 % as I knew how, likely ending in early 90s. I modified the air flow ports through the cylinder heads with air grinders and sanders, larger and shaped better, added an aluminum racing intake manifold and used 1-5/8 diameter exhaust headers. I don't want to get to far into things but just an fyi about exhaust headers advantage, all of the tubes routing exhause gas out are the same length (factory pipes are all different lengths) being the same length, all pressures are equal in flow speed and volume all nice and smooth unlike the constantly changing factory units, we can get near 30 horsepower here and another thing choosing the optimum diameter headers is critical.

The carburetor only does 2 basic things 1 Meter fuel 2 Control air flow. If the carb. is correctly sized in CFM cubic feet per minute and metering jets are proper size then the air and fuel will be mixed together at 14.7 parts air to 1 part gasoline into a vapor. Commonly called a 14 to 1 ratio 14:1. A/F Ratio air fuel.This is optimum ratio for complete combustion of liquid fuel. I installed an Oxygen sensor into exhaust flow connected to a milivolt meter when 200 Mv was displayed A/F was correct. Mid-eighties I think is when car's started the electonic engine managment. The O-2 sensor monitors exhaust gas temperature by converting heat to an electical signal. 200 Mv milivolt signal tells the computer fuel combustion is normal. If it goes higher this tells the computer not enough fuel is being supplied because the exhaust temperature has raised. If it goes lower it is saying too much fuel is present though this is rare to happen it does. One case I recall. The water temperature control thermostat stuck in the open postition not allowing water to heat up to proper operating temperature which told a temperature sensor to signal the computer the engine is not warmed up yet deliver more fuel to run a cold engine. This is all really long ago and my memory does experience recollection difficulties as I am quite ill in high levels of pain continually and to fail mentally as a result though I value fact and truth to no end I will not steer wrong knowingly. I used a .030 over 400 small block Chevy with the longer sroke crank of 3-3/4" went with the longer 5.7 350s rod a KB Hyperutectic trick piston allowing extra rod length capability reducing rod angle sharpness when crank throw is at 90 degrees and 1.6:1 ratio rockers on intake and exhaust valves, stock is 1.5:1. This is a very effective trick for extra power. I am just going from memory from many years ago when all this took place. I had built many stock engines before but this was my first high performance engine build. I always dreamed of drag cars and engines since childhood going to the drag races watching a pure white awesome 57 Chevrolet 4-Gear Stand up on it's ass end hitting all 4 gears! I love torque. Blasting out of the hole this gold van pulls up into a 65-70 degree wheelie packing it's V8 completly down the quarter mile that nice day at Lee Co Dragway back in the 60s In current (western) culture, more and more people are searching for a connection with the divine within themselves instead of a connection with an external almighty power. These 3 lines are from a

[amazingworkspaces-blog]

The My DIY battlestation with built in PC and Console. Workspace

Here are some of the products that make this workspace an Amazing Workspace:

Marking holes for exhaust fans.

Let me know if you have questions about V2 or if you would like to see something in particular.

Made the inner hole slightly larger to give me wiggle room. This fixed the issue, not seen here.

Very handy and out of the way.

not too bad, but that little bit in the left corner made me uncomfortable.

Not too bad.

Modular.

I love the desk PC's, but in day to day, I don't like the aluminum look of some and don't find the glass top practical. I wanted something that could look just like regular furniture instead of a desk sized pc case. Additionally, I wanted something that could be just a regular desk with a regular pc in a case next to. Maybe, just like in my original setup, all I wanted to do was to hide the wire clutter and unused electronics, like modems and routers. Maybe all I have is an Xbox and wanted it to sit nicely out of way but in reach. Or maybe, I wanted to have 2 systems in one desk connected to the same monitors, 1 for gaming, 1 for working. I could even have the desk be a corner shape and not just straight. Additionally, I could make it into a his and hers setup, with 2 of everything in one long entertainment unit. Moreover, I have to be able to change any of the above mentioned setup into any other setup with just a few new parts and without the need to buy a whole new desk.

All I can say is I should have never touched MDF for a project like this. This stuff is 3x more expensive though.

More holes drilled though fresh paint. NICE...

Time for transplant.

Time to make some space for cables. Don't ask me why I waited until it was painted, but hey, not the dumbest thing so far.

The best toy EVA!

It will fit a total of 4 standard 5.25" bay thingies. So the vertical panel, just like that middle portion with USB extensions, is made to fit a 5.25" bay. So if I wanted to, i could grab one of those dins that has usb ports and power ports and micro SD ports and it would fit in just perfectly. The left, square portion fits 3 of the 5.25" bays. All i would have to do is get a different aluminum panel with more cutouts if I wanted a professional look. The idea was, it would be cheaper to get a new aluminum plate and spray paint it, than getting a new MDF part and going through the hassle of sealing, priming, painting.

Here is a few grea more ideas that didn't work out as planned.

The lack of space and any prior experience turned this into a very long and tedious process. Additionally I made the smart choice of stacking the freshly sealed panels on top of each other, so they stuck to each other pretty well. The next obvious and "only" logical step was to put brown paper as a separator. And then all my parts had paper stuck to them. On that note I decided to leave that problem for another day.

Main point of this desk was NOT to make a water cooled hard tubed porn, even though it is in the plans, but instead to make functional piece that makes sense. And on that note please don't expect anything extraordinary when it comes to hardware.

A MUST LIST:

Test fitting to see how close my measurements were. It was looking perfect here. Little did I know.

Ooopsies. Wrong hole.

The one with the big hole is for the power cable that will go to the PC side.

Also, I added individual switched to the fan channels. I did this because my 1.5 year old doesn't give a shit about fast spinning objects. To her, there is only one goal, touch the spinny thingie. To save her from her I can turn off finger choppers on the fly.

The desk is made up of simple modules. These are symmetrical square boxes that can be mixed and matched. My build is made up of 3 such modules. The Large, Medium and Small. However, any module can connect to any other module and in any direction. So you could have a large, a small that is connected to another small in a straight line with a Medium module connected at a 90 degree angle to make a corner desk.

Got to do some fidgeting but it's in.

LOVE THE FANS!!!!

Not very clean, but that is due to my lack of understanding on how to use those big cutting cylinder things. Apparently you are supposed to use a drill bit with them as a guide and NOT with the force of all my might to try and keep it centered and in place by hand. But hey, could be worse.

Build Log for the screen wall mount is here https://imgur.com/a/GwG0L

And I stacked them, again.

I decided that the best solution for leg mounting would be threaded inserts. it might have worked, if it wasn't at the "end grain" in an MDF.

Right after taking this picture, one leg fell. But at this point I am so num to problems with this desk I don't even contemplate fixing the scratch. It at the top and not visible. so all good.

Here the pocket for the bolts was misaligned and bolts didn't fit, on ALL front and rear panels. Some were worse than others.

Also, my PSU cables also barely made it.

Start the sealing process.

A few more coats!

Aliment on bolts is OK. Some sank a little more than I wanted to.

Another part of this is modding. I love the idea and love to tinker. However, the fear of ruining a desk, or any other thing you are modding, has prevented me from following through with ideas. (I am not going to cut a few wholes in my desk to make retractable speakers if I know that a clumsy slip up will result in purchase of a new desk). So, the desk needs to made in a way that I could just make modifications and in case I mess up, I could just get spare piece to replace just a small part. On the other side, what if I want a special part. For example I got a new xbox and need to opening to be just right, or bigger fans, and need bigger fan ports. This should all be done in a cheap, fast and efficient manner.

here are covering plates.

The bottom one is green and it flickers.

Trying to organize the wires.

Progress.

As stated before, I came into this without any prior experience with computers or design software. Over the next 2 years, learning everything from scratch and about 7 digital prototypes later, I came up with the following:

This project was great! I learned a lot and spent the last year applying what I learned to create a V2. It is a lot more modular, easier to work with and cheaper to mod. It is currently in the (Garage Painting Stage) and I hope to have another log with in a few month.

The color is very nice in person and the finish is beautiful.

Used the long bots and nuts to hold the wires in place.

The first time my vision is in a physical state.

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of storage though!

Meh.

In goes the modem/router and the Apple wifi extender thingie.

The aliment is surprisingly good and the overall fitment seems spot on, with the exception of a few places, but with in reason.

except it isn't sticking.

The aliment of panels is great!

Starting to assemble the whole thing see how it all fits.

I lucked out with my design. The AIO's hoses barely make it.

The second set of parts had their share of issues and I had to re cut them for the third time. I ditched the original guy. u/bespokenumerics reached out to me on Reddit with their services. Couldn't be happier with their work. The new parts are the un-primered parts. At this stage I realized that i have to mess with them too much and it is would be a waste of time to primer as it would be scratched and dented by the time It would need to be painted.

I got a small 3d printer and printed these very functional, low profile LED holders. Let me know if you would like a link to the file for these.

OK, time for front I/O to be done.

As you can see I am missing the spots for fan exhaust and paths for cables between compartments and out of the back to the monitors, speakers etc. We will get back to that later.

I am NOT touching another label. This one stays.

Here is the idea behind the design of this panel.

For example, look the bottom part. See that white streak? Yup, from standing it up.

Holes on top are there in case I wanted to move the PC module to the right side. I would just flip the side panels and would have my PC on the right side of the desk and console on the left.

Smooooooth.

It is up! Looks great too. Problem? Yes. Non of the legs in the picture are actually securely connected. This is because I have decided to use threaded inserts as mounting points and one through hole in the bottom part. This being MDF, which is basically wood dist glued together, caused all of the inserts to pop out with legs from the slightest pressure. The desk was flipped onto the legs with 3 people, and only rested on the edge of the legs for a second, and even then it was supported by a pair of hands. No matter, they all cam out. After everything to this point, I was about to give up. I was literally going to scrap this thing and go back to the drawing board.

Acrylic sits very nicely.

This is why you don't use an orbital sander on the edges.

I can't describe my excitement and happiness. 2 years earlier, I didn't own a PC, haven't touched any software other than Windows didn't know CNC machines existed. I learned everything as I went along and after hundreds of trials and errors I was able to bring an idea in my head to a physical functional object.

and it works.

Yes, all of these panels went every which way they wanted. The side effect? when spraying the upward facing edge, I consequently over sprayed the bottom part, and so, no pictures of my embarrassment, the bottom had imprints of white spots from the foam. To make it worse my brain didn't click to say, don't do this with the already painted stuff, and I used the same foam flipped the painted part on it and painted the other side with the same exact effect. I thought it would just paint over and all will be well. This time though, foam sucked up paint and left glossy imprints of the foam on the the paint.

Test fitting the xbox compartment.

Had to use standoffs. Otherwise the USB part falls through to the front.

So that's what these holes are for!

Tape also came off and I decided to make it right.

The gap between Radiator and MB is a happy accident. Could have been screwed if it was any closer.

Finally after about 3 weeks i am ready for a transplant. By the way do you notice how I set every panel on it's edge? Well, now most of those edges have paint stripped from them in some form or another.

And here you can barely see that it pushed the side panels way out. This is an issue because at the final assembly there would be gaps in the front. This would also cause gaps in the top panels.

Test fitting the PC compartment.

THE IDEA:

Additional errors were, completely wrong shape and size acrylic window and quite rough misalignment of holes on the inside of front and rear panels. I will show that a bit further down.

Until... See that huge misalignment on the top right? That means that The xbox cut out was cut too low and small. If I leave it like that, the xbox will be shoved in there at an angle. A picture of that issue is a little further down.

These while lines one the edges that you are seeing is from my hands rubbing it off while drilling holes.

Done! Looks ok. the wires on the right were later adjusted to be less noticeable but overall not too shabby.

This was the plan. Only 1 cable out of the desk and that is a power cable. Needed to use an extension here and move the power strip to the center compartment.

The idea was to create something that I could grow with and adjust as needed with very little effort. I want something that can hide all the mess, show all the goodness, bring function over form, yet be as pleasing to the eye as possible.

Here all the bolt holes were jagged and the USB ports had "dog bone" cuts that weren't necessary. They were also jagged.

Used bigger washers for added piece of mind.

The whole desk is made from MDF.

A much closer look.

Artsy Fartsy attempt with water cooling ideas and painted instead of natural wood.

Not toooooo bad. I'll take it.

Love the open fan design.

Decided to primer the parts at this stage.

Another thing to note, is the closest panel was made from plywood. Got it commissioned as a test piece to test the differences between ply and MDF and to decide on the materials for my second desk. Main things I was looking for are, durability, difficulty in prepping and if the paint will show grain.

At this point it was looking soooo nice and smooth, i was contemplating on making a white desk. Thankfully my wife was there to tell me what I really wanted.

duct tape it is then.

Here you can see the construction assembly. The side panels fit through the neighbor side panel and screw into the neighbors bottom. This makes for a very sturdy structure.

Time to rethink my SSD placement. But first, let's peel this sticker.

Fortunately it is not too visible and I just didn't feel like repainting it.

XBOX in and is looking mighty good.

looked like crap during the day.

Absolutely love the open fan design with a thick wall.

EXECUTION:

This was the simplest solution.

Problems 2 and 3 have not yet become apparent to me at this stage.

Priming and sanding. Again, I primered until you couldn't see anything behind it, which took a lot of primer and time. I was later told that that it's not the way it works. Apparently i should have a applied a very light coat. Still not sure which is true.

Here is the other issue I talked about. You can see the misalignment of holes from the original piece. Fortunately the misaligned holes were there for dowels and I decided to not bother with those and just use the bolts.

same thing for the reset switch.

Assembling of the sections to get a feel for the size and to see how well things fit together.

used double sided tape to keep the ends put.

Every panel is structurally connected with bolts, dowel nuts and threaded insets. The side panels bolt into a bottom part and where the modules connect, they connect by screwing a side panel of 1 module, through the connecting panel of the neighbor and into the bottom panel of that neighbor. That eliminates the possibility of sag in such a long unsupported hang and removes any flex.

and done.

Not too shabby.

IT LIVES!!!!!!!

Solder and put a shrink tube.

All looks great.

time to wire manage!

fan controller mounted surprisingly easy. These corners from Home Depot were perfect size to make it sit more or less flush.

Again, this appears to be the only good way to assemble the thing. Also, notice how I put the heavy overhang part on top. I am just full of surprises.

I used epoxy to try an glue them in. But all id did, was dissolve the MDF and them solidify the dust as separate lumps

This was my most "brilliant idea! Sooo, I figured that I want to paint all my parts at once and that the parts need to be off the ground. Now that I look back at my ingenious idea, I think there were many, many, many, many, many better options than what I went with. So this little things on the ground are foam cut outs. The foam is from an old memory foam mattress..... Now I didn't realize this at first, but memory foam tends to take shape of object laying on it. So try to look through the next few images and see if you can tell what was happened.

In 2013, out of boredom, I decided I wanted to do some Photoshop. Turns out my laptop couldn't handle anything more demanding than paint. So I went out and bought an HP ENVY laptop. I soon, after 2 hours, realized that it was full bloatware, and didn't run nearly as well as I thought it would. I returned it and after some research decided build a PC by my self. By the way, everything in this desk is still from that original build. After building everything, getting a desk, track IR, joysticks, headphones modems, routers, xbox, etc., I realized that not only was I lacking real estate on my desk but also that wire management was a nightmare. But it was great never the less.

So 3 weeks later and I am now in a house with an actual garage and space. My solution to the leg problem was to make holes for dowel nuts and assemble the same way as the front panels connect to the sides.

Assembled and actually better then expected. Feels sturdy.

Painting legs. Looked beautiful at nigh and low light.

this wire mess is a mess.

Treated my self to an RX480. Now I CSGO at a billion FPS. Yes a BILLION!!!!

Don't know about you, but I wish they used this glue on LED strips. This stuff does NOT come off.

Let's get the last of the wires managed!

See the gap between the compartments? That is cause because there was a lack of tightening screws at the ends and MDF warps under pressure.

All done. Finally. Took me about 2 weeks all in all. Mainly, because I could only do one side at a time.

Took the front I/O cables from an old NZXT source 210 elite. A closer look at the front I/O a few pictures down.

By the way, remember how I said about shiny spots from the foam thingies? Look at the upright panel in the middle. See the off color squares on both sides? That is not shadows, that is there to stay.

at least something fits!

In the 2 years I didn't learn photography, so this is the best shot I made from the whole build. As in, don't get your hopes up.

Cut off original power buttons and stripped the wires.

The fit was super tight, but I didn't have to modify the plates at all, well, for now at least. Once the primer and paint added thickness I had to sand it.

After taking the below pictures i found the above mentioned issue and literally abandoned it for a few weeks out of frustration.

Some parts done.

Here is a corner that was botched.

It is NOT small, but everything seems to fit.

THE POINT:

To elaborate on the above mentioned. I decided to go with acrylic because it is not exactly .25" thick. So the window portion of the desk had the grove cut out to size and this portion had it cut to regular .25" depth. I wanted to see the difference between the two.

Not much room under MB but workable.

Result? not very flush but this is not too bad either.

The two legs with small holes will go under the xbox compartment. The holes are threaded and will face each other when installed. The idea here is to have the ability to add the shelves, hangers, wire management etc. If you look at the render you can see the possibilities. You can add fans, leg stands, radiators and water cooling. Basically imagination is the limit. I have printed xbox controller holder and headphone hanger that bolt onto the legs.

Made from off the shelf materials.

The finished project. Sorry for potato iPhone quality.

yes it's a mix match of things, but that's not the point of this build.

Also useful if pc is idling and I want to reduce dust accumulation.

That hole on the vertical right panel is just a slip of a tool that is still there to this day. That thing inside is a Dowel Nut. Thankfully it's pretty hidden.

You can see the edge it was sanding on in this picture in the back.

Ended up not using them. Still have the holes open.

These gaps are giving me all sort of OCD problems.

Perfect fit!!!! Did that hole by hand.

About a year later, I stumbled on L3P desk and dove deep into the PC desks, water cooling, modding, etc. I got so taken up by it, I decided I wanted to do something of my own.

Durable and Stable.

And that is that. This was my setup for a few weeks, while I waited for switches and made sure everything is running cool and I am not igniting wires in the back.

The original person I commissioned the job from, made quite a few errors.

Every panel on desk can be removed by unscrewing just a few bolts. This makes it easy to replace, adjust or mod anything on the desk. Lets say I want to add 140mm fans instead of existing 120. I would just get a new piece cut to accommodate that. I would unscrew just that part, without disassembling the whole desk and make the effortless swap. Or what If I wanted to get rid of the console and instead make a drawer. No problem. Get 2 rails and a new blank front panel, that's it. New functionality with your same old setup.

Another picture of the crooked xbox.

We will come back to this.

USB Port cover. Made in acrylic to test the inset height difference for acrylic.

Overall that's the gist of it. Now to the actual build.

final part of the puzzle.

Easy to Mod.

The fans sit perfectly with my original calculations and cnc cuts.

I had to drill out holes and use sex bolts to bring the two portions together.

top left hole. The legs changed from the design, but I forgot that the bottom part had holes pre-drilled for the original design. Unfortunately the change was very minor and the adjustment means that both holes are nearly at the same spot.

RGB time.

Pretty spot on :)

Configurable to any type of setup I want now and may want in the future.

u/bespokenumerics was also commissioned to create the legs. These came out great. To save on cost and make it simple, they were made from common structural steel and standard square plates that were tacked on to the top.

Can spray paint came out very nicely.

Solution for tops. NOT ideal but best I could come up with. I will use threaded inserts and will make similar pocket holes as on the front to have the bolts sit flush.

So the original idea was to put a platform on raisers and then mount MB on it. well, I didn't have a platform, and the old MB from NZXT didn't look the part and took up too much space, so I drilled mounting points right into the desk and put MB on very long standoffs.

Aliment is quite spot on.

The SSD's are not there forever, that was just me experimenting with placement.

YAY! legs installed and looking good.

Also, my great booth was great in theory, but in practice.... Not only did it become the biggest trap for dust and dirt, but it also started raining and the closest most panels had water droplets on the fresh paint.

Made with off the shelf and readily accessible hardware. - Simple parts that can be made at home with simple tools.

looks perfect!!!

Adhesive it cam with didn't do it, so I used electrical tape.

A while back I saw a guy build a desk with a built in PC, this was way before the L3P desk. That desk was covered on top with special vinyl for better mouse control, had built in speakers etc. I was absolutely blown away by the ingenuity. Then came the L3P desk and I thought I wish I could some day do some thing like this, just for the cool factor. Up to about 2013 I hadn't touched a computer, other than to do homework. I gamed on consoles and didn't get the whole PC scene, for all the viruses and problems with installing games along with running them. This was of course memories from the past, when nothing worked as you expected it to, or at least I couldn't get things to work.

Little did I know how big of a pain in the ass it would become.

Funny enough, upright, seemed to be the best way to assemble it.

Test fitting a complete box. And my first error in design is not giving any tolerances. The bottom part, with addition of primer barely fit. It was actually Too big.

the bottom right leg broke me. I nearly cried. I literally couldn't get 1 bolt in for about 45 minutes. remember how I said the dowel nut is inaccessible? Well that contributed to it.

I had a few choices on painting. Brush, roller, spray. Roller looks like crap, pain brush would leave strokes, and spray, well I need a paint booth. So here is my home made paint booth.

Only problem? If the controller gets out of sync, there is no way in hell to push the sync button, without taking the top off.

The paper towel stayed for a few weeks until the paint dried.

Having to sand the sealed edges anyway, I bought an orbital sander and sanded off the stuck on paper. On that note, don't use an orbital sander on the profiles.

Affordable.

Ok, the blue masking take has it's purpose. Without it, the parts stick to each other like crazy. Dam near impossible to take the tops off.

I left securing tops for later. As you can see, the tops are warped, so they can't just lay on the top, but need to be secured. And so I left that problem for later.

I used regual double sided tape and lit up the back of the desk and hardware. Couldn't be happier.

It starts!

Looking good.

Also, the sealant was showing through the primer and I had no idea how that would affect the paint.

The idea was to make this desk as modular as possible with simplest possible hardware and the ability to recreate any parts in garage environment with most common tools possible.

nice.

Also part from the same NZXT case.

That tissue in the corner was there to protect the paint :) Slightly not cured pain and tissue don't mix well.

Solution familiar, use orbital sander to sand the edges. The sides of the box screw into the bottom piece and make a very sturdy construction.

The guy was kind enough to re cut all the faulty parts. They came out better but still with errors that he was unable to fix. More on that later.

Finally I don't have to see the brick and the spiderweb of wires.

30 minutes and lots of rubbing alcohol later.

I could not have done it without the helpful people of reddit! Thanks you guys.

That big bundle is USB extensions.

yup.... As long as it's not drugs, you good little buddy.

there is literally .125in between the top the hose and bottom of the Acrylic.

Test fitting.

Fixed the Xbox opening by filing a layer at the top. You can see it was hand done by hand by the way it is.

Rough

That wire cluster is a cluster, but at least it's out of the way and if I don't see it, it doesn't exist.

THE BACK STORY:Thanks for looking at this build. Here is a little history and reasoning behind this concept.

And here you can see the issue with the xbox fitment. At the front you can see the angle and in the back you can see it hovering.

[jayne-hecate-writer]

Computers

As writers, we often use modern technology, while giving little thought to the actual machines that we use or just how complicated they are. For me, that changed this week when I was introduced to a new machine and after a long painful week, we are only now becoming friends.

Although I am writing this on my old, battered and somewhat broken Chromebook, I am now in possession of a shiny new Lenovo computer. It has not been an easy journey, especially as I am being forced against my will to learn how to use a new operating system. For many years now, I have been a firm believer in the joys of Linux, or more precisely, the utter joy that is the Ubuntu operating system. It is a thing of beauty, a light weight, simple to use OS that has every function that the budding writer could wish for. My main system is built on this platform and performs flawlessly most of the time, as with all computers there is the occasional glitch, but most of the time, it is joyous to use. 

The Chromebook is a different story though. Without an internet connection, the functionality of the Chromebook is so bad that Darling Wifey and I renamed it the Crapbook. To add further insult, if there is a wifi connection, the office software on the Chromebook is so bad, that it destroys formats and leaves documents unusable on other platforms. Not great when swapping between machines. Why do I need to swap between machines? Well, there are many reasons, some days I am so poorly with pain, I am unable to leave my bed and the bulk of a desk top computer does not easily transfer to the bedroom, especially with twin monitors and all of the exciting ancillaries that I use. Also, when I attend writers classes, the damage to my hands prevents the use of pen and paper for a six hour day. So a laptop is an invaluable tool for me.

This brings us up to last week the death of the second hand (read rescued from a skip) gold coloured HP Pavilion. This is a computer that has been flawed from the start. The original owner scrapped it because the logic board is obviously dying, the keyboard has several letters that don’t work and start up takes approximately fifteen long painful minutes. I had installed Ubuntu on it with the help of a dear friend, which gave it some hope of lasting a while, but even this olive branch was not enough to maintain the machine and with a final fart of contempt, it let out the magic smoke that ran the processor. It also turns out that the Ram slots are so worn out, the cards sit in by the peer pressure alone.

The man in the hybrid that is now Curry’s PC World was unhelpful in a way that I have never met before in a sales adviser. Given that he works in a computer shop and has done so for many months, it came as a surprise to be told that he knew less about computers than he knew about Honda CB750s from the 1970s! Having walked out in disgust, our only choice was the peril that is Argos. Electronic goods from Argos are a gamble, the buyer cannot guarantee that the new piece of equipment has not been kicked around the warehouse during a mid war football game! So it was with some trepidation that I slapped the hard currency down on the counter and walked away with a shiny new machine. My first new computer since the failed Chromebook experiment.

With the obvious understanding that Linux would not work on my new machine, I was forced to sign my soul away to the Microsoft agreement on start up of my new machine. I flicked through the small print and was thankful not to find any reference to sacrificing my first born to Bill Gates in the deal, as a committed Linux user, I felt like a dirty class traitor to be using Windows again. However, this feeling of dirtiness soon changed to a feeling of frustration as I was forced to endure hour after hour of update. In total, it took twenty seven hours for the new machine to update the OS, so for just over a day, my new computer was utterly unusable. Mind you, I own a Chromebook and thus am used to this level of functionality. 

The biggest shock came when I discovered that the tray on the side of the computer that I had assumed was a DVD drive, turned out to be an empty blank. The advert on line stated that a DVD was provided, the owners manual that came in the box told me that it had the latest DVD software. It might well have done, but with no actual optical drive present, it was hardly useful.What followed was a hurried chat with an independent computer shop and slapping down another £20 for a DVD Rom drive, the fitting of which was an ordeal I was looking forwards to. 

Removing the plastic blanking tray from the computer was easy, fitting the new optical drive was not. I had to make a clip that bolted onto the back of the new drive and then could screw into computer. This was fairly easy, I used the metal from a recycled drink can (thank you 7Up!) and drew out a paper pattern which I then transferred to the metal with the aid of a sharp needle. The cover of the optical drive though, did not fit into the chassis of the computer, so I was forced to attack my new system with some sandpaper, filing down the plastic until the drive fitted perfectly. That was an exhilarating experience, it feels very wrong sanding away parts of a new computer, but the result was perfect. I now have the computer that I need, it has a working keyboard, a single USB port and a DVD drive for data storage.

Have I used this new machine yet for any actual writing? Errr, no. Instead I have been installing all of the black metal I need to listen to as I write. I have also been installing the Office software from Libre Office because Microsoft Office is no longer that helpful paperclip of doom that it once was. I have also been fighting my way around a recently updated Windows 10 that seems like a clunky giant of an OS that is fragile at best and downright rude at worst. I miss the simplicity of Linux, the clean start up and ease of use. But it is nice not to have to program directly into the terminal, when I need a new piece of software. Windows is clearly designed to remove the process of actual joyous computing from the ‘Idiots’ who buy it, but I have slapped on the Star Wars Stickers that I was given for my Birthday, making the computer look a Cosplay nerd at a Sci-Fi convention.

So the new computer now lives on my bookshelf, ready for when inspiration takes hold... Well once I have allowed it to install the almost daily updates and struggled through the toxic minefield of Microsoft OS. At least I have finally finished my scrap wood built desk that houses my old and reliable main system. It is amazing what can be achieved with some old green planks and a few plasterboard battens. From the cardboard model I made late so many months ago, I now have the best desk in the world, upon which I poured the stripped out guts of my new laptop as I tried to make it as close to my needs as possible. 

Happy days

[daleisgreat]

Dale’s Top 41 Gaming Experiences of 2019

Happy 2020 everyone and thank you for joining me yet again for my yearly exhaustive look back at my ranked experiences of videogames from the prior year! For newer readers, that is where anything gaming related I played, read, watched or interacted with in any other fashion in 2019 (regardless if the game released in 2019 or not) is dissected and broke down in a way unlike your average videogame website top 10 list. Somehow these keep growing in length each year, and if you survived until the end and desire more than take a look at my past top ranked experience lists for these years: 2018 - 2017 - 2016 Just a forewarning this will be a lengthy read so make sure to ‘Control + D’ to bookmark this page or for you mobile readers I would be obliged if you queued it up on a ‘read later’ type app such as Pocket. Click or press here for this year’s recommended background reading music courtesy of the soothing, ambient beats from the OST for NeoCab! Since I do not anticipate anyone reading this in one go, I googled up HTML code for page anchors to make it intuitive to read this in parts for us time conscience folks, so here are some in-page bookmarks… Part 1 - Rankings 41 through 34 Part 2 - Rankings 33 through 26 Part 3 - Rankings 25 through 20 Part 4 - Rankings 19 through 15 Part 5 - Rankings 14 through 10 Part 6 - Rankings 9 through 5 Part 7 - Rankings 4 through 1 Enough dilly-dallying, let us kickoff the 2019 list with a couple not-so-desirable gaming experiences of the year… PART 1 - RANKINGS 41 THROUGH 34 41) The Spoiled Fruit that is Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD I loved the original Super Monkey Ball games on GameCube and Xbox! I missed out on the last original iteration that hit on the Wii launch, Banana Blitz and was ecstatic to hear that Sega was giving it the HD remaster treatment in 2019 on current systems! All I recall from when Banana Blitz originally released was that it forced in a lot of waggle/motion controls for the Wii and that they made the HD release more traditional controller friendly and took out mini-games that were exclusively centered around motion controls so I thought this would be an ideal way to play the game! I could not have been more wrong!

My favorite memories of the GCN/Xbox versions was getting four people to play the main adventure mode where everyone would take their turn with their own monkey ball and navigate them on progressively tougher stages (think classic Marble Madness). Once a player passes/fails a stage, it would be the next player’s turn and it would serve as a nice preview of the stage ahead and what to glom off of one player’s attempt to strategize for your upcoming turn. With up to four players it was a riot cheering and gasping at successful attempts and ridiculous fails and was always a great time….that is until Sega decided for Banana Blitz HD to make the primary adventure mode only playable for one player!!! I have no idea why they did this and am going to chalk it up to a ridiculous oversight! At least the party games are still multiplayer and the excellent Pilotwings-homage, ‘Monkey Target’ returns….but with only one map!?!? Add on top of this some unexpected jittery visuals that did not sit well with my friends and I and it lead to me apologizing for busting out this sorry version of Monkey Ball for a multiplayer game night! If you still have your past consoles hooked up I recommend Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for PS2/Xbox instead since it has all the stages and party games from both GCN games, exclusive content, more maps for ‘Monkey Target’ and multiplayer support for the primary adventure mode.

The long awaited return of the TFL/DGR/StH Game Show at MGC did not disappoint! 40) Midwest Gaming Class Weather Fail 2018 saw my return to the Milwaukee retro videogame convention, Midwest Gaming Classic, after missing the previous four. I had so much fun reconnecting with everyone and taking in the show at the incredibly spacious Wisconsin Center that I soon enough made reservations to make it down for the 2019 show. With the con transpiring in early April though there is always the chance of a late-season snow storm/blizzard hitting in the Midwest and that is exactly what happened and closed my local highways for nearly two days and I wound up missing out on the show. I did at least get to check out SupertheHardest’s panel where they livestreamed their Jeopardy-style game show that was an absolute joy to follow along with as hosts John and Dave tossed out random games to the contestants and an eager crowd! I do have reservations for MGC later this year in a few months, and I am hoping mother nature does not intervene two years in a row. 39) Metal Gear Solid-Quest Fail

Regular readers of this list may recall me trying to march through all the core Metal Gear Solid games. 2019 marked an off year in my MGS-quest as I took some time off from that feat. I keep kicking myself too, because I only have MGS5 left, and I got a few hours into it and was already getting a good grasp for it, but got distracted too much by getting wrapped up into Breath of the Wild and made the error of trying to play both of those games simultaneously, but eventually succumbing to the power of the Tri-Force and having Breath of the Wild dominate my game time! I promise to fix that for 2020 and made finishing MGS5 one of my few gaming goals for 2020! If I succeed at that I may attempt to take a stab at Revengeance and the original MSX games too. For what it is worth I did pick up the new Solid Snake amiibo that released in 2019, and the OST vinyl of the PSone original so there was a modicum of Metal Gear fandom I participated in. 38) Konami Making it a Win Speaking of Konami, yes, you read that title right, I am ever so cautiously marking 2019 the year Konami started to right the ship! For the last few years since they released MGS5, Konami has been lauded by gaming fans and media that it has been the company that has abandoned gaming because of their lucrative gym business on the side and have remained complacent only releasing their annual Pro Evolution Soccer games since. Things quietly started to change in 2017 when Konami surprised us with a new Bomberman game in time for the Switch launch. 2018 saw Konami release a HD update for their Zone of the Enders titles on PS4 along with some exclusive VR content and also port the Switch Bomberman game for Xbox One and PS4. 2018 also saw the release of the polarizing Metal Gear Survive. 2019 saw them up their ante even more with the release of three acclaimed digital anniversary collections for their arcade space shooters, along with ensembles of hit early entries from their Contra and Castlevania brands. To top it off, Konami got on the mini-console bandwagon by announcing the TurboGrafX/PC Engine-mini that will have over 50 games pre-loaded on it! Minus the stinker that is Contra: Rogue Corps and 2019 wound up an excellent year for Konami and hopefully a taste of what is in store for the years to come! 37) Retro-bit Controllers

2019 saw me getting several controllers from the third party, Retro-bit. They have been growing in prominence in recent years with their growing supply of updated classic controllers and availability of HDMI cables for classic systems and have been dabbling with re-releasing classic NES games (more on that in a bit). Retro-bit answered my long pleading demands of having an N64 controller in with only dual grips instead of the standard three grips, and giving the button layout a tweak to make it more of a standard six-button layout like on the Genesis and Saturn controllers. I tried it with several games and far preferred it over Nintendo’s default controller. The other Retro-bit N64 controller modeled after the hard-to-find controller from Hori is a bit more of an acquired taste, but I found it to work great with certain titles. I also found myself going to Retro-bit to acquire a six-button controller for the Genesis-mini console that also came out in 2019. For whatever head-scratching reason, the Genesis-mini only shipped with the original three button controllers and Sega gave Retro-bit the license to make compatible controllers based on Sega’s updated six-button controllers for the Genesis that hit during the fighting game craze. Retro-bit has several other enticing controllers, adaptors and cables on their website, but I am for now biting my tongue and holding off before splurging too much on their retro-gaming goodness.

Playing through all of Sunset Riders half-out-of-it was my favorite moment of Extra Life 2019. 36) Extra Life 2019

After taking my first year off from the 24-hour videogame charity drive, Extra Life, in 2018 in nearly a decade I was stoked to get back into the 24-hour saddle again for 2019. I returned to join my friends Chris and Lyzz for another round of Extra Life. Props to them for being super accommodating to me as always and providing an excellent gaming and streaming setup for the 24 hours! Unfortunately, some last minute emergency issues beyond our control transpired and resulted in a late start, early finish, and a very on-and-off charity drive this year. For added self-imposed injury, I did not time my sleep/nap cycle ideally leading into the stream and quickly lost steam after several hours in and as you can see by the picture here, took what seemed like nearly double the naps than usual. After realizing we were all in pretty rough shape, we put the kibosh to the charity drive after a little over 12 hours invested through….. ….that does not mean it was all bad however! There was a solid four-to-five hour stretch where I got in a lot of random retro gaming and took requests from family members who donated to play any retro game of their choosing and it was gratifying knowing they got to watch along on the stream as I fulfilled their request! My sister requested the original Super Mario Bros. and my stepdad requested some Tetris and an obscure SNES soccer game I never heard of before. Chris also busted out the PSVR and I finally got a chance to tryout the VR version of Zen Pinball and the fully featured on-rails shooter, Blood & Stone. Probably the highlight of 2019’s Extra Life was finally playing through the arcade classic, Sunset Riders while donning a Sunset Riders shirt to boot in a sleep deprived state! Despite all the hiccups, we managed to make the most of it and got in a fair amount of donations from family and friends for our local children’s hospital! 35) VGmpire’s Last Hurrah! I have been a fan of videogame soundtracks ever since getting my first one for N64’s 1080 Snowboarding, and for nearly a decade VGmpire has been my go-to podcast celebrating all things about videogame soundtracks. Each episode would have a theme around a specific game franchise or genre and several music selections were carefully curated and inserted throughout each episode between host commentary for the music and game itself. For the last couple years VGmpire has been winding down, sparingly releasing episodes on a part-time basis until a few months ago when the host, Brett Relston stated VGmpire would be taking a permanent sabbatical due to new employment commitments. He did not leave his listeners on a low-note however, and after a few years of only a couple episodes here and there he left with five straight weeks of episodes highlighting the best soundtrack selections spanning nearly the entire Street Fighter universe! Those five episodes were an awesome farewell to his listeners and they covered such a wide-breadth of some of the best jams in fighting game history. 34) Annual Videogame Vinyl Love Speaking of videogame soundtracks, this ranking indicates how I faired with my videogame vinyl pickups throughout 2019. I added several new additions to my videogame vinyl library, and all have provided excellent background music to my yoga workouts! Standout highlights from this year include the original Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania ReBirth and complete set for Tetris Effect being my favorite pick-ups this year. However, there was one more OST that stood out among all others this year for me and that was for the legendary SNES beat-em-up, TMNT IV: Turtles in Time! I listened to that several times over, before mixing in something else in my rotation. Memories of beating that iconic brawler several times came flooding back as I jammed out to those shell shockin’ tunes! It even has an appreciated bonus track from the TMNT live concert tour smash hit, ‘Pizza Power.’ In case you are blanking on that sick track, I will permanently instill it in your mind with this clip below…

If you are a 90s kid then you can instantly relate to this chart-topping hit! PART 2 - RANKINGS 33 THROUGH 26 33) Now You’re Playing With Podcasting Power

Friends and family knew I use to run a videogame podcast called On Tap for several years from 2006-2013. Since then I have been scratching that podcasting itch by sporadically guest hosting with the sweet baby boys of Your Parents Basement podcast over the years. If you have read past editions of this best of list, you may recall me linking to my guest appearances on there. In 2019 I was on four episodes of the YPB show and touched on some of my all-time favorites and discovered all new gems I never played before that you will read about below. I also got to guest host with longtime friend Glenn on the PSnation Podcast for the first time in several years and had an epic time talking about all kinds of retro and current games along with the latest in TV and film. Throughout 2019 I uploaded several episodes from the On Tap archives onto my YouTube channel (you can find them by click or pressing right here). The archives have been offline since several months after the last episode released in late 2013. I tried to make them somewhat relative to current gaming events like re-posting our TurboGrafX retrospective in time for 30th anniversary, and our Mortal Kombat special to coincide with the release of Mortal Kombat 11. It felt good getting some of these favorite episodes back online and inspired me to pick up a long overdue new microphone for future guest hosting spots and possibly a return to regular podcasting. I have been giving a serious think to debuting a weekly/bi-weekly show hopefully later this year with the goal to stay in touch better with friends and peers. Hopefully all will go according to plan, stay tuned! 32) Getting my Morning Caffeine Fix…in 2D Pixel Brawler Form! I crave my 2D brawlers/beat-em-ups! I will touch on some others later in this list, and I always enjoy revisiting the classics, but I also am elated to see the indie game market pick up the torch with a decent smattering of modern takes on the retro-pixel brawler. There were a couple I recently picked up, and am beating myself up for not making time for the much anticipated follow-up to the NES classic, River City Ransom with the release of River City Girls. A 2D brawler I did make time for with a couple friends though was Coffee Crisis. It is where an alien invasion happens out of nowhere and two seemingly ordinary baristas take the initiative among themselves to fight back! As you can see in the video below, the gameplay looks and feels like a more fleshed out version of the brawling from the classic Simpsons arcade game! The action is appropriately over-the-top, and is jacked up with power-ups that make the characters feel they are going through a caffeine boost of sorts. I busted it out a couple times with friends Derek and Adam, and we progressed several levels through each time before running out of lives.

Coffee Crisis is a solid contemporary take on the classic arcade beat-em-up brawlers! 31) Ride or Die 2019 Here is my annual love for the quality of driving/racing games I played in 2019. I did not put as much time into driving games as I wanted to in 2019, and went through some serious droughts of getting my racing fix. I wanted to start either The Crew 2 and/or Forza Horizon 3 in hopes of having a big open-world racing game to pick away at throughout the year and failed in both endeavors. I did find time to continually pick away progress at the awesome OutRun/Top Gear tribute that is Horizon Chase Turbo however. Another similar take on Hang-On/OutRun I chanced on a random weekly Xbox sale was a motorcycle time-based driving title, Super Night Riders. It captured the spirit of Hang-On to a T with its evolving time of day, catchy tunes and last second emotions of barely hitting the next checkpoint! I wished it had more than just its several included courses though! I kept coming back to these new takes on the retro-time based driving games in short spurts, and were ideal ways to start off lengthier gaming sessions.

I got a chance to have a few sessions for the first time in a while with SNES-Super Mario Kart inspired Super Indie Kart which is STILL IN EARLY ACCESS after several years. The developer is shooting for a full release in 2020, and compared to what I played a couple years prior, a lot of tracks and characters were added with highlights being both ToeJam and Earl. I experienced many of positive vibes I had from SNES Mario Kart from what I tried out and hope to see it finally emerge out of Steam Early Access this year. I discovered Grip off Xbox Game Pass, and its initially intimidating spherical driving. Eventually, I was able to adapt and get into and make a fair amount of headway into this combat racer that fans are touting as the spiritual successor to the PSone gem, Rollcage. I had a couple short sessions online in OnRush thanks to it being a PlayStaion Plus game. I dug its take by capturing the magic of crashing rivals in BurnOut and putting a new twist on it and making it a team based points competition instead of a traditional position-based racing game and wished I was able to spend more time with it in 2019. The driving game I put the most time into in 2019 was demolition derby-racer WreckFest. I touched on it on my 2018 recap with it coming out of early access for PC, but 2019 saw the console release and my brother and I had several sessions of online WreckFest on Xbox One. The action got pretty whacked several times and we did not care that we usually finished in the middle of the pack with the fun we had surviving each race and the chaos that comes with demolition derby-based racing games. 30) Family Gaming 2019

I had my dad and brother over at my place for Father’s Day and Christmas this year and of course we wound up playing some old school games. On Father’s Day, similar to last year we powered on the N64 and experienced some of the same classics with my dad we did growing up like New Tetris and Mario Kart 64. My dad was starting to hone in his masterful Tetris skills again by the time we wrapped up, and if we would have done more sessions I am confident he would have been wiping the floor with us! On Christmas I had a fixing for my initial videogame memories with my dad on the Atari 2600 so I booted up Atari Flashbacks on the Xbox One. I remember the astutely titled Bowling being a big hit with the family and sure enough we had several close games. Despite how simple it is on the VCS, it remains one of my favorite videogame renditions of the sport. We then booted up the arcade versions of Centipede and Millipede and Joe wowed me with some impressive progress in those games I had no idea about until he said went through a recent period playing those arcade classics nonstop at a nearby locale. 29) Super the Up-Down I have fond memories of the 90s nostalgia arcade, Up Down in the Twin Cities that I wrote about here before and 2019 marked my third trek there! My brother and I met up with longtime friends Moe and John from the SupertheHardest podcast and we proceeded to drink and game the night away. Aside from some brief excursions to clash against John in Street Fighter II and teaming up with my brother in Smash TV the main highlight was Moe, Joe and I nearly beating the iconic X-Men arcade game all the way through before running out of quarters in the final Magneto fight. I am starting to get a little concerned though with the upkeep of the machines at Up Down however. Several machines had faulty buttons and/or would not support a second or third player. I did not recall having these issues the last two times I was there, but I imagine it is inevitable with big crowds getting their drinks sloshed all over that those machines would require constant maintenance. 28) You Do Know Jack!!

I have no idea how they do it, but Jellyvision/Jackbox games has been pumping out a nonstop collection of social party games under the Jackbox Party Pack branding and 2019 saw volume six hit current consoles. Even at six entries in I am continually impressed at how smooth most our sessions run using a web browser window on our phones as a controller with little-to-no lag throughout. I have reminisced before in these yearly breakdowns my recurring couch multiplayer sessions with friends Derek, Brooke and Ryan. Variations of Jackbox Party Pack dominated our sessions this year, with the sixth game taking the most time once it released. Trivia Murder Party 2 was the runaway hit game of the collection with its quirky deathmatch take on trivia and the one we came back to the most. Dictionarium would be a runner-up with us competing to see who can be the most creative with new words and definitions. 27) Flying Power Disc! Long forgotten Neo-Geo game, Windjammers gained notoriety over the last several years from it being regularly featured on Giant Bomb videos and features. I had no idea about it prior either and would be lying if I were to say otherwise. It gained so much newfound fame from GB’s videos that it started gaining traction in the eSports scene, got a remaster on PS4/Xbox One/Switch and recently got an upcoming sequel announced. I briefly tried the PS4 release of WindJammers in 2018 to mark my first hands-on time with it, but 2019 saw me won over by it! I vanquished the computer adversaries with each character to net that trophy and played a fair amount online with my go-to PS4 online adversary, Chris (different Chris from mentioned above)! The PS4 remaster could not handle this combative disc-based version of Pong any better! Highly recommended for quick, local and online multiplayer throwdown sessions!

GiantBomb’s many intense multiplayer sessions of Windjammers turned me (and countless others) on to this Neo-Geo hidden gem. 26) No Rest for the Wicked… I was a huge fan of the first two Borderlands games, but only played the first couple hours of the Pre-Sequel before deciding to take a break from the series. Derek and I played through the second game and was giving me some friendly nudging to get the much-hyped Borderlands 3 that released a few months ago. I finally picked it up several weeks ago, and we only got a couple sessions and several hours in as of this writing and thus this ranking, but from what we played so far I am started to get sucked back into the fun grind that is Borderlands. The first couple hours took a bit of re-familiarizing with the general gameplay and abilities and how to properly manage inventory and level-up because BL3 is a glut of menus. Combine that with the fact I have fallen out of favor with first person shooters in general for the last few years and I found myself extremely rusty initially. After a couple hours though I started to get back in the swing of gameplay and get my Borderlands-wheels rolling again. I recalled the BL-wisdom that Derek helped instill in me from our BL2 sessions of ‘Do not dwell on the countless stats on each gun, keep swapping out until you find something that is fun to shoot with!’ I am a fan of the quirky Borderlands lore and outrageous characters and while the jokes are hit and miss, the frantic gameplay and open-world exploring more than makes up for it. I have a newfound appreciation for Bio-fuel! I look forward to getting back into Borderlands 3 as 2020 progresses and hope to report back next year with how we steamrolled through it! PART 3 - RANKINGS 25 THROUGH 20 25) New Old NES Games and other Limited Run Releases

I eluded to earlier how Retro-bit started re-releasing older NES games. 2018 saw them release the formerly Japan exclusive, Holy Diver and 2019 saw them re-issue the increasingly rare Metal Storm. I acquired both of these in 2019. I opted for the deluxe edition of Holy Diver that saw it include a ton of extra goodies as seen in the pic below. The Metal Storm re-issue is the Japan version of the game that has narrative cutscenes included and more forgiving difficulty tweaks. I did not get a chance to play either of these yet, but Holy Diver looks to be a tough-as-nails platformer that rewards practice and I look forward to attempting Metal Storm’s consistently rotating platform-based stages. Mr. Jeremy Parish did commendable breakdowns of both games upon their reissues so for those that are interested in adding some new old NES games to their collection click or press here for his Holy Diver review or here for his take on Metal Storm. Retro-bit partnered with Limited Run to distribute Metal Storm. It would not be a yearly gaming dissection without highlighting some key Limited Run purchases. Limited Run somehow scored a goldmine of a deal by getting the rights from Disney to re-issue physical versions of several classic Star Wars games for the NES, GameBoy, N64 and PS2 remasters on PS4. I wound up getting one of my childhood N64 favorites in Shadows of the Empire and the remaster of the PS2 racing title, Racer Revenge for PS4. I was also thrilled to lock in orders for physical releases for Atari Flashbacks on Vita, acclaimed puzzler Lumines Remastered and much anticipated narrative exploration titles like Wandersong, Alone With You and Tacoma for PS4. Limited Run has been lately releasing more obscure titles that are off my radar the past few months so I will take that as a blessing in disguise on my wallet! 24) ZOMBICIDE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

These past few best of gaming installments I tend to breakdown some of my favorite board game moments of the year in an entry. Easily my favorite board game night of 2019 was where my brother and I met up with several other people for a six or seven player session of Zombicide. Imagine a meticulous, detailed board game portrayal of Left 4 Dead and you have Zombicide. I did four player runs of it before knowing that Zombicide usually requires a ton of intricate setup with its many tiles, pieces and tokens so I imagined with nearly eight of us we were in for a long night. Luckily, my buddy Mike hosted the game and has a boatload of experience with Zombicide, and even with his brisk pace of moderating and moving the game along we ended up playing for a solid five-ish hours before we wrapped up. It got to the point where we were playing so late and I knew a few of us were getting fairly tuckered out, but we roughed it out because we were passed that ‘point of no return’ in our quest to escape the board with our party alive! Regrettably, my brother and I were the only ones whose characters perished, two times over each as Mike gave us replacement characters, but both of us got a little too hasty with our strategies and we paid dearly for it. Regardless, it was an epic board game night I will never forget! Derek and Brooke were playing with us too and both got into the session as much as my brother and I did. They have since told me they have been doing mini-sessions of it and mastering the pacing and setup for the game, so I look forward for more frequent Zombicide sessions in 2020! 23) A Certain Super Power-ed Guide Book

A couple years back I recounted how Pat Contri’s Ultimate Guide to the NES Library book/tome was bedside reading for me nearly every night. While maintaining a reading schedule of a page or two a night it still took me a year and a half to finish since it reviewed every game that hit the NES in America. Contri soon after got to work on the sequel, Ultimate Guide to the SNES Library and it wound up being one of only three crowd-funded projects I ever contributed to. The book finally finished publishing a few months ago and I got my copy in the mail about a month back. It follows the same format as the last book by reviewing all the American and PAL SNES games, and contains roughly a dozen featured articles and essays to book-end this SNES bible. I immediately looked to see how the SNES games I own measured up, and then continued my same routine as I did with the NES book at reading a page or two of reviews a night before bed. Naturally, I am only a couple dozen pages in and have a long ways to go, but am ecstatic to see a long coming crowd-funded project come to fruition! 22) Top Gaming Videos of 2019' For whatever reason, gaming videos are perfect background noise for me and resulted in me watching way too many. Like last year, here is my notated favorites that hit in 2019…

The yearly ‘Winter Games’ competition video of the GiantBomb crew featuring random videogame challenges and traditional house party a holding your breath contest ….seriously is always one of my favorite GiantBomb videos of the year. Too bad for their Goldeneye challenge in this video they did not know about the one hit-kills from the ‘License to Kill’ mode or their ‘Slappers-only’ duel would not have lasted forever. GiantBomb - Dreamcast Anniversary Stream - Jeff Gerstmanns Pro Skater Series - Winter Games 2019 - GB Family Feud - GB Advance - VinnyVania Bloodstained Series - The Final Mario Party - Mass Alex 2 Series – Get on my Level Series - Resident Evil 4 Playdate Series - Dangerous Driving Quick Look - WWE 2K20 Quick Look - Madden 20 Quick Look (VINNY WINS!!) MetalJesus - Jaguar Love - PS2 Love – Reggie Pickups - WiiU Love - PAL PS2 Exclusives - PSP Racers Gaming Historian - Super Mario Land Series - Story of Links Awakening - Story of Super Mario Bros 3

Attending a couple E3s myself as part of the gaming press I can vouch for a lot featured in this splendid breakdown of what E3 is like for the gaming press. OntheStick/JoeDrilling - ECW Hardcore Revolution - Marvel Superheroes - Resident Evil 2 - Oxenfree No Clip - Gaming Media at E3 - History of Telltale Games LGR - Computer Warehouse Exploration - Doom II 25th Anniversary - Ion Fury - Windows 3 Point 1 Love - SimCity 30th Anniversary CGQ - Genesis in 1990 - Dreamcast Launch - Lets Read EGM issue 36 - Lets Read Nintendo Power issue 2 RetroPals - GameCom Love

Behold, according to the AVGN, a terrible flagship Zelda game by Nintendo. My Life in Gaming - History of M2 GameSack – Shenmue III Review - Worst Sounding Genesis Games - NES Special - Mega SG Review AVGN/Cinemassacre - Videogame Magazine Special - Pepsi Man - Chex Quest - The Immortal - Majoras Mask - Defending NES OG TMNT - Genesis Mini Review - Nightmare on Elm Street - Barts Nightmare - SNES Campus Challenge - Thunder in Paradise - Combat vs Contri

Jeremy Parish did comprehensive looks at all American and Japanese Virtual Boy games in 2019, and topped it off with this all-encompassing look on why this Nintendo system came and went in under a year. Jeremy Parish ‘Works’ - All of Virtual Boy Works - Links Awakening - Tengen NES Trio - Circle of the Moon - Pilotwings 64 - Turok 2 GBC Scott the Woz - Mario Kart for SNES - GCN - DS - and Wii - Club Nintendo - WiiWare Chronicles - Call of Duty DS - Bargain Bin Christmas

Scott the Woz states his case for Double Dash being the best Mario Kart, clearly he is mistaken and we all know the 64 version reigns supreme. 21) Out-drinking Satan I was pleasantly surprised to see the anticipated indie game, Afterparty as part of Xbox Game Pass upon its release day. It is from the developers at Night School Studios who brought us Oxenfree, yes that same game which took the #1 honors for my inaugural top gaming experience list from 2016. Needless to say, I was excited to see what Night School Studios had in store for the sequel. Afterparty is a narrative exploration game where two freshly graduated high-schoolers find themselves suddenly very much dead and in a twisted Tim Burton-esque party version of hell and set forth on a quest to out-drink Satan in order to get a second chance in life on Earth.

The hype going into this kind of rubbed me the wrong way a little bit about its promotion of getting wasted all the time, but it all kind of makes sense in the end with one of the endings available on how that lifestyle may not be all it is initially cracked up to be. I dug the aesthics in Oxenfree, and loved how they brought them over into Afterparty, but with some tweaks to represent a 24/7 party atmosphere in hell. Gamplay is similar to Oxenfree with by picking from a few dialogue choices available and some only available when your character is drunk which warrants multiple playthroughs for this 4-5ish hour game. By the end I liked the universe Night School established and what they were going for by the time I finished it, but I did not love it. Maybe my initial choices lead to a not-so-desirable playthrough as I thought they would. Afterparty has their in-hell version of Twitter with random tweets from background characters going on non-stop and it is more distracting the way it is implemented. I have been listening to the Afterparty OST while writing parts of this never-ending read, and I have been taking it in more this way than the way it came across more muted during gameplay. Oxenfree I loved so much that I played through it two more times within a few months to see other dialogue options and endings, but with Afterparty the last act felt kind of disjointed with my choices and it wrapped up with no real sense of closure. Again, maybe it was bad luck on my part with the options I picked. This however did not lead me to anxiously jumping right into starting another run, but I wanted to see if the other endings were worth playing for so I went and YouTube’d the other endings right away and yes, I think those would have been better ways to conclude Afterparty for me, but they still lacked the memorable high notes that comprised the final act of Oxenfree. Afterparty is on Game Pass though so that is a nice perk at the moment and so I imagine I will at least start a second playthrough sooner than later to see how the opening parts play out differently by picking polar opposite choices. I also wanted to mention I played this on an Xbox One S on an external hard drive install and I was stunned to see this is the first game I ran into with particularly noticeable slowdown and performance issues. I had little to no hiccups with other graphically extensive games like Gears 5 and Man of Medan recently so I found the performance hiccups here surprising with the not-so-overwhelming visuals from this 2D game. Lucky for Afterparty, it is a laid back narrative exploration game so it was not that much of an issue to deal with whenever slowdown and framerate stutters happened. Despite these performance and narrative qualms, I do not regret my time with Afterparty and would recommend to at least try it if you have Game Pass and see if it is up your alley.

EPN went above and beyond with their coverage of the Genesis Mini with several videos dedicated solely to the 16-bit ‘Blast Processing’ wonder. 20) Sega Finally Gets a Mini-Genesis Right After several versions of mini-Genesis ‘Flashback’ consoles of poor-to-mixed quality from the manufacturers, AtGames, Sega took it upon themselves to release and produce their very own Genesis-mini on the 30th anniversary of the North American launch. Sega got it right this time around with superior emulation compared to the efforts from AtGames and a lineup of 42 games mostly from Sega, but with also some notable third party hits too. They also include handy features as seen in Nintendo’s mini-systems like save states and the ability to rewind gameplay which I can attest is a lifesaver for some of these brutally tough games from the 90s. It is worth noting the recent Genesis Classics disc Sega released on current consoles offers up over 50 games, but they are all from Sega’s catalog and have a wide range of quality. The lineup here comparably hits more than misses, and features the expected Sega studs, but welcomed third party additions like Road Rash II, Castlevania: Bloodlines and Street Fighter II: Champion Edition.

I have only briefly played my own Genesis-mini, and am awaiting the close final tweaks to software that is about to release that will allow users to upload their own personal Genesis games to the mini much like I did for my NES & SNES-minis so I can curate my own ultimate Genesis library. I like the library offered up here, but would be lying if I said I was not bummed that Sega omitted some of its hit sports games that helped defined it during the 16-bit wars. I understand there are those pesky royalty fees to deal with for former players and teams, but a lot of the early 16-bit Sega Sports titles lacked those licenses or only had one player being the cover mascot for the title. EA was also a strong supporter of the Genesis (with sports AND non-sports titles) so it was eye-opening to see only one game from EA’s 16-bit library make the Genesis-mini cut. This is why I am awaiting for that library loading software to get perfected so I can have my own handpicked Genesis line ready to go! I also want to give props to EPN for their prolific and thorough videos breaking down the Genesis-mini at launch and give another shoutout Jeremy Parish’s in-depth review of it too where he goes far more into the weeds on the Genesis-mini than I will on my blurb about it here if you want to know more. PART 4 - RANKINGS 19 THROUGH 15 19) Punishing Arcade Action Starring Dolph & Hasselhoff Clones The Punisher is in all likelihood my favorite 90s arcade brawler. Granted, I am biased being an unapologetic fan of the comics and the arcade game makes great use of the license by featuring several of the Punisher’s top villains from that time and having Punisher team up with his on-and-off ally Nick Fury. The Genesis port is noticeably watered down visually in order to run on the system after looking at comparison videos online. When not playing the two side-by-side the differences are negligible to me while playing. It does not have the ability to set max lives in order to breeze through it, but you can set to adjust an option to add a few more which made it plausible to beat on normal difficulty with a non-wreckless strategy of picking your spots and timing attacks instead of rushing into encounters with mindless button mashing. I can vouch for this from experience!

The bad thing about beating Genesis Punisher on Normal difficulty is it gives a bullshit ending screen of ‘Now Play like the Punisher in Hard Mode to see the True Ending.’ I mean, it is not like the ending is likely all that it is cracked up to be to motivate me to going through it again on a tougher difficulty….oh wait…guys I looked it up and turns out that ending blows away all other endings from arcade brawlers at the time as you can see by that attached video below. With that in mind, I invited my brother over one day in 2019 and I was determined this was the day we could beat Genesis Punisher in hard mode. We did have some help though from game genie cheats we had loaded up on an SDcard into the Retron5 we used to play it on though. We did not turn on full health or infinite lives because we desperately wanted to say we ‘earned’ that awesome ending, but one of the things hard difficulty mode tweaks is not the challenge of the opponents, but merely the quantity of them. This would not be a deal-breaker since a lot of the common thugs are pushovers, but with this brawler having a timer, it would lead to us losing a couple lives after running out time while taking out the ump-teenth wave of goons sent our way. Not wanting to burn through more lives on a BS timer system, we disabled the timer on the cheats menu halfway through and we also disabled losing life from executing the leg sweep ‘super’ move. Not that the leg sweep was more powerful as ordinary attacks, but it helped free up some breathing room when the AI cluttered the screen with several enemies. With those two ‘assists’ activated we progressed up to the final stage before we finally ran out of lives in the midst of the ‘ol arcade brawler stereotype, the dreaded boss gauntlet! I am confident if we would have gained a couple lives and disabled the boss timer from the beginning we would have at least got up to the final boss and possibly defeated him! Earlier in 2019 Arcade 1up released a Capcom Marvel edition cabinet loaded up with the classic arcade versions of Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes. I have no idea why a brawler such as Punisher seemed like a fitting inclusion with the Marvel fighting games when Capcom had several other Marvel vs. fighting games to choose from, but that Arcade 1up release is so far the only reissue of either the Arcade or Genesis Punisher title to this day. The downside is that it will set one back $400!!! As awesome as it would be to have the actual official arcade release at home, I imagine if I would pick that up I would ignore my aforementioned advice and fall victim to maxing out the credits and mindlessly button mashing my way to the end. I think I will prefer sticking with a little bit of strategy in my brawler and one day hope of finishing hard mode, just like the Punisher…..for now.

This will be worth the extra hassle of beating in hard difficulty to witness! 18) Handheld Gaming 2019 I had a pretty solid year for traditional portable gaming (AKA non-phone games!!). With 2019 being the 30th anniversary of the GameBoy in North America, I went to our local retro game shop with the mindset of picking up the only GameBoy variant I did not own, the GameBoy Pocket. I noticed it there on a previous trip going for not that much and when I went to request it the clerk informed me of their modded GameBoy Advances they recently started selling that have new outer shells and a premium backlit screen on par with the latter GBA SPs. That went for three times as much as the Pocket, but after the clerk let me test it out for a few minutes I instantly had a change of heart and forked over the dough for the custom deluxe GBA. I love my backlit GBA SP, but I always preferred the form factor of the original GBA more, and having it with a top class backlit screen convinced me to upgrade. I wound up playing that modded GBA quite a lot in the back half of the year.

In the first half of the year though I wrapped up Dragon Quest VIII in January shortly after posting the previous year’s recap, and stuck with it for a few months consulting guides for recommended post-game quests to take a stab at. Loved my many hours with DQVIII, but that was a game I primarily endured throughout 2018. After that lengthy RPG I popped in the optimal palate cleanser, WarioWare Gold on the 3DS. Up until that point, the only WarioWare release I ever played prior was the GameCube version, which I am a fan of but I always heard excellent testimonials about the handheld versions. WWG has over 300 of the bite-sized ‘micro-games,’ most of which are collected from previous entries, but also consist of a fair amount of exclusive original micro-games for the 3DS. The frenetic gameplay kept me bug-eyed throughout, and the slightly lengthier ‘boss battles’ also cracked me up. There are a seeming infinite amount of Nintendo references and small sections of gameplay taken from countless other Nintendo games ranging from common top 8 and 16-bit hits to the obscure with nods to titles like Virtual Boy’s Mario Clash. It all added up as the perfect pick-up-and-play title coming off a mammoth RPG. Do not be like me and neglect this superb handheld version! I am a nut for picross games, and the 3DS has a ton of them but 2019 I finally started the My Nintendo exclusive game, Legend of Zelda Picross. Like other Picross games on the 3DS it has an intuitive control scheme and a multi-layered hint system which I took advantage of numerous times to nudge me in the right direction! I downloaded the GameBoy cult hit, Mole Mania off the 3DS eShop and consumed a few hours of that action/puzzler to discuss on a clayyyysic episode of YPB I guest hosted on. I imported a few fan translation GBA and DS games that have been on my want list forever because they never had official American releases, but thankfully the fanbase stepped up and changed that so I was thrilled to finally add Ace Attorney Investigations 2, Retro Game Challenge 2 and Mother 3 to my handheld library. I played through the first case of AAI2 and it brought back memories of why I enjoyed the first one so much and the fresh changes it brought to the Ace Attorney formula. Did not get a chance to play Retro Game Challenge 2 yet, but I did put a lot of time into Mother 3.

The fan translation originally released for Mother 3 about a decade or so ago and I started it up on a ROM and got a few hours in, but eventually got sidetracked and regrettably neglected it. Having a physical copy of the game and making 2019 a big year for the Mother/Earthbound franchise for me were the catalysts to have me stick through Lucas’s adventure this time around. Mother 3 has a similar look and feel as Earthbound on SNES, but with an entire new setting and cast of affable characters that similarly immersed me into their unique world all over again. Props to the fan translators who took on that mammoth undertaking with dialogue that does not skip a beat and brings back the vintage lighthearted and crude humor that was a trademark of Earthbound. The battles play out nearly identical too with each character having unique attacks, and retaining Earthbound’s rolling HP meter that allows additional precious seconds to escape death from a gutsy battle. I have been cherishing my dragged out sessions of this gem so I have not finished Mother 3 yet, but according to a guide I am halfway through chapter seven of eight, so almost! 17) Out Contra-ing Contra I have played a few Contra titles over the years, but usually fall victim to their hard-but-fair difficulty. I am starting to come around and appreciate them a little more recently and kind of like I described with Punisher above, play them a little more smartly and not rush in guns blazing in order to conserve lives and survive those grueling boss fights. I heard of a new Contra-inspired indie game gaining some buzz and launching day and date on Xbox Game Pass called Blazing Chrome. My buddy Adam was swinging over to hang out on the night of its release and I brought up about starting the night off with a quick session of Blazing Chrome expecting it to kick our ass and deplete our lives within ten minutes. We booted it up and……did not put it down until over two hours later!

Blazing Chrome plays like Contra III on steroids. The character and background sprites along with all the gunfire and explosions adds some extra ‘oomph’ and a little more dazzling special effects that would not seem possible on the SNES, but easily doable on the Xbox One. The boss battles also capture that ‘larger-than-life’ feeling from the bosses of Contra III. Eventually we fell victim to the fourth stage boss, which was something like going up against a Veloci-raptor that require pinpoint precision in order dodge its flurry of attacks. Thankfully, Blazing Chrome is not as merciless as Contra and allows the ability to restart at the beginning of the latest stage you progressed to after running out of lives. We must have restarted that dastardly fourth stage damn near ten times and played until our eyes felt like they were on the verge of falling out. Despite Blazing Chrome kicking our asses, like Contra it felt like it was not the game being cheap, but instead our own fault and needing to put forth the practice to learn patterns and master the timing and layouts of levels. It was a blissful moment whenever we got another stage or boss that we were previously hung up on and successfully coordinated our attacks to take down mid-bosses or other pesky foes. Adam and I keep thinking of revisiting Blazing Chrome ever since, but knowing what we are in for this time around we keep telling ourselves we got to be in the right mindset going into this five star indie game of 2019! 16) ”Go X-Men, Stop Magneto….err Apocalypse….no actually Magneto, Really!” I reached out to the fine folks at YPB Podcast who were looking for a classic X-Men game to cover to coincide with the release of the X-Men: Dark Phoenix film. The SNES title, Mutant Apocalypse has always been on my bucket list to beat. Despite the polarizing nature of the FOX films, I have enjoyed most of them and was anticipating Dark Phoenix and wanted to re-watch the previous film, Apocalypse for a refresher on the plot too. So for about a week I went all-in on X-Men and played through and finished Mutant Apocalypse, with literally mere minutes to spare before I met up with the YPB crew for our arranged recording time.

Mutant Apocalypse hit when Capcom was on top of their 16-bit game pumping out nonstop, top tier licensed and original games. MA is not an arcade brawler, but more of a methodical action platformer. I dug how each level focused on one of several different X-Men and how each character had their own specialized attacks I knew so well from the hit 90s cartoon from that era. There are still plenty of cannon fodder for to hack ‘n slash though, but also a fair amount of platforming to navigate through and multi-layered boss fights to survive. I hate to sacrifice my gaming cred, but some of these boss battles I had to resort to the save state and rewind features of the SNES-classic in order to proceed. It was worth it though, and resulted in one of the top X-Men games of that generation, barely nudging out Clone Wars on Genesis for my favorite 16-bit X game. I jest with the title of this entry because it eludes to Apocalypse being the big bad behind everything, but ultimately it is a red herring and low and behold it is none other Professor X’s good buddy, Magneto behind it all again! We poked fun at that logic while dissecting the game with the YPB boys, and I surprisingly found myself legit into Apocalypse on my re-watch of it. Playing through MA and enjoying Apocalypse more than I expected the second time around had me way more amped up for Dark Phoenix than I had any right to be because it was impossible to avoid the movie and comic press at the time anticipating a box office dud. While Dark Phoenix will not make my top 10 films of 2019 list and had its fair share of holes to dig through, I still had a good time throughout its retelling of the Phoenix saga and it provided a degree of satisfying closure to this four-movie arc of characters. 15) Sports-Ball Gaming 2019 It was a solid year of sports gaming for me in 2019. It did not dominate the year for me, but the chunks I did rock the old sports-ball were immensely gratifying! Picking up from 2018 and into the first couple months of 2019 was finishing off my season of Mutant League Football. I raved about this in last year’s recap about this being a worthy spiritual successor to EA’s Mutant Football League. It captures the over-the-top nature of the Genesis game and mixed in a dose of dialed up NFL Blitz-esque gameplay for what is likely my favorite football game this generation. I won the championship in season mode, and debated starting up the new Dynasty/Franchise multi-season mode that released as DLC towards the end of 2018, but decided to take a break from this whacked out turf frenzy in favor of….

I loved Madden’s take on Friday Night Lights, and Madden 19’s second attempt at a story mode ups the stakes for the returning NFL hopefuls as seen in this complete collection of all the cutscenes above. …a more realistic version of the sport in Madden NFL 19. I am a fan of EA’s take on a story-based single player mode it debuted in Madden NFL 18 with its ‘Longshot’ narrative. Madden 19 brought back Devin Wade and Colt Cruise in their quest for NFL stardom with part two of ‘Longshot.’ I noticed a polarizing reception to this story mode, but I thought it was a much-needed dose of fresh single player gameplay after so much emphasis on Ultimate Team in Madden this past decade. Wade unfortunately is still having trouble remembering plays, and Cruise bounces back and forth trying to ride the limited success from his song ‘Longshot.’ Cruise’s storyline is noticeably more of the focus this year with him making one last effort at making it into the NFL before being introduced to his long lost half-sister who drags him into help coaching the beloved local football team, the Bullfrogs! The narrative and football sequences are better paced out, and most football gameplay involved is never forcing a player to play through complete whole games, but instead a series of drives to accomplish a certain goal. The awesome high school flashback games return, complete with adorable local announcer commentary! It was interesting to see which active and retired NFL talent they brought into the story, and eventually ‘Longshot’ circles back to Colt coaching the Bullfrogs from escaping being foreclosed on from a real estate bigshot in a feel-good fundraising finale! Despite how much I was into the narrative, I got swamped with a bunch of menu prompts after finishing ‘Longshot’ pressuring me to check out the microtransaction-heavy Ultimate Team mode afterwards, and the menus throughout the rest of the game modes consistently attempt to poke and prod away to Ultimate Team instead. After doing a couple online games with a friend and failing miserably, I quickly traded in Madden 19. I felt like I sold it short and probably could have still got a solid season worth of games in the Franchise mode, but the big push in marketing and development resources in realistic sports games this past several years going into virtual currency-influenced modes like Ultimate Team rubs me the wrong way and I find myself playing more arcade sports games instead.

Speaking of arcade sports games, an interesting digital game on PS4 I tried out last year is Super Blood Hockey! It looks and plays similarly to the NES classic, Ice Hockey (complete with picking the size of your players), but with a bigger focus on fights and….well, blood. I only played a few games and need to come back to it, because I am awful against the AI, but I definitely am into the vibe it is going for. Another arcade sports game that had an awesome old-school NES vibe, but I was able to get a feel for was Basketball Classics on PC/Steam. It reminds me a lot of what Double Dribble would be like if it were on Intellivision. Gameplay is very simple with only three buttons involved for gameplay, but it also mixes in handy modern play mechanics like a 2K-esque shot meter. Basketball Classics has the 8-bit hoops charm factor oozing out of it with a catchy theme song, background chiptunes and interactive dunk cinematics that look like they were ripped right out of Double Dribble. I do not want to overlook the righteous story mode which follows a similar style to the NBA Street games by beating teams and recruiting their top player who have similar player portraits to 80s/90s NBA legends like Jordan, Barkley, Magic, Kareem and Bird. I was able to get to the ‘phantom five’ boss team, but despite several attempts failed repeatedly. There is still a lot I want to dive into and I have yet to try like a regular season mode with several dozen classic team rosters available. PART 5 - RANKINGS 14 THROUGH 10 14) An Offer I Could Not Refuse In last year’s list even though I did not subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, I gave it a pretty solid ranking due to it being the second coming of the Sega Channel, but now with proper resources and superior accessibility to its userbase. It also helped that Xbox Game Pass offers about triple the games at around 130-150 games a month compared to the 40 Sega Channel offered up at the time. Oh yeah, back in the mid-90s Sega charged about $15 a month, and Microsoft is currently charging $15 a month also for its ‘Ultimate Game Pass��� which combines Game Pass for Xbox One and PC as well as bundling in Xbox Live Gold. Since the last year’s recap Microsoft has went on to make all of its first party games available to Game Pass subscribers on their first day of release, and also went on to presumably offer nice payouts to highly anticipated indie games to become available on Game Pass upon their release date like Outer Worlds, Blair Witch Project, Demon’s Tilt, Afterparty, Blazing Chrome and Outer Wilds.

Despite all that temptation, I held off subscribing to it because I already have way too many games in my backlog and do not want to pay a monthly fee on top of it, but then around E3 2019 Microsoft made an offer too good to pass up where for only $1 they would convert the rest of your remaining Xbox Live Gold time to an Ultimate Game Pass membership and then add a bonus month on top of it. My Xbox Live Gold auto-renewed a month prior to that announcement, so it would be foolish to pass up converting my remaining 11 months into Ultimate Game Pass time for only $1. I am glad I did because I wound up trying out a decent amount of games from it. Not a boatload because as you can see from this list I had a lot of other games to play, but the convenience of the service caused me to try a lot more than I thought. There were challenging BMX-based games like Descenders and Lonely Mountains: Downhill, the bonkers semi-platforming game, ClusterTruck, the aforementioned spherical racer, Grip and The Blair Witch Project that I was totally consumed by for the first hour until I got lost in the woods and spent two hours circling around going nowhere before giving up. On top of all that I ended up finishing two games off of Game Pass by the end of the year. One of them was Afterparty that I already gave my rundown of, and another I will touch on shortly. So yeah, even though I may not stick with Game Pass when my $1 membership expires in half a year, it is safe to say I easily got my dollar’s worth out of it and then some! 13) Pinball Madness 2019

The weekly match-up scorechasing leaderboards in Pinball FX3 have been a constant for me for a couple years now. Every Saturday morning I have a routine of loading up the four predetermined scorechasing tables of the week and do a couple three minute runs on them each. The developers at Zen have also been capitalizing on acquiring the Williams/Bally license and have around a dozen-ish classic Williams/Bally pins in the Pinball FX3 library now including a couple personal favorites of mine like Medieval Madness, Champion Pub and No Good Gophers. I remain partial to the way the pinball physics handle to those authentic pinball games in Farsight’s take on the tables in Pinball Arcade, but having them available with the rest of the Zen lineup is convenient. I messed around with a few other pinball titles on Xbox One. Zaccaria Pinball hit Xbox One in 2019, and it is essentially the European version of Pinball Arcade. I toyed with it several times throughout the year and it had a ton of options to tinker around with and I have been meaning to revisit it a little more frequently. Every time I boot up Steam, I continue to do a run of Hyperspace Pinball as I continue to be dazzled by its neon-lightshow aesthetics. Even though Farsight has seemingly abandoned support after losing the rights to the Williams and Bally tables, I still throw in Pinball Arcade sporadically and bust out one of its many tables from its mammoth vault of legendary pins. Finally, in December Demon’s Tilt hit Xbox Game Pass on its first day of release and it became an instant classic. Demon’s Title design is based off the acclaimed Devil’s Crush/Dragon’s Fury pinball games on TG16/Genesis that are themed heavily on three screens of verticality, fills the tables with a potpourri of ghouls to lay waste to and intimidating boss-fight bonus stages. It keeps the TG16-era visuals, but pumps them up with contemporary special effects like Blazing Chrome also did, and throws in a banger of a synth-metal soundtrack to nod along with throughout!

Behold the screen-filling madness of Demon’s Tilt and its jamming synth-metal soundtrack! I dare you not to headbang along with it! In real-world pinball, I finally got around to joining a local pinball club about an hour’s drive away from me. I visited it several times already and am impressed with its lineup of nearly 25 tables available, most of which are from the 90s and up. I spent my first few trips there trying a game or two on each table, and now that I got that out of my system, I think I am going to try going forward just sticking to one or two tables a visit so I can get as much practice and get the most out of each table that way. 2019 wounding up being the biggest year for pinball for me since starting this list and thus its higher-than-usual ranking! 12) Feel the Need…for Jag

This is admittedly an odd tale of my how I crave my retro games. I already mentioned the Midwest Gaming Classic retro-con I like to attend above. In the first several MGCs I went to, they always had a small part of the floor called ‘JagFest’ where they had several Jaguars hooked up and the entire Jaguar library on hand to play at your own desire. Over my first four or five MGCs I would spend a couple hours there each year trying out a bunch of Jaguar games and would eventually settle on the five or six I preferred and would play those for an hour or two to get my yearly Jaguar fix and avoid having to dish out the money for the games and system. After returning to MGC in 2018 after a few years off I could not locate the JagFest corner and came to learn those folks stopped supporting MGC a year or two prior. All of a sudden I found myself missing out on getting that usual fix for Jaguar gaming so I started to keep my eye out online and finally found one for a fair price a few months ago. I started eyeballing places for the several games I liked and tracked all but a couple of them down for decent prices over this past year. Adam swung by again recently and we did a Jag-Night and broke out several multiplayer games. We did a few rounds of NBA Jam TE, and minus the awful background music, it is the best looking home console version of Jam TE for what it is worth. It was nice revisiting some classic rosters too like when the Timberwolves rocked Christian Laetner and the Spurs had the lethal combo of David Robinson, Dennis Rodman & Sean Elliot! We then busted out two player Raiden and got up to the third stage after our second attempt with the two credits setting. Brutal Sports Football is an awesome mess of an arcade sports game and I loved decapitating my friend's players instead of scoring goals more. There is so much chaos going on screen I am surprised the Jaguar was able to barely keep up with it all. Finally finished off the Jaguar marathon by score-chasing on Tempest 2000. My meager Tempest skills did not gain me much headway, but Adam fared better and got a few stages in. I never thought I would eventually cave and get this ’64-bit’ oddity, but here I am….and after that session I kind of do not regret it and am legit having fun with the games for it. Who woulda thunk it!? 11) Still in Pursuit of that Elusive Tri-Force

I know….I know….I am a terrible person for not beating Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild yet. I still semi-regularly throw in BotW every two to three months and get a memorable session out of it methodically exploring every nook and cranny of the map. I cannot help but activate ‘Hero’s Path’ mode to see where I have traversed across the map so I can explore everywhere out of paranoia of missing out on those oh-so-desirable secrets in unexplored areas. I have a majority of the map explored and am on the precipice of starting the last stretch of the core game that is Hyrule Castle. Of course I still want to unlock that rad Master Cycle Zero, complete the Master Sword DLC trials and pursue so many other secrets I likely missed. Despite not finishing it, I have gotten a lot out of my sessions with BotW this year which is why it still lands in the top half of the rankings. Breath of the Wild is right up there with MGS5 as one of my first games to finally knock out of the backlog and I plan on setting everything else aside in the coming weeks to finally grind out the last dozen or so hours I anticipate I have remaining in BotW. 10) Crafting Them Videogame Anniversary Specials For those unfamiliar with my past work, I use to be in the gaming press and penned countless reviews and specials from 1999 until around 2012. I took a break from it after suffering a series of setbacks in my pursuit of landing a major gaming press gig and after about stepping away from writing all together for a good year was when I returned at first with my limited series resolutions-themed blog, and then starting up this movie-themed blog in 2014 and have not looked back since. After a couple years I started to get that little inkling of a desire to get back to videogame writing again and aside from a handful of special circumstance reviews from the last few years the only major videogame-themed writing I have done was these gigantic end-of-the-year blowouts to get videogame writing out of my system for another year.

In 2019 however I started jonesin’ to do a little more. With several videogame platforms hitting milestone anniversaries in 2019, I took that opportunity as an outlet to write not a stereotypical historical retrospective, but instead more a journal of my lifelong memories for the console being commemorated. I went with the outline of how I first learned of these platforms, how I first discovered and played them and of course wrapped it up running through my all-time favorite games and moments for said platform. They were a pleasure to put together, and reflecting back on my early childhood mishaps for the GameBoy brought back memories I have long stashed away. The Genesis special got me nostalgic recounting the summer spent playing the Sega Channel nearly every day. The Dreamcast tribute was an emotional journey to relive the high highs of it being the first system to purchase with my own money and the many late night multiplayer sessions and the low lows of the sudden discontinuation announcement. The TurboGrafX and 32X flashback I felt I had a unique take on because I did not own them until well after their lifecycle. In 2020 there are four more systems celebrating milestone North American launch anniversaries I am shooting to write specials on throughout the year: NES turns 35, PSone and Virtual Boy both hit the quarter century mark and the PS2 will be 20. Keep your peepers peeled for them! PART 6 - RANKINGS 9 THROUGH 5 9) A Paperboy-rogue-like-lite…

I am a moron and forgot to include this Xbox One digital-only gem, The VideoKid in my 2018 list where it dominated a lot of my playtime. It is an 80s-nostalgia themed take on Paperboy, but instead of delivering newspapers on a bike, you are delivering videotapes on a skateboard. There are coins and other jewels to collect that carryover from each run that can be used to unlock 80s themed outfits ranging from AH-NULD to Teen Wolf and a few extra skateboarding tricks too. VideoKid is crammed with pop-culture references from that decade, and each run has…um I think this is the right way to phrase it….’procedurally generated 80s references’ to freshen up each run. The developers dig deep with the references and here are a teeny fraction of them off the top of my head in this game: the California Raisins, Care Bears, Smurfs, Night Rider, Transformers, Bill & Ted, TMNT, Nightmare on Elm Street, Masters of the Universe, Terminator, Batman, Ghostbusters and a plethora of others. It feels slightly more appropriate debuting VideoKid on my 2019 list because even though I played a lot of it in 2018, I never finished a run until 2019. I would always get goosebumps upon realizing I made it to a farther area in the run and I would succumb to my nerves getting the best of me. As you can see by the attached pic of my tweet, all that practice paid off and I finally finished a run after well over triple digit attempts. That was easily one of the single best gaming moments for me in 2019 and why it ranked so high. I would go on to beat it several more times in order to unlock all the outfits and acquire all the achievements. I never would have imagined enjoying this as much as I did upon downloading this $5 game that seemed like a neat little 80s throwback timewaster, but instead I would invest all those attempts in my conquest for ultimate 80s glory. Having Bill & Ted near the end of the run belt out to you in recognition “you rule, Video Dude!” was the icing on this delicious cake!

I had a feeling this game would be up my brother’s alley, and so I used the Xbox One’s ability to gift games and sent a copy his way and urged him to at least give it a shot. Soon enough, he got back to me on how he became addicted to this peculiar title too. He later returned the favor by gifting another low-budget digital-only title to me, Knight Squad. It is a simple 2D overhead visual game where a bunch of knights clutter the screen and players can assign teams or go in free-for-alls with a wealthy amount of options and maps to tinker with. It had easy to pick-up-slaughter gameplay, and I found it to be a fun little mindless deathmatch game I booted up in a few multiplayer sessions with friends. It will definitely remain in my multiplayer throwdown rotation! 8) HadokenFinish Him 2019 Normally this ranking would highlight my routine online fighting sessions with my longtime fighting game rival, Chris! While we did bust out a few of our usual favorites like versions of Tekken and Street Fighter throughout the year, the bulk of our fighting game time was dominated by Mortal Kombat. With the Mortal Kombat 11 release approaching, we had a few meet ups of its predecessor, Mortal Kombat X as a way of having a last hurrah with it before its sequel dominated our meetups.

In the midst of those sessions I realized I never got around to playing the much-touted story mode of MKX so I blitzed through that and finished it within a few days of MK11’s release. It was foolish to hold off so long on that story because I loved NeatherRealm’s past fighting game story modes, and MKX had a neat narrative by introducing the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ that are the new generation of fighters from the offspring of the mainstay regular roster members. A lot of the story involves some deep MK lore which I was somehow able to keep up with because I read a few too many MK comics over the years from Malibu and DC than I probably care to admit. I wasted no time diving into MK11’s story a few days later right at its release date. Other than removing and not even acknowledging two of the four new ‘Kombat Kids’ introduced in MKX, I absolutely ate up the MK11 narrative. The plot manages to achieve the impossible by successfully conveying one of my personal pet peeve storytelling devices, time travel! It then doubles down on that by throwing in an all-powerful-TIME TRAVELLING GOD as the main antagonist that wastes no time messing around with the timeline and mixing in past takes on MK characters from the original 90s trilogy and spewing them out into the current timelines along with their wiser elders a couple decades later. It was a hoot watching modern day Johnny Cage grab 90s potty-mouth Johnny Cage by his ear and give him a lesson on manners. The sexual tension between both retro and contemporary Kano was bizarre to say the least, but well worth watching how their alliance played out. Aside from the time travelling hijinks, there are a lot of serious moments I could not help but get emotionally wrapped up in with my near 30-years history invested into this franchise. Watching Jax initially succumb, and then overcome his PTSD got me good!

Here are some of the more lighthearted moments from MK11’s story mode courtesy of young, obnoxious Johnny Cage which were nice moments of levity from the nonstop time travelling war that is the primary arc. Only praising the story mode would be selling MK11 short, because a lot of the other modes have a ton to offer up too. The multi-layered towers return, and full of all types of consistently rotated gimmicks like past games. I wound up preferring a classic themed tower of several opponents as a perfect way to practice and get use to a new DLC character whenever one dropped. Chris and I would meet up and duke it out online whenever a new character released. Having an older Arnold Schwarzenegger as DLC to coincide with Terminator: Dark Fate has been my favorite DLC character. Having Arnold’s uppercut command be replaced with a crouching shotgun blast is THE BEST-EST! The creation options are a wee overwhelming with oodles of costume and move variants to deck out up to several save slots for each fighter. I stuck to only making a few for some of my go-to characters, and part of me would have preferred having a traditional few costumes to unlock for each character instead. The tutorials are insanely in-depth and reach new levels of pro-strategies detailed in fighting game tutorials. Seeing the Krypt return is always a delight, and having it be hosted by Shang Tsung who is graphically and aurally portrayed by the man who played him in the first movie, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is the quintessential fan service! Parts of the Krypt though went over my head as NeatherRealm went overboard with several types of currencies involved and hunting down objects to unlock various parts of the Krypt. Props to the developers in the end though for somehow doing the impossible and consistently managing to outdo themselves with each sequel. I plan on keeping MK11 in my online fighting rotation for the foreseeable future. 7) COG Attack

Having Gears 5 available day one on Xbox Game Pass was an appreciated way of saving $60. I bought into how Gears 4 advanced the narrative with the next-gen of COG a couple decades later and had the original characters serve as more of an elder advisor role. The unique twist at the end of Gears 4 dealing with Kate is a big component of the campaign for the fifth game. I did not anticipate for Coalition Studios to pay off that big cliffhanger by really diving deep into Kate’s past and seeing how the revelations that await her pan out. I imagine most have probably heard how they mixed in a couple mini-open world environments into the story kind of how Uncharted Lost Legacy did a couple years ago. I did not mind it and got into exploring the frozen tundra and desert wastes while the characters filled in the traversal time with dialogue opening up about themselves and poking fun at each other. It helped mixed things up a bit and could not help but get immersed in its (limited) open worlds. By spacing gunfights out with the open world traversal, I forgot how heated the action can get with Gears 5’s variety of mammoth villains, especially in the final act when shit appropriately ramps up. The final act felt worthy of a big budget blockbuster of larger-than-life set-pieces, action and a heavy duty final choice presented that I had to pause and give a serious think over. I played a ton of multiplayer in the original trilogy, and regret not getting a chance to play the multiplayer for the fourth game, but have already redeemed myself by dabbling with several round of multiplayer in Gears 5. I am godawful, but it the occasional kill I pulled off brought back kind memories of how into the multiplayer I was before. Also having Linda Hamilton and Dave Bautista as unlockable characters for multiplayer are both perfect fits for the franchise! I also need to try out Horde mode and see how far it has evolved since I last played it in the prior games. So much left to do multiplayer-wise that I can see Gears 5 being one of the few online multiplayer games I regularly come back to this console generation. 6) How About a Game of Lucky Hit? Last year I picked up Sega’s HD remasters of Shenmue I & II on Xbox One in hopes to finish them again for a refresher on its grand narrative before the long anticipated third installment. I finished the first Shenmue off that collection in 2018. I played through the second game over the course of the following summer. Ryo is now pursuing Lan Di in China in two sprawling cities, with a bonus third area in an extended epilogue and all together it is about double the length of Ryo’s first adventure. Even though there are appreciated quality of life improvements compared to the first game as far as save anywhere and quasi-fast travel features implemented I prefer the first game more. Main thing I chalk it up to is in the first game Ryo having more of a sense of familiarity with Dobuita where Ryo knows nearly all the locals, shopkeepers, etc. In the sequel he only gets to become acquainted with several people and all the minor cast and shopkeepers treat him as an unknown and there are only hints of the charming small banter in the sequel to be had that the first game is overflowing with. There are some killer supporting characters Ryo gets to know like Ren, Xiuying and Joy, but the all-encompassing cast Ryo has varying degrees of acquaintance-ship with is what help makes the first game so welcoming and makes me give the first game the nod. Also, the sequel does not have forklift races and replaces it with an awful cargo carrying QTE mini-game where your co-worker screams at you every time a QTE is missed. No thank you!

A couple things going for Shenmue II is addition of two more YS games: Outrun and Afterburner II (and ability to access the four games from the main menu once they are encountered). Both of the cities are huge with tons of mini-games and side activities to take in with a lot of new ones debuting. Not all of them are winners but there was a ton of diversity between them and at least a few I found myself revisiting frequently. The final several hours of Shenmue II are also truly special and even though it was my second time experiencing this game, it was the perfect way to get me ready for the third game when it hit a couple months later. --spoilers next paragraph-- The romp up the mammoth Yellowhead building complex in the final act of the second city was a twisting, grinding beast to get through, but lived up to the journey to get to the final boss, hot on Lan Di’s tail. The final three-to-four hour epilogue following that is something daringly unique for its time and still holds up. If you were like me and hold in high regard the first Red Dead Redemption's epilogue then you will probably dig Shenmue II's bold epilogue which I did not see anyone attempting in 2001 when it first released. It was special to relive all over again even if there is a total lack of combat. A bulk of the brazen epilogue is a walk and talk where Ryo meets pivotal Shenmue character, Shenhua and the duo mostly converses and gets to know each other on their way to Shenhua’s home which is where the pair discovers a new revelation in their journey that closes setting up Shenmue III. There is a complete lack of combat, and only a handful on QTEs sprinkled in the last few hours. I absolutely loved this gutsy final act, and I understand why it is not for everyone for the crowd that is demanding of more gameplay. ---end of spoilers— 5) Spooky Gaming 2019 I continued my tradition of playing Xbox 360 launch game, Condemned: Criminal Origins on Halloween for the third straight year. I made a couple more chapters of progress in this creepy, first person detective/combat game. I need to stop only playing it on Halloween and finally finish it sooner than later because it manages to pull off a suspenseful and thrilling ride all these years later. I hinted above at my frustrations at Blair Witch Project on Xbox One. I was hooked into its first hour setting up the background of the protagonist lagging behind a search party in the woods and looking for clues they could have missed while catching up to them. Its gloomy woods atmosphere was giving me chills and goosebumps like Condemned was, but then I could not figure out where to go in the woods and circled around and double checked my paths several times for about a solid two hours before giving up. Consulting a guide at that point would not have felt right because I was so immersed in into the world. A few weeks later I read up some other player’s logs on what happened after the fact and it turns out the designers intentionally crafted the game to give that spooky lost in the woods vibe, but I guess it worked a little too well for me. I did a little digging to see what else Blair Witch had in store, and it expectedly involves a lot of supernatural and stealth elements once the legend of the Blair Witch comes into play, so I would like to give it one more shot eventually.

A game I did not give up on however and saved spooky gaming season for me was Dark Pictures Presents: Man of Medan. I was big time into developer Supermassive Games hit teenage, slasher game Until Dawn a few years back. Their follow up hit last year in Man of Medan is the first installment of their ‘Dark Pictures’ anthology line of spooky/slasher games, complete with a Tales from the Crypt-like host. This installment has a similar style of gameplay where six college-age students in trouble at sea wind up in a cursed ship which leads to all kinds of tomfoolery! Like Until Dawn, gameplay rotates between the six kiddos, and they will be constantly barraged with QTE choices that may decide their life or death fate. New in Man of Medan is the ability to set up local or online co-op play, with the developers insisting on setting an evening aside to beat the game in one night within four to five hours. That is exactly what I did when I brought the game over to Derek & Brooke’s place and we went through all of Man of Medan in a single sitting. In an unexpected twist, a severe thunderstorm rocked our town that night which provided a supreme ambiance as we played. We assigned two characters to each of us, and we finished with half the cast surviving. I was so entranced by that crazy night thinking of how to do things differently in order to get all the dorm-rats out alive and I plowed through the game a second time within a week and…..finished with only one surviving the slaughter, and it yielded a despondently meek ending that I only was all too deserving of in my failing of QTEs and decision-making efforts. Nevertheless, those two epic playthroughs of Man of Medan, combined with my excursions into Condemned and Blair Witch Project culminate for the highest ranking yet for the yearly spooky gaming entry. PART 7 - RANKINGS 4 THROUGH 1 4) Dream-tember 20th Anniversary Celebration

As I mentioned earlier, the Dreamcast was the first system I bought with my own personal income and the hell of a ride I had with that system in its two and a half year lifespan is why I have extra affection for this console. Penning that huge anniversary special was not enough as I decided for the 20th anniversary I would take my Dreamcast out of the closet for the first time in over a year and regularly throw in a few old favorites a couple times a week for all of September. Some highlights was revisiting a bunch of driving games and doing a few races each in Hydro Thunder, 4 Wheel Thunder, TNN Hardcore Heat and playing several hours worth of my favorite Dreamcast racer, Demolition Racer: No Exit. I would dabble with some of my favorite fighting games on the system for a few rounds of Dead or Alive 2, Capcom vs. SNK and both versions of Marvel vs. Capcom.

I consumed quite a bit of Dreamcast-anniversary videos this year, and this stream from the GiantBomb crew was the cream that rose to the top as one Macho Man would say. The non-driving/fighting game I played the most that month was a complete run of Typing of the Dead. Yes, I still have my Dreamcast keyboard (and mouse too!), and it was a pleasure putting my home-row skills to good use slaying zombies to gloriously awful voice acting. The typing challenges/mini-games they mixed in on the boss fights tripped me up a bit too and were a hoot to figure out. Aside from playing all those games, I contributed to a crowd-funded indie Dreamcast game, Arcade Racing Legends, that looks promising and should be shipping within a few months. I also dug out my stack of complete run of Official Dreamcast Magazine out of the closet and re-read the first five issues throughout the year. A lot of memories came flooding back from their colorful feature and review spreads. Several YouTube channels I followed did Dreamcast anniversary streams, and I devoured them all! The guys at YPB Podcast were doing a month long Dreamcast special too focusing on a curated Dreamcast gem each week, and I volunteered to guest host on their episode dedicated to, you guessed it, Shenmue! I barely contained myself as I raved about all my favorite memories for it, and apologized to the hosts for some of my incoherent gushing about the game afterwards. Speaking of the original Shenmue, throughout the year I picked away and eventually finished watching GiantBomb’s endurance run/long play of it which was just as entertaining and riveting as their Metal Gear Solid ones! It all added up for a month where I surprised how far I went out of my way to commemorate the system’s lasting legacy 20 years later. 3) Finally Conquering Diamond Dog In late ’97 I played a ton of the cult hit SNES RPG, Earthbound. I was mesmerized by this new twist on the Japanese RPG by taking place in a contemporary setting with young elementary aged children instead of cliché fantasy worlds. Despite putting in a lot of time, I never was able to get past the dual combo boss of Diamond Dog and Carbon Dog before I lost my save data and went decades before coming back to it on the SNES-classic in 2019. I once again have YPB Podcast to thank when they reached out for guest hosting spots and asked for a few suggestions on recommended games to play. I threw out the option of Earthbound so I can finally knock that one off my bucket list, and luckily they obliged me and that was the impetus I needed to work through that game. I only got a third of the way through it by the time we recorded the episode, but I stuck with it afterwards and finally finished it within a few weeks. After doing some research I was surprised to discover where I left off before against the dueling dogs was at roughly the 80% mark through the game. So close!

I had an excellent companion/travel book with me in the form of FanGamer’s Earthbound Handbook which is part strategy/tips, part lore/narrative and entirely exquisite artwork. I read the corresponding chapters of the guide as they marched along with how Earthbound played out to make it the perfect supplementary piece! FanGamer also has a tome all about the localization of Earthbound called Legends of Localization. It was my nightly bedtime reading for a few months as it dove into the weeds on the translation of the original Super Famicom version, and what references were removed and what were added/altered to the American release. Incredibly thorough read that shed a lot of light on the Herculean-effort it took to translate and bring this over state-side! Finally, as I mentioned earlier, but to make it come full circle as the year of Mother/Earthbound, 2019 was the year I made record progress and nearly finished Mother 3 on GBA! Just to emphasize, I am very much into it like I was with the original and hope to finish it within several weeks and rave all about it on the next recap! 2) To the Sequel A constant theme throughout this list has been my passion for narrative exploration based games. One of my favorites of the genre is 2011’s To the Moon from Freebird Games. It is about two professional 'memory explorers' Neil and Eva who use a device to traverse through a dying person's lifetime of memories and implant their patient's final wish so they can die thinking they lived their most fulfilled life. It has a 16-bit RPG graphical style and the writing is lighthearted with the two main memory explorers having plenty of cheery banter as I plugged away through the memories. The sequel, Finding Paradise hit six years later in 2017, and I have no idea why I waited two years to start it up.

Do not let these simple graphics fool you, both To the Moon and its sequel here, Finding Paradise, has some of the best storytelling I have ever experienced in gaming. I was thrilled to command Neil and Eva again as they take on fulfilling a new patient, Colin’s dying last wish. Their new patient is a tricky case who left his dying wish ambiguous, and more-or-less requested our trusty doctors to figure out his dying wish for him. It is the same type of narrative-exploration gameplay with some light puzzle elements, but with a few new wrinkles mixed in due to an early twist, which builds up to an even bigger hook in the final act I did not anticipate and leads to a whole new dynamic of gameplay I could not help but embrace. Kan Gao is the primary creator and designer behind these games and kudos to him once again creating a funny-yet-powerful-and-saddening tale as they dove through Colin’s memories in what felt like a page-turner I could not put down. Luckily, Finding Paradise is only several hours long and I was able to breeze through it within a few days due to the ‘one-more-page’ sensation of the narrative. Combine that exposition with a beautiful 16-bit throwback visuals and another knockout score and it left me depleted and wiping dust from my eyes by the time it was all over.

In a bizarre, ironic City Slickers-sort of way, I felt like Billy Crystal when catching up with my friend Matt a few days later and telling him about this game and To the Moon. He asked if Freebird plans on releasing it on consoles, and I told him how the first game has been out for nearly a decade and since it is not on systems by now I doubt how either game will ever get a console release. A little later that day I looked up online just to be certain and I completely missed it was announced last September that To the Moon would be getting a Switch release within a few days of this writing on January 16, 2020. If you do not PC game and have a Switch, I highly recommend giving this a shot! You will not regret it! 1) ”Kept You Waiting, Huh?” Yes, Ryo……You Very Much Did Exactly That! Surprise….or not! Shenmue III was the sequel I waited 18 long years for, and in the week before it released once it seemed like the game was past the point of no last minute cancellations I had this overwhelming sensation that I cannot describe any better than ‘holy crap, this is actually happening!’ I mentioned earlier about writing those anniversary tributes that the only other videogame writing I did was for a handful of special exception reviews. Shenmue III would be one of those special exceptions! I reached out to my friends at PSnation to see if they had anyone slated to review it and if not I would throw my hat in the ring to cover it for them and to my luck the review opportunity was up for up for grabs. I did this for two reasons, one to once again ensure I did not lollygag and take many months with this dense, sandbox game and two, to get everything I need to say about my experience with Shenmue III out of my system.

Not only did I review the game for PSnation, but Glenn invited me onto their podcast to review it on there too.Click or press here to take in my text review of the game, and click or press here to go check out the podcast. For everyone else, please bear with me for some…abbreviated…thoughts on Shenmue III. With a self-imposed review deadline in mind, I put time into Shenmue III nearly every day (minus Thanksgiving) and finished it within 17 days. Yu Suzuki for all intents and purposes created another Shenmue game, quirks and all. Due to it being on a crowd-funded budget (with later assistance from publisher, Deep Silver) it does not graphically compare with the latest and greatest AAA games, but still looks superior to the old Dreamcast games and offers the same scale of dense sandbox exploring. Some quality-of-life improvements from the 18 years since the last game are appreciated like dual-stick movement and no more quasi-tank controls! The narrative picks up right where Shenmue II leaves off in Shenhua’s village and focuses on two key areas, Shenhua’s rural village and another being a dense urban area. It would not be a Shenmue game without a wealthy range of side activities and mini-games to keep busy and earn money to buy new moves and level up Ryo’s kung-fu. I like the core fighting engine as it is improved and more fleshed out and has a better feel to it than the loose Virtua Fighter-feeling in previous games. Newcomers to the series should probably start with the first two games, or the quirkiness of the intentionally stilted and stoic voice acting and some of the characters will likely throw you for a loop.

The fine folks at MinnMax had a fine installment here of their quest to discover the game of the year by giving Shenmue III an honest try…kind of. As much as I loved this game with it being the clear cut #1 rank, I would be lying if it was in need of a few gameplay tweaks to improve the overall experience with more than the few limited fast travel options available, and better emphasis on leveling up Ryo’s combat skills early on. QTEs could have been implemented better and even on Nnrmal difficulty I found myself missing a fair amount of them, luckily developers YS Net is forgiving with frequent QTE checkpoints, and the fail animations are laugh-inducing. The Shenmue nut in me appreciated the many fan service and narrative callbacks to earlier games (hint: absolutely inquire with the hotel clerk what you can purchase from her). Fans of original games will be bummed like me to discover there are no more classic Sega arcade games to play, but for what it is worth there are other minor Sega easter eggs in the form of posters and other smaller items tucked away in the world. Also, what gives with the lack of soda drinking animation!? I bought a shirt last year that was all about Ryo’s aplomb drinking of soda!

The last big stretch leading to the final showdown of Shenmue III had a few poignant moments that will stick with me in the grand Shenmue saga, but compared to final stretches of previous games it is the weakest of the three and was over a little too quick when I was gearing up for one last sprawling stronghold to take down. The ending left on a high note of how it concluded and what the future has in store for the brand. Now a couple months after the fact, I am relieved that through hell and high water, Shenmue III found a way to exist and despite some shortcomings it was well worth the 18-year wait. According to the trophies and Playstation Store listing, there appears to be some mini-game and fighting challenge DLCs in the pipeline, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Shenmue III performed well enough for a fourth entry. THANK YOU!!!!! AFTER NEARLY 18,000 WORDS I AM SPENT! If you somehow made it this far please give me a shout out on Twitter @Gruel and I will tweet you a fist bump for indulging me this long! This took me nearly a whole week to write and edit, so thank you once again to making it all the way through or even just jumping around and skimming to what stood out for you. I appreciate it more than you know! I will leave you all with this annual yearly recap book-end tradition. See you all next year!

Suuuuuuuuper-Slam!!! Previous Year’s Best of Recaps - 2018 - 2017 - 2016

[attract-mode-collective]

The One Man War Against The Bydo, As Depicted By Just A Single Animator, Is Complete

Remember the work in progress R-Type fan flick from Otaking77077 (aka Paul Johnson) that I highlighted a little over a year ago? Well, as you can see above, it’s finished! And other than the rather questionable usage of a filter laid on top to accentuate the time from which the source material hails from… the game’s from the 80s; fans of the game knows this already, and for those who aren’t, it probably doesn’t matter the least bit…, it’s good stuff.

Johnson’s next project is Street Fighter related, which is neat and all, though I was kinda hoping he’d stick to shmups. Since he covered the 80s, why not a shooter from the 90s? Cuz a Thunder Force anime would be pretty rad and all.

Speaking of Street Fighter, the current focus of the Video Game Art Archive is Street Fighter The Movie: The Video Game. So get this; the Japanese instruction manual has illustrations of all the characters doing their specials, and they modeled after the actors!

Remember: here’s how Blanka appeared in the movie…

And here’s something to do with the live action Mortal Kombat flick; pondwitch sez: “me and my neighbor scorpion at the easter barbecue”

Buranovskiye Babushki, according to Wikipedia, is “a Russian ethno-pop band containing eight elderly women” (you’ve probably never heard of them before, unless you follow the Eurovision Song Contest, hence why they’re no strangers to me). Anyhow, TNT4, which appears to be the Russian equivalent of Comedy Central, recently enlisted the grannies to do a cover of the Mortal Kombat theme…

Can’t believe I’ve gone this long without mentioning the big news from last week! Well, big news in my book at least; the creator of PaRappa the Rapper and Vib Ribbon is teaming up with the creator of Gitaroo Man and Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents. It has the name of Project Rap Rabbit for now, and otherwise, not much else is known…

[UPDATE 5/16/17] Actually a new, crucial bit of intel has been revealed; Project Rap Rabbit is something you can Kickstart.

Speaking of PaRappa, here’s a snapshot I’ve been meaning to pass along for some time now, tho instead of waiting for the next installment of the Super Attractive Club newsletter, here’s the cute little stamp that accompanied the box full of 20th anniversary goods that miki800 ordered a few months ago…

Now might be as good a time as any to mention that the RodneyFun.com storefront is no longer open for business. How come? Well, Rodney Greenblat (the other person responsible for PaRappa, for those who needed an explanation) is about open a brand new shop!

The Rodney Shop will open this Saturday in the Catskills here in NY. Yup, it’s an actual store, not a website. Though hopefully an online version will open shortly thereafter, and hopefully I’ll be able to make the trip and be one of the first customers to enter the doors…

Everyone knows about the Nazca eagles in Xevious, though @isami_ichifuji points out that the game contains at least one other real world landmark…

Some time ago, I mentioned a series of discs for the Sega Saturn that weren’t games but were instead filled with CGI portraits, plus a tune or two, each based upon a Virtua Fighter. Well, some time before that, lvrllnd wrote about something a series of tapes for your VCR, which again was designed to cash in on “VF Fever”…

As before, there was one for every single character; each features various tricks and tricks and I want each and every one. If you look on eBay, you can find them for about $27 each! Along with plenty of other Virtua Fighter VHS tapes. Though I’m actually more interested in just the one on Virtua Racing…

Sticking with Sega for a little bit, courtesy of kazucrash is the unused cover art for the North American release of Gunstar Heroes. Call me crazy, but I kind of really like it?

Via Video Games Densetsu are some old photos that Koichi Namiki, who was part of the Sega Sound Team Band, recently shared. My fave is this one, back when Macs were considered part of the band...

Also via videogamesdensetsu is the most interesting tidbit from Hideki Sato (one of Sega’s main hardware designers) at something called the Game Business Archive: “Ryuichi Sakamoto was paid ¥10.000.000 to create the boot up sound of the Dreamcast.”

The dude from Yellow Magical Orchestra got paid close to 90k for the DC start up sound! I wonder how he feels about the fact that his handiwork is always accompanied by the sound of that loud ass disc drive mechanism, along with the beep of a VMU that needs its battery replaced? Eh, got his close to 90 grand, I’m betting he doesn’t really care.

Something else that recently took place was Retro Express, described simply as “an event for retro PC”. Other than some Toho port for the Famicom, the only other notable observation from shoutime is how he or she “was done in about 20 minutes”…

Behold the Family Cube R. It’s basically a Famicom and the Famicom Disk System in a very nice looking red translucent housing, which I originally spotted over at sixteen-bit. the creator “gorigo” explains what’s inside, but due to that pesky language barrier, I’m not 100% sure what is being said. I believe it’s a combination of authentic hardware and clone hardware. Especially since: “If it is a genuine Famicom board, it will not fit”…

Perhaps the most interesting component is the “homebrew L type connector” that allows Famicom carts to be playable without having to protrude on top…

It’s also super neat how it’s the same exact size and dimension as a GameCube with Game Boy Player attached…

The Family Cube R is also the closest thing we’ll get to a Famicube IRL…

Here’s a completely different kind of mash-up, one involving Splatoon and Space Channel 5, by kitsune23star…

And here’s another, from the CDTcrew, featuring Die Hard the movie and Die Hard the video game (or at least that’s what Dynamite Deka is called outside of Japan)…

Though back to the subject of hardware, miki800.com shows us that a Ford dealership in the UK of all things decided to take the iconic look of assorted consoles and apply their stylings towards cars. The end result is pretty… interesting. Their take on an Atari 2600 as a car is perhaps a good starter…

The car based upon the Mega Drive/Genesis is perhaps the nicest, though is mostly looks like what the Transformers turned into, before they crash-landed on Earth (am talking about the G1 cartoon btw)…

Though this van based upon the NES looks looks like a clone console by Hyperkin, aka I think it looks awful…

As for the Switch mobile… remember when the G1 Transformer lost their ability to transform and had to drive around in big goofy cars?

miki800.com also shares with us how various sports titles for the Famicom and Super Famicom illustrated the Player 1 vs CPU mode. I dig how in Super Famista 3, the two are pals, but by Super Famista 5, they’re bitter rivals…

I’m already iPhone 5S buddies with Eric, and coming this June, I might be Darius arcade cab cradle for my iPhone buddies with JC…

And once again, I wish I still had my iPhone 3GS, so I could take advantage of yet another batch of recently discovered assortment 3GS covers from National Console Support…

Please enjoy this video from a dude in Japan who’s all about showcasing their wide and weird assortment of junk food. In this case, he’s checking out the just released Dragon Quest chicken nuggets. The vid itself is nothing wildly exciting, just nice and calm and relaxing; I watch his YouTube channel to relax and help fall asleep at the end of a long hard day…

Unfortunately, someone didn’t get the memo about the lids being perfect for making yet another kind of snack, as @xoxo_lalafell shows us all…

Meanwhile, @TakeponFX recently tweeted about Koppa’s, that deli in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the Atari 2600 for customers to play that I wrote about almost a year ago. There are two things worth noting here: first is the following image that was shared, which shows a slightly different configuration, sans the massive multi-game selector. Considering when it was originally taken, which according to Flickr is 2010, I’d have to assume it’s a prior set-up…

The same older config was present in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, which I also mentioned in that aforementioned post, and which is also from 2012. So the selector hasn’t been around before then, I’d wager. Anyhow, the second thing of note is that I had no idea you could purchase shirts from Koppa’s, including…

Behold the evolution of Bald Bull (via brotherbrain)…

Very few fanbases are as multilayered as Nintendo’s. For most folk, who consider themselves to be fairly dedicated fans of the house that Mario built… they barely scratch the surface. And to determine how deep your love for Nintendo goes exactly, here’s a handy chart (via radicalhelmet)…

This week’s recommended reading is courtesy of Kotaku, which details an arcade that holds tournaments centered on the rather obscure Neo Geo fighter Galaxy Fight. Though there’s one key difference, one that sets it apart from all the other tourneys out there (aside from the unique choice in game): every round lasts only a single second…

“You’d think such a thing wouldn’t work, and yet it seems to have distilled the intense mind games associated with the fighting game genre to their purest form, crafting a unique experience for players and spectators alike. Strategy that typically plays out over a minute and a half is crammed into just a few brief moments. Should you wait for your opponent to make the first move and react accordingly, or bet everything on a risky uppercut that can be punished if it misses? With such a small amount of time for gameplay, the weakest attack can secure a round, opening avenues for outlandish tactics that infrequently pop up during normal competition.”

And last but not least, a photo from arcade-crusade, of a dude standing next to a pinball machine that’s also wearing a shirt with some sound advice…

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.

[koney-scanlines]

BuiLD A *QUALiTY* Audio DigiTizER FOR yOur AmigA foR unDER $20 !!!

First off, here is the correct parts list. DON'T use the other ones below from the original articles!!! They are WRONG!!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 ADC0804   A/D Convertor 1 LM386N    Audio Amp 1 100K      Trim Pot 1 .1uF      Capacitor 1 10uF      Electrolytic Capacitor 1 47pf      Disk Capacitor 1 10K       Resistor 1 DB25      Male connector 1 Female RCA or Mini jack ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I built mine on a piece of perf board 2" x 3.5" in size. Drill holes for the RCA jack and the 100K pot shaft. Make all the solder connections as shown in the schematic I drew. I take no responsibility for any problems caused by or resulting from this schematic. I drew it exactly the way that I have mine wired up, and it worked fine! I suggest using sockets for the 2 IC's as the ADC0804 cost ~$12.00 !! Pick a good layout before doing the project because you can get this thing really small if you try hard. I made the mistake of laying mine out poorly, and ended up having to cross over the 8 data lines from the A/D to the DB25!! Think ahead and save yourself some trouble.

I have used the digitizer with AGMSRecordSound/Playsound, MED 3.21, AniMan, and VCLI4. It has worked great with all of them. The quality of the samples it takes can be very good. One thing that I have noticed is that electric guitars and high pitched rapid sounds tend to sound very scratchy, but this is pretty common on digitizers. For $4.95, Radio Shack also sells a cheepo-microphone. If you are just in this to play around with VCLI and AniMan, then this is the perfect thing to get.

Future Possibilities:

In an attempt to alleviate some of the scratchiness, I might attempt some sort of filter subcircuit. According to my boss (an EE) this should take care of the problem, and reduce some clipping at high volume levels.

Alright, here is the original documentation. Use it more as a guide as to what can be done with this project. DON'T USE THEIR PARTS LISTS!!!!!!

If you have any problems, I can be reached at

kopackm@lonex.rl.af.mil       (summer time only!!!!) gt6758b@prism.gatech.edu      (rest of the year!!!!)

Good luck!!!!

--Mike Kopack

************************ READ AT YOUR OWN RISK **************************                           ORIGINAL DOCS

    NOTE: Although I re-typed these instructions off of paper, I take no credit for the contents of this file. I typed exactly what I read off the paper and only made cosmetic changes to the look of the text file. Meaning, I only made it look better. I did not, to the best of my knowledge, change any of the wording or directions that follow. I also re-drew the schematics off paper using Deluxe Paint. Use a IFF picture viewer to see this picture, contained in the file called Schematic. Again, I only made a few cosmetic changes to the look of the schematic. I can not be sure that I didn't change something along the way of typing or drawing it on the computer. For this reason I must say that I can take no responsibility for any damage that may come to your computer system from using this device. Use at your own risk!

  OK, now that that is out of the way, let me say this. I am very impressed with samples I've heard from this audio digitizer. It can be built for $15 to $20 dollars and consists of 9 parts! You can make a PC board for it or simply wire everything together. It will work with Perfect Sound, Audio Master II, and several other audio digitizing programs on the market. The sound quality is as good as any comercial devices I've heard samples from. It uses the same audio to digital conversion chip that the Perfect Sound digitizer uses. The only drawback to this device is that it can not sample in sterio. By this I mean that it can only sample one channel at a time, the left or right channel. This is not a problem, as a program like Perfect Sound will let you get around this. To create a sterio sample you need only to do a little more work. First sample the left channel, then the right channel, and then choose the menu command to create sterio. The software will then splice the two together to create sterio! I'd say this is a minor price to pay for saving $80 on the price of a sterio digitizer.

  I was told to try Jamaco Electronics at 1-415-592-8097 for the rest of these parts, but I'm sure a lot of other places also carry them. There are a lot of different types of plugs you can use in place of the RCA type. Simply choose the type you want and if it will be male or female. Most people will use a female RCA plug. Get one that rack-mounts. I also picked up a small plastic box with IC project-board, 8 screws, 4 rubber feet, 2 label panels, all included in one package (Part 270-291a). It measures 3 7/16"x2 5/16"x1 3/16" and cost me $4.49. There are several small PC boards and cases at Radio Shack that will work fine. Just remember to think small. This layout doesn't need much room. I plan to melt (I always use a screwdriver to melt my holes instead of drill them.) two holes into this case. One will be in the middle-rear side of the box for the RCA plug. The next will be on top of the box for the pot. I also plan to cut a hole, using a hot exact'o knife, into the front of the box for the printer port connector. One hole will be melted on each side of this for two screws to hold the printer connector in place. A few labels, here and there, and we're all done. There are many ways one could go about building a case for this. I just thought I'd give some people an idea.

  Before you digitize something your going to want to set your input level. If the input level is too high or low, the recording results will not be as good as they should be. To do this via Perfect Sound:

  1. Choose "View Signal Levels" under the "Digitize" menu option.   2. Look at the "L" (Left channel.) or "R" (Right channel.) display at the       bottom of the screen. Three numbers will be shown. The first is the       smallest value ever digitized, the next is the highest ever digitized,       and the last number is the current value. If your input level is too high       ,then the smallest value will stay at 0 and highest value will be around       255. If your input level is at too low a level, the values will change       only a little.   3. Adjust the volume of your output device and the pot on the digitizer       until you get the right readings.

  Now your ready to digitize. Changing the sample rate will alter the quality of the recording. A high sample rate will give a good recording, but eats up memory a lot faster than a lower sample rate. Certain samples will sound fine at a low rate of 8000, or less. While other samples will require a sample rate of 10000, or more. Play around until you find the best setting for what your doing.

  Hope I've helped made the project a little easier for some of you. What follows is the original instructions.

                              You can reach me on CA-AUG at 216-292-4404.

                                                 Bob Cramer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  This is a simple two chip audio digitizer for the Amiga (Specifically the 500, but the DB25 pinouts can be changed for the other models.). The parts list is:

Qty   Item/Desc               Value ----------------------------------- 1     Resistor                1K 1     Pot                     100K 3     Capacitors              .1uF,47pF,10uF 1     Mini Plug or RCA Plug 1     Connector               DB25 1     A/D Converter           ADC0804 (HeathKit usually has these.) 1     Audio Amp               LM386N  (Radio Shack)

  This circuit will work with the program from the Perfect Sound digitizer with one small exception- it won't digitize in stereo.

  All the Vcc's (Pin 20 on the ADC0804 and pin 6 on the LM386N) can be powered from the printer port (at least it is working for mine with no power supply problems!).

  Use the monitor signal level option in the Perfect Sound program to adjust the pot to the correct level (NOTE: If the circuit is hooked to a line level- e.g. to the Audio-Out of a VCR or sterio- the pot should be turned WAY down. Just listen to the "monitor" and you'll see what I mean.).

  I do have this circuit built and running on my Amiga so I know it works. I just hope you can read the diagram!

                                     Jamie C.MUELLER (GEnie)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The digitizer plans were made to connect to an A500 parallel port. However, this will not work on the A1000 without some changes.

  If you have an A1000:

  Pin 10 (ACK*) is the same on both the A500 and A1000.   Pin 2 to 9 (Data bits) don't change either.   Pin 14 in the A500 is +5V (100 mA). Use pin 23 on the A1000 for this.   Pins 17 to 25 on the A500 are signal to ground. Use pin 14 on the A1000 for        this.

[tryshareware]

Best EGPU For Mac: Reviews,How to, Tips

I know you are seeking for a good EGPU for your MAC, and maybe you have learned the major issue is that Macs don’t come with official support for external GPU until its High Sierra. Yet, This does not mean that you cannot use an external GPU in older operating systems but only that Apple will not bail you out in case something goes wrong in the process. In other words its process at your own risk.

If you are ready for the risk and decide to go for it, only a limited number of thunderbolt enclosures and GPU with appropriate Mac drivers. That means you can’t just pick any graphics card you like. In this article, we listed the best EGPU for Mac, as well as the Tips, how to when you buying an EGPU for mac

Why You Should Need an EGPU For Your Mac

All Macs come with a high power CPU that can easily provide primary processing power for the computer. They also have a GPU that is a graphics processing unit that is designed and responsible for visuals and display in your device.

GPU is the main components that make the windows laptops the market leaders. They help you to play your favorite games flawlessly and external display runs smoothly. They are also the leading units in VR experience and 3D rendering.

All the power the GPU provide you with comes at the cost of battery and optimization. Heavy GPUs make a lot of fan noise and consume a lot of power reducing the battery life of your laptop. Apple has compromised this power to create a balance between performance and battery life. But these are not good for games. VR or 3D modeling.

Just like you can get external hard drives in the market the external GPUs can be plugged into your laptop using thunderbolt housing whenever you need to do high graphical work or play games.

What you need to know about the Mac, Thunderbolt 3, and external GPU’s

This is a well-known fact that MACs lack behind in the graphical power when compared to Windows PCs. The company behind the MAC prefers its design, battery life, quality and portability over raw performance. This is the reason the highly powered NVIDIA chips are not being used in these laptops. There is a theoretical option that states that if you know in detail about the MAC, the Thunderbolt 3 and external GPUs an external GPU might be plugged in using the Thunderbolt 3 cable that can provide you desktop level performance in you MAC whenever needed.

Why would you want an external GPU?

For those who feel the need for desktop level graphic power in their MAC, the use of external GU can be a great option. If you are a gamer you will feel the difference between the MAC and graphics powered PC to be a big deal. A MacBook Pro can run a 5k display very smoothly but if you try to play intense games on a MAC with full graphics setting the MAC book will not be able to handle the load.

Modern-day GPU’s are designed for parallel computing and can easily render multiple assets at the same time in real time for high demanding games. These GPUs are necessary for video rendering or 3D rendering in the 3ds max to render full 3D objects in real time. Even the fields of national defense or medical fields need the structural designing power for their computers. This type of power cannot be possible by an integrated GPU.

Where and how can I get one?

This question is a complicated one. The main problem faced is the there is no official support from Apple for external GPU and MacBook. The Thunderbolt 3 is a great technical advantage as it can offer a transfer rate of data at 20GB per second in each direction and are capable of providing power, holding and staying connected to even the latest NVIDIA Titan Xp that has no competition in its performance in the graphical field. But that all being true there is no official support provided by Apple in the MacOs to support this type of connection.

The easiest option in the market for Apple fans is to choose an AMD-equipped Mac, that is specially built with external GPU performance for MacOs but can lose its graphical power to a great extent in this compatibility. The other option is to switch to another CUDA friendly sandbox that can provide the power to it like the windows.

Am I ever going to be able to properly use an external GPU with MAC?

The answer to this question is not a certain one but at least we hope so. Many of the professional use a MacBook Pro for video and 3D rendering. The senior vice president of Apple software engineering stated that “I think they have a place” when apple was asked about the external GPU support.

With this, all being said it was surprising that the support for external GPU or eGPU was found on the latest MacOs Sierra beta. Even though it did not offer full support and was very limited it was a great effort by Apple. The problem arises that the GPUs are not yet able to transfer the data back to the Mac and therefore there is a need for an external display that can be connected to the external GPU  but this method results in overall loss of power.

In addition to the effort made by Apple in the latest MacOS, NVidia has also issued the drivers for MAC for their Pascal powered external GPUs.  The news has reviled that next year the Apple is coming up with the next generation MAC pro that aims to be highly customizable. We might be looking at a future where MacBooks offer high-end and upgradable graphics performances that would revolutionize the industry of gaming.

How to set up your Mac with external GPU

With NVIDIA’s announcement to offer macOS drivers for its latest Titan Xp and an eGPU Developer kit offered by Apple with High Sierra, it’s important to know exactly what an external GPU is and How exactly you set up your Mac with external GPU.

How to use an external GPU with your Mac?

You should not do this process without professional guidance. The eGPU.io community has taken a step for ford to help you and has put down a huge array of guidelines that you can easily access if you are looking forward to making a Thunderbolt 3 GPU for your MacBook Pro.

Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350 Bundle reviews

This sonnet Bundle Breakaway box is packed with 8GB of Radeon Rx 580 graphic card which can be connected to your laptop or computer in an instant with the help of a Thunderbolt 3 port.

This Breakaway Box, one of the best Thunderbolt 3 External GPU For laptops in 2018 supports all MACs with thunderbolt support that have macOS high Sierra or higher and provides perfect power balance between the input and output power to maintain stability on any operating system.

Pros

This breakaway box is supported on Macs with MACOS Sierra or higher.

This product comes with inbuilt Radeon Rx 580 8 GB graphic card.

It works with all laptops, windows or Mac with Thunderbolt 3 port.

Cons

If the port is unplugged while your Mac is running, your OS will crash so you need to be careful with the connections.

Temperature and noise control

Sonnet’s Breakaway Box provides great performance with cool and quit working. It comes with a temperature controlled fan that cools the box and prevents your graphics card from heating up to unusual temperatures. The fax makes less to no noise and can be easily used in a noise-sensitive environment. The breakaway box supports liquid coolers that are very easy to install. These coolers run even quieter than fans and enable you to safely overclock your graphics card. This developer edition provides you 60W power that can handle your fans and coolers effectively without any external help. It supports any cooling type like 120mm single fan radiator or water block coolers that work the best.

 Support for Mac and windows both

The sonnet Bundle Breakaway box very versatile product that is compatible with nearly any computer or laptop that supports USB type C or Thunderbolt 3. This product is compatible for the Mac OS and works fine on the new Mac book Pro working on the MacOs High Sierra 10.13.4 or later with most AMD manufactured graphics cards like AMD RX470,480, 570, or 580 Even the powered Rx series works fine. Macs are not able to work with NVIDIA cards as NVIDIA drivers are not yet supported in MacOs. When operated on the Mac OS this Breakaway box from sonnet Bundle provides the laptop with the charging of up to 60W with its 350W power supply. The least noise producing and temperature controlled fan makes sure for your mac to run cool and smoothly.

 Performance

Gaming is one of the most demanding tasks that require power, low latency, and performance. The breakaway box with AMD Rx 580 gives you all of this and much more. The rise of the tomb raider worked on 51 Fps on ultra settings that is a great achievement for this box. There might be a drop of FPS when compared to a desktop with the same specifications but that is obvious and cannot be helped. When compared to desktops the thunderbolt performance drops by 33 percent in NVIDIA cards and 25 percent in AMD. Also, the NVIDIA drives for Mac are not ready yet. Therefore this RX 580 provides you much more than usual cards on thunderbolt.

Radeon RX 580 8GB Graphics Card

This Breakaway box from sonnet Bundle includes a sapphire Radeon RX 540 card with 8 GB of GDDR memory to provide enough power for graphics-intensive applications or games. This Bundle is supported on the Modern Mac books working on the High Sierra. Radeon RX 540 card is the best GPU for 1080p gaming and provides you the power to play any of the games available in the market on full potential. This is a great deal eGPU and provides you will all you need for professional gaming or software. This GPU can play all the modern games like the Doom, the Witcher 3, Player Unknown’s battlegrounds, the assassins creed origins and much more. It also has more memory and the GTX 1060 or !050ti that can handle any graphics load with ease.

Conclusion

Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350 Bundle comes with 8GB of RX 580 is great eGPU that costs around 500 dollars and is worth each penny. This bundle has both the eGPU and the dock inside it. This is the ultimate choice for high-level graphic designers or 3D modeling due to the 8GB graphics memory it provides by its Thunderbolt 3 port.

      The post Best EGPU For Mac: Reviews,How to, Tips appeared first on Try Shareware.

from Try Shareware https://www.tryshareware.com/best-egpu-for-mac/ via https://www.tryshareware.com

[sailorrrvenus]

I Bought the New iPad Pro So You Don’t Have To

I’m no stranger to the iPad. In fact, it once caused me not to get a job at an Apple store shortly after college. I was asked in an interview, “What do you think of the new iPad,” and I answered honestly (mistake number one in a job interview I would learn).

“I’m not sure how I feel about it, it doesn’t really do what I would want it to do.”

I didn’t get a call back for a second interview. Little did I know this would be the start of my rocky relationships with tablets.

In 2012, I bought refurbished a 32GB “New iPad.” With its retina screen, I told myself it would be the perfect portfolio alternative, and I could make myself look so cool by bringing a digital device to a client meeting, instead of a printed book.

“Who prints photos anymore? Clients will see me as cutting edge!”

That device currently is sitting on the floor next to my bed, unable to be updated past iOS 9, with a dead battery. I rarely use it anymore because of how slow it has become. And it certainly didn’t win me any clients. I think I may have used it professionally once or twice to have someone digitally sign a contract or a model release.

When the first iPad Pro was released I found myself holding it and thinking, “Well…it sure is big,” before using the newly launched apple pencil to crudely draw a penis on it and handing it back to my friend. I still didn’t see a good use for what was essentially a laptop without a keyboard.

Flash forward to 2017, where I found myself standing at the counter at my local Apple store looking at the three size options in front of me for “Pro” level iPads. I was sold (or so I told myself). I just needed to know what size fits me best. After a few hours of going back and forth with the demo models, I eventually decided to walk away. It just didn’t hold up to the experience I was getting from my laptop.

When the 2018 Apple announcement of the new iPad Pro came through, I once again found myself enamored with the idea of getting a laptop replacement. I studied the keynote, watched every review video, and made an appointment with myself to visit the apple store as soon as possible to play with one myself.

The idea that now this tablet was “more powerful than most PC laptops” and (would be) capable of running a “full” version of Photoshop really intrigued me.

The Tech Specs

To be fair, a lot of this section is pulled directly from Apple’s sales literature on the new iPad, and I will try my best to keep things brief here. This isn’t anything you can’t find for yourself with a quick Google search.

Liquid Retina display

11 or 12.9-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Multi‑Touch display with IPS technology

2732-by-2048-pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch (ppi)

ProMotion technology

Wide color display (P3)

True Tone display

A12X Bionic chip with 64-bit architecture

Neural Engine

Embedded M12 coprocessor

USB-C

10 hour battery life

New Apple Pencil with magnetic charging

I sent this photo to several people who knew how much I was dreading this purchase.

After another agonizing hour going back and forth with price and specs, I decided to pull the trigger on the 12.9” model with 256GB of storage, with the new Apple Pencil. $1,380.24 retail after estimated Atlanta taxes.

To be fair, I had a friend hook me up with an Apple Friends and Family discount, which brought my price down to a little under $1200 after tax. Even with the discount, this is a pretty large chunk of change to throw down on something that I didn’t even know if it would fit into my workflow properly.

Once the device was delivered to me an hour later, I rushed home and completed the setup process and began playing with my new toy. I was determined to make it work for me.

Pros

Just about everything with the design of the device

The 12.9” screen is gorgeous and, combined with the True Tone Technology and night shift, I found it very easy to use in a variety of lighting conditions. Never did it blow out my eyes when used in the dark.

The new Apple Pencil is very responsive and feels great in hand. The new magnetic charging system makes it a great way to store and charge.

Battery life is pretty good. Apple rates it at 10 hours, and with moderate usage, I was able to only drop down to around 50% before it was time for bed.

The refresh rate still makes me very happy. It feels snappy when I swipe between pages on the home screen, or between pages in a book or magazine. I am impressed at how smooth everything is.

All of this packed into a device that is a great size that fits comfortably in my hands.

And I’ll be the first person to say I have tiny hands.

iOS 12

For the most part, I am very happy with the latest version of iOS. When used on the iPad Pro it does a great job at coming VERY close to a desktop-class OS. For the average user who is looking for a laptop replacement or substitute, it makes for a pretty good argument against competing products.

USB-C (Kinda)

Apple choosing to move to a standardized charging/syncing solution is super smart. No more proprietary cables (for the most part), and if you are ok with dongles of varying sorts you can basically connect this device to just about anything (even if that connection can’t exactly do anything…more on this later). Even though I didn’t get a chance to try it, the ability to mirror to a 5K display was an impressive demo.

Cons

Price

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room straight away. This thing is not cheap. And for a similar price point, you are already into 13” Macbook territory. This makes the decision much harder when comparing side by side. Yes, technically you get more storage with the iPad, and that new processor supposedly is nothing to laugh at. But what you lose is RAM, and a FULL operating system (And at least for me, Capture One).

USB-C

For all the great things that the iPad pro can do with its new port, there is one HUGE thing that it can’t do. At the time of this writing, the USB-C port cannot be used to interface directly with an external hard drive. This is a huge bummer because, in order to be competitive with a traditional laptop, I can’t really get around needing expandable storage.

But, you say, “The cloud! Can’t you use the cloud?” And my response to this is a decided “Yes and No.”

I downloaded the WD MyCloud app onto the iPad. It’s the same app that I use to manage my personal cloud from the go on my phone. And while I was able to eventually download a file into the iPad for editing, it was far from an elegant experience.

Wait…where are my thumbnails?

While iOS 12 can support plenty of different RAW files, it can only read them while in the Photos app, unless specifically coded into each individual app. Even in the Files app, you can’t see any thumbnails by default.

I sure do hope I remember that SPECIFIC file name for the file I want to edit.

Now, once you download the file to your device, you can see a thumbnail just fine.

Too bad I’d have to import all of these into my camera roll first before I can see them.

Now I suppose this could be solved by a product like a Gnarbox or the Lacie DJI Co-Pilot since they have a computer of sorts built in for processing (RAW previews), and generally can interface with other apps nicely. But by that point, you are spending ANOTHER $299-$499 on top of the storage you already spent which further makes the argument for a traditional laptop.

The one thing I didn’t try was Tethering.

But unless I’m using the Lightroom app I don’t think this will work for me as intended as well. From what I have seen, connecting a camera basically just opens up the photos app and downloads files from the SD card on the camera. Not a direct tethered shooting solution that I am used to from Capture One.

I suppose you could also use the USB-C SD card reader, but then you are once again having to load every file directly onto the internal storage of the iPad itself. And then moving them back off for long-term archiving brings up a whole other conversation.

I think that the lack of USB-C mass storage support is something that Apple could (and hopefully will) fix in an upcoming version of iOS. This two-way data movement and storage would change a LOT of my feelings about the iPad Pro as it stands today.

Lack of “Desktop Strength” photo editing solutions

This is one “con” where I think things are ALMOST there. A “full” version of Adobe Photoshop will be coming next year, but Lightroom CC already has a large user-base and supposedly does a pretty good job. I’m still not sold, I don’t like Adobe’s charge per month model. It’s just not for me. And all of it adds to the overall cost ($120 a year). There are some cheaper (and single purchase) options available, however.

Affinity Photo has long been the Photoshop analog that many photographers have fallen in love with. At the time of this writing, however, Affinity Photo hasn’t been updated in over a month, and likely hasn’t been optimized for these new processors yet. I fully believe that the next version of Affinity will work just fine and will be a very speedy piece of software.

But for me, I found it to be a touch clunky and certainly when I was doing some basic retouching there were several times I had to wait 15 seconds or so while the app crunched the data.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Affinity Photo UI

Affinity isn’t a bad option at all, and I think that part of my problems with it was just in learning a new piece of software. And once I got rolling I feel that things went rather smoothly. With the exception that it took me over an hour to retouch the above file, and even then I’m not 100% happy with the results. But I’ll let you guys judge for yourselves.

Backup and Archiving Workflow

My final gripe comes after you export the files out. By default, most of the apps I have played with wanted to export everything back into the camera roll of the iPad itself. Which then, of course, leads to duplicate files and space being eaten up by final deliverables.

I found a way to move things manually back to my WD Cloud, but it wasn’t elegant and took some experimenting with to move everything over. Then I was still left with having to delete the file manually to free up space on the device itself.

Conclusion

I like the 2018 iPad Pro, I really do. But I’m not IN LOVE with it.

Ok, I’m lying. I do love it. I think it’s designed well, I think the screen and pencil are both great, I think the audio on it is some of the best I have heard across any device. I like the idea of having iOS on a larger screen, that is still light enough to carry around one-handed. I like all of the potential that comes from multitasking.

From an Apple fanboy perspective, I really do love this device.

I even used the Squarespace blog app to type some of this post!

But from a photographer standpoint, it falls short. For me. My workflow just can’t accommodate the iPad Pro as it currently stands. But it’s so close!

With a few simple changes (USB-C Mass Storage, RAW Support in the Files app, and more Pro “Desktop Level” Apps from the likes of Adobe, Capture One, etc) all of which could potentially come at a software level without the need of additional hardware.

For day to day web surfing, email, notes, and other media consumption I love what has come from this latest generation of iPad. This makes me excited for what is to come with lower-spec devices that I would likely use more frequently.

I was at a meeting today and loved using the iPad to take notes on, and I loved being able to quickly surf the Web and find info I needed. I really want to have this device in my life, but unfortunately…I’m probably going to return it.

I’m going to give it through the weekend to grow on me a little more, maybe do some more playing around to see if I can better fit things into my life. But at this moment right now, I just can’t justify paying $1200 for something that I can already do (arguably better) on my already paid for MacBook Pro. Thankfully Apple has a 14-day return period, because I would hate to have to try and re-sell this on the open market.

Maybe I’ll just wait a while and snatch up one of these once they hit the Refurbished section of the Apple store, or maybe grab one of last year’s models at a killer deal.

Or there is always next year’s model…

About the author: Blake Griffin is a photographer based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Griffin runs UNEXPhotography and has his Bachelors of Arts with a concentration in film and photography, from Montana State University – Bozeman. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This article was also published here.

source https://petapixel.com/2018/11/13/i-bought-the-new-ipad-pro-so-you-dont-have-to/