Over an hour into the Steam winter sale and the site is still broken. Calm down people, the games aren’t going anywhere.


Anbernic’s GBA clone, the RG34XX, is up for order on their official store. I’ll definitely be picking one of these up, but I’ll wait for the 3rd-party AliExpress sellers once it’s got a bit of a discount and free shipping.


Moondrop’s new Honkai Star Rail collab wireless earbuds look too good to pass up. I’m thinking these will end up being my dedicated gaming-on-the-go headphones for my Steam Deck and Retroid Pocket 5.


First snow


My Retroid Pocket 5 is here! This thing absolutely lives up to the hype. The OLED screen is just stellar.


Not terribly excited by this year’s initial LTT Store sales, but I needed a screwdriver and a few water bottles anyway so now is as good of a time as any to pick those up.


The Nintendo DS in 2024

The Nintendo DS turns 20 today. I never owned the original model when I was younger, but a few friends of mine did. I was always fascinated by the hardware, but very few of the games my friends were playing like Mario, Pokémon, and Nintendogs actually interested me. I was busy playing Halo and Call of Duty on my Xbox in the mid-00’s. I was completely unaware of the all-time RPG greats like Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger (yes, I know it’s a re-release of the SNES original; I think the DS version adds some unique features to make it worth playing on DS), Radiant Historia, and anything Final Fantasy. I’d like to think that in some alternate universe, a younger me got to play all of these games when they came out.

I haven’t played much lately on Nintendo’s more “modern” consoles (they clearly don’t want me as a customer any more, but that’s a different subject altogether) so I decided to take a look at some of the games that I missed over the last couple decades. Just this week I picked up a pre-owned DSi XL from a local shop. Sure, the DSi is a later iteration of the DS line that’s only 15 years old, but it feels like a perfection of the formula.

I love how simplistic it is; just a folding rectangular block with two screens, a D-pad, and a few other face buttons. The screens are very low-resolution by today’s standard, but the pixels there have aged very well. Yes, the Nintendo DS absolutely holds up as a worthwhile gaming experience even now in 2024, 20 years later.


Valve has announced a new limited edition white Steam Deck. That’s it. No other changes. I still think the transparent black model looks better.


mini mini


Voted.


Retro Game Corps’ first impressions video on the Retroid Pocket 5 just went up on YouTube. Looks like it’s living up to the hype, and I’m super excited to get mine in a few weeks!


Could this São Paulo Grand Prix get any sillier? Actually, at this point, it very well could.


Turning the AC on. October 29th. 🥵


The new Mac mini is adorable! It might be time to replace my M1.


New Apple keyboards still have the awful arrow key layout.


Test


🔗 If the new Xbox wireless headset has Dolby Atmos “now included at no extra cost,” why is it more expensive now?


📺 Watching Love Live! Superstar!! s3e2 "TomaKanoTe"



🔗 Red Dead Redemption is up for pre-order on Steam for $50. Classic Rockstar. I’ll wait for it to hit 10 bucks.