One thing that's nice with retro games is that due to my taste changing over time there's always been so far tons of games I had previously overlooked that I can then discover. The PS1 is an inexhaustible source of games. Not the big popular games everyone's heard of, but more often games that were too late on their platform to get any attention, didn't get a translation until recently, or were of a genre that was out of favor at the time it came out, had the sin of its gameplay not being legible enough for journalists or kids. Last week I found out Psychic Detective, which was pretty much Night Trap if it was even harder to make sense of. Now I'm trying Psygnosis' Sentient.
@sun@why@Vril_Oreilly It doesn't change that Colbert is still a suckup, "haha, our guy can be a bit cringe sometimes" is a lame, tame ribbing to try and avoid the real, obvious, but too damaging humor that could be made actually criticizing Biden. I mean, all the potential jokes that could be made regarding Biden's obvious mental fog are less relevant and funny than this shit?
last time I talked about milk frothing in a french press, someone mentioned a "foam stick". is that just the stupid battery powered whisk with a spring wound along a circle on a long wire that rotates? Or are there better "frothing sticks" available now? I don't want any countertop appliance...
@lain@piggo I don't like those it because I have to warm the milk another way. I got one of these automatic frothers that heat and froth with a magnetic whisk, it's not big enough that I'd call it an "appliance" and it works well.
@why@kirby You can, but only at the cut rates that Chinese emulation consoles can achieve with repurposed overstock hardware, open source emulators and not giving a fuck about IP. Or if you're marketing to a niche like the Analogue Pocket or Playdate.
@why@kirby Any attempt at making a new pocket friendly console will end up chafing against "The Smartphone Problem". Which is to say, why would I carry an extra device in my pockets to play games that's weaker than the one I'm already carrying?
There's a lot of devices that I enjoy using more than a smartphone. Recently I got out of storage an old Palm Pilot and put in some effort to get it to sync with modern computers and services. It's enjoyable to use, it's well designed. I would even call it delightful. I also feel fucking stupid when I pull it out instead of my smartphone. It doesn't have online capability, it only syncs at my computer. The screen is dim. As pleasant and tactile the writing system on it is, it's still slower than my phone's touch keyboard.
I wish I could carry a PDA, a DS/Gameboy, a Minidisc player/recorder. They spark joy. But I feel like a dumb poser hipster when I do. Sure, controls do matter for games, but do they matter 300$ + another big bulging device in my pockets? If they mattered that much I could just carry a small bluetooth controller.
