Still

Caved and bought a Gotek SFR1M44-U100 for the Amiga 500, programmed it with a USB Type C-to-A cable (I don't seem to have any USB A-to-A cables), didn't expect to have to jump unpopulated through-holes, got it working on the Amiga, and then three blinks on the Caps Lock key... Argh.

Found a Pictek PC244A w/Jixian Blue switches for $6 at a thrift store, and it wasn't grody; decent keyboard.

Wondering if a 5070 Ti , 5700X3D and 16 more GB of RAM might be a sound upgrade for my main computer this year...

Burned through Wolfenstein: Youngblood solo - not as bad as I'd heard, but not great.

Pacific Drive is very good, albeit not really my kind of thing in the end.

Space Marine 2 is glorious.

The Last of Us Part II  (on PS5, not Remastered) is incredible.

Got a PlayStation Portal as a gift, and it's really cool... Kinda worried about stick drift and what happens when the service is no longer supported, but still really cool.

Getting around to finishing Landstalker here and there -  the Lake Shrine sorta sucked; onto King Nole's Labyrinth. Still curious about Lady Stalker, Alundra, and Time Stalkers though; still need to play through Shining in the Darkness and Dark Savior.

Finished SEGA AGES: Phantasy Star - still obtuse, but so much better than the original.

Makin' my way downtown...

Crackdown 3 was on-sale for $9.99 - I loved the first one as a big, silly, superhero playground; and while I just couldn't get into the second one, I very much enjoyed 3 - the new map is great, the addition of Terry Crews is genius, and I happily finished it in about a week. I couldn't help but feel like I was playing a better version of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League though - just with less story and worse graphics.

Halo Infinite was good. I felt way more invested than I had with the last few entries, even if I still thought there were some storytelling issues to work-out here. Lots of cheap deaths, and it felt more like Far Cry than Zelda; but the good far outweighed the bad, and I'm looking forward to more.

Mortal Kombat II 32X Arcade Edition was already great, but I finally tried the MSU-MD option (in an emulator; hoping for SEGA CD support) and it just makes the whole thing kind of incredible; I did not expect the SEGA CD 32X to be the best way to play DOOM and Mortal Kombat II (single-player) outside of PCs and arcades in 2024... And no, the 3DO port of MKII is not a contender with its zoomed-in sprites, Shang-Tsung-breaking CD format, and approximated gameplay.

Speaking of games that were arguably unfair upon initial release, I finished Batman and Vice: Project Doom on NES... Absolutely relied on savestates, and Batman kinda falls-off after the first few levels; Vice keeps things interesting.

Please just port it already...

I have an old 4:3 LCD TV with VGA, component, S-Video, composite, and coaxial inputs that's been great for Dreamcast-and-older consoles, but it started randomly cranking-up the volume. I took it apart to see if anything looked off with the volume button or the circuit board, but nope; no way to easily check the contact under the button either... So I ended-up disconnecting the board altogether and it's remote-control-only from here on :)

My Ryzen 5600X started to slightly overheat - cleaning-out dustbunnies and re-seating the HSF got things back under control, but I should probably replace the thermal compound.

Halo Infinite started-out really well; the first level was badass, the second was intriguing, but then it kinda felt like Far Cry... And then when I encountered my first "propaganda tower" it sorta lost me a bit.

Ripple Dot Zero works well enough on Ruffle, which is fantastic; the bonus levels are kinda broken, but everything else is pretty great and it's still one of the best 2D platformers ever.

Got Astro Bot, Princess Peach: Showtime!, and a PlayStation Portal as gifts... Not sure what I'm gonna do with the Portal yet.

The math got more complicated, Atari...

Got a Stone Age Gamer Mega EverDrive X3 (Jungle? Electricity?) Deluxe Edition for $60, and I have now played Doom CD32X Fusion on actual hardware, and I cannot elucidate the feelings that I'm feeling for 30-years-ago me. Also got me excited for Phantom Gear, if they ever finish it.

Ploughed through Halo 5, and it's fine; not as bad as I'd heard, but nothing incredible... Unless you consider how incomprehensible the opening of Halo 5 is you haven't played Spartan Ops, but then you also try to figure-out why the rest of the game seems to abandon so much of what was set-up in Spartan Ops; that's incredible. So many major plot-points feel so unceremonious here.

Honestly, I had to go back and refresh my memory on the previous games because:

• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Iconic visual design, epic story with engrossing lore, excited for more
• Halo 2
• Basically DOOM 2 - more of the same, but with more Earth
• Halo 3
• I remembered nothing except for "Floodgate" and the ending
• Halo 3: ODST
• Loved it when it was first released, probably because of the cast; couldn't tell you what happened
• Halo: Reach
• Origins! Really only remembered that final bit
• Halo 4
• Older origins! I remembered there was a lot of talking...
• Didn't play Spartan Ops until this year, and it was really disappointing to see so much crucial plot relegated to what is effectively multiplayer DLC

Finally bought Halo: Infinite, and the opening was kinda great albeit somewhat confusing. Let's see how it shapes-up.

Anyway, I forgot just how annoying Windows 10's HDR implementation is, and so Windows 11 23H2 seems like the way forward... Just need to make sure I can reliably block the 24H2 upgrade; it hasn't been great on my Surface Book, either. Proton has me thinking my next main desktop is just gonna run Arch; only holding-off on my current hardware because of the WMR headset.

They may not die, but they do go on-sale.

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die went on-sale for $3.74, down  from $14.99 - so I grabbed that and all 18 free DLC packs. Also found a sealed copy of Rare Replay locally for $10. Very impressed with the platform now that I'm spending more quality time with it; the continuity across generations is handled well, being able to set the old 1080p, non-HDR Xbox One to 10-bit RGB for my monitor is kinda neat, and there're enough exclusives on here to justify the sub-$50 prices I've been seeing for these units - add-in that you can upgrade to a Series X for ~$400 (only getting cheaper, too), and I'd say there's a pretty good argument over PS5/PC. I still need a controller though, and ~$63 for an Electric Volt Xbox Core controller seems to be the best deal right now.

Been meaning to wipe my Windows 11 23H2 desktop for a clean installation of 24H2 for a little while now, but the automatic Feature Update notification finally came through so I figured why not go with that in the meantime. It really does completely disable Windows Mixed Reality though... I figured it'd still work in some capacity, but nope; turns my headset into a brick. Went back to Windows 10 22H2 for now; HDR experience is a little worse, but I guess I've got a year to figure-out what I wanna do.

Advice

Listened to myself and tracked-down an Xbox One with a Kinect - it also came with download codes for Dance Central Spotlight and Ryse: Son of Rome, an official XBOX One Chat Headset, a Turtle Beach Recon headset, and an Xbox 360 composite cable for some reason... No controller, but the whole thing was $80 CDN and just down the street from me. The S is better in just about every single way, but that dang Kinect...

I plan to track-down physical copies of Disneyland Adventures, Fantasia: Music Evolved, Fighter Within, Kinect Sports Rivals, and Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure. Also waiting for D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die to go on-sale again.

Really wanted to try FRU, got really disappointed when I found it had been de-listed, and now I'm eternally grateful that the developer sent me a code after I donated to a local charity! Fantastic game, reminiscent of LostWinds so far. With FRU and Dance Central Spotlight, I've now got two de-listed Xbox One Kinect games!

Buying Guide

Xbox:

• Great exclusive games
• Get component cables and a display that can use them, or an HDMI adapter

Xbox 360

• Great exclusive games
• Avoid the pre-2007 Pro/Premium and Core models
• Get a Kinect
• Limited backward-compatibility

Xbox One:

• The only exclusive games are for Kinect; S and X models are not compatible
• S and X models support resolutions over 1080p, HDR, and Ultra HD Blu-ray movies
• Limited backward-compatibility

Xbox Series:

• Essentially a cheap PC
• Perfect backward-compatibility with Xbox One library (except Kinect)
• Best way to play (all 11) non-Kinect Xbox One 'exclusive' games

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PlayStation:

• No need to buy one; just get a PlayStation 3
• SCPH-7501, 9001, or 101 if you do though

PlayStation 2:

• No need to buy one; just get a PlayStation 3
• SCPH-3x0xx is a nice-to-have if you do, but really can't go wrong otherwise

PlayStation 3:

• Great exclusive games
• CECHAxx or bust!
• Seriously though, they're all good; get CECHA/B/C/Exx if you want PlayStation 2 support

PlayStation 4:

• They're all good, but just buy any PlayStation 5 with a disc drive instead

PlayStation 5:

• Get a disc drive for PlayStation 4 games
• Pro only if you're rich
• I'd avoid non-'slim' Digital Editions

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No need to get into which Nintendo/Sega/Atari/whatever - just buy a Switch, a Wii U, and a Dreamcast; then play everything else on an FPGA or an emulator with a good CRT filter.

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2025 Gaming PC Minimum System Requirements Bonus Round:

• RTX 2060 SUPER/RX 6600
• Ryzen 5 3600/Core i5 10400F
• 16GB of RAM
• SATA SSD