Well, the ribbon isn't virtual...

Bought three Virtual Ribbon 4.0 kits for my three Virtual Boys, and got a pal to install them for me seeing as how I lack both the Virtual-Boy-specific Gamebit screwdriver and necessary soldering skills. Also splurged on a FlashBoy+ - which're too small for Hyper Fighting 😞 but I'm not super-interested in playing a Street Fighter game on that controller 😉 Still need Waterworld to complete the NA collection (and then six ridiculously-expensive Japanese releases), but these upgrades are a huge relief and I'm mostly looking forward to the Innsmouth no Yakata translation as well as grabbing a link cable for the two-player Mario's Tennis hack. Speaking of hacks, I was way out of date in terms of what the community's been up to over the past 15 years or so. I'd also forgotten how much I enjoy this thing; seriously, every game (even some of 3D Tetris) is still pretty fun.

Found a complete copy of Jeopardy! for SEGA CD; I know there's a PC port, but I just wanted that original footage on the original platform... RIP, Alex Trebek.

DOOM CD32X Fusion 2.2!

As I finish-up Planet Robobot, I think the only Kirby games I actually like are:

• Dream Land
• Epic Yarn
• Planet Robobot
• Forgotten Land

They released a demo for Mina The Hollower, and I kinda hate that there's no scanline option; looks awful scaled to fit a 27" 1440p display... 5x is the way to go. Also don't really like jump/burrow control scheme. Really neat Zeldavania otherwise, but I was hoping I'd like it more.

Speaking of things I wish I enjoyed more, Pacific Drive and No Man's Sky both seem to require a level of commitment that I'm just not into right now; which really sucks because they're both so cool, but I haven't been able to find a rhythm - not even in VR with the latter, though getting in and out of your ship in VR absolutely rules :)

Speaking of VR, I finally really sat down with Rez Infinite; and while it's a neat upgrade to the original, it's the new Inifinite mode that really impresses. Still mad that my WMR headset just doesn't work past Windows 23H2 :/

Speaking of Windows support, I've successfully installed stock Windows 11 on these "unsupported" stock computers:

• ThinkPad E570
• Core i5-7200U
• Surface Book
• Core i5-6300U
• EliteDesk 800 G1 DM
• Core i5 4570T
• ThinkPad X1 Carbon
• Core i5-4300U

"Elite"

Graven sucks, Cultic is boring, not even bothering with Wrath... Might as well just replay Hexen, Blood, and Quake again. I really wanted to like Graven though, and I really tried, and it really does have potential, but it just ends-up feeling more like Daikatana than anything else... And I've even been a bit of a Daikatana apologist, but I couldn't finish this one.

Can't stop thinking about how well Majora's Mask 3D came together, and wishing I liked Wind Waker more than I do. Probably gonna go back to Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks again before tackling Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.

Finally finishing the last two Special worlds in Super Mario 3D Land... I think I hate the physics in that game. Also finally getting back to New Super Mario Bros. 2; feeling like it's kind of underappreciated these days - some really good ideas in there.

Space Marine 2 is so pretty and I'm so glad that it exists and I'll buy the next one, but it also feels kinda short (yes, I'm playing through Operations) and somehow also a little boring through the middle? I appreciate how many classes, loadouts, and squad-dynamics are available, but... Meh? Maybe I'm wearing rose-coloured glasses when I think about the first one, but I remember the gameplay just clicking a lot better for me back then.

Bought Lair again; don't remember why I sold it.

Got an old phone-santising UV thing for free, and it cleared my EPROM, and I now have a two-slot MVS running a paid version of the Universe BIOS 4.0

Found an HP EliteDesk 800 G1 DM at a thrift store for $13:

• Core i5 4570T
• 4GB 1600MHz DDR3
• 120GB Intel SATA SSD
• Windows 8 Pro

...A friend gave me a 256GB Samsung NVMe SSD for free (only works as a second drive on that motherboard though), I found an OEM power adapter on a local marketplace for $10, tracked-down another 4GB of RAM for $3, and installed the Windows 10 Home license (upgraded to 11) from my HP Stream 14 laptop (it runs Linux better anyway) - $26 all-in!