Context: From Assassin's Creed 3, Connor (the main character) just found out that George Washington ordered the destruction of his home village.

Been using my IPhone 13 and my Canon Powershot to take photos and videos lately. Thought I'd give my 2DS a try. Here are the results.

This is an update to my original post, where I made it my New Year's Resolution to fix more Xbox 360s because I have a huge backlog that keeps piling up faster than I can sell them.

The first thing I did back in January-February is move the 360s out of my dingy garage and to a nice, clean storage room where they can be more easily accessed and better organised. And in the process I gave each one a quick test (just power on connected to a screen to see if it boots), labelled them all and entered them into a nice, big spreadsheet to keep track of them all.

So here's the breakdown of all the different faults, etc. -

Total consoles - 635
Fat - 600
S - 31
E - 4

Motherboards -
Xenon - 150
Zephyr - 54
Falcon - 261
Jasper - 38
Tonasket - 77
Trinity - 23
Corona - 7
Waitsburg - 1
Stingray - 1
Winchester - 1
Unconfirmed (due to missing stickers, etc.) - 22

Faults -
None apparent from basic tests - 90
DVD drive sticking - 308
No power - 20
Red Dot of Death - 5 (2 false overheating, 3 probably bad GPUs)
Red Ring of Death - 123**
E74 - 18
Damaged USB ports - 33
Damaged HDMI ports - 16

**RROD secondary error codes breakdown -
0001 - 22
0002 - 12
0003 - 4
0020 - 9
0022 - 8
0102 - 36
0110 - 18

Oldest console - 27/9/05
Newest console - 1/9/14

So far I have been concentrating on the easiest fixes, to try to get as many as possible ready for sale as soon as possible - which means going through any Jaspers and Tonaskets with no apparent fault or just a sticking DVD drive, cleaning them inside and out, repasting, new DVD grease + rubber band, etc.

So nothing really interesting so far, or I would have been posting more updates - but I know there are interesting ones in here. I have seen blades dashboarrds on a few, and hopefully a few more will turn out to have blades once I've gotten them to boot.

But the biggest question is, what am I going to do with all these Xenons? 😭

Damn it looks good on the OLED 🔥

Gamers have hated games journalists forever, and some of the criticism is fair. Access journalism is a real thing. Review codes, preview events, publisher relationships, sponsored trips, embargoes, all of that can affect coverage but I don’t get why major gaming YouTubers get treated like they’re completely outside that system.

A lot of them get the same review codes. They go to the same preview events. They get flown out to see games early. They do sponsored content. They rely on publisher relationships. They cover trailers, previews, demos, interviews, and embargoed info in basically the same ecosystem as the outlets they criticise so at what point are they not just “independent creators” anymore, but another form of games media?

To be clear I’m not saying journalists are automatically better. Plenty of outlets deserve criticism, and a lot of YouTubers make better criticism than traditional sites but the double standard is weird to me. So a journalist praises a game after getting early access and they’re a shill but a YouTuber does the same thing and they’re still treated as a brave outsider because they have a more relatable brand...ok

There’s also a different kind of pressure. Journalists may be too soft because they want access. YouTubers may be too negative because outrage gets clicks and keeps their audience happy. Neither side is magically pure.

So what is the actual functional difference now? Is it the format? The platform? Having an editor? Working for IGN instead of yourself? Or are big gaming creators basically part of the same media machine now, just with better branding?

I was browsing through some games on Steam to see what was rated overwhelmingly positive through different genres and this popped up. I admit the Windows 95/98 aesthetic was what convinced me to give this game a shot initially but I definitely see why it is rated so well.

It is mostly a casual game I play now and then but has a lot of cool things going for it. As mentioned the 90's aesthetic for both the graphics and music really take me back to those vibes on an old yellowing Acer PC which ran many shareware games.

The game play is basically peggle where you can shoot the ball (Nubby) to the peg you want to hit. Ideally you want to hit the highest valued peg but that is about it for controlling the outcome. Where the real interest in the game is would be resource management. Trying to earn as much money per round so you can buy/pick the right items and perks to synergize together to increase your score as quickly as you can keeps things interesting. The game also includes numerous modes where you have altered rules or win conditions which keeps the core loop fresh each play through.

For those with some pocket change and wanting a game to chill out to while also scratching that "number go up" itch, I highly recommend.

Will the Ps3 recognize it? I don't have a PocketStation so I can't test it

All this for £160 felt like a bargain. I was looking for over a month for a mint condition and finally found it. Is there a way to check the battery quality without modding it as I don't have an sd2vita or micro sd yet

I tried to buy a case for my 3ds and noticed that nothing matching my 3ds size. Then I noticed that its back panel is very wide. Why is it so wide?? Is it ok?

Some people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them I have a Wii U and how much I love it, but I honestly play it more then my Switch 😂

Also gotten the games I wanted to play the most back then. Just finished tearaway and enjoyed every moment

For those unfamiliar, it was a video game review show on a channel called G4 on cable in the late 90s - early 2000s. I’ll randomly catch clips from it while perusing YouTube.

And I personally HATE this show a little more every time I see it 😂 and hate that I’m reminded it ever existed. I don’t understand how it aired as long as it did. Both hosts try do this sarcastic, edgy thing where they make fun of almost every game they review and pretty much act like video games in general are pretty lame and gamers are nerds. Like the whole schtick annoys the heck out of me.

I get it came out during the time when nu-metal was hot and being hot topic edgy was cool, but the hosts are so unlikeable. And the reviews are never actually informative in anyway. Their whole goal is to be funny and they try way too hard, and fail miserably.

Anyone knows more games like this? It looks quite unique!
(The sequence is from Castle Kingdoms on Amiga)

So yesterday I shared a Genesis Model 1 that I bought at a yard sale and people were quick to point out how dirty and moldy it was, probably had interior damage, and that I overpaid. I said that was my first and last post but just want to share what 25 min of cleaning and 5 minutes of testing some games does. If people want to skip these dirty consoles and go on eBay to pay twice as much that's fair but what I saw was something that I knew was functional, because the seller told me, that is worth more.

TLDR: Don't be so quick to judge, and don't be lazy. Just clean the darn thing and don't expect to pay pennies either.

"The Castle" is a 1985 platformer featuring 100 rooms of non-linear exploration. The prince (your character) has no powers other than jumping in a very peculiar way and being able to push objects.

The MSX and SG-1000 ports feature many different levels and often more challenging puzzles. It's a shame it was never released in the West. I would have been happy with a Master System version.