Weeknote: 26 August 2023
Now back in the land of the living. Mostly.
Published stuff
It was bizarre-o-week in games land. I wrote about the Atari 2600+, which mimics the ancient console and lets you plug in original carts and controllers. And then I wrote for Stuff: What unites the PlayStation Portal and Atari 2600+? They’re confusing, weird and very niche.
Both of these products baffle me, for different reasons, as you’ll find out in the column. I know some folks are enamoured by them, mind. There’s a big nostalgia factor to the Atari, and a convenience one to the PSP, as noted by Matt Tate for Stuff, who is eager to throw 200 quid Sony’s way. Even so, both of these for me have ended up filed under ‘no need to exist’.
Over at TapSmart, I look into better and friendlier streaks apps (Apple, take note!), Home Screens eroding app usage, and Monument Valley, which is the latest entry in my classic apps series.
A new issue of sister mag Swipe went out recently too, if you fancy supporting our work for the tiny sum of two bucks per month.
And finally: for this blog, I smashed out some cathartic words: iCloud sucks and it really shouldn’t.
Other stuff.
I was very ill recently and could barely move, let alone exercise. My streaks all went away. It’s almost a relief, and yet I noticed yesterday that when I got to the end of the day, having forgotten to do my 30 minutes on the elliptical, I just thought: sod it.
I’m going to try and rewire my brain using the Streaks app, with settings more generous than Apple’s YOU MUST BE A ROBOT line of thinking. Perhaps that will give me a sweet spot closer to motivation than drudgery. (Also good: Gentler Streak, which when I first tried it basically told me to chill for a bit, on the basis of my stats nose-diving. Nice.)
Elsewhere, I’ve started digging into the guilt piles, which in this house mostly comprise Lego and comics. Two recommendations. Tales of the Space Age is a gorgeous display set for fans of, well, space. And Saga is wonderful comics. I’m about to delve into the third deluxe hardcover. Here’s hoping the fourth will rock up before the heat death of the universe. (The creative team’s hiatus last time was impressive in terms of duration, but a touch frustrating for fans – if understandable, given the creators’ workloads!)
I wonder if it just got a lot cheaper to launch electronic devices in recent years. Companies like Anbernic are launching a new device with custom moulds and custom electronics like every month, and these can’t sell that many units, yet somehow, Anbernic remains in business.
I think it’s cool that devices like the PlayStation Portal and the 2600+ exist. If the PSP (the new one, not the old one) gets cheap enough, I might even pick one up for the sheer convenience of playing PS5 games in bed with the proper controller and without the hassle of setting everything up on a phone. Also, it’s probably going to get hacked, and might end up making a nice little emulation device.
It’ll be interesting to see what’s running on the nu-PSP, but I imagine Sony will do everything it can to lock the thing down. The Vita was still getting updates to thwart hacking long after its commercial viability was gone.
The Atari feels like an oddball for not being one thing or another. I imagine that’ll be hacked pretty quickly, although whether the DE-9 controller connector will prove limiting I don’t know.
As for Anbernic and similar (eg Retroid), the churn is quite something. Some of those devices are really good though. High quality, given the price. And versatile/open, which is the main reason I like the ones I have here.