Published stuff

For Stuff this weekend, I wrote about why I’m buying my first CD player in 20 years. We have a thousand shiny discs and nothing to play them on, which seems daft, not least given how favourite songs and albums randomly vanish from streaming services all the time. This one also appeared to strike a chord – I’ve had a bunch of (very nice) DMs, social media posts and even emails (old-school!) about the column.

Elsewhere, I wrote about The Spectrum and added Phantolex to my free iOS games feature. And for TapSmart (which just released issue 309 of sister mag Swipe), I wrote Bring back: Weightbot.

Other stuff

Yes, this one’s late. I almost forgot. Still recovering from covid, which is taking time. A day out at London Aquarium wiped me out, although the family had a great time, and I was very happy to squeeze in the trip that should have happened two weeks ago, just before my daughter returns to school.

In tech, Capcom has now decided iPhone versions of its console-grade games like Resident Evil 4 and Village need an internet connection to run. Given that half the point of mobile is being able to play anywhere, I’m not sure ‘anywhere you happen to have a data connection’ is going to go down well. And by extension, this is another point against App Store gaming Apple really doesn’t need right now, not least given Monument Valley 3 is heading to Netflix. Developer ustwo said this is so it doesn’t have to “compromise in order for it to survive in the kind of App Store that exist in the modern day”. Ouch.