Will

Oh if that’s the case it really sucks, guess there isn’t much point doing anything until they know why it happens and how to fix it. Have you tried taking it out of the cabinet? I know my PS4 Pro would occasionally fire up all the fans as it was overheating itself while shut away. Could be something similar and it’s not handling it properly?

Are you going to get the machine looked at? Doesn’t seem like something it should be doing at all.

You thunderstorm lovers should come and spend some time in Singapore. We get the most insane storms I’ve ever seen on an almost daily basis.

I decided to take a bit of a gamble and book tickets home: Three weeks over Christmas and New Year, hopefully by then travel will at least be possible and we can see family for the first time in two and a half years. Already getting excited for it!

It seems like our current lockdown is going to be extended even further. In addition to that there is still no word on when we’ll be able to get vaccines. The situation here started out a total disaster and then they brought it round and we were basically up there with Australia and New Zealand for a good while. Seems to be slipping back to disaster again. We still have a super low number of cases but the slow rollout of the vaccine here is leaving everything unclear. Singapore isn’t the most interesting place at the best of times, the current situation makes it less appealing than it’s ever been.

Oh I’ll definitely buy that Game & Watch to sit never being used wherever the Mario one ended up.

Yay Advance Wars, another classic I’ll be glad to play again. Some interesting stuff overall but nothing to get really excited about. Are they saving all the good stuff for something else I wonder?

Super happy for WarioWare, always loved those games. Have been playing the GBA version a fair bit recently and it’s still just as good as always.

Monkey Ball is nice, 1 and 2 were the only decent ones imo.

I’m not sure I’d call that a good article, it only uses one scenario which is if two things are exactly the same but one of them costs less it will be cheaper than the more expensive option. That’s not to say Game Pass isn’t great value, it clearly is, but it won’t work out best for everyone. Anyway… Made a bit more progress on this tonight and it really is awesome, I’m loving every moment of it so far. The variety of gameplay, fun story, scale and quality of the world - it’s hitting all the right spots. It’s also the first game I’ve been playing with headphones, and the sound design is crazy good too. Still kind of taking my time with it, but I’m definitely making an effort to play it, at least a little, most nights. I use the US store on my PlayStation, so save a little compared to the UK. Even so, I’d still say this is worth 70 quid.

I have no idea which would have been the first E3 I was aware of, it would definitely have been in the late 90s reading E3 blowout issues of EDGE magazine. Kind of crazy to think how long it took to get the info back then. Was that the one they put the intro video of Smash Bros. On? I remember having that video and watching it all the time. I’ve been lucky enough to work at E3 a few times. They all blur into each other a bit now but highlights would probably be: Running the SEGA meeting area one year and seeing Sheamus from WWE wondering past Working on the Nintendo stand the year they announced the Wii U Getting a ton of cool merchandise for the year of Luigi Having dinner a few tables away from Reggie The last few years before they let the public in really were great. Since then it lost a lot of it’s appeal and especially now with COVID limitations and the fact companies can so easily go directly to their fans it’s days must be coming to an end. I’m sure summer will remain a big time for announcements but more and more companies will do their own thing.

Totally agree with everything you say @Julius. This definitely feels next-generation for me. The combination of how good this looks, the non-existent loading, and the dual sense integration is really awesome. I moved over to Performance RT mode in the end. The drop in quality wasn’t super noticeable but the frame rate increase definitely is.

Just downloaded it and played through the prologue. My first time with the series and quite enjoying it thus far. Fidelity mode for me. For one it’s the default, and as a single player experience I’d rather have the quality over extra performance. I have to say Insomniac’s production values are insanely good. Everything is so well put together and the quality really shines through. Quite looking forward to see what’s in store as I progress through.

If you ask me that’s getting pretty close to the limit. 75% and 88% of the recommended use isn’t exactly playing it safe. Given that it only happened to two cars and Max had clearly been pushing his tyres pretty hard going for those fastest laps I’m not sure you totally blame Pirelli for it. So what do you propose instead? Go back 15 years, have no tyre changes and make it so each set needs to last a 300% race distance? The current formula is one which has tyre changing so I don’t see how you get around this without either changing that rule or else making it a total mockery. The sport is super safe now, but at the end of the day it’s still racing concept cars around a track at 200mph, there will always be some danger. Was he robbed? He was racing under the same rules as everyone else and just fucked it up at a key moment. I agree that doing the standing start is more for the show than the sport but even doing a SC restart people that have worked up gaps will be disadvantaged by it.

You’d think it would be something like if the red flag is before 50% distance then it’s a standing start and if after then do a safety car start. Still, I guess the rules are the rules and everyone is aware of them when they start the race. I don’t really see what Pirelli have to answer for though. Two punctures in tyres coming towards the end of their life is just part of the risk of the sport. It’s not against the rules to run a more conservative strategy. Great race and I’m super happy with the result. The cars seem really close at the moment so we should be in for a very exciting summer run. With Perez finding some form and Bottas seeming to be incapable of driving at the moment it’s going to be very tricky for Lewis to keep up the challenge. Hopefully he does though, the last thing I want to see is Max running off with things.

On the label of the floppy disk the spreadsheet is stored on.

Having done both of those trips a number of times, I would definitely rather do a trip from Tokyo to Kyoto than Bournemouth to Birmingham, much much easier. This sounds super cool, definitely want to go. Not sure which will happen first, this opening or it being viable to travel to Japan.

On the trophy topic I really hope Nintendo will add them at some point. They’re one of my favourite things on the other consoles and I love collecting them. I don’t really play a ton of stuff on those consoles though so my collections are small and unimpressive. If Nintendo had them then I could show of my geek credentials with full sets for tons of games that I’ve spent hours working on. For me it’s one of the key things that Nintendo is missing.

I think it will be called “New Nintendo Switch” and I think that name sucks. If I got to choose I’d call it the “Super Nintendo Switch” and that would be awesome.

Yeah it’s really been a strange time. Also the medical case seems to be changing a bit, it’s now not entirely clear if there was any underlying issue at all or whether it is something 100% attributable to the vaccine. Another friend seems to have a blood clot on their lung caused by it though luckily that one doesn’t seem to be too serious. I’m in no way anti-vaxx but it’s definitely making me think twice about rushing to get one. At least until there is some additional benefit to me I think I’m going to wait on it.

Yeah totally. I used to do the same as you having a password protected spreadsheet for all of my passwords. A few years ago I decided to pay for a password manager and it’s totally worth it. I don’t know any of my passwords, just one that unlocks the password manager and take things from there. It’s slightly annoying when you want to set up a new device for the first time and need to manually enter some ridiculous 20 character password into iTunes or something, but other than that I thoroughly recommend it to everyone.

Thanks, @Dcubed! Think you’ve convinced me I need to get my hands on this.

Yeah the IPS screen is a total game changer, don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed playing game boy stuff so much. The case is also super nice and the deeper buttons than the original SP make it feel much better. Had an issue that the battery wasn’t charging, figured I’d messed up the soldering or something. Opened it up, did absolutely nothing to it, closed it again and it works perfectly. I guess something was just housed a bit weirdly and needed a bit of a rejig. Decided I’m not going to bother with the headphone jack, and instead try to install a Bluetooth module. Not sure how well it will work with the metal shell but may as well give it a try. After that I need to figure out what my next project will be, really not sure what to go for at the moment.

I finally had some more parts I’ve been waiting for, and this time it’s a good one, I present to you: The GBA SP Unhinged Mod Today I’ll be taking my GBA SP from when I was a kid and hopefully be turning it into something quite amazing. This is my original GBA SP and the front shell of the Boxy Pixel aluminum shell that will turn it into something that resembles the original game boy more so than any of the GBA models. These are the various parts, the front, a back for the screen and the main body and a battery cover. I started by taking apart the original machine, nothing too taxing here, just get the right screwdriver and go for it. The ribbon cable for the original screen comes out nice and easy and you’re left with the board for the GBA SP. The first thing I wanted to do was replace the switches in the shoulder buttons. If you remember they are super mushy and I wanted to make them have a nice feeling click. This is the new button, much much smaller than I thought it would be. Taking out the originals went ok, they were just soldered in the four holes on the left of the shot. Went a bit easier than I thought. No supports with the new buttons so just a case of two solder points each and I’m ready to carry on. Inserted the new buttons into the shell, these are also machined aluminum as they need to be bigger than the originals to fit the new shell. I added new membranes to give it as good a feel when playing as possible. A new speaker to make it sound as good as possible. And a USB-C charging board to bring it into the modern day and allow me to use the many newer chargers I have around the house. Wire in the board ready to connect to the main board of the GBA. This is the modern LCD screen I’ve got to go in it. Never seen one in person but from the videos I’ve seen this should really make a big difference. Connecting the screens ribbon cable is pretty easy, but soldering in the tiny blue cable is a bit tricky. Not essential but worth doing as that will allow me to control the brightness with the proper button later on. Tape down the screens driver board and we’re good to continue on. Add the board and the screen into the front case, now it’s starting to take shape. Solder the USB cables into the original charging port. This was pretty fiddly but seems to have worked in the end. Added the back to the screen and we’re into the final few parts of the mod. Add in the posts that will hold the shoulder buttons in place. I also have this battery I’m going to replace the original with, should make it last for a really long time between charges. The battery solders in to the back of the original battery connector - I could cut it out and use the original later on if I really wanted to. I’ve also added in the shoulder buttons ready for everything to be put together. The final thing to add in is the cartridge guide/shielding, should be good to put it together now. Screw in the main rear housing. Wow! Looks really awesome IMO, just hope it actually works. Time to test it out: YES! I had a few scares with some of the soldering so I’m really pleased it’s working. Here it is on the title screen of Mario Kart - that screen was really worth the investment, looks super awesome. The original Mario Land also looks great, this picture doesn’t do it justice. I’m really glad I did this, the new shell is just so cool and the screen makes a massive difference to being able to enjoy playing games. There are a few things I need to do to finish this still. The screen is a little loose so I need to secure it better, then I need to add some hot glue to the power light holes as you can’t really see the lights all that well, finally I need to spend a bit of time and install a headphone jack. Definitely recommend this to those of you thinking about doing it yourselves.

It’s just a kit that is meant for a PC (I think) that someone has created instructions for hooking up to a Saturn. Definitely nothing smart on my side other than figuring out different pins I could use to power my particular model.