Digital worlds, real emotions: You & Videogames

Antonio_Luis

Oh man, I still have some Official PlayStation Magazines lying around (and Xbox ones too). In their heyday, it was a monthly highlight. Since games were way more unattainable and the digital stores were still in the making, demos truly were a great way to play something new.

For example, I remember playing the demo for a game called Overboard over and over (and over). Never bought the full release, but I knew the demo by heart.

These days, however, to me the best magazine is EDGE. The combination of design with brilliant writing still makes it the reference. A new publication that caught my attention is “A Profound Waste of Time” - just take a look if you have a second.

Rob

What a trip down memory lane. Ape Escape really should make a comeback on the PlayStation 5.

Inspired by your message, I was checking the shelves and found two magazines that caught my attention.

The first one is a good example of EDGE aesthetics and the second one is an OPM from 2002. It’s always a warm feeling seeing such a classic highlighted on a cover. I am obviously talking about Sesame Street Sports, hehe.

Archive (bot)

Hah, the sentiment is reciprocal, I went back to the shelves and found another one.

This is the first edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine - Portugal. It was a short-lived version of the magazine, but I managed to get the first few editions. As you can see, it’s from 2003, the year Advance Wars 2 was released - super curious to check how Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp will turn out.

So many classic names on the covers you shot, Metroid Prime being one of them. I love that, just like Advance Wars, is also one of the series poised to make a return in 2021 with Metroid Dread.

Louis Also, the furious occasions where I would be playing a game, i.e. Crash Bandicoot, and I didn’t actually have a memory card so would have to leave it all on overnight (poor energy bills).

Oh man, I still remember those days of playing PlayStation without a Memory Card. The game that finally made me invest money in one was Gran Turismo. It was a little bit tricky to progress in the game without saving it.

And now we have incredibly fast SSD disks on the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series. It feels like a millennium has passed since then.

Louis

Heheh, imagine if Call of Duty was released for the PlayStation - I remember reading that at one point Modern Warfare was more than 200GB.

Your post also reminded me about the icons we could see on the PlayStation 2 memory menu. These days people rave about the Switch menu icons (some of them are beautiful), but we had a glimpse of them with that console - or with the GameCube, for example.

Yash Road Rash is a classic - I believe I played it on the SEGA Mega Drive at the time. If I am remembering correctly, a “spiritual successor”, Road Redemption, was released but it didn’t resonate as well as the original launch.

I just remembered another “classic” I used to play in my Pentium days: driving - simulation or arcade - is one of my favorite genres, and it all started with a title named RAC Rally on PC.

Look at this beauty go.

@James @Rob Saw you commenting about the Playdate on the “Introduce Yourself” thread before and just yesterday it was announced that the pre-orders for the console will open next week, July 29th, at 10:00 AM PDT. The first ones will be shipped in “late 2021”.

Panic also confirmed a few details about the process. They promised the pre-orders won’t “sell out” and that the initial batch will be around 20,000 machines. The fans who miss this window will get the Playdate in 2022.

Those who are interested in pre-ordering will have to pay the pre-order in full, but they will also be able to cancel it for a full refund. And, finally, they will be limited to two Playdates per order.

Another tidbit I’ve found while preparing this message is that the Playdate won’t be shipped globally. Panic says they’ll add more countries, but for now it’s only going to be sent to customers in these countries.

Is anyone interested in pre-ordering one?

Here’s a nice hands-on video from Engadget.

Rob The fine folks over at Ars Technica are feeling exactly the same nostalgia as you, hehe.

Like father, like son.

(Both photos are from the Ars Technica feature)

I was not expecting it to be this tiny. I love how it makes the creators think outside the box, even if not all games take advantage of the crank. In the Engadget video, it’s mentioned a point & click adventure that doesn’t use the feature at all.

A tiny update about the Playdate: it’s been reported that Panic sold approximately 20,000 consoles in less than 20 minutes (via TechCrunch).

With the 2021 stock already sold out, if you pre-order one right now, you’ll get it in 2022. And the company is already talking about a “2023 bucket”. Impressive numbers so far.

That’s Hideo Kojima, the legendary creator of Metal Gear and, more recently, Death Stranding.

I would love to know the story behind this photo. Did Nothing send him a pair of ear (1), did he buy them? Nevertheless, that’s pretty cool.

Rob I believe I saw a couple of photos he shared where he’s rocking one of those super premium (and expensive) music players from Sony. Perhaps the company also sent him a bunch of their earbuds and headphones.

Or Kojima is just a die-hard Nothing fan and he wants to keep them sealed.