Apologies for the quotes instead of code snippet blocks - code snippets don’t seem to be supported on this neopost hugo theme. read less

Oh and don’t forget the salt. I sometimes do with bread and then it doesn’t rise and it’s bland.

I had it with a little butter and a little olive oil. Reminded me of the subway herby bread. Great use of stuff in the cupboard. read less

Thanks to this, most of my retro gaming is done on retro gaming handhelds. I’ve tried many over the years.

It’s interested to me because retro gaming handhelds, retro gaming, gaming and retro game collecting are all completely different hobbies. I’m of the belief that there are enough good games on these retro handhelds to last you a lifetime, provided you didn’t play them when they came out.

What have I tried?

The problem is, I’ve never found one of these retro handhelds which checks all of the boxes. I’ll briefly cover all of the ones I’ve had over the years and the issues I’ve found with them.

GB Boy

iirc, this was my first ever device like this and it may not even fall into the same category as the rest of them, but I thought I’d include it anyway. The GB Boy is a recreation of a GameBoy Color with a backlit LCD screen.

Compared to other devices, it’s pretty basic, but it had a built in 180-in-one cartridge and kept me busy for all of christmas when I got it, maybe in 2016 or so. The fun factor is high on this one, but it’s limited to strictly GameBoy and GameBoy Color. The buttons feel stiff and the screen is poor by today’s standards, but it felt like an upgrade to me at the time from the original GameBoy.

bitboy

This was one of the first emulation devices I tried. I don’t remember too much about it, except that it was small, the battery didn’t last very long and it struggled to emulate GBA and megadrive.

This really was the worst of the bunch. I have it in a box somewhere still, maybe I’ll try it out again.

The screen would tear dreadfully in some games. Maybe all games actually.

Retroid Pocket 2

Just didn’t click with this one. The non-clicky analogue sticks, the lack of touch screen on an android device and the bad shoulder buttons just put me off using it. I gave it to my dad but I don’t think he’s used it much either.

anbernic rg35xxsp

This was the first one where I thought “wow, I get it now”. I got some good use out of this. I ultimately stopped using it when I got the TrimUI Brick, as the build quality and screen felt so much nicer.

What I think the 35xxsp got right:

• The screen and it’s aspect ratio
• The clamshell form factor
• The performance (pretty good up to and including PS1)
• The software (plenty of custom images out there)

What I think it got wrong:

• The buttons. I realized how wrong they felt when I started using other systems more. They’re clicky and not satisfying
• Latency. I’m quite sensitive to this. I understand that all emulation introduces latency, but if you add additional draw or input latency I’ll notice that (I found the mega drive collection on switch borderline unplayable for this reason)

trimui brick

For a long time, this felt like the holy grail. It came everywhere with me, and I mean everywhere. As such it was kept in my pocket, with no case. Eventually, one of the tiny buttons on the front gave in and it kept bothering me that there was something broken on my otherwise perfect device, so I tore it down, hoping that it was just a little bit of debris lodged between the housing and the button.

It wasn’t, it was the actual dome switch on the board - it wouldn’t depress.

I loved the brick so much that I bought another one, however this one was a different story. There was something wrong with the shoulder buttons. One of them was getting caught on the back housing or something and reseating them didn’t fix it.

It tried to make 1 good brick out of the 2 bad ones, but ended up accidentally breaking the cable to the battery when closing up the housing, so I’ve sworn these devices off for now.

I think with many of these devices, quality control is the luck of the draw. If I could buy a TrimUI brick and know for certain that the quality would be there, I’d buy another today. But I don’t know that and could just as easily end up with 3 bad bricks.

R36s/R36h

I really like these devices. They’re cheap, cheerful and if you just want to give one to a loved one who’s curious about the hobby (I gave one to my girlfriend) then go ahead.

They have no WiFi and realistically you’re only emulating up to PS1, but it does that really well.

One thing to watch out for - there are fakes of these devices with weaker hardware. Try to get the genuine article if possible.

Sure, they feel a bit cheap, but for a gameboy style device which can be had for £30-40, and comes loaded with ROMs on one of those dodgy SD cards (if you’re going to use these, I’d recommend backing up and restoring to a known brand of SD), they’re a great entry point to the hobby.

Anbernic RG Nano

This one is a key-ring sized Gameboy. It’s more of a novelty really, and plays GameBoy/GameBoy Color/GBA best.

I can’t really sit and complete a game on this. It’s too small. It is fun for short pick up and play sessions though.

Anbernic RG DS

My favorite console growing up was the DSi XL. I had other DSes before it but the XL just felt right.

When Anbernic announced their take on the DS, I jumped on the preorder. I wish I hadn’t.

You can go read various reviews online about this but long story short, it fell short of everybody’s expectations and now they’ve release a better one. What an absolute waste of money. I won’t be getting the better one. Fool me once… etc. Anbernic used to be the benchmark for quality to price. I’m not so sure these days and you don’t know what to believe from youtube.

mangmi air x

I had really high hopes for this one, given the hype it got on YouTube, but it really doesn’t need to be an android device and I kind of wish it wasn’t.

It’s too weak to do any of the really interesting stuff with android (PC gaming, switch emulation) but requires the effort to configure of an android device.

There are a couple of ports which run nicely on it, like the Star Fox 64 one, but it’s too weak to do PS2 properly. Which essentially leaves you with a giant PSP.

If you wanted a giant PSP, it’s great, but everything else you end up with large black bars.

If the black bars don’t bother you and you’ve got the time to mess around setting it up then you might really like this one. I got it fully expecting to use it a lot, but it’s gathering dust.

So, what will I try next?

Through writing this, I’ve realised my ideal retro handheld has:

• a clamshell design to prevent pocket damage
• a 4:3 (or similar, but definitely not 16:9) aspect ratio
• a linux-based operating system (I find the latency problem more prevalent on android devices and the hard work is done for you)
• can play up to PS1

The shortlist of devices that fit this bill is pretty much a shortlist of one - the newer Anbernic RG SP. If I was willing to move on the Linux requirement, as much as I hate to say it, the RG DS Plus also fits that bill. I like the looks of the retroid pocket nova too, but it’s not a clamshell and it runs android. It’s also expensive. It would be nice to run PS2 though.

I may well give the RG SP a go when I’m paid, I just hope they’ve fixed the buttons. read less

• They kept the classic title crawl and music. This would have been enough for casual fans at the time
• The galaxy didn’t have peace and justice for too long, did it?
• I love the grittier aesthetic at the start. It feels like an actual war. The originals didn’t manage that to the same degree. Attack of the clones/revenge of the sith did though
• Kylo Ren had real potential. Reminds me of a cross between Vader and Bane from The Dark Knight Rises
• Why would they bother wasting time and energy killing villagers? Unless it’s to keep the order a secret. The empire didn’t really kill for the sake of killing. It usually served a purpose
• I need a chair for my room. Watching movies on my bed like this isn’t good for my back
• Rey parallels Anakin more than Luke in the start
• Why the hell was Rey so hesitant to have BB8 tag along? She understands him, there’s nobody else around
• Wilhelm scream in escape scene
• Why on earth would she think Luke Skywalker was a myth?
• “Chewie, We’re home” is a nice moment. Don’t care what anyone else says
• “You are the Han Solo who fought with the rebellion” - who did you think he was dude, Indiana Jones?
• Dudes from space Scotland
• If ships could just take off at light speed, surely there’d be very little point in fighting when under fire
• The father reveal could have been better
• I’m too tired, I’ll watch the rest tomorrow…. __
• I’m back!
• Crikey, the death star got quite the upgrade
• Han Solo :( He went down too easily
• The slow, clunky light saber battle with Finn is great
• Mark Hamill probably got paid way too much to show up for that one shot What this film bought me today was worth… One quarter portion.

overall thoughts on the movie

I’m going to say something controversial. I like it more than Phantom Menace. Maybe even more than Attack of the Clones. Those films don’t titivate me. Not like Revenge of the Sith does anyway.

I actually think that it was a fairly strong start to the sequel trilogy. I know what comes after it is an absolute mess, but I think Finn plays a really interesting character - a storm trooper who decides what he’s doing is wrong and decides to live life on his own terms.

I liked Rey more this time around too. I was absolutely gutted to see Han die that way though. If he was going to die, couldn’t they have let him die in a blaze of glory?

Overall, I’m looking forward to the next one.

I’m watching the movies in the order 7,8,9,1,2,3,4,5,6 this time. What usually happens is I go 4,5,6,1,2,3 or 1,2,3,4,5,6 and end up missing out 7,8,9. I thought that by making these the first stop on this star wars journey, they’d actually be seen.

One thing I did notice about Hans death - it feels a lot like Obi Wan’s. Maybe in a sense, Han was Rey’s Obi Wan.

7 green light sabers out of 10. read less

There’s a nice mix of vegetables in this and slow cooking them removes that crunch I’m not too fond of.

I do have a bit of beef with slow cooking though (no pun intended). It usually smells remarkable but tastes of nothing. I was even more aware of this possibility with covid.

Thankfully the resulting ragu was tasty, though I deviated from the recipe slightly. 5 minutes before serving, I stirred in extra garlic, worcester sauce and dried basil.

The result, while nothing particularly special, was a very cosy autumnal meal and exactly the kind of dish it’s nice to cook at this time of year.

I’d cook it again, but I think it’s fairly season dependent. I wouldn’t eat it in the summer particularly. Would be lovely with a glass of red wine.

the verdict

7/10 read less