V Aren't

The latest Nintendo Direct revealed that everything will be released for the Switch. Yes, even that. And everything that won't be released for the Switch will be coming to the 3DS instead. That includes remakes of Luigi's Mansion (oh crap, I still haven't beaten the second one!) and Bowser's Inside Story. They're skipping Partners in Time, but can you really blame Nintendo for that?

Anyway, I'll keep this entry brief. Some Wal-Mart locations are selling VR headsets for two dollars, and the Merge Cube for just a buck. In case you missed it (and you obviously did, if it's selling for a dollar), the Merge Cube is an augmented reality device that looks kind of like the MacGuffin from Street Fighter X Tekken. You put it up to your phone, and it projects an image onto the faces of the cube... sometimes. The technology is a little spotty, is what I'm saying. Either that or my phone is too wimpy to keep up with it, which is probably just as likely. I guess the squishy foam cube was worth the dollar just to satisfy my curiosity, but it doesn't take long to understand why there are dozens of them catching dust in Wal-Mart's electronics department.

The VR headset is more functional, but I'll warn you upfront that you're not going to get much use out of it if your phone isn't Google Cardboard compatible. My Moto E4 isn't, probably because it doesn't have a built in gyroscope for head tracking. My years old Nexus 7 does have that feature, but it's a little too large to fit inside the headset, so it won't be taking me to the Matrix either. A pity... I heard they've got the best simulated steak over there.

Even without a gyroscope, you can use a VR headset as a makeshift Virtual Boy, but it takes a lot of work... perhaps more than the system warrants. Just follow this guide by Reddit user Radaa5 to get started. You may also want to go into Settings and adjust the display in Video; that way you can get a more realistic illusion of depth and avoid looking like one of these guys from Spaceballs after you take off the visor.

There's one other thing. I wrote a brief review of the recently released Saturn emulator Yaba Sanshiro for the Saturn Junkyard. Since nobody paid attention to it there (snif...), I thought I'd direct your attention to it here. Seriously though, this program does a better job of emulating the notoriously tricky Saturn hardware than any I've tried on my admittedly dated desktop. If you don't already have a Saturn, I'd give Yaba Sanshiro a look.