Single Use Case

If you've ever watched the show Good Eats with Alton Brown, you may know that the host utterly detests cooking utensils that can't multitask. You can't blame him, really... if you've got a potato peeler, and that's its sole function, it's just going to use up valuable countertop space when you're not peeling potatoes. And unless you're Gomer Pyle USMC, it's safe to say that you're not going to spend much time out of the day stripping spuds.

image from Hyperkin

I suspect that if Alton Brown was a gamer, he'd be as dismayed by the Hyperkin Hyper Blaster HD as I am. The Hyper Blaster plays one specific game, the Duck Hunt half of Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros., on one specific system, the top loading Nintendo Entertainment System that was released late in the console's lifespan. It's designed to let you play that one game on that one system while using an HD television set, but the top-loading NES isn't designed to work with high-definition televisions. Heck, it doesn't even have composite jacks like the original NES... it's designed for RF output, which can technically be displayed on modern televisions, but looks dreadful on them.

Right away you'll have several questions. Some of the more polite ones include "Why not just use a CRT instead?" or "Why not hack a Wii, run an NES emulator, and play light gun games with the Wiimote?" I won't repeat the less polite ones, but they involve the excess consumption of alcohol and parents who are also cousins.

A more useful third party gaming peripheral is the Retro-Bit eight button Genesis controller. It not only makes the Genesis Mini more pleasant to use, but is compatible with a half-dozen other game systems, either natively or through the use of an adapter. Most of my Sega-style joypads wouldn't work with the Mayflash Ultimate Adapter, but it recognizes the Retro-Bit... you just have to hold down and start for a few seconds to get the right key configuration. Retro-Bit's controller feels like the official Sega Arcade Pad and grants you instant access to the menu screen on the Genesis Mini, making it worth the twenty dollars even if you don't plan to use it with anything else.

Old enough for a learner's permit, along with
hair in awkward places.
(image from Amazon)

One other thing before I go... the Playstation Portable is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary today. I had mixed feelings about the system at launch, but thanks to the tighter control and sharper display of the 3000 model, it's become one of my all-time favorite handhelds, rivaled only by its successor the PS Vita. It's also- in keeping with the theme of this blog entry- extremely versatile, with the ability to run its own substantial library, plus the lion's share of games for the original Playstation, plus hundreds of other console and arcade titles thanks to the magic of emulation. If you don't already own one, now's a pretty good time to fix that oversight.