May Showers (quick thoughts)

Let me just jot something into this space before the month ends. First, I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Fun movie... loud movie. 

(twists a pinky in his ear for a couple of seconds)

It seems like the Guardians, or at least the original cast, have retired, and that this was the final chapter of the series. Spiffy way to go out, I'd say. Brought back fond memories of Secret of NIMH, an earlier flick about genetically augmented woodland creatures. I'm not sure why anyone thought it would be a good idea to put wheels on a walrus (making... a wheel-rus?), but I guess I don't have the creative vision the High Evolutionary does.

What else? Sony just announced a handheld, Project Q, but it's not an independently operating handheld with its own software... more of a peripheral for the Playstation 5. Specifically, it's a controller with a screen in the center that lets you play console games in the absence of a television set. Yes, Sony is imitating the magnificent success of the Wii U, ten years later. Uh, good luck with that? While you're scrounging through Nintendo's garbage can for ideas, they also had this neat all-red virtual reality headset you might want to check out.

One other thing. I'm not playing the Data Frog as much as I did when I first got it, but it's still nice to be able to pick it up, switch it on, and play a Genesis game ten seconds later. Doesn't matter which one... maybe I want to play the Final Fight demo, or Space Invaders '91, or Bubsy, for some unfathomable reason. It's right there waiting for me on my couch, and in a matter of seconds, I'm playing whatever I feel like from the late 1980s to early 1990s, without sitting through obnoxious logos or wading through a counter-intuitive interface, and without tying up my computer. It's far from the best third-party handheld out there, but the Data Frog gets you pretty far on a tight budget.

And one OTHER other thing! The Greek homebrew Tetris for the Game Boy Advance, Apotris, is about ten thousand times better than the official Tetris game released for that system in the United States, and you really ought to get a copy for yourself. Tetris Holdings threatened legal action to stop the creator of Apotris from selling the game on itch.io, and you should know from past experience that a Tetris game Henk Rogers doesn't want you to play is the one you should be playing.

Cream of the Crap: The Data Frog SF 2000

Like Big the Cat, this Froggy is slow and simple,
but strangely endearing.
(image from NME. I don't recommend shopping
for minions at this place, by the way.
Total thumbs down, F---.)

The Data Frog SF 2000 is an impossibly cheap handheld game system sold on AliExpress, which you probably already heard about elsewhere. It's also not very good, as you probably already guessed from the price. Here's the thing, though... for its price, it might be just good enough.

Let me provide some context here. I've been involved in gaming for quite a while, at least forty years by my estimation, and I have seen some handhelds. Handhelds with smeary black and white displays, handhelds you can't see at all without standing directly in front of Green Lantern's lantern, handhelds that burn through batteries in a couple of hours, handhelds with miserably small software libraries... and every single one of them cost way more than the SF 2000 does.

Frankly, handheld gaming was a little crap until the Game Boy Advance SP shed some much needed (front)light on the subject. If the SF 2000 is what passes for crap twenty years later, it's clear that handheld technology has made colossal leaps and bounds in that span of time. You're getting a full color screen at 240p resolution, an analog thumbstick, a rechargeable battery, and thousands of games spread across multiple systems. Do you know what you could get for $19.99 back in the 1990s? Allow me to show you!

It never fails to infuriate me when that hand throws a Super Nintendo cartridge in the trash. At least it wasn't Space Megaforce... then I'd have to take a hostage.

Where was I? The commercial says it all... the Pro 200 is a handheld that plays eighty variations of legally-distinct-from-Tetris and other insultingly simple diversions, presented with the blandest, most all-purpose graphics you've ever seen in a video game. Watch with bemusement as a cluster of blocks that vaguely resembles a race car weaves through blocky traffic! Gasp in dismay when you realize every game uses the same set of blocks, making even the Odyssey2 and its army of white robots look versatile by comparison! Reach for the phone to call your bank and ask them to reverse the charges on this purchase!

You just can't
beat this price on
a handheld game
system, at least
without a five
finger discount.

It's got a buttload of flaws (you guys seriously made a handheld that looks like a Super Nintendo controller but can't handle most Super Nintendo games?), but I can't bring myself to hate the SF 2000. It's not only leagues better than el cheapo handhelds from the 20th century, but it's superior to other twenty dollar portables available now. Stop by a Five Below if you happen to have one nearby and grab yourself one of their handhelds. You'll be getting a Famiclone with a mealy looking screen and hundreds of NES games, ranging from old favorites with the serial numbers scratched off to new titles seemingly designed at gunpoint. If you don't like playing them, you can always take solace in the fact that the designers didn't like making them, either.

The SF 2000 is better than that. It's better than the Game Gear clone AtGames sold in dollar stores, it's better than many of the other handhelds AliExpress sells at cutthroat prices, and it's certainly better than Tiger's LCD handhelds, which recently made a puzzling comeback. The SF 2000 plays roughly half of its thousands of games pretty well, with the Neo-Geo and CPS2 being standouts. It's possible to add even more games, but it's going to be hard to find anything missing from the system's immense library. The control is adequate, with a lackluster D-pad but an analog stick that works wonders in fighting games. The NES, Genesis, and two flavors of Game Boy run perfectly well, although you'll want to run this script to smooth out the kinks in the key mapping. Nobody should ever have to jump with a shoulder button... that's just inhuman.

What else? Hackers have already made in-roads to making the SF 2000 a better experience, and its mass adoption coupled with newly discovered information about its processor suggests that a custom firmware (with support for more systems and better emulation for the handful available) could be possible. Even if that doesn't happen, you're still getting decent emulation of NES, Genesis, and yes, even Capcom arcade games, and you're getting all that for twenty dollars. It's not hard to find better handhelds than the SF 2000, but good luck finding one cheaper.

Is This the End of Zombie Xbox?!

Atari and Bubsy, a match made in... uh, what's
slightly less severe than Hell? No, purgatory
is too cushy. How about a match made in
New Jersey?
(image from AtariAge)

Just a quick update. Atari has gotten increasingly aggressive about its IP acquisitions... it recently bought Accolade, creators of the annoyingly omnipresent Bubsy series. So we'll be stuck with the quipping furball for at least another twenty or thirty years. Everybody thank Atari, now! You all know which finger to use.

One acquisition of damaged goods Atari might want to consider in the future is Microsoft's Xbox division, because things haven't been going too well for it lately. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer (in the middle of his awkward transition from dudebro to dadbod) has openly admitted that the brand isn't performing to expectations, with sales of the stupidly named Xbox Series dragging well behind those of its competitor the Playstation 5. 

Well, let's look at how things currently stand for the Xbox brand. Redfall was a critical flop, the planned Activision merger seems to have cratered, Microsoft is selling games on rival consoles, the low-spec Xbox Series S is being sold at a hefty discount to Verizon phone service subscribers when it's not given away outright... I guess Phil is just admitting what we can all see with our eyes.

Perhaps I'm potentially being too pessimistic and presumptuous (wipes spittle off his screen), but if we've reached the end of the line for the Xbox brand, I have one simple request... give us one last firmware update that gives us back User Window Programs! I could easily see using my Xbox Series S for at least another decade if I could use it as a cheap emulation box. 

(...at the very least, don't take away Dev Mode, because I paid for that crap. Once I've put money on something, it's mine. You'll have to dig up my coffin and pry it loose from my corpse's calcified clutches.)