Nothin' Up My Sleeve!

So yeah. I got one of those Playstation Classic systems, because they were just twenty bucks at Best Buy, and my hoarder's instinct demanded it. For that price, it's hard to complain, but I've had a lot of practice complaining and I'm up for a challenge. Before I begin, here's a picture for reference.

It's smaller than I realized; almost cute in its diminutive size. Also, a lot of what you see on the machine, like the memory card slots, the drive door, and the little I/O hatch on the back, are just for show, like a small child's kitchen playset with plastic fruit and cutlery incapable of cutting anything.

We all know the problems with the Playstation Classic by now... the press spilled the beans about its faults well before the price drop. The heavily dithered interface adds "gl" to the middle of "UI," half the games are running in the sluggish PAL format, and there are USB ports, but they only accept the faux-Playstation controllers included with the system. 

These are all annoyances, but the biggest burn for me personally is that the game selection is so contrary to my tastes that I'm tempted to think Sony picked these titles just to spite me. Intelligent Qube is a winner (and nuts to anyone who says otherwise), but the other titles have aged like lettuce in a heat wave, and wouldn't have gotten a second look from me even back when they were fresh. I didn't like Final Fantasy VII, barely got through the demo of Metal Gear Solid, and never played- nor showed any interest in playing- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.

Jumping Flash was a great game! In 1995. Heh.

Luckily, there's a well publicized workaround for the Playstation Classic's unappetizing software library. Bleemsync lets you fill up a flash drive with the Playstation games you want to play, then tops it all off with RetroArch, which grants access to titles for a dozen other systems. What's not well publicized is that Bleemsync isn't always cooperative. Sometimes games load at agonizing speeds, and the USB ports on the front of the system are hobbled with current limiters that starve your flash drive of power. You'll have to plug them into the back of the system to keep them from getting corrupted over the long haul. However, that's where the Playstation Classic draws its power, forcing you to throw together a rat's nest of adapters so it can handle both an AC adapter and a flash drive. It was inconvenient for me, and doubly so for anyone who doesn't already have a USB hub and an on-the-go cable on hand.

What to do, what to do? Well, if you're adventurous, you can overwrite the games on the Playstation Classic's internal storage... once you've hacked the system with Bleemsync, there's nothing stopping you. A guy who calls himself Bertin Joseb describes how in a post on Medium, and while it's time-consuming and a little risky, it does yield results. Observe!

Uh, whoops! Missed a step. Lemme try that again...

That's Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha, taking the place of Battle Arena Toshinden in the default games list. The flash drive is no longer necessary; you just have permanent access to the game. Street Fighter EX doesn't run as well here as it did on an actual Playstation, but even at a slightly lower frame rate, it's a heckuva lot more fun to play than Toshinden.

I've heard that you can even replace the PS Classic's dodgy emulator with a more capable one, and I may attempt that at a later date. Right now, though, I'm happy just swapping out games. Move over Tom Clancy, now there's something funner!