Video Games

Still got my Master System II and it still works and Psycho Fox is still brill!

Looks like that collection will also be coming to the Switch this year. Really enjoyed AssCreed Black Flag on the Switch, which has become a great platform for a bit of hand-held nostalgia.

You were able to finish them all in a day? I've got all 3 just sat aside for a non-existent week to myself to run through them. But if they're that short, I may as well get started now!

Nope
Historic playing when they came out originally
If you've not played em. I'd suggest do #1

They're not that short but word of advice, don't bother with hard mode, it just makes the enemies bullet sponges rather than any smarter and you'll just constantly run out of ammo.

Not sure if [fry.jpg] but I believe he meant 'back in the day', i.e. when they were released.

Is there any option of hooking up switch portable to a tv/proper controllers. I'd like something that size but with the option of proper play but so far as I can see that's not an option.

What's it like for homebrew, emulators, etc, can you do that and play normal games too?

Anyone and ideas what's the current cheapish handheld option for playing emulators and the like. There's also a variety of weird and wonderful stuff running linux or outdated versions of Android but I've no idea what's decent.

Any worthwhile apps for Switch apart from YouTube?

For handheld emulators I primarily use a PSP. Also got one of these but that's generally more used for development, though it comes with retroArch preinstalled.

Re-reading it, that makes much more sense. It's late.

Thanks for the heads-up. Do recall reading about some interesting (in a positive way) stuff about the AI in Infinite, so that's a bit disappointing.

Granted, I only venture to hard mode in games I'm relatively (or expect to be) competent in (MGS on anything other than European-Extreme is for toddlers).

Definitely on the 'must play' list. Thankfully with so few interesting modern games coming out, that list is getting shorter for once!

If you have an Android tablet or iPad, iPega do some excellent (and cheap) bluetooth controllers that can extend to grip the tablet as if you were playing a Switch. Plenty of good emulators for Android and also several options for connecting the tablet to a modern TV (and taking it out of the controller's physical grip, obv).

Currently using an iPega PG-9023S to (among other things) play GTA San Andreas on my tablet. Controller was £20 and works really well.

You can also use PS3/4 or XBox controllers with Android, although you then lose the Switch-alike handheld goodness.

7th Sector looks interesting.

I got bored with infinite too and never finished it, which is a shame as the story was interesting.

Infinte's story was a bit too WTF to follow although I did enjoy and finish it.

The first game is a masterpiece with so many amazing moments, the descent into Rapture, your first meeting with a big daddy, and a couple of others I won't spoil for anyone who's not played it (but should)

That 'lost in an unfamiliar setting while talking to an unknown guardian angel via some sort of radio signal or intercom' trope was used brilliantly in Bioshock and the last Resident Evil game

Anyone and ideas what's the current cheapish handheld option for playing emulators and the like. There's also a variety of weird and wonderful stuff running linux or outdated versions of Android but I've no idea what's decent

There's a bunch of them now, a mix of small businesses making their own and Chinese companies ripping them off and selling via Aliexpress. It's a strange market because there's always been weird fake consoles coming out of China but now the technology is good enough that there's actually decent ones.

Bioshock also took the familiar gameplay and backstory clichés of FPS games and made them part of the story, in ways that again are very hard to explain without spoilers. The exploration of a society founded on Ayn Rand's sociopathic philosophy was also unusually deep for an FPS (and optional unless you're a 100% completeness person).

optional unless you're a 100% completeness person).

I assume you mean picking up all the audio recordings. Worth doing to get the depth of the world building

I enjoyed Bioshock 1 - there are some real mouth-open, "I'll remember this in 5 years time" moments. I didn't particularly enjoy the combat implementation, but as long as you approach it as a story/exploration rather than a drum-tight shooter, I think it's a must-play.

I thought #2 was a bit meh, but enjoyed Infinite - again, more for the world than the gameplay.

I do actually have at least one PSP, maybe I should revisit that. I think you're missing a link to something.

@itsbruce Cheers, I have a SurfaceGo which does the tablet sized gaming. Just wondering about pocket(ish) sized stuff

@DethBeard
How much of a Dark Souls nerd are you?
Check this out
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH-cMCF0_NrYpTFGaU67N4BFauiAL8sIJ
-cMCF0_NrYpTFGaU67N4BFauiAL8sIJ

I hated all three of the Bioshock games. Too dark (in the sense of lighting, not tone), too slow (in the sense of how fast you can move, not in story pace), shite combat, far too fucking much philosophy 101 navel-gazing. Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who didn't like them. Fuck Ken Levine, fuck his minor in Philosophical Studies, and fuck all three of those games.

The Bioshock combat system was basically reused in The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. I felt actively angry playing that game because it reminded me of Bioshock, while also being shit on its own merits. For some reason I don't seem to be capable of playing a game that has a story and not seeing the story through, even if I hate it. It's a curse, I tell ya.

The Big Daddies are kind of cute, though. And the Little Sisters were voiced by Juliet Landau, of Drusilla from Buffy fame, so that's pretty cool too.

Whoops! Here you go: https://www.clockworkpi.com/