At the risk of sending you down a rabbit hole, there are some people who use Reshade on non-online games to do “game photography”. You could go as light as overlaying a grid, or more complicated stuff like simulating lens focal length, removing fog, adjusting colors, adding bloom, bokeh, etc.
It’s meant for overlaying complex graphical effects while you play, but there’s a small dedicated community of people using it to set up the perfect still shots. It’s definitely a deep rabbit hole.
I tried getting into it for a little bit, especially when playing Arkham Asylum with some of the more advanced tools like freecam. Reshade i’ve had a few brushups with though, and even used it to simulate a CRT effect on Halo CE/2. The only downside is i have to remember to manually turn Anticheat off, which thankfully isn’t too hard, just i forget too and then get confused why it won’t run. I might try experimenting with it though for some more artsy screenshots. I’d love to start going in that direction with screenshots, or at least some of them
I’m offered a variety of things to review, but since this is a friend’s site, I’m not paid to review nor write, and there’s no ads on the site…I’m lucky enough to not have to review everything to survive. Or even to keep the content machine going like most YouTubers have to. I just do this for fun!
I just accept the handhelds I find interesting to me, the ones I find most unique.
But I’ve written for a few years now in various gaming spaces, so I do understand why I get asked :)
And I also feel very lucky to do so! I really love gaming handhelds, its a passion of mine :)
Thanks for this review!
I haven’t found any information regarding external controllers or DisplayPort at the USB-C output both at the sepcifications and your review.
I’m aware that it is not the intended use case to make it a kind of stationary console. But to be honest, I’d very much appreciate being able to attach it to an external monitor and use a separate controller when playing at home.
I figure this is the wrong type of device for me then, but wanted to ask you just to be sure about it.
Yes you’re right, this handheld won’t do video out. That’s both a software and hardware limitation on this one, but so many of these handhelds do that with ease. Its just a case of narrowing down which one is right for you.
The last two devices I tested for and utilized video out on for reviews were high-end handhelds (the AYN Odin 3 Max and the Anbernic RG477V), but again…a huge variety of that for you!
Thank you for your reply, it helps a ton!
I plan to complement my SteamDeck with a tiny portable emulator, but would love to use it at home in the same way as the SteamDeck, which is in part stationary.
I’m aware that the SteamDeck could do the emulator part well, but taking it with you and whipping it out for a short gamining session is not one the SteamDeck’s strong suites.
It is an easy one to do, just choosing the right retro handheld for you…that’s the difficult part! My aforementioned Odin 3 for example plays anything from the oldest consoles, PS2 upscaled to 4K all the way to literal PC games via GameHub Lite.
I’ve ordered a TRIMUI Brick Hammer a few hours ago, because I figured that I value durability of a portable device higher than video output; at home I can use my Steam Deck comfortably.
Your review made it look like a good piece of hard-/software for the money. At that price point I’m fairly sure I won’t have regrets.
You’ve got plenty of firmware options if you’re not loving the stock one (which is honestly fine!), the community around this device is so enthusiastic and do such amazing things. In fact, tenlevels showed off his new one which is coming soon, too. Called Bloom, its the first to manage to bring retroachievements to the device!
Can’t wait to hear how you like it, once it arrives. If portability is key to choosing one, then you certainly get that with it. So sleek, so slim and nice to take along for the ride!
Aren’t those attempts to jack your steam account? I remember hearing something a few years back about people being able to “recover” an account by having a certain number of friends put in a ticket saying it was stolen.
Or maybe that was discord. Either way, as a result I don’t add randos.
I hadn’t heard of that one, a kind of social engineering attack. Definitely something to keep in mind!
as a result I don’t add randos
This is generally my attitude, and it sucks really that ignoring random friend requests is usually the sensible thing to do. Anyway so far this person does seem to be genuine and hasn’t tried to get me to add a load of their friends or anything like that.
It’s 1.4.5 and there’s many QoL features (building platform is finally doable without cursing) and stilistic choices (all characters have cute portraits). Even the door and items handling has been improved, now selecting and closig doors is fast and easy. Also npc can now use stairs so they won’t be isolate to their respective level Beyond that there is a new npc with a dead cell collab (you’ll see it’s the room with the hanging bottles) and even a kingdom hearts one too. I still can’t tell the whole of it because there is a lot of stuff in a single update
I’m currently waiting for an Anbernic rg-35xx to arrive, but this was definitely on the shortlist during my research! In the end, availability and the joysticks were the deciding factors, but interested to hear how you think those two compare.
The Horse Armor is definitely an early form of microtransations, but it’s not the first type. A lot of people think of it as the first “paid for dlc”, but that’s not quite right either. Because it didn’t really add any new content, it just altered existing content. It was the first kind of paid “mod” of game. But even that’s not quite accurate either. Because “Mods” include things that enhance gameplay, add/improve features, etc. What the horse armor really showed is that people would spend money for different “Skins”. Horse armor was the first paid for “skin”. Character skins, weapon skins, gun charms, etc etc.
But even given all that, the horse armor still isn’t the start of microtransactions in games.
Crystals/EnergyShards/Feathers/etcetcetc. The price wall/gatekeep bullshit meant to restrict play unless you paid. Those are the first real “microtranscations”. And for that you can thank casual games that predate the SmartPhone era. Like FarmVille.
That’s not an easy comparison to make between the two.
The Analogue Pocket does one thing extremely well, while the Brick Hammer covers many more systems. Not to mention the difference in cost!
But the Brick Hammer feels premium (that metal shell is perfection), gives you a multitude of community built and supported operating systems, all manner of apps.
They’re too difficult to compare. If you want Game Boy? Go Analogue. If you want a very slim, sleek retro handheld that you can play a ton of consoles on (PortMaster!) then go for this one!
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