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Proton is a compatibility layer for Windows games to run on Linux. Running a Windows games is mostly just hitting the Play button within Steam. It’s that good that many games now run faster on Linux than on native Windows. That’s what makes the Steam Deck the best gaming handheld of the moment. But a compatibility layer is still a layer, so you may encounter … incompatibilities.…
“The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time. I certainly agree with that sentiment. At its core, The Witcher 3 is a action-role playing game with a third-person perspective in a huge open world. You develop your character while the story advances. At the same time you can freely roam and explore as much as you like. The main story is…
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is a surprisingly fun game. At its core it’s a role-playing game. But you wouldn’t tell because of the amount of platforming, the quantity and quality of small puzzles and -most of all- the funny self-deprecating dialogue. As the player you control Mario and Luigi simultaneously and that takes some time to master. As you learn techniques along the way, each…
Nintendo killed the switch emulator Yuzu . Sadly, the official Citra distribution disappeared a well because they shared some developers. The good news is that Citra being open source, is still available as archive builds and new forks. EmuDeck on the Steam Deck adapted to this new reality and adopted a bring-your-own Yuzu and Citra model. The changes to this emulators came at the same time of a…
Like many games of that time, Snow Bros. is a simple game that can be mastered with practice (or rather, coins). It’s fun all the way, specially when playing with 2 players (in co-op). The gameplay is somewhat reminiscent of Bubble Bobble , but instead of bubbles you shoot snow to bury enemies in snowballs. Push the snowball to get rid of all the enemies on its path!
Time can be cruel for games. Some games don’t age well. The advance in computational and graphical power is painfully clear. But time can also be a filter to separate great from mediocre games. If a game survives for decades, there is a big chance it’s a great game. Games are released to run on very specific hardware and operating systems. Older games do often not run out of the box on…
Firewatch is a single person adventure that I enjoyed from the beginning to (almost the) end. Certainly recommended. My only point of criticism is the rather abrupt ending. The game is short (around 5 hours), but the story is by no means rushed. Your life, as the protagonist, is in shambles. What better way to get your thoughts straight than wandering all day in nature while spotting wildfires? As…
A Short Hike is a small indie game. And by small, well, I mean small : you’ll finish the story in around 1 hour and half. You can spend a few additional hours to 100% the game, but there isn’t much incentive to do so once you finish it. That said, the game is a great example of a cozy game. The artwork is beautiful, the mechanics are good and the quests are easy. There are no wrong…
Is a game released on 2017 still retrogaming? It is if you played on a Wii-U, the abandoned last-generation console of Nintendo. Yes, it was also released on a Nintendo Switch, as exactly the same game with a very small bump in resolution (from 720p to 900p). Originally it was planned as a Wii-U exclusive, but it took Nintendo a few extra years to get it right. And they did.
Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez, a cute 8-year-old girl, loves to tell the world she is “a little Miss”. Little Misfortune is more than a wordplay on the story of the child. It’s a lovely, funny and sad little adventure game. All at the same time. It’s about a child’s sense of wonder and about the loss of innocence. Although short (I finished it around 3 hours),…
A fun, kind of realistic tennis game . Best for playing in Quick Tournament mode (the history mode is silly). Not easy, but certainly worth it. Handhelds like the rp3+ can upscale it to about 3x the original resolution. My old 2016-Celeron NUC with Batocera can upscale it to 1080p without any issues. Have a look at “How to play retrogames?” if you don’t know how to play…
This is a beautiful game with interesting puzzles and… a story. Another perfect example of SNES-level graphics on a small handheld. The game takes a little investment in the beginning because it starts slowly, certainly if you’re not familiar with the action-adventure genre The quests will become clearer and the speed will pick up. You will be stuck more than once (actually, lots of…
This game is probably my favorite in the Metroid Series . It’s a perfect example of SNES-level graphics on a small handheld. This is the most story-driven installment of all Metroid 2D games. Be ready to be lost for hours and experience a huge adrenaline boost once you finally figure out what you need to do or when you finish that impossible boss. Oh, and in this Metroid there are situations…
The 2D Metroid Series offer a perfect mix of platformer action, adventure and intelligent puzzles. While preceded by Metroid (1986) on the NES and Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991) on the GameBoy, this is the game that gave the series its distinct look and identity. While Metrovania is a thing and inspired many great games for decades to come, it is Metroid and not Castlevania the game that…
This game returns to the top-down perspective of the first Zelda while making the game graphically stunning (the NES graphics ages less well compared to the SNES/GBA sequels). Even today, more than 30 years later, it’s pretty much the pattern to follow for pixel-art games. This game is long and hard, but at the same time extremely rewarding. It’s a must-play classic. Have a look at…
Dr. Mario is often bundled with its more famous predecessor Tetris. The puzzle game is certainly a worthy successor. While there are versions of this game on more recent consoles, the straightforwardness of the Game Boy is something the more recent ports lack. The game is fast, the music fantastic. Simple and a lot of addictive fun. Have a look at “How to play retrogames?” if you…
Tetris was bundled with the European and North-American release of the new Game Boy handheld. It’s until today in the top 10 of most sold Nintendo games of all time. There are many older versions of Tetris, including the original release on the Sovjet Electronika 60 and later versions on Western and Eastern arcade machines around the world (most of the time, arcade releases were far superior…
This game is the first Nintendo game for a handheld console. No pressure. It’s probably the most quirky Mario game, but in a good way. Mostly line art and 2 Gradius -like flying levels. It’s a short game and rather difficult at the end, but a lot of fun. A worthy adaptation of the Super Mario Bros. formula for the weaker handheld. Have a look at “How to play retrogames?” if…
This is the game that started the almost 40-years franchise that expanded to animated TV-series and movies. It’s fun, it’s challenging and the soundtrack is recognizable everywhere. The original version is still the best version. Later versions on other consoles often crop the image in order to adapt it to different screen geometries, e.g. the NES Classics release on the Game Boy…
(This is a working document, regularly updated. Created on 2022-12-29.) The hardware is nice: the device feels sturdy and premium, the screen is bright and the controls work as expected. Great work, Retroid! Compared to a single system device, software configuration is certainly more complicated in emulation-land. Although Retroid provides more than the basics, if you are into game emulation, you…
Moved to tag retrogaming .
Now that it’s clear what exactly was taken at the (last) LastPass breach , it may be a good time to re-evaluate how do you keep your passwords secure. (Of course, if you’re on LastPass, you’ll need to rotate all your passwords and add MFA where possible. And then move on. They fsck up.) So what are the options for your passwords? You could: pick a cloud provider with a better…
(In case you don’t know rakudo-pkg : it’s a project to provide native packages and relocatable builds of Rakudo for Linux distributions.) The downward spiral of Travis since it was taken over by a Private Equity firm (there is a pattern here), triggered a long coming refactoring of the rakudo-pkg workflow. Until now the packages were created on Travis because it supported running Linux…
We’ve had a week of heated discussion within the Perl 6 community. It is the type of debate where everyone seems to lose. It is not the first time we do this and it certainly won’t be the last. It seems to me that we have one of those about every six months. I decided not to link to many reiterations of the debate in order not to feed the fire.
There was an interesting discussion on #perl6 (irc.freenode.net) about the use of rakudobrew as a way for end-users to install Rakudo Perl 6 (see how-to-get-rakudo [dead link to page on Rakudo’s website]). rakudobrew, inspired by perlbrew, is a way to manage (and compile) different versions of rakudo. nine argued that it’s primarily meant as a tool for rakudo developers. Because of the…
(This is an old post kept because it’s linked from several places. I have no idea if it’s still applicable.) The Belgian ISPs Proximus and Telenet both provide access to a network of hotspots. A nice recent addition is the use of alternative ssids for “automatic” connections instead of a captive portal where you login through a webpage. Sadly, their support pages provide…
Use the following command: VBoxManage modifyhd /path/to/<disk>.vdi --resize <size in megabytes> e.g.: VBoxManage modifyhd /home/me/VMs/Win7x86.vdi --resize 32000 In case you have snapshots you have to merge them first. The disk will be resized but the Operating System won’t see it yet. You need to expand it within the Guest OS. In Windows you can go to “Computer Management - Storage -…
On most Linux distributions, you can use the graphical “disks” application to create Luks+ext4 partitons. The defaults are sane. However, it’s still advisable to put random data on the new disk before encryption. If you use USB disks for off-site backups, it’s a good idea to encrypt them: Install the cryptography software: sudo apt-get install cryptsetup Write some random…
You may have backupped your music CDs using a single flac file instead of a file for each track. In case you need to split the cd-flac, do this (instruction for Debian/Ubuntu): Install the needed software. sudo apt-get install cuetools ffmpeg flac shntool In case the source file is one unsplitted ape file, you can convert it to flac first. ffmpeg -i sample.ape sample.flac In case the cue file is…