Category Archives: Featured

** NEW ** XREAL One AR Glasses Review – Big Improvements!

Review of the new XREAL One AR Glasses. These glasses have a brand new custom X1 chip that adds built in settings, ultra low latency and doesn’t require an external Beam adapter to anchor the display (3 DoF). They’ve also upgraded the audio, added better brightness, a larger field of view, distortion-free visuals and much more.
Order XREAL One from Amazon: https://amzn.to/49MQfgY
Order XREAL One from official website: https://bit.ly/4fprhWn

2024 Holiday Gift Guide – Controllers, Arcades, Handhelds & More!

My 2024 Holiday gift and shopping guide! 17 gaming products I recommend including controllers, handhelds, arcade machines, travel cases & more! 

Products Mentioned: (I earn a commission on some purchases from affiliate links)

Xbox Controller: https://amzn.to/49qTJWg

Kirby Wireless: https://amzn.to/49npOhO

PlayStation Mantis Controller: https://amzn.to/41rXRmW

Retro Fighter BattlerGC: https://amzn.to/3BnVdnG

Pixel Art Hyperkin (Sriracha & Oscar Myer) : https://hyperkinstore.com

Switch Controller Charger: https://amzn.to/3Bij20i

Headset Mario Kart: https://amzn.to/4go7bMT

PlayStation Portal: https://amzn.to/4gmWaLS

Switches cases: https://amzn.to/3ZqdMj6

Quarter Arcades – Elevator Action: https://amzn.to/3ZHkaEd

Quarter Arcades – Bubble Bobble: https://amzn.to/3ZEcgew

Quarter Arcades – Qix: https://quarterarcades.com

Arcade Pole Position My Arcade: https://amzn.to/4g1Eh5w

Arcade Pac-Man My Arcade: https://amzn.to/3P2mlw1

Ultimate Nintendo Guide to N64 Library (BOOK): https://t.co/nPohS1swwZ

Anbernic Handhelds: https://toretro.com

Grid Frame Studio: https://gridstudio.cc

“IT’S TIME!” GAME PICKUPS: 43 Games! (PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox, PS2, Atari & More!)

Almost an HOUR of GAME PICKUPS w/ Reggie!! Including a rare Xbox Launch gift to employees, a special edition PS2 for Reggie and much more!

GAMES SHOWN:

TORG GBA

Popeye: Rush for Spinach (GBA)

Astro Bot (PS5)

Blazing Strike (PS4 / Switch)

ZPF (Genesis / MegaDrive)

Ys X: Nordics (PS4)

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (Xbox)

The Spectrum

Sable (PS5)

The Karate Kid: Street Rumble (Switch / PS4)

Bang-On Balls: Chronicles (PS5)

Ray’z Arcade Chronology (PS4)

High on Life (Xbox)

Reydllom (PS4)

Mantis Burn Racing (Switch)

Slave Zero X (PS5)

Tutankham Arcade (Atari 2600)

Nascar Arcade Rush (Switch / PS4)

Iron Meat (Switch)

Risk System (PS4 / Switch)

OTXO (PS5)

Get Me Out, Please (Switch) 

Assassin’s Creed: MIrage (PS5)

Life is Strange: Double Exposure (PS5)

Felix the Cat (Switch)

Halloween & Ash vs Evil Dead (Switch / PS4)

Atari 50th Anniversary Expanded Edition (PS5 / Switch)

Rod Land (NES / GB)

Zed & Zee (NES)

As Dusk Falls (PS5)

Controversy Downright Despicable Games (BOOK)

Blaster Master Zero (LP)

Windjammers Soundtrack (LP)

Cygni: All Guns Blazing (PS5)

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered (PS5)

Lego Horizon Adventures (PS5)

Atari Food Fight Replicade

Zoltair Replicade

Super Smash Bros (Barcade)

XBOX Ship It light

Radical Reggie 100K PS2

Sturmwind LE (Dreamcast)

Iron Man (PSP)

** DISCLAIMER: Some of the items shown were sent to us for review, however all of the opinions are our own **

Chromatic Review: Game Boy for the Elite?

My review of the Chromatic by ModRetro: a premium handheld for Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, featuring a custom display and magnesium alloy shell. But at $200, is it worth it, or are there better & cheaper options?

Here are five lesser-known Game Boy Color (GBC) games that are often considered hidden gems by retro gaming enthusiasts:


1. Shantae

  • Developer/Publisher: WayForward
  • Year: 2002
  • Why it’s a gem: Released late in the GBC’s lifespan, Shantae is a colorful action-platformer with Metroidvania elements. Its vibrant graphics, catchy music, and unique gameplay (Shantae transforms into animals to solve puzzles) make it a standout title.
  • Fun Fact: Due to its low print run, physical copies are rare and highly sought after.

2. Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 (Tara’s Adventure / Cobi’s Journey)

  • Developer/Publisher: Enix
  • Year: 2001
  • Why it’s a gem: Often overshadowed by Pokémon, this monster-raising RPG offers deep gameplay, a robust breeding system, and expansive worlds to explore. The level of customization in building your team is immense.
  • Fun Fact: It allows players to breed unique monsters with specific abilities, making each playthrough different.

3. Wendy: Every Witch Way

  • Developer/Publisher: WayForward
  • Year: 2001
  • Why it’s a gem: This gravity-defying platformer is simple but highly polished. Players control Wendy, the Good Little Witch, using her powers to flip gravity and solve clever puzzles.
  • Fun Fact: It’s one of the earliest games by WayForward, who would later become famous for Shantae.

4. Survival Kids

  • Developer/Publisher: Konami
  • Year: 1999
  • Why it’s a gem: A survival adventure game where players must navigate a deserted island, gather resources, and find a way to escape. It features multiple endings and a focus on crafting and exploration.
  • Fun Fact: This game is considered the precursor to the Lost in Blue series on the Nintendo DS.

5. Bionic Commando: Elite Forces

  • Developer/Publisher: Nintendo
  • Year: 2000
  • Why it’s a gem: A unique spin-off of the Bionic Commando series, this game combines action-platforming with a grappling hook mechanic for puzzle-solving. It’s challenging and offers satisfying gameplay.
  • Fun Fact: The grappling mechanic remains a defining feature of the Bionic Commando series.

These games showcase the GBC’s impressive library beyond its most famous titles. Have you tried any of these, or are you looking for something similar?

Is video game collecting as bad as they say?

We’re heading to Columbus, Ohio, for TORG, the Ohio Retro Gamer Expo! In this video, I’ll focus on deals you can find at these events. I’ll ask vendors—who buy and sell games daily—what they think are the best deals today. I’m also working on my Sony PSP collection, and I’ll show you everything I picked up at the end.

The Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) is the cool kid who showed up at the party with the swagger of a console and the size of a big smartphone (back when phones weren’t that smart yet). It’s like the Swiss Army knife of gaming, trying to be your gaming console, your MP3 player, and even your Netflix (though streaming wasn’t quite ready to party yet).

The PSP flexed its muscles with a gorgeous 4.3-inch screen, boasting graphics that made you say, “Wait, this is portable?!” It had Wi-Fi so you could school your friends in multiplayer—if you could convince them to lug their PSPs around. And let’s not forget the UMD discs, those quirky little Frisbees that carried your games and movies. They looked futuristic but were basically mini-CDs with trust issues.

Sony even tried to make the PSP your entire life: it had a web browser (sort of), a photo viewer (but no camera), and music playback (for when your iPod forgot its place). The battery life was decent—unless you were watching UMD movies, in which case it gave up faster than a kid in a math test.

The PSP was like that overachiever friend who insists on doing everything, and honestly, it nailed a lot of it. Sure, the controls felt a little cramped, and the proprietary memory cards were pricier than gourmet coffee, but the PSP brought portable gaming into the spotlight, and it did it with style. Plus, it gave us Monster Hunter marathons and the ability to watch Spider-Man 2 on the go—what more could you want? (Except maybe fewer smudges on that glorious screen.)

Testing PS2 & GAMECUBE on latest ANBERNIC handheld.

Review of the ANBERNIC RG406V playing PS2, Gamecube, Wii and Dreamcast games.

Extra 15% Off Code: MetalJesusRocks
RG406V Game Console: https://bit.ly/3U695t3

The sixth generation of gaming consoles, ah! The early 2000s—a glorious era when tech was just powerful enough to bring our gaming dreams to life, yet clunky enough to make us yell at our TV screens. Picture this:

  1. PlayStation 2 – Sony decided to make a console that doubled as a DVD player. No one cared much for DVDs until the PS2 arrived, and then suddenly, everyone’s mom had a reason to let this console into the living room. It had a library of games longer than the Lord of the Rings series, and you could never resist buying more, even if the backlog was a mile deep. But let’s be honest; we all spent more time replaying Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and running over NPCs.
  2. Xbox – Microsoft’s first foray into the console world, and it showed. This thing was about as subtle as a bulldozer, weighing in heavier than a small child and looking like an oversized VCR on steroids. But it came with Halo, which made it the coolest kid on the block. Multiplayer mayhem on Halo turned living rooms into battlegrounds, and “frag” and “teabag” became part of our vocabularies for the next decade.
  3. Nintendo GameCube – The adorable purple lunchbox that could. Nintendo went for a square design as if they were trolling the competition. Everyone laughed until Super Smash Bros. Melee dropped, and then suddenly no one was laughing because they were all too busy smashing controllers and friendships. It even had a handle, so you could bring it over to a friend’s house—a good thing since you’d need it for Mario Kart Double Dash parties.
  4. Sega Dreamcast – Sega’s final hurrah in the console wars, the Dreamcast was the hip, misunderstood sibling of the generation. It introduced online gaming before any of the others, even though most of us had dial-up Internet slower than a sleepy snail. The Dreamcast had games with more originality than half the consoles since, but its fate was doomed by Sega’s previous console misadventures. It’s like that artist friend you wish had made it big but ended up selling pottery on Etsy.

This generation brought us memory cards, clunky graphics that we thought were “realistic,” and the timeless habit of yelling at your sibling for screen-peeking. If gaming consoles were people, the sixth-gen would be that quirky friend who’s super talented but hasn’t quite figured out how not to make a mess.

XBOX right now.

Where my head is at when it comes to Xbox. I give you my thoughts on the new Xbox announcements and tell you what I’m looking forward to in the future…. And I talk a little about Game Pass. WATCH >> https://youtu.be/ciuQHmFoSf4

The Xbox Series consoles are like Microsoft’s love letter to gamers who can’t decide between “super powerful” and “super sleek.” On one hand, you’ve got the Xbox Series X—a rectangular, monolithic fridge look-alike that has the power to launch you into a parallel dimension of 4K gaming. It’s so beefy, it could probably double as a space heater in the winter. Just make sure to keep your snacks out of its vent holes, or you might accidentally toast them. Meanwhile, it’s got more teraflops than most people know what to do with, which sounds impressive, but let’s be honest, most of us are just using it to reload our Skyrim save for the thousandth time.

Then there’s the Xbox Series S, the X’s little sibling that skipped leg day but still manages to be pretty buff. It’s like the cute, mini-fridge version of the Series X—compact enough to tuck under your arm if you need a portable source of frustration when you’re losing at *Fortnite*. Sure, it doesn’t have the same raw power, but it’s the little console that could. The Series S is all like, “Graphics? Who needs ’em, I got speed!” and for those who want to game without taking out a second mortgage, it’s the budget-friendly option that still lets you yell at your TV in glorious 1440p resolution.

The state of retro game collecting…

We’re heading to Portland Oregon for the annual retro gaming expo. I’m sharing highlights from my weekend also diving into the current state of game collecting. See the prices for games and hardware, both the expensive stuff…and some of the good deals. Plus I ask the vendors what is hot right now.

Reggie and I are going to show all the games we picked up in an upcoming PICKUPS video…so stay tuned!

Here are five lesser-known facts about Portland, Oregon:

  1. Shanghai Tunnels: Portland has a network of underground tunnels, known as the Shanghai Tunnels (or “Portland Underground”), which were used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These tunnels are rumored to have been used for human trafficking, where people were kidnapped (or “shanghaied”) and sold to ship captains as laborers.
  2. The City That Briefly Banned Cars: In 1971, Portland became one of the first major U.S. cities to cancel the construction of a freeway (the Mount Hood Freeway), opting to invest in public transportation and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. This decision helped shape the city’s reputation for sustainability and urban planning.
  3. The Simpsons Connection: Portland has a strong connection to the famous TV show “The Simpsons.” Series creator Matt Groening grew up in Portland, and many of the characters’ names in the show are based on Portland streets and landmarks (e.g., Flanders, Lovejoy, and Quimby).
  4. World’s Smallest Park: Portland is home to Mill Ends Park, officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the smallest park in the world. It measures just 452 square inches and was originally created as a spot for a journalist’s pet leprechaun.
  5. The Original “Stumptown”: Portland’s nickname “Stumptown” comes from the 19th century when the city’s rapid growth required a lot of land clearing, leaving numerous tree stumps throughout the streets. The name has stuck around as a part of Portland’s identity.

These quirky and historic facts reveal Portland’s unique charm and cultural heritage!