Game Sack – They’re still releasing new titles for these 30+ year-old consoles. Many of them are incredibly professional. Isn’t it fantastic!
Game Sack is like that buddy who knows way too much about old video games and isn’t afraid to tell you, with an infectious enthusiasm for consoles that most people forgot about (or never knew existed). Hosted by Joe, with the occasional cameo from his longtime friend Dave, it’s a retro gaming show that dives into obscure game consoles and asks hard-hitting questions like, “Why did anyone buy the Sega 32X?” and “How many obscure Japanese exclusives can we fit into one episode?”
Joe’s humor is dry, sarcastic, and somehow perfectly timed to counterbalance the sheer nerdery of the show’s deep dives. Every episode is packed with crisp editing, skits featuring props from your uncle’s garage, and gameplay footage that’ll make you nostalgic for the days when games came on cartridges the size of bricks. Joe’s critiques of retro hardware and his impressions of Dave (who, rumor has it, may still live on as a disembodied spirit haunting Game Sack) are worth the watch alone. Whether you’re in it for forgotten consoles, bizarre peripherals, or just to hear Joe roast the Virtual Boy yet again, Game Sack has enough retro gaming gold to keep you glued to the screen, wondering, “How does he even know all this?”
Brendon Snyder – Not all albums can be the best, that’s for sure. But sometimes the sound and direction is such a misstep that for me I can’t stand even having it in my music collection. However, I’m a completist and at times still want to try these “hated” albums and see if my opinion has changed. So join me as I run through some hated albums from my music collection.
*St. Anger* is Metallica’s version of a mid-life crisis—complete with a new snare drum that sounds like it fell out of a toolbox. This album has all the angst of a band trying to reconnect with their roots, but somehow ended up with a sound that’s, well, divisive, to put it politely. The production feels like they recorded it in an empty warehouse, left the reverb on max, and decided “Hey, what if we make Lars’s snare sound like he’s banging on a trash can?” It’s a bold move, for sure, and one that has since been lovingly referred to as the “ping of doom.”
The lyrics are like a mix of therapy session notes and heavy metal fortune cookies, with lines that range from “I’m madly in anger with you!” to “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle.” James Hetfield is trying to exorcise some serious demons, and you can tell he’s really feeling it—even if he’s not sure what “deathstyle” actually means. And while *St. Anger* lacks guitar solos, Kirk Hammett’s here for moral support, probably wondering where his chance to shred went. Love it or hate it, the album is like a car crash you can’t look away from—noisy, chaotic, and oddly fascinating.
Modern Vintage Gamer bought a Sony PlayStation PS5 Pro for $700 including an $80 disc drive add-on – so you don’t have to. It does exactly what its advertised to do. Enhance Visuals and Performance for PS5 games. The question is – is the PS5 Pro really worth the money? In today’s episode I give you my thoughts on the brand new PS5 Pro console. Impressive? Yes, worth it? Check out today’s video to learn more!
Here are the Top 5 PlayStation 5 games….cuz we need another list, right?
1. Elden Ring
Dark Souls’ Meaner, Open-World Cousin
Elden Ring is that friend who invites you on an “easy hike” but conveniently leaves out the fact that it’s uphill both ways, through poison swamps, while dragons throw lightning at you. It’s a game for those who enjoy the thrill of finally killing a boss after 273 tries, only to find an even scarier one waiting around the next corner. If you’re into pain and beautiful landscapes, it’s like paradise… with lots of death.
2. Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Slinging, Swinging, and Still Broke in New York
Ever wanted to live the life of a superhero? You know, save the city, wear a cool suit, and… scramble to pay your rent because even spider-powered heroes struggle with NYC prices. Miles Morales is here to show you how to look cool in the middle of a snowstorm while fighting crime and dealing with the personal issues only a teenage superhero could have. Just don’t ask him how he keeps his mask so clean.
3. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
The Ultimate Pixar Movie You Get to Play
You’re a fuzzy space raccoon thing with a robot backpack, and your whole job is to travel through intergalactic portals like it’s nobody’s business. It’s colorful, it’s crazy, and there are more explosions than a Michael Bay movie. Plus, this time you get to play as Rivet, a female Lombax who’s got just as much sass and weaponry. Warning: You’ll have the urge to adopt a raccoon and name it “Ratchet” afterward.
4. Returnal
Groundhog Day Meets Alien Horror
In Returnal, you play as an astronaut who’s stuck in a “death-loop” on a creepy alien planet. Every time you die (which will happen a lot), you wake up again… just in time to make the same mistakes! It’s like reliving Monday mornings but with acid-spitting aliens and lots of guns. Perfect for players who love a challenge — and who don’t mind talking back to their screens.
5. Demon’s Souls
Because “Easy Mode” Was Never an Option
This is a “remake” of a notoriously difficult game from 2009, but with graphics so beautiful you almost forget you’re being crushed by yet another giant demon. Playing Demon’s Souls is basically signing up for self-punishment and somehow loving every second. The whole point? To prove you have the patience of a saint or, at the very least, the perseverance of a person who just really hates losing.
YouTuber Jimmy Mango is a massive Stephen King fan and read all of his books. This is his ranking of all 61 main Stephen King novels, minus the collections of short stories (so no The Mist)…and I have to admit it’s a great ranking! I haven’t read every single book like he has…but it made me want to add several to my backlog. Check it out!
Stephen King is like your eccentric but endlessly entertaining uncle who can turn even the most mundane trip to the grocery store into a spine-tingling horror saga. His novels have a special knack for making you terrified of everyday things—cars, clowns, hotels, even your own dog. With over 60 novels to his name, it seems he’s either tapped into some dark, supernatural well of storytelling or has just accepted that his brain is wired for creepy, whether he likes it or not. Somehow, this master of horror also manages to look like the world’s friendliest librarian. You just know he’d be the guy at a family barbecue spinning a ghost story by the grill, saying, “Don’t worry, it’s fiction”—but you’re still sleeping with the lights on that night.
This video from reccollect highlights some of the coolest, craziest and weirdest vinyl record releases in the past 50 years. Some truly amazing gems here.
Music has seen its fair share of unusual releases, where artists really put their creative hearts (and possibly sanity) on the line. Here are five of the strangest ways people decided to distribute their music:
1. The Frozen Record (Shout Out Louds)
Swedish band Shout Out Louds released a single made out of ice. Yes, ice. Fans had to pour water into a custom mold, freeze it, and then play the fragile record before it melted. Listening quickly became a race against time. “How’d you like it?” “Well, I think I heard the chorus before the puddle on my turntable shorted out my speakers.”
2. The Chocolate Record (FC Judd)
In a rare attempt to combine auditory and digestive experiences, avant-garde electronic musician FC Judd created a playable record made of chocolate. This one hits that sweet spot: you can listen to it once, then chow down on it when you’re done. The downside? It sounds great until you reach the drum solo, where a suspicious crunch indicates you’ve just bitten off half the bridge.
3. The X-Ray Record (Soviet Bootlegs)
During the Cold War, enterprising Russians recorded banned Western music onto used X-rays because vinyl was strictly monitored. They called them “Bone Records” because they were literal X-ray images of skeletons. These were like the mixtapes of rebellion, complete with visible femurs. Imagine trying to explain to your friend, “Here’s that Beatles album… oh, and also, that’s Olga’s broken leg.”
4. The Blood Record (Kiss)
In true Kiss fashion, the band decided to mix their own blood into the red ink used to print their comic book in 1977, but Gene Simmons later hinted it ended up in a vinyl pressing too. So, yes, die-hard Kiss fans can say they literally own the band’s DNA. Just don’t expect it to pass any basic health inspections if you accidentally scratch yourself with it.
5. The Urine-Infused Record (Matthew Herbert)
For his 2019 release, experimental musician Matthew Herbert pressed vinyls using the sounds of his bathroom breaks, from the actual flush to… well, you get the idea. Yes, the album cover practically screams, “Sanitize after handling.” This was one record release that truly had fans divided: collectors loved it, but hygienists… not so much.
Music may be timeless, but these records prove that sometimes, it’s also best enjoyed on regular vinyl!
Johnny Happy Console Gamer shows the video games and collectables he picked up at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (PRGE).
Happy Console Gamer is like your ultra-nostalgic, joyfully eccentric friend who treats each old video game like it’s an ancient artifact unearthed from a forgotten age. Johnny, the channel’s mastermind, is all about spreading the love for classic games with a near-spiritual enthusiasm that could make you feel genuinely moved about, say, Faxanadu or the “magic” of the Dreamcast. His set? A retro wonderland filled with neon lights, towering game stacks, and anime treasures that practically smell of vintage 80s bliss. Tune in if you want a warm, nerdy hug of gaming nostalgia—because Johnny is on a lifelong quest to make sure everyone knows just how amazing his childhood games really were.
Lon.Tv shares what he uses to play retro video games, from the original Atari and NES to Sega Saturn, PS2 and even Xbox 360. Lots of good info and solutions from the MiSter project, to emulation on the Steam Deck and connecting to a CRT with a lightgun. Good stuff!
Here are some of the most beloved methods for diving back into the retro video game classics:
1. The Raspberry Pi Shrine
Imagine a small, raspberry-sized computer you can worship for all its retro gaming glory. People pour their heart and soul into decorating their Raspberry Pi cases with LED lights, custom decals, and little totems of Mario or Sonic. You might think it’s overkill for a device that could fit in your pocket, but retro gamers know the joy of transforming a $40 gadget into a virtual time machine. Just don’t forget to bring a magnifying glass to actually play anything.
2. The “Totally Legit” Desktop Emulator
This setup requires downloading highly legitimate copies of Super Mario World, meticulously organizing every ROM, and downloading the fanciest emulator to get that authentic “my computer is on fire” experience. Between tweaking settings to get the frame rate perfect and dodging ads on those sketchy ROM websites, this is a labor of love that teaches patience. Bonus points if you manage to find one that doesn’t crash every time Mario jumps.
3. The Franken-console Build
There’s an entire subculture of folks who would rather hack old consoles themselves than use a plug-and-play emulator. Dust off an old NES, unscrew some plastic, add a Pi Zero or some hidden SD slot, and voilà – you’ve got a barely-working Frankenstein console that plays everything from Pong to EarthBound. Sometimes it even works. Other times it sparks. Either way, that soldering iron burn on your hand is proof you’re hardcore.
4. The Flash Drive of Mystery
This one’s for the committed and resourceful: they carry a flash drive loaded with emulators and ROMs everywhere. Plug it into any unsuspecting device – your grandma’s old Windows 7 laptop, a friend’s smart fridge, the work computer during a lunch break – and boom, they’re deep in a game of Zelda II before you can say “IT support.” The trick is having a thumb drive so suspiciously loaded with games, you’re ready for any retro gaming challenge that comes your way.
5. The All-in-One Retro Handheld – aka “The Portable Time Machine”
Why settle for modern graphics on the go when you can have a handheld that fits in your hand, overheats, and drains battery in mere minutes? With brands like Anbernic and Retroid pumping out nostalgia-packed handhelds, you’re basically carrying an entire arcade in your pocket. Be prepared to explain to people why you’re “playing Game Boy in the 2020s.” (Just flash a picture of Tetris and say, “Because it’s Tetris!”)
6. The Couch Potato Box – aka the Mini Consoles
Remember the NES and SNES Classic consoles? Gamers rushed to buy these little pre-loaded cuties, sat them next to the TV like trophies, and proceeded to play them once before they became collectors’ items. They’re adorable, they’re simple, and they deliver retro bliss straight to your living room without frying your PC – just try not to cry when that non-expandable game list starts feeling a little stale.
These retro emulation methods prove one universal truth: there’s no wrong way to travel back in time to save a princess or collect a ring – as long as you’re almost breaking your device in the process.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Modern Vintage Gamer takes us back to what made the original Wing Commander PC game so special.
Wing Commander is like jumping into a soap opera… in space! Imagine you’re a hotshot pilot battling evil feline overlords called the Kilrathi (think if your cat grew up on bad vibes and space lasers). Your job? To protect the galaxy while bantering with crew members who have enough drama to fill a few seasons of Days of Our Lives. Between missions, you wander the ship like it’s a floating high school, bonding with friends and frenemies alike, where everyone’s perpetually one botched mission away from a total meltdown. It’s basically Top Gun meets The Lion King—if Simba had claws and wanted to vaporize you.
Then there’s the gameplay, which serves up a blend of dogfighting chaos and cinematic tension. One moment, you’re blasting through Kilrathi fighters with a grin, the next you’re facing a mission briefing that sounds suspiciously like an episode recap from Battlestar Galactica. Sometimes you’re sent on reconnaissance (a.k.a. “please don’t die, we need intel”), but more often you’re thrown into the galactic version of a food fight—except the food is lasers, and the lunchroom is filled with explosions. It’s frantic, cheesy, and gloriously over-the-top, making it the perfect interstellar drama for anyone who ever wanted to fight space cats while managing their crewmates’ emotional baggage.
