It’s Fight (Stick) Time
Plus why consoles have the right idea, Ticket To Ride Europe, and the Game Boy is a Game Man now
Hello Button Buddies!
Can you believe it’s Friday again already? Where has the time gone?
This week Tim discovered the joy of arcade sticks, and reminisced about how the Game Boy probably has a sore back now. Meanwhile, Alice has a lot of feelings about tech upgrade cycles, and also loves Ticket To Ride Europe a healthy amount.
Have a great weekend!
An almost all-in-one arcade stick
By Tim
I’m not especially competitive when it comes to fighting games, so it’s never occurred to me to own a fight stick. Yet as I’ve recently become more interested in exploring arcade game history, it’s been increasingly clear that a standard modern controller won’t suffice for a lot of them. I started researching sticks with my priorities being arcade feel, ease of use and compatibility with a lot of systems, and I’m pretty happy with my ultimate choice; a pair of 8bitdo Arcade Sticks.
These NES-styled 2kg beasts use clicky eight-way sticks for a very authentic feel. The layout of the eight buttons makes sense for most games, though it’s ideal if the game lets you redefine the bindings, and a dial lets you choose if the arcade stick is controlling the d-pad or either control stick. There’s also a customisable turbo ability, and two macro buttons you can set up using the 8bitdo app (in case you have trouble pulling off super combos in Marvel vs Capcom, to take a random made-up example).
Each one comes with a generously long cable, but also works wirelessly via Bluetooth or a 2.4GHz USB. Officially the stick supports Switch and Windows, and I really enjoy how flipping the dial between Switch and X-input Bluetooth modes changes the light-up button labels from Nintendo to Xbox designations (i.e. from B button at the bottom to B button on the right).
But while the Switch mode is straightforward and connects very easily, the X-input mode can do a bit more than just connect to Windows. I was able to use it on Mac, Linux, Steam Deck, Analogue Pocket, many of my retro consoles that have had Bluetooth support added, and even Xbox consoles via a Wingman USB adapter. On some of those technically unsupported platforms only the first six arcade buttons registered though.
Long story short, I now have a satisfying two-player arcade control option for essentially any available software, be it a brand new release on Steam, the Arcade Archives on Switch, or an FPGA arcade core. I’m still not super into fighting games, but my kids have developed an attachment to Bubble Bobble and The New Zealand Story, to the point that if each play actually represented a 100-yen coin from the 1980s, the Arcade Sticks would have paid for themselves by now.
What to play
This week on Game Pass the chilly 2016 adventure game Kona returns, there’s a brand new release in the form of plant-themed first-person puzzle Botany Manor, and the incredible final third of Lara Croft’s latest trilogy in Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
Free on the Epic Games Store this week is Ghostrunner, a bleak, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, FPS sci-fi game. It really packs all the genre buzzwords right in there. If any of those words tickle your fancy, though, it’s worth adding to your library for zero dollars.
Console upgrade cycle lengths are good, actually
By Alice
It is both beautiful and infuriating that there is an annual upgrade cycle for most forms of tech. The march of progress is endless, of course, and it’s nice to see boundaries pushed. But, recently, the boundaries that are being pushed aren’t really meaningful, and often it seems like both end users and the climate would benefit from two, or even three-year product cycles, waiting until companies had a meaningful update. Of course, shareholders would never allow it, because the spreadsheet showing growth is what matters most.
This observation has had me thinking about game consoles, and how console players can still enjoy a 7-year-ish upgrade cycle, which is refreshing in 2024. We’ve just had the mid-generation PS5 Slim release from PlayStation, roughly on schedule, which means we’re probably a year or two away from the PS5 Pro, and by all accounts the new Xbox Series refreshes should be coming this year. But these releases are more for the die-hards, people who waited until the mid-generation to upgrade from the PS4/Xbox One, and folks whose original consoles died in mysterious circumstances. They’re not like phones, where you’re expected to upgrade at least once every 3-4 years (up from the previous two).
PCs are, of course, the ultimate gaming device in theory because you can constantly upgrade them and end up with a ship of Theseus situation. But also, most people don’t do that. While upgrading a PC isn’t hard, it does require a level of confidence that most people do not possess. Plus, getting a fancy graphics card now costs more than a new console, somewhat defeating the purpose (if your purpose was saving money and not having l33t graphics or whatever).
The problem Xbox is going to have is that the Series S is holding the company back from truly taking advantage of all the Series X can do, making a Series X Pro or whatever an unlikely prospect. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
2024 marks 20 years of Ticket To Ride, which is a fun fact I learned after I decided to go on a quest to play every version I could. Delightfully vindicating. The second version of Ticket To Ride was Europe, released in 2005. It has is quite similar to the US board in a lot of ways (you’re trying to complete tickets and claim routes for points, with the length of the route claimed playing a big role in in scoring), but it has some key differences:
1. It’s set in Europe, so instantly it’s more believable that there’s a strong public transport network.
2. There are now two new kinds of routes: ferries and tunnels. Ferries need to have locomotive (aka wild) cards in the mix to be built, and tunnels may or may not require extra cards to be played.
3. You can place a limited number of stations, allowing you to use an opponent’s route to connect to yours, thus potentially saving a failing ticket.
There’s also a 15th anniversary edition of Europe, which I have not played. It features a larger board with more destinations.
Europe is certainly more challenging than the traditional US map, because of tunnels and ferries, and it takes a little more teaching time if it’s your first Ticket To Ride, but it’s a favourite in our family. The extra challenges make it more interesting, and the ability to place stations means that there’s potentially less disappointment on more contested routes.
The playing time is quoted as being 30-60 minutes, however I have played this map dozens of times with 2-5 players, most of whom know the game inside out, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a game go for less than 45 minutes. It’s best to budget the full hour for a game, and it’s absolutely worth the time.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
This month the venerable Game Boy turns 35. And while it may be tough to remember a time when having games to take with us on the go was a novelty, it’s impossible to deny the broad cultural impact of this iconic monochrome brick, from the niche corners of the chiptune scene to the global branding behemoth that is Pokemon.
By today’s standards the Game Boy is dinky, with a screen that’s both blurry and impossible to see in almost all lighting conditions. But there’s a reason it struck a chord in the 90s, despite competition from much more technologically advanced rival systems: it was affordable, it had a library of killer games from the world’s greatest developers, and it lasted a decent amount of time on four AAA batteries.
Amongst the trend of marketing video games solely towards male kids, the accessible Game Boy (ironically given the name) also hit a wide audience of all ages and genders. And since it was a personal device its styling over time traces a nostalgic path of cool from the 80s all the way to the 2000s, be it the grey of the original, the bright paint of alternate models, the black or silver of the Pocket or Light, or the timeless translucent editions.
So much of the enormous Game Boy library could be dismissed as cheaply made nonsense for children, but it’s also packed with classics that are just as enjoyable when played today (or moreso, given modern screens). Think of Tetris, Link’s Awakening, Seiken Densetsu, Belmont’s Revenge, SaGa, Donkey Kong ‘94, Kirby’s Adventure, and of course the original Pokemon. Of the more than 1000 games released, several dozen could legitimately be called all-time greats.
These days revisiting the games is very easy, as Game Boy is so painless to emulate and you can use practically any device. Dedicated handheld devices that run Game Boy games also start at a very low cost, and go all the way up to the incredible Analogue Pocket. Though if you want that very specific Game Boy hand-feel, there’s also a healthy hardware modding scene, which means you can pick up a refurbed Game Boy with a modern screen and rechargeable battery installed for a few hundred dollars.