A decade ago today saw the Japanese release of Sony's last dedicated gaming handheld, the PlayStation Vita. It wasn't quite as popular as its predecessor the PlayStation Portable (or its main rival the Nintendo 3DS), and Sony is still trying to bring its gaming experience to mobile, but the Vita still holds a special place in the hearts of those who owned one. At Engadget, that's Nathan Ingraham and Devindra Hardawar, who have both extolled the virtues of the system in our internal Slack many times over the years (yes, I checked). So on the Vita's 10th birthday we've asked our resident experts what their favorite games for the system were, and inspired them to dig the shiny little handheld out of their closets for another go-around. — Kris Naudus, Buyer's Guide Editor

Gravity Rush

The freedom of Gravity Rush’s acrobatic gameplay, which lets you fall through the air in every direction, as well as walk along the sides and bottoms of buildings, went hand-in-hand with the Vita’s portability. That made it a game I couldn’t help but love despite its frustrations. Gravity Rush took full advantage of the system’s motion controls — you had to tilt the Vita to control your flying momentum — and its watercolor anime aesthetic looked incredible on the Vita’s screen. Few games captured the magic of the system’s hardware that well.

Sure, the combat was simplistic and the story didn’t make much sense. But the visceral feeling of flying was hard to match, especially on a portable console. I never got around to playing the PlayStation 4 Gravity Rush remaster, mostly because my memories of the game are so intimately tied to the Vita. I suppose it’s time to finally get over that hangup, though. The Vita is well and truly dead, and if I wanted to play the sequel, I have no choice but to move over to my PS4. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Editor

Lumines: Electric Symphony

Every portable console needs a good puzzle game. For the PS Vita, it was Lumines: Electric Symphony. The first Lumines game was a launch title for the Vita’s predecessor, the PlayStation Portable, and Electric Symphony arrived when the Vita went on sale. The basic gameplay remained the same: you manipulate 2-by-2 squares of varying colors together and match those colors to clear things out. If your screen gets overloaded, that’s that.

What makes Lumines: Electric Symphony so engrossing is the way the gameplay is matched up to the beat of a lengthy selection of classic electronic tunes from artists like LCD Soundsystem, Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers and about 30 more. Each song has a different speed, and that speed is reflected in the gameplay; it’s not like Tetris where things progressively get faster and faster. It’s actually more like Tetris Effect, which was the first Tetris game to make music and sound a crucial part of the gameplay experience.

Lumines: Electric Symphony doesn’t reach the lofty heights of Tetris as a puzzle game, but that’s not a huge knock. It’s hard to compete with one of the most popular video games of all time, but Electric Symphony is still a great way to kill some time, either through a short session or a long play-through of the more than 30 tracks the game has to offer. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy Editor

Modnation Racers: Road Trip

Ever since Super Mario Kart arrived in 1992, game developers have tried to emulate its appeal with little success. For my money, Modnation Racers: Road Trip came pretty damn close. The PS Vita title was a new version of a PS3 game that came out in 2010. Both installments follow the Mario Kart script pretty closely: crazy tracks with weapons and items that let you even the odds against your competition.

What the Modnation Racers games did differently was offer endless customization — of your kart, racer and, most crucially, the courses themselves. Even on the somewhat scaled-back Vita game, you could download all manner of creations from the Modnation community, something that gave the game life for years until Sony inevitably shut down the servers.

Even without all the community content, though, Modnation Racers: Road Trip is still a blast to play. The 30 tracks in its career mode are extremely well designed, and the driving mechanics simply feel great. After almost 10 years, this game is showing its age, but it’s a great example of Sony’s promise to bring console-quality games to the Vita. The graphics don’t look quite as sharp as they used to, but the racing experience remains a blast. — N.I.

OlliOlli

Sony initially pitched the PS Vita as a way to play console-quality games on the go, but its legacy is just as much about the smaller, indie games that hit the handheld. OlliOlli and its sequel OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood are two games that I played for hours on end, even though they weren’t as flashy and high-profile as games from bigger studios.

OlliOlli is a masterful side-scrolling skateboarding game that combines lo-fi music and graphics with gameplay that was simple to learn, but maddening to master. And let me be clear, “maddening” is a complement. Once I figured out how to do more advanced moves and pull off longer combos to juice my score, I got addicted to the challenge of mastering every level.

And there’s a ton to master here; both games had five worlds to conquer, each with five “amateur” and “pro” levels. And, each level has five objectives to nail if you really want to be a completist. Usually, I don’t try to hit 100 percent of all the goals in a game, but here I was compelled to keep on pushing myself to beat as many challenges as I possibly could.

Both games have held up over the years, with the sequel adding crucial new mechanics like manuals, so you can skate through entire levels without stopping your combo. I recently replayed both, and still really enjoy trying to do a level as cleanly as possible — if you like chasing high scores, OlliOlli is a great option. And if you never tried these games, I’ve got some good news: both are available for current PlayStation consoles, and a new game, OlliOlli World, is coming out on February 8th. — N.I.

Persona 4 Golden

I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the world of Persona than this title on the Vita. Persona 4 Golden’s bold and colorful aesthetic practically popped off of the system’s OLED display. (I can’t say if the later LCD Vita handled it worse.) It also featured one of the most memorable JRPG soundtracks I’ve ever encountered. Best of all, the Vita’s portability was perfectly suited to P4G’s grind. Being able to bring the game outdoors, on the subway and all over my apartment made leveling up feel more like a genuine adventure, rather than a typical JRPG chore.

For me, someone who grew up with every iteration of Game Boy, Persona 4 Golden also proved that portable systems could finally deliver a premium experience similar to home consoles. Sure, there were limitations around battery life and screen size, but in 2012 playing a deep and visually rich RPG on the Vita felt like a miracle. And honestly, it still does. Time to dig up my Vita. — D.H.

Xenogears

I know this is a bit of a cheat. But the Vita is one of the last systems I own that can still run Xenogears, Square’s brilliant and enigmatic Neon Genesis Evangelion-esque RPG. As someone who was fundamentally shaped by both Chrono Trigger and Evangelion in the ‘90s, Xenogears is that rare bit of culture that has always felt specifically made for geeks like me. I love it all: the unique combat, the eclectic Yasunori Mitsuda score and the giant mech battles. Hell, I even dig the exposition-heavy final act. Once the Vita arrived, being able to play Xenogears on the go made me fall for it all over again. — D.H.

Earlier this week we gave a preview of the Analogue Pocket handheld retro gaming system. The modern take on ‘90s portable gaming ($220) offers so much more than just the ability to play most vintage portable games. It has built-in music making software, TV/video out via an accessory and, well many other things we wanted to do a proper dive on. We’ve had so much fun with this thing it’s very easy to recommend right up top. If you simply wanted to know if it’s a good gaming device, I can safely say that it is and thanks for stopping by. If you want to know more (and you should) then get comfortable as we’re going for a ride.

First, a little history. Analogue is often described as a “boutique” console manufacturer. It specializes in a very specific type of retro remake. Instead of building a small PC that can run emulators, Analogue’s FPGA “cores” allow it to mimic vintage consoles at the hardware level. The idea being, all games play as nature intended with none of the emulator quirks to contend with. The company’s early creations were more in the “how to spend it” category. This walnut Neo Geo, for example, or how about this slightly too-fancy NES (and the all-metal reboot).

More recently, Analogue’s Mega SG (Genesis) and Super NT (SNES) took a slightly more accessible approach, cementing the company’s place as the retro console maker de jour. The Pocket aims to build on this legacy with a focus on, somewhat obviously, gaming on the go. It’s also the first Analogue console to play carts from different retro brands.

At launch, it natively plays cartridges from any of the Game Boy variants. It’ll also play Game Gear cartridges with an adapter. Neo Geo Pocket Color, TurboExpress and Atari Lynx adapters are on the way.

Another key difference to most retro machines is that Analogue products are designed to play physical media, not ROMs (although you can sometimes find ways around that as the internet is ever industrious). This really is about doing the old school thing in a modern way with minimal adulteration. That said, the Pocket is compatible with flash carts (that can play ROMs from an SD card), but that’s a quirk of its fidelity – if it works on a Game Boy, it likely works here etc..

By extension, you can also use any of the original Game Boy accessories such as the GB Camera, printer and any titles that had extras such as rumble packs or gyro sensors. You can even connect the Pocket to an authentic Game Boy for multiplayer player fun. In short, all of Analogue’s consoles are functionally 1:1 reproductions of the hardware they honor, just with the Pocket it’s multiple systems in one.

There are, of course, some modern advances that are deemed useful enough to not distract from the authentic experience. For one, the Pocket has a backlit display. Something that didn’t make its way into a Game Boy until the Advance SP (although there was the Game Boy Light in Japan). The Pocket’s 3.5-inch screen is also bigger than the largest on any Nintendo GB handheld (2.9-inches on the Advance SP) and covered in modern Gorilla Glass. Then, of course, there are some modern tweaks such as “save states” and a variety of display presets to match the original hardware (including modes for different iterations of Game Boy).

James Trew / Engadget

What you won’t see here are endless submenus with the hyper specific settings that you tend to find in emulators (or their frontends) like RetroArch. It’s clear the goal with the Pocket is to remove as much user configuration as possible so you can plug in your game and go. Likewise, the Pocket’s connectivity is limited to the Game Boy link port, a headphone jack and an IR port for Game Boy Color (GBC) games that support it (such as Donkey Kong Country or Pokémon Crystal). That’s to say, there’s no touchscreen, no WiFi or any other such redundant jazzy features.

Alas, there’s also no video out, but this can be added with the Dock accessory ($99) which allows for Bluetooth/USB controller connectivity along with an HDMI port for connecting to a TV. Battery-wise, thankfully, it’s not a trip to Target for a big stash of AAAs. The 4,300 mAh cell is good for around six hours of play time and it charges over USB-C.

It’s pretty clear that the Pocket’s design was heavily inspired by the original dot-matrix Game Boy (aka DMG – that’s the iconic one pictured here) and GBC with its portrait configuration. Although one obvious difference is you’ll find four main buttons, which is curious as every system the Pocket imitates only had two – although some, like the Atari Lynx, do have additional system buttons. There are also (slightly spongy) shoulder buttons around the back which were introduced on the Game Boy Advance (GBA), along with “start” and “select” buttons at the bottom, with one more inbetween them that brings up the Analogue menu whatever you’re playing/doing.

Those extra thumb buttons make more sense when you take into account that Analogue has not only partnered with GB Studio — a popular drag-and-drop Game Boy game making tool — but has also added a dedicated spare FPGA for developers to tinker with and use for their own homebrews. How that gets used we’ll have to wait and see, but if you make games in GB Studio you can run them right off the Pocket’s SD card using a proprietary .pocket format. In short, the handheld is aiming to be a viable platform for indie titles made within the constraints of ‘90s era hardware.

Did I mention that it has music production chops, too? The Pocket comes with a version of Nanoloop — a lightweight but comprehensive music-making app for Game Boy — baked right in. Analogue even made cables specifically so you can connect it to desktop and MIDI sequencers. More on this later.

James Trew / Engadget

The above is a long way of saying that it’s obvious Analogue has put a lot of thought and care into making something that isn’t just another way to play Super Mario Land. The addition of tools for developers and an easy pathway to play indie creations give the Pocket one foot in the present. The addition of Nanoloop, likewise, gives it a broader appeal without breaking away from its retro authenticity.

So, you get it, it’s a clever little thing, but what does it play like? I won’t lie, when I inserted Tetris and powered the Pocket up I was, well, I was taken to the Analogue OS home screen. Right now it’s very simple with five menu options, of which, only three are currently available: Play Cartridge, Tools and Settings. The other two are Library and Memories which are currently grayed out until the first firmware update — which Analogue says is coming in a few weeks from publish time. There’s a lot to be excited about in Analogue OS, but for now it’s pretty straightforward, and I’ll flag the more interesting parts as they come.

Back on the home screen, tapping “Play Cartridge” suddenly teleported me to my secondary school in 1990. The Game Boy had just been released and a few people in my year had one. I still remember being fascinated by the weird green and black display and crunchy sound. The Pocket in its original DMG screen mode replicates this look with amazing accuracy. I have other retro handhelds, and the “authentic” green-and-black modes combined with a mishmash of resolutions and displays never look quite right. Even the fact that the Pocket has a backlight, which of course the first ever Game Boy never had, somehow doesn’t break the spell.

For example, the Pocket even replicates the tiny gaps between pixels on the DMG’s display. This means that the fist-pumping plumber in the top left of Super Mario Land’s home screen looks almost indistinguishable from how he did in 1989 (bar that light). My other handheld that runs a fork of RetroPie doesn’t have this level of fidelity. You can do all sorts of custom configurations to possibly come close, but that’s long and life is short. Pocket does it out of the box, no tweaking needed.

James Trew / Engadget

If you prefer your nostalgia hit to feel like other versions of the Game Boy, there are modes for those, too. Specifically the Game Boy Light and the Game Boy Pocket. There’s also Analogue’s own custom mode. What’s interesting is that if you place a GBA game into the Pocket, the choice of display modes changes to match. That’s to say, you’ll get the screen variants of that platform (Original LCD, SP 101) along with another custom Analogue mode specific to that system. As for the Game Gear, you’ll get Analogue mode, GG LCD mode and “GG LCD+” which is like the former, with just a shade more pop in its colors.

Analogue’s own display modes tend to be more modern in style with higher color saturation and no pixel grid. Beyond the presets there are some controls for customization within the menus. These are done by system, and include desaturation controls, sharpness and a frame blending toggle (to mimic the original hardware’s slow responsiveness). Though they are nowhere near as extensive as on most software emulators, and I feel it’s all the better for it. I am not against deep levels of control, but navigating RetroArch’s deep menus has never been my kind of fun.

One slight quirk here is that when you change the volume during play, you’ll see a corresponding plus or minus sign float over the left side for a second or so. But if the Pocket is in certain display modes, like Analogue’s own custom preset, or any game with a white background, you can’t see it because it’s showing white on white. It doesn’t change anything, but it did catch me out for a moment wondering if the volume control wasn’t working.

Thanks to the square display, original Game Boy games perfectly fill the space available and, not coincidentally, the Pocket’s display is exactly 10x the resolution of the original on each axis. This means upscaling is really just a case of adding a zero onto the end of the number of pixels being displayed. Specifically it’s an 1600x1440, 615 ppi LCD.

This sort of detail is almost as important (maybe as important) as running emulation at the hardware level rather than software. Retro gaming has a storied history of using computational and display limitations for creative effect. If you’ve ever played old games on a modern emulator and display, you may have noticed something was a bit off; that retro “feel” wasn’t there. That’s why many emulators offer things like scanlines — because they soften square edges and make things look a bit more authentic.

James Trew / Engadget

The problem is, scanlines are a bit of a blunt tool. Analogue claims it went out of its way to mimic original displays, “quirks” and all. And from what I can tell, that includes things like response time and refresh rates.

An example of this is found among the GBA screens. Despite being a big step up in the number of colors it could display at one time (512 up from the GBC’s 56) the screen still didn’t have a light until later iterations. This gave the games on the early GBAs a distinct look and you can activate a mode that replicates that, if that’s your preference. Or go more modern if it’s not. The benefit to this will largely depend on the game you are playing, as some lean into the limitations of the hardware more than others, but it feels much more authentic than regular old scanlines to me in terms of juicing that vintage vibe.

I, personally, love the original screen modes. They feel like scanlines done right. The start screen for Sonic on the Game Gear, for example, somehow seems more detailed when viewed in the original GG LCD mode. Our hedgehog’s wagging finger seems just that little more detailed and the font more “3D” – for lack of a better word.

In terms of game compatibility, theoretically, there should be very few titles that worked on original hardware that don’t work here, if any. I only had 10 or so games to test with, but the only things that were problematic were a US version of Mario Kart Super Circuit and Mickey Mouse - Castle of Illusion on the Game Gear which loads fine but crops off some of the bottom of the game.

The European version of Mario Kart I had worked just fine, but the US one seemed to stall after loading. Analogue suggested I give that cart a good clean, which I did, several times, but I never got it to work despite it working instantly on my GBA. It’s clear that there’s no reason it shouldn’t work, and a company rep confirmed their copy works their end, but such are the quirks of very old cartridges, perhaps there’s just something off with the pins on that one copy that doesn’t sit right on the Pocket. As for Mickey? Analogue says that’s to do with how that particular game was programmed and there’s already a fix coming in new firmware.

The only other thing that didn’t work was a very unofficial “108 games in one” multicart. That also seemed to at least open but then just hung. This also worked in original hardware, but again… it’s hard to know if it’s just a physical quirk (pins aligning etc) or something else.

James Trew / Engadget

What did work was the Game Boy Camera. It’s always surprising to me that cartridges that relied on watch batteries for saves would still work today, but both the camera and every other game I had with a cell in it seemed to still be going strong with saves intact. Either way, the Game Boy camera is a delight on the Pocket, that backlight really helps. It remains pretty awful on vintage hardware. Analogue also tells me that in the forthcoming erosion v1.1 firmware update, you’ll be able to save your Game Boy Camera photos directly to the Pocket’s SD card. This is actually very cool indeed given that, right now, extracting images from it is kinda a pain in the butt and involves either getting hacky or spending out on something like a ROM dumping cart.

For anything other than the Game Boys, you’ll need a separate $30 adapter to play. Right now the only one available is the aforementioned Game Gear one. I won’t lie, with a game inside it does look a little inelegant, with the cart popping right over the top of the Pocket. I was only able to test the two games on it, and one is the weirdly-cropped Mickey Mouse, but it was still playable and just as much fun (and infuriating) as I remembered the first time around. The fact you can’t jump on top of and ride those tree stumps still doesn’t sit right with me all these years later.

Of course, three generations of Game Boy plus the Game Gear already opens up a pretty substantial library but once the adapters for the Atari Lynx, the Neo Geo Pocket and the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 arrive there’s a whole lot of fun to be had with this one tiny console. Notably, the last system in that list is technically a home console and not a handheld. So there’s more than just portable gaming here. The TurboExpress just happened to take the same game cards as the home-based PC Engine. Such is the curious world of retro gaming.

Analogue OS

I already mentioned the basics of the Pocket’s native operating system. Right now, it’s mostly limited to playing cartridges and some high-level system tweaks. You’ll find some video and audio options and a few system-specific settings (like playing GBC games in GBA mode). Right now, even save states are barely supported. The version of the OS I tested has a quick-and-dirty save/load state option and that’s it. Analogue claims, however, that version 1.1 “will allow you to do everything imaginable with save states.”

James Trew / Engadget

The more intriguing feature that’s currently unavailable is “Library.” On its website, the company describes Analogue OS as “purpose-built for exploring and celebrating all of video game history.” It claims to offer the option to install the artwork for every single game it could play, full save states, game “playlists” and more.

That “more” includes the ability to develop custom FPGA “cores” so you can, within limits, turn the Pocket into other retro systems, although there are plenty of caveats and also, a high level of skill in this area is involved. A skill I definitely do not have. Fortunately, there’s a strong community around Analogue and its open source rival MiSTer. Both pull from the same family of FPGA chips so the likelihood of cool stuff coming further down the line is very high.

Though it’s not clear how playlists or the game library will work, given that you have to have the cartridge inserted into the Pocket to play a game, any software shortcut for that seems a little redundant, at least for now – I’m interested to see how it’s actually implemented. Where this will really come into its own, I suspect, is in making the Pocket experience more holistic and complete. Having access to information and data about the entire world of retro gaming in your hands along with the ability to share playlists and game progress will definitely add a robust layer to the platform. Either way, for now there really does seem to be a lot of exciting new features coming, yet sadly we can’t test them until that next firmware update gets released.

The Dock and other accessories

While the Pocket is all about reviving the handheld magic and all its portability, Analogue made a dock that adds a few important features. Most obviously, it allows you to play your favorite retro games on the biggest screen in the house over HDMI. I won’t lie, it wasn’t quite the seamless experience I was expecting. First, I needed to update the firmware. That’s normal given this was an early test unit, but I still had a few occasions where I had to do things in a certain order for it to take.

Once I had it working though, it’s pretty straightforward. The first thing you’ll notice is how pixelated things are. No fault of the Pocket’s obviously. This is just what happens when you upscale a game made for a 2.5-inch display and run in on a 55-inch modern TV. It’s still perfectly playable though and adds a nice alternative playing option.

James Trew / Engadget

There are some other important benefits to the dock. Not only can you add USB controllers as mentioned, you can also connect Bluetooth and 2.4g controllers. This opens up the possibility of four players where GB Studio titles developed for third-party FPGA cores support it. Given there are only two USB ports on the dock, you’ll need two wireless controllers as well to achieve this. Though it appears you could use four Bluetooth ones at the same time (but support for 2.4g controllers tops out at two).

Right now, you’ll either need a USB controller with a long cable or one of the officially supported 8Bitdo wireless controllers (Pro 2, M30 and the Arcade Stick). PS4 and Switch Pro controllers will also work. More options will be supported in that all important 1.1 update (SN30 Pro, PCE and so on).

That said, I was able to pair an SN30 controller today and it worked just fine. I also had success with a very old, very generic Xbox controller, so it seems support is there, perhaps they are just ironing out some kinks.

One final thing I should note is that when playing via the Dock, most of the display modes become inactive and you’re shuttled onto what appears to be the Analogue preset by default. Analogue’s home consoles to date have come with extensive options for filtering, resizing, adding faux scanlines and the like when playing on a modern TV, so it would be good to see a similar suite of options come to the Dock.

Multiplayer

There’s an unsung benefit to imitating a system at the resistor level via FPGA – you can connect the Pocket to original Game Boys for multiplayer fun. This is no small thing. Modern software emulators allow for online multiplayer on many systems (usually with Netplay), but often this falls apart for handhelds. The need for a cable back in the day made it quite a lot harder to trick a game into thinking it’s connected to another “machine.” There are some workarounds, but they aren’t always so elegant or authentic (half the magic with handhelds is your own private screen).

With the Pocket, you can literally just plug it right into another Game Boy, if you have the right cable. The port on the Pocket matches that of the Game Boy Pocket (GBP) and onward. That’s to say, if you had a GBC and two copies of Tetris you can use the original Nintendo link cable and it should work. If you don’t happen to have the original cable you can buy Pocket’s own do-it-all link cable ($16). The only two models that aren’t instantly compatible are the DMG and the Micro.

I tested out the following scenarios using Analogue’s own cable: Pocket GBC and Pocket to GBA. All worked perfectly. Even GBA games that support Single Pak two player (only one copy of the game needed) work. Mario Kart Super Circuit is one such title and the experience is just like the old days – just a little bit of waiting for the game to setup and you’re off to the proverbial races. Two player Tetris was as fun as it ever was and I might just have to buy another one of these things as you can, of course, also just connect two Analogue Pockets together, too.

James Trew / Engadget

Nanoloop

It’s beyond the scope of this review to give a full breakdown of what Nanoloop is, but if you’ve ever seen (or heard) music made/performed on a Game Boy, this humble app is likely running the show (or LSDJ, but they are both conceptually similar).

A version of Nanoloop is built right into the Pocket’s OS and it’s not just a nice add-on feature. This is evidenced by Analogue selling no less than four different cables (420 each) that allow you to connect Nanoloop on the Pocket to external MIDI hardware, Desktop music MIDI software, other Pockets and hardware with audio sync (such as Korg’s line of Volcas or Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators).

I won’t lie, if you’re not familiar with music sequencing, the learning curve here is steep. Add into that the limited sonic capabilities of the Game Boy and it’s hard to eke something musical out of the app. At least at first. Persevere, though, and you might just find that Nanoloop is something of a stealth addiction – certainly it’s a great value add that I really hope draws in more people to the platform. Given that you can pipe out the audio to headphones or a dedicated speaker via the headphone port it’s not just a time sink, you can be annoying your friends and neighbors in no time.

Wrap up

James Trew / Engadget

If you’ve got this far, then there’s a good chance that, like me, you’re pretty excited about the Pocket. For casuals, $220 to play games you might already own (or worse, have to navigate the second hand market to buy) might not quite be the value proposition you were looking for. And that’s fine, Pocket isn’t aimed at casuals. Pocket is for those that love, live and breathe retro gaming and who want the absolute best experience possible.

For handheld gaming, right now, Pocket is that best experience. Absolutely hands down, no doubt about it. Everything from start to finish is as authentic as it can be without being needlessly pedantic (like not having a backlight for DMG/GBC games etc.). The experience is further elevated by select modern concessions. The aforementioned light, the curated display presets and the smart features in the operating system to mention a few.

The fact that Analogue added in some complementary additions, such as that spare FPGA core and the tight support for GB Studio only serves to reassure me that the Pocket will just get better with time. There are, of course, a few areas for improvement. The shoulder buttons aren’t the best. Some of the display modes obscure on-screen messages at times. The adapters look a little goofy with a game in them. But these are details. And detail is, apparently, what Analogue does best. And perhaps the bigger detail to be concerned about is getting yourself a spot in line. Orders just reopened, but already demand has been so high that you likely won’t get one until 2023.

Square Enix is suspending the sales and delivery of Final Fantasy XIV Starter Edition and Complete Edition, because it's doing too well and the company can't keep up. The decision applies to both physical and digital versions of the game and will be enforced in the coming weeks. It's a gradual process that will take some time and will require coordination with retail partners — at the moment, both versions are still available in digital game stores — but the company says it will be coordinating with those partners "as swiftly as possible." 

FFXIV players have been struggling with lengthy queues ever since the Endwalker expansion came out in late November. They still have to wait hours to get into a server and be able to play the game. In its announcement, Square Enix explained it has to suspend FFXIV sales because the "dense concentration of play hours... far exceed [its] server capacity, especially during the peak times." The developer previously said that it's unable to add more Worlds or servers prior to Endwalker's release to ensure that it can accommodate all players due to the global semiconductor shortage.

FFXIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida issued an apology in early December for the ongoing issue and granted seven days of free game time to all players who own the full version of the game and have an active subscription. In his newest post, he said Square Enix is now giving those players an additional 14 days. 

In addition to halting FFXIV sales, the company will prioritize the logins of people with an active subscription going forward. It will no longer accept free trial subscriptions, and current free trial players won't be able to log in outside of late night and early morning hours anymore. 

The latest Indie World Showcase stream has wrapped up, and while there was unfortunately no word about Hollow Knight: Silksong, Nintendo has revealed more details about other games that are coming to Switch. Among them is OlliOlli World, which will be released on February 8th.

The latest OlliOlli game from Roll7 (which Take-Two recently bought) is a skateboarding platformer, in which you score points by pulling off tricks as you make your way through the world of Radlandia. Along with there are two asynchronous multiplayer modes. In Gnarvana League, you'll duke it out for the highest score and the more you play, the more cosmetic items you'll unlock for your character. In the Gnarvana Portal mode, you can take on levels that are procedurally generated with a few customizable factors in mind, such as style, difficulty and length. You can share creations with other players using a code, which will work across all platforms.

Roll7 and publisher Private Division have also announced two expansions for OlliOlli World. The Void Riders DLC, which will arrive in summer, will add more levels, characters, gameplay options, cosmetics and a new biome. The second expansion is set for next fall, and more details will be revealed later.

As well as Switch, OlliOlli World is coming to PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Pre-orders start today and the base version of the game costs $30. The Rad edition, which costs $45, includes both expansions. Owners of the base game will be able to buy the DLC separately. 

Other titles featured during the Indie World Showcase include Chicory: A Colorful Tale. The game, in which you paint the world to explore and solve puzzles, was a critical hit earlier this year. It’s available on Switch today. Also coming to the hybrid console today are the excellently named action platformer Dungeon Munchies, party game Let’s Play! Oink Games and stealth puzzle adventure Timelie, for which a demo will be available.

Don’t Starve Together and Omori are getting ported to Switch this spring. Among the new games that are setting sail for Switch are Sea of Stars, an RPG prequel to The Messenger (which will arrive in holiday 2022), puzzle title Aliisha – The Oblivion of Twin Goddesses (spring), Figment 2: Creed Valley (February, with a demo available today) and River City Girls 2 (summer).

Far too long ago (for our impatient souls), boutique console maker, Analogue, teased something exciting. A retro handheld that mimicked multiple classic systems, including: All the Game Boys, the Sega Game Gear, the Neo Geo Pocket and the Atari Lynx. Oh and more recently announced: the TurboExpress, too. In other good news, Analogue also just announced that orders for the Pocket will open again on December 14th (tomorrow). The slightly less good news is that at $220, it'll cost $20 more than originally planned, but you can blame the virus for that and its impact on supply chains.

Finally, it’s here and it’s… still just as exciting. So much so that the short time I've had with the Pocket isn't enough to give it the deep dive review it deserves. You have to remember, this thing not only plays old games from original cartridges. It does so using a party trick called field-programmable gate arrays (or FPGA). All you need to know is that FPGAs effectively mimic old consoles at the hardware level. When you plug in a game, it thinks it’s in an original Game Boy (or whichever system for the relevant adapter you might be using). Couple that with a display custom-designed to replicate vintage screens, quirks and all, and this has all the ingredients to be the most authentic retro handheld you can find. Our early testing with Game Boy (original) and Game Boy Advance games indicates this really is one of the most authentic experiences you can find.

Pretty much the moment you pick this thing up you know you’re in for a treat. If the original Game Boy had been released today with a Scandinavian design, this is what it would look like. The clean lines and monochrome aesthetic tell you this is all about the game; there are no garish colors of cliche nods to the '90s here. Just one dash of color on the left-hand side for the power button and that’s as flashy as things get.

The general layout broadly matches the first-gen and Game Boy color, with the screen up top and controls underneath. Though there are four thumb buttons instead of two as you’ll be able to create games for this yourself either with GB Studio or via the spare FPGA core Analogue added just for developers. There are shoulder buttons, too, as per the Game Boy advance.

Fortunately, the display is thoroughly modern and not like the squinty, if much loved, one from back in 1989. It’s also handily 10 times the resolution on both axes so it can serve up pixel-perfect renditions of your favorite original Game Boy titles. The way it reproduces original Game Boy games is quite remarkable.

Turn the Pocket on and the minimalist interface leads you straight to the good stuff: Playing games.

I won’t lie, firing up Tetris for the first time and changing the Pockets display mode to the original green-and-black game boy mode was quite the dash of nostalgia. I’ve played Game Boy games on several “modern” handhelds and none of them looked like this. Even the pixel grid of the original is here, the motion blur (if you want it), the sound. Everything felt just as it did all those years ago.

The same goes for Game Boy Advance games. If you ever owned the first model of GBA, you’ll (painfully) remember that it still didn’t have a lit screen. The Pocket does, but everything else matches, including a preset for that slight washed-out look that comes with just colors on a non-illuminated LCD. You can, of course, choose a more modern display mode if you like, but purists are going to love the attention to detail here.

The authenticity doesn’t stop at the fidelity of the games. The “link” port on the Pocket happens to be the same as the one found on the Game Boy Color and onwards. That means if you have the original hardware (or another Pocket) you can play with friends just like you would have back in the proverbial day. I do have the original hardware, and we’re testing those features right now which you’ll see in our full review.

In terms of compatibility, so far the only glitch we've had is with a very unofficial Game Boy Advance multicart, everything else has worked a charm — including fund stuff like the Game Boy Camera. The same goes for Game Gear titles, which is the only other platform we can try right now.

There’s so much more to cover here we kinda can’t wait to show you it all. There’s the dock accessory for playing on a TV with real controllers, there’s the aforementioned music-making app, there’s Analogue’s own operating system which hides more than a few perks and then there are the adapters for all the other consoles.

For now, we’re excited to say that the Pocket appears to deliver on its key promises. The hardware feels fantastic and we keep going back for more Tetris even when it's way past our bedtime. You’ll just have to wait a few more days for our comprehensive review.

Sony has acquired Seattle-based developer Valkyrie Entertainment. Financial terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed. Founded in 2002, it’s best known for providing co-development services to other game studios. In the past, Valkyrie has worked with Sony, Microsoft and Riot to help on titles like God of War, Halo Infinite and Valorant. Before today’s announcement, it was working on God of War: Ragnarok with Sony’s Santa Monica Studio.

The acquisition was announced by Herman Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios. “Valkyrie’s diverse capabilities will be welcomed by every team at PlayStation Studios as we continue to focus on delivering extraordinary gaming experiences,” he said in a statement.

For Sony, the deal caps off a year full of studio purchases. In the last 12 months, the company has added Housemarque, Nixxes Software, Firesprite, Bluepoint Games and now Valkyrie Entertainment to its first-party lineup for a total of 17 studios under its banner. Sony used to be a lot more methodical when it came to its talent acquisitions. Between 2010 and 2020, it only added two studios: Sucker Punch Productions and Insomniac Games. If there’s a reason for the change in pace, it likely has at least something to do with Microsoft’s $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media in 2020. 

The Epic Games vs. Apple trials brought to light how Microsoft tried to conjure up solutions on how to make Xbox games available from the App Store. Apple revised its guidelines last year so that companies like Microsoft and Google can make their games available on iOS. That said, they can only do so by releasing each game as an app that users can download. Microsoft previously said that forcing users to download hundreds of game apps is "a bad experience," but it would've reportedly done so if Apple had agreed to its proposal. 

According to private emails seen by The Verge, the Xbox head of business development Lori Wright laid out a proposal for Apple, which would allow Microsoft to put individual game apps on the iOS store without taking up all of a user's storage space. Wright asked Apple to allow Microsoft to put its streaming tech inside the Gaming Pass app alone. That would give the company a way to make the game apps themselves around 30 MB in size instead of the 150 MB that they would be if its streaming tech was incorporated into each of them. 

Instead of using the device's processing power, the games would stream out of remote servers powered by Xbox One and Xbox Series X processors. Wright also apparently offered to make Xbox-exclusives available for iOS users in an effort to convince Apple. "This would be an incredibly exciting opportunity for iOS users to get access to these exclusive AAA titles in addition to the Game Pass games," she wrote in an email. 

Microsoft told The Verge that Apple rejected its solution and wanted the company to incorporate its streaming tech into every game application. As for Apple, it told the publication that Microsoft's proposal didn't adhere to its App Store Review Guidelines, "specifically the requirement to use in-app purchase to unlock additional features or functionality within an app." Microsoft denied that in-app purchases factored into Apple's rejection.

In the end, Microsoft eventually shifted its development focus and gave iOS users access to xCloud via Safari. Xbox Cloud Gaming CVP Kareem Choudhry told The Verge, however, that the company "will continue to look for viable resolutions that [will] allow [its games] into the App Store."

Microsoft has rebranded one of its game subscription services. Xbox Game Pass for PC is now just PC Game Pass. 

The move could help to avoid some confusion, since Xbox Game Pass is a separate plan with a different library of games. It should also be clearer that games on the PC plan aren't necessarily playable on consoles.

Xbox Game Pass includes more than 100 console games, with Xbox Game Studios titles joining on release day. PC Game Pass has its own selection of games, including first-party titles and access to EA Play.

Meanwhile, Game Pass Ultimate offers the best of both worlds. It includes PC and console games, Xbox Live Gold (which console gamers need for multiplayer titles that aren't free-to-play), EA Play access and cloud gaming. 

The PC Game Pass logo still includes an Xbox icon, though. That makes the connection to Xbox and Microsoft clear, but some folks might still call it "Xbox PC Game Pass." C'est la vie.

In addition, Microsoft revealed a few more games are coming to PC Game Pass on their release day: Sniper Elite 5, Pigeon Simulator, the gorgeous-looking samurai side-scroller Trek to Yomi and an unannounced Hugecalf Studios game.

On the heels of Denis Villeneuve's Dune, a new 4X strategy game set in Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi universe is coming to Steam Early Access next year. Shiro Games, the studio behind real-time strategy game Northgard, is on development duties. Like Civilization or almost any other 4X game, you'll choose one faction to lead. Naturally, you can pick House Atreides or House Harkonnen, though there will be other two factions to choose from as well. It's then up to you to lead them to victory on Arrakis.  

There hasn't been a new Dune game since 2001's Emperor: Battle for Dune, which was one of the last projects legendary real-time strategy developer Westwood Studios worked on before EA shut it down in 2003. Dune also has a special place in the RTS genre. Alongside Blizzard's Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Westwood's Dune II helped establish many of the of tenets the genre. 

After a dearth of games, Star Trek fans have something to look forward to in 2022. Sometime in the spring, ViacomCBS will release Star Trek: Resurgence, a new third-person adventure game from Dramatic Labs, a studio made up of former Telltale Games developers, including individuals who worked on The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead.

Set after the events of The Next Generation, Resurgence will feature two playable lead characters: First Officer Jara Rydek and Crewperson Carter Diaz. In a setup that sounds like classic Star Trek in the best possible way, it’s up to them to unravel a mystery involving two alien races that are ready to go to war with another. Dramatic Labs said Resurgence will also feature appearances from “returning” characters. It also noted its building the game in the Unreal Engine, which hopefully means the game won’t have the jank Telltale’s games were known for in the studio’s later years.

We’ll have to see how Resurgence turns out, but based on the talent involved, Star Trek fans can at least be cautiously optimistic. That’s not something that’s been true in recent years. Outside of Bridge Crew, there haven’t been many great Star Trek games since the early 2000s when titles like Bridge Commander and Elite Force did the universe justice.

Star Trek: Resurgence will arrive in spring 2022 on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows. On PC, it will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store.