I’m not one to buy mice very often. Maybe once every 2-3 years, just like keyboards. I already had the G502 Lightspeed, but what prompted me to spend $160 on a simple upgrade? Well, it’s worth it to me, but anyone who is seeking a high-end gaming mouse should look no further.
The mouse retains the signature G502 ergonomics and look. The X Plus means the mouse is a bit heavier at 114 grams over the original’s 104 grams, has better button switches, and has a removable sniper button that can be disabled this time around. Best of all, the battery life has doubled with RGB off, clocking in at 130 hours and around 40 with RGB on. The scroll wheel has also been updated. The RGB lights are now across the palm of the mouse rather than just the Logitech G logo. It’s a fantastic update and well worth the money, in my opinion.
This may seem small compared to the original Lightspeed mouse, but it feels better, and it’s the little things that matter here. The weight helps quite a bit, the buttons feel more clicky and less mushy, and the RGB effects are awesome. While the battery life has doubled, the RGB lights are very bright, so turning them down to 50% can net you upwards of 50 hours easily. If you have the Power Play mat, you don’t need to worry about charging ever again, but that’s another $120, and most may not care for that. Who plays for 50 hours straight?
The addition and update to USB-C are really nice as well. You can use any USB-C cable, as there is no weird proprietary shape for the port this time around. The software lets you customize the RGB effects, change power settings, set macros, or change what the extra buttons do. It’s nothing special, but the Logitech G Hub is nice and clean and simple to use.
The G502 series has been my favorite mouse over the last 5 years, and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. With a Power Play mat, I can foresee this being the perfect wireless mouse setup. At $160, it’s high-end, but well worth the price if you want great RGB effects, good battery life, and probably the best mouse sensor on the market right now. I don’t know who is crazy enough to have a 25,000 DPI setting on their mouse, but it’s there. I only go as high as maybe 4,000. The addition of USB-C puts this mouse into 2023 and beyond. I can’t recommend this one enough.
The case that the Steam Deck ships in is fine on its own. The fact that a console ship in a protective case that’s used as the packing material in the box is revolutionary and should be done more. Sadly, the case for the highest-end Steam Deck is the only one that’s really great. Even so, there’s no storage inside the case, and as time has moved on and we’re one year into the Deck’s life many accessories have come out and you need more storage. Jsaux has come to the rescue with a larger case that has more room.
The case feels similar to the standard Deck case. It’s made of a canvas-type material and feels great on the inside. There’s a fold-out piece that stores SD cards and has a molded inlay just like the original case. Everything is the same there. What makes this case magical is that this molded layer flips out and reveals the bottom of the case that can be filled with a charger, cable, dock or anything else you want. The hinge of the flip-out layer has elastic along with the edge of the zipper. This allows the case to expand when large items are put in the bottom and zipped up with ease.
I was also to put the Jsaux dock, cleaning cloth, Anker charger, and 10′ USB-C cable and still had room inside. It all zipped up easily and didn’t put much stress on the zipper. There’s a nice rubberized handle to carry it around with and the grey color is nice too. The outer shell is also made of a tough foam so which will protect it from falls and drops so there’s no need to worry there.
Overall, the new case is fantastic and a must-have for those who have extra accessories for the Deck. Even if you just want your charger more protected and not on the underside exposed like on the original case this would be fine as well. Just know that this makes the case very bulky and heavy. It’s massive and may not even fit into most small bags because of this, but it is sturdy and protects the Deck nicely.
Keyboards aren’t something I buy very often. Good keyboards are really expensive and are even more personal than mice. The weight of the board itself, the looks, keycaps, switches, layout, and everything can get very complicated for some. I tend to go for high-end gaming keyboards and usually wait 2-3 years before purchasing a new one. Wireless keyboards have kind of been terrible recently especially gaming keyboards with RGB lighting. I’ve always been fine with wired keyboards as they always stay put, but they do need cable management and their cables can sometimes be very thick. A positive side of wired keyboards is USB pass-throughs which would drain a wireless keyboard.
I cut the cord on mice 15 years ago. The technology for responsive mice has been here for a very long time. This is my first wireless gaming keyboard and I was very skeptical at first. There are three key types available. I chose clicky as I have heavy hands and like the sound of bright clicks. There is also a tenkeyless version available as well. When taking the keyboard out of the box I have to say that this is the thinnest keyboard I’ve ever seen. It’s so sleek and low profile. The brushed aluminum is also a nice touch. Despite the thinness, it’s surprisingly weighty. It also sports feet to raise the back up higher.
I was sad to see the plug is USB mini and not USB-C. It comes with a wireless dongle and a USB cable for charging. You will notice how close the keys are compared to other keyboards. The caps are low profile so they are similar to some laptop keys, but the switches are nothing like that. Logitech is using unpopular GL switches here so there are almost no third-party keycaps available on the market. I’m not sure if Logitech did that on purpose or if it was just bad judgment. The typing feel on this keyboard is very nice and I can rest my hands on the home row without the keys pressing just from the weight of my fingers resting.
I’m not the biggest fan of the other keys as they are soft rubber and not solid buttons. I’m glad there are dedicated media keys here and a volume wheel and the texture of the buttons is kind of velvety. It’s a bit odd. At least there is a bit of an indentation in each key so you know if you are on one. There are four profile keys, wireless selection, a game mode button, and a brightness button. There is a battery indicator light at the top. It lets you know when your battery is below or above 15%. You can also press a key combination to change between RGB patterns that are in the internal memory. You technically don’t even need Logitech G Hub software.
The software itself is used for setting macros, changing power settings, creating shortcuts, and changing the lighting. The keyboard allows for animations as well if you want to get technical and fancy. You can also see how much power you’re consuming based off of current settings. The battery can last about 30 hours with full RGB brightness. I tend to reduce mine to around 70% and I get nearly 40 hours. With RGB off you can easily get over 100 hours of battery life according to the software.
Overall, the G915 Lightspeed is a fantastic keyboard. The slim profile, brushed metal, and fantastic clicky GL keys feel really nice. I wish the extra buttons were more tactile and not a squishy velvety rubber, but at least they’re there. There is also no palm rest which is surprising for the premium price you are paying and it’s not USB-C. I’m impressed with the battery life quite a bit and overall it’s just an incredibly solid keyboard and is a delight to type if you like clicky keys.
Microsoft isn’t someone to mess with when it comes to controllers. Sure, the original Duke is lauded as one of the worst controllers ever made, and it has its fans, but the Xbox S controller really changed things up. Not to mention their analog stick orientation which is copied to this day by even Nintendo. The Xbox controller made built-in headset plugs a thing too. The Xbox 360 controller was considered the best controller ever made at the time. The ergonomics were fantastic and the later improved rotating D-Pad was a huge plus. The Xbox One controller only made things better with bumper button rumble, and just overall improved ergonomics and build quality. Microsoft messes the least amount with their controllers. They just like making it feel good and work. They also have a battery fetish that a lot of people don’t care for.
Fast forward to today and we have Microsoft’s next-generation controller. It’s probably the least changed compared to other companies, but it continues its design DNA. The ergonomics are slightly tweaked still, the built quality feels even better, and they took the idea of the rotating D-pad and the D-pad from their Elite controllers and made it standard. Xbox has the best D-pad out of all three companies. The bowl-shaped D-pad works so well with fighting games as it feels almost like an arcade stick. It’s very clicky and detents in the right spots. You can roll your thumb around for those quarter-circle moves with ease.
The trigger texture is also improved and feels very bumpy and gritty. The haptic feedback hasn’t changed either, but I guess that’s okay. It’s a stark contrast to Sony’s fantastic DuelSense controller. There isn’t much tech packed into this controller either. It’s probably the most basic controller available right now, but many gamers prefer that. You still get a headset input at the bottom and that’s about it. This feels like the Xbox One 1.5 update rather than a next-gen controller. There is an added share button in the center with Microsoft taking notes from Sony from the DualShock 4 controller. This makes sense with streaming and social media has blown up since the Xbox One debuted. The controller does have a USB-C port just like the DualSense so I applaud Microsoft for not making me get out the USB micro.
You still get your Bluetooth functionality, and they are still using AA batteries. Some praise this as that means this controller will always work and you won’t need to get a battery in a few years and tear it apart. Some hate it saying it’s not very modern of them to do. You can get rechargeable AA which I have been doing since the Xbox 360 era so there’s no need to whine.
Overall, the Xbox Series X|S controller is the least changed, but it still works. Microsoft is the poster child for “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” USB-C is nice with the added texture to the bumpers and triggers, but the biggest change is the D-pad. It just feels great. If you liked the Xbox controller up until now then you won’t be disappointed.
This is probably the most iconic and memorable handheld system for anyone over the age of 25 today. The Game Boy Advance was an unstoppable juggernaut of a system and one of the most anticipated in video game history. It sold like gangbusters, and Nintendo couldn’t keep up in the beginning. The first Nintendo handheld with a horizontal orientation and their first 16-bit handheld system that could create SNES-quality titles, and boy did it The Game Boy Advance has one of the most beloved and expansive handheld libraries out there. It’s also a good middle ground for being playable today without any hardware mods.
So, let’s address the elephant in the room. There’s still no backlight on the screen. This was largely criticized back in the day, and for a 21st-century handheld, it is mostly unacceptable. While the LCD is clear and crisp, you still need a bright light to see anything. Thankfully, many people still held onto their worm lights and got good at hiding under blankets at night by this point. Outside of that, I would say that’s the worst thing about the system.
When it came to power, the GBA delivered. It could recreate SNES-style 2D games and do rudimentary 3D games, which weren’t really seen until later in its life. The added shoulder buttons helped with the ergonomics and allowed deeper gameplay. We still didn’t get much I/O outside of the usual Link Cable, and the infrared was gone with this system. Overall, the system feels good in your hands. The slightly rounded back helps fill out your palms, and reaching around to the shoulder buttons makes the system sit well in your hands. It’s a great-feeling system, and many prefer it to other re-releases of the GBA.
In today’s age, the best thing you can do is upgrade the GBA to a modern LCD. It’s a drop-in mod and pretty easy to do, but there are so many mods for this system. Amplifier boards, USB-C upgrades, shells, buttons, silicone pads, lenses—you name it. Many people run shops dedicated to modded GBAs, and they can be quite beautiful. I have a nearly one-of-a-kind mod myself. The person who made mine no longer runs a shop and UV prints his own shells. Some people even add speed hacks via a hardware switch. It’s an amazing system to customize.
We all judge these older systems by their libraries, and the GBA is one of the best—some might say the best handheld library to date. While there was a lot of kiddie shovelware, there is something here from every genre, including first-person shooters. We’ve got Doom ports, many SNES ports, and games from many favorite franchises like Final Fantasy, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Pokemon, Mario, Prince of Persia, Tetris, Lord of the Rings, and many more. This was an era where many console games were better on the GBA because developers were forced to redo the game and think outside the box. Some terrible console games wound up having great GBA ports in the end. There’s something here for everyone. There are hundreds of games to choose from, and many are quite good.
Overall, the GBA is a fantastic and iconic piece of hardware. While the internals aren’t impressive today, having a portable SNES was something everyone dreamed of. The GBA library is what most people remember over the hardware anyway. Many people’s childhoods are wrapped around this system. While I never had the original model growing up (my parents couldn’t afford one), I still saw people with them and envied them for it. I love my GBA today and play it at least once a week.
The Game Gear was a system that was revolutionary at the time and really tried to do some brave stuff compared to the Game Boy. First off, it was competing with the Game Boy. Sega really thought they could deliver a different system to appeal to their already hardcore audience, and they kind of did. Sega succeeded in making a good handheld system, but with many flaws, some of which the Game Boy didn’t have to deal with.
First off, the handheld’s orientation is what handhelds will eventually end up becoming. The horizontal length that Atari set as standard with the Lynx, Sega took off with, and it just became the standard. Sega’s ‘tude branding leaked out onto the Game Gear, and their leading IPs pushed the system. Sonic the Hedgehog was great on the handheld, as were other Sega DNA-style games. Sonic Pinball,Streets of Rage, Ax Battler, The Lion King, and many others This felt like a Sega handheld. Sadly, it was 8-bit and not 16-bit like its older brother. Despite coming out two years after the Game Boy, the only leading technology they had was a backlit screen, and barely at that.
The Game Gear screen is notoriously bad. While it is backlit, it’s also blurry and just doesn’t look that great. You still need to be in a dimly lit room, but you can at least see the screen. Props to Sega for beating out Nintendo on that front. Because of this, the system chewed through six AA batteries. Yeah, I’m not joking. The battery life was maybe 4 hours, all because of this screen. The internal hardware was the same as the Sega Master System, so it was competing for that 8-bit handheld crown. It’s nothing technically impressive outside of that screen, and those with bigger hands will appreciate the chonkiness of this beast.
In today’s world, the Game Gear is a much harder system to use and play as it has leaky capacitors, which usually destroy the sound. You will find many Game Gears with low volume issues, and many people will just chuck these. You can also install a McWill LCD mod, but these aren’t drop-ins and are much more expensive than Game Boy drop-in LCDs. There is a new mod by Retrosix that uses a new screen PCB with a drop-in LCD, but it still isn’t a drop solution. However, just like any older handheld, this is a must-have mod at minimum for playing a Game Gear today.
We judge older systems based on their libraries, and the Game Gear has a surprisingly robust library for those who like the Sega DNA from the 90s. Games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, Paperboy, The Simpsons, Ax Battler, Gunstar Heroes, Puyo Puyo, Streets of Rage, Wonder Boy, Castle of Illusion, Ristar, and many more may sound familiar to you. If you love the Master System or Genesis, then this handheld is a must-have for you. If you don’t care for those systems, you aren’t going to find much difference here in handheld form. Sega really marketed the Game Gear as a portable console experience rather than a separate handheld experience like Nintendo did. The games sound and play really well, and any fan of Sega couldn’t ask for anything better in portable form.
With that said, the system has a lot of faults, including full-on hardware faults that we suffer from today. Unlike the Game Boys, you can still enjoy those today without any mods, but the Game Gear really needs a screen upgrade. That CFL tube in the system drains batteries, and you actually improve battery life with a modern upgrade. There were various accessories, such as battery packs and TV tuners, for the system, but most of those are obsolete these days and won’t work. There are also two different models of the Game Gear. The original model from Sega and then a budget release from Majesco. These models have rounder front shells and make modding the system more difficult.
The GameBoy Color wasn’t something I had growing up. My parents couldn’t afford one. I had the DMB GameBoy, but that was it until the GBA SP came out. I did play some of my classmates’ GBC in school here and there and did experience Pokemon Blue a few times, but my GBC experience has mostly been as an adult, and mostly in the last few years. See, the GBA SP could play GameBoy games, but I always felt they were “old and dumb” being 8-bit titles. I had very little money growing up, and I didn’t want to waste it on older titles. I only owned a single GBC game, and it was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, which I never finished.
Fast forward over a decade later, and I appreciate the system a lot more. While I have a modded GBC with a modern backlit LCD, RGB buttons, and USB-C charging, I still remember what the system was like as stock. One thing that kept me from wanting one was the lack of a backlight. The GameBoy Lite had a backlight; why couldn’t the GBC? I understand it was a budget system as the hardware inside was dirt cheap to produce at this point, but come on, Nintendo! You still needed a flashlight or had to play with a flashlight under the blankets. This makes playing today nearly impossible and unbearable with all of the modern LCD display technologies we have. Some like this and get a more nostalgic feeling from it, but I didn’t play my original DMB Gameboy much because of this when I got it for my 7th birthday back in 1997.
Not much else is improved over the original model. The Gameboy Pocket had already been released at this point, but it did feel lighter and was slimmer than the original model. However, the screen was smaller at 2.3″ compared to the DMG’s 2.6″, but it was in color, so there was a trade-off. It did have more RAM, which was needed for the wider color palette, and the sound was slightly improved, but we still had the same 10-year-old processor. We got square wave channels, which made the system less “bleepy” than the original model, but not by much. The only other I/O was an infrared receiver, which could be used to beam digital data across to other consoles. The battery life was also cut by 1/3 due to the color screen.
Some might say there are more drawbacks and improvements, but just the color alone was incredible. Many later DMB games were released with GBC compatibility, and later, hundreds of GBC-only games were released. The system still feels great to play to this day. It’s clearly the best Gameboy to have, as it can play original games with a slightly better screen. However, if you own both, the slightly larger screen for the original games might be preferred. It’s all down to personal taste, to be honest. We mostly judge these older systems on their libraries, and the Gameboy and GBC libraries are some of the best. Classics like Tetris, Wario Land II, Pokemon, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario Land, and many more are engrained in millions of people’s minds. As for the original hardware, the only setback is that screen. I wish it had more improvements, and it feels like it could have had more, but at this point, the GBA was probably deep in R&D and only a few years away.
If you get one today, I suggest getting an LCD upgrade at the bare minimum. USB-C and any other mods are optional and not really needed because the system has great battery life already. You can do the mod yourself or buy one custom-built from many shops online. There are so many aftermarket shells, buttons, silicone pads, and even sound mods for these handhelds that have blown up over the last 5 years. It will get to a point where you will have trouble finding someone with an unmodded Gameboy.
My one and only experience with AtGames products wasn’t good. I have the Sega Ultimate Arcade Portable, and it isn’t a very good product. I was very hesitant about anything else from this company, but they recently expanded into large cabinet-style products and seem to have a good reputation for those. I have always wanted at least one pinball table in my house. However, older electro-mechanical tables cost thousands, sometimes over $10,000, and can cost hundreds of dollars to fix if they break. Later digital tables are cheaper, but they are still not cheap to fix. AtGames has given us two solutions. There is this table plus a larger, full-size table for about double the price. Digital pinball tables exist in arcades. They are cheaper to fix and mostly consist of a large display, a single board, and mostly empty housing. The cost of these has come down enough to bring them into the home, and AtGames is one of the best at doing that.
I do want to note that I bought my table on sale for $100 off, but I will be judging the entire experience based on the full $449.99 retail price. I also want to note that these tables don’t ship quickly. It took nearly two weeks for mine to ship, so keep that in mind when ordering these as well. Don’t expect them on a deadline or order them early if this is a gift idea. The unboxing experience was pretty straightforward. These systems were, of course, built and manufactured during a global chip shortage and a pandemic, so the packaging is minimalistic and there’s not much to it. The Pinball Micro does have a back display board as well as the main display, just like its bigger brother. These come separately in the box, but it’s just these two pieces. You unscrew the back panel of the back display and plug it into the main display, as well as insert two wooden pegs (the kind used when building furniture) and two large bolts that attach it to the main display. There are cutouts for a VIBS board, which I will explain later.
You get a full AC adapter with a barrel jack, and once you plug that in, you flip the switch. I do want to give AtGames credit for creating a physical switch in the back rather than a soft power-on. This allows you to keep the table tucked away somewhere without having to disconnect the system from the wall every time you want to shut it off, like with a Raspberry Pi system. Surprisingly, there is a full OS here with an interface and everything you would see on a game console. You have settings, a library, online tabs, and a store. I do want to talk about the software experience first before getting into the hardware. I have quite a few issues with the software side.
The Software/OS
Upon start-up, you are presented with a blank Legends Pinball logo. The startup time is quite long. Maybe a good 30 seconds. Before that, you actually get a black screen for about 10–15 seconds, and at first, I thought something was wrong with my unit. The logo should come up immediately, so don’t think this But after turning it on and off a few times, I decided to wait a bit, and it was fine. The first thing you need to do is create a Pinball Legends account, which is separate from the account you made on the store (if you ordered it from their site), which was really confusing. My login info for the store wasn’t working. Once you do that, you can save and upload high scores to the leaderboards, redeem codes, and play the Arcade games. We will get to those later. Once I had everything logged in, the system software was updated, and I was able to fiddle with settings.
There are quite a few settings here, and the amount surprised me. I expected a basic set of options for just a few things. You can do things like change the background wallpaper and music, which is really awesome. You can load them off of a USB drive in the back, and they save to the internal 8GB storage, but it’s just one at a time. You can use various arcade OSes, such as CoinOpsX, that allow you to play MAME roms that use a vertical display. There is a network test kit built in as well. This is great for linking up pinball machines for multiplayer or for using arcade mode. You can pair wireless Bluetooth controllers, such as the PS5 or Xbox One. If you are having hardware issues, there is a health check screen, and you can upload a system log to a USB device, Enable an attract mode, and even live stream straight from the machine itself. The options are very robust for a device like this.
I do not like how slow the software is to navigate. After start-up, the controls won’t respond for a few seconds, and it takes a few seconds to load every screen. A few times, the entire system just froze on me, and I had to reboot it. Thankfully, these are fixes that can be made with software updates. As of this writing, the OS is not very well optimized.
The Tables
So, how do the tables actually play? amazing well, and the effect is very convincing. With games running at 60 fps and the screen tilted inside, you get the effect of this being very real. The graphics are good enough to be convincing as well, especially with the deluxe tables. The 80 built-in tables include a lot of duplicate variations, but they are very unique tables. There are three different types of tables you can come across. A classic table brings you back to the 1960s with pure electromechanical play. Bells, bumpers, and very few crazy obstacles with no music or sound effects. You also only get two flippers. The retro-style tables are reimagined using 90s technology. You get your rails, different play fields, flashing lights, and the classic pinball experience that most of us grew up with. Then you have deluxe tables, which are reimagined for digital pinball. These will be familiar to those who have played PinballFX or other digital pinball games for the last 15 years. Moving characters, music, clouds, rain effects, etc. These are the most impressive and look the best.
I like the various times of day you can select as well. Morning, afternoon, and nighttime. This simulates the outside ambiance of being in a pinball arcade room at different times of the day. The backboard display is sadly only really impressed with the remastered and updated tables. The retro and classic tables have the images stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it looks pretty bad, but those displays on the real tables were vertical. You can adjust the screen to display the image correctly, which is a nice option. The speakers are just below this display, and this thing gets incredibly loud but not distorted. The sound is deep, with some great bass, and quite booming. I had to keep the volume below 50 to have a normal sound experience. Anything above that, and you might disturb everyone in the house. Which can be a good thing!
You can buy table packs for $25 apiece. You might think that’s outrageous, but these are tables built for this machine, so it justifies the price somewhat. Packs are usually themed, such as the Natural History, Dr. Suess, and Taito packs. I do hate the way you have to buy these. The included AppstoreX is completely useless as you can’t buy tables on the actual table itself. You need to buy them on the website and then enter a redemption code on the table itself. There isn’t even a QR code you can scan! You also have to buy a connection online to play any of these tables. Yes, there is DRM on this machine, which really stinks. The built-in tables can be played offline, but not your purchased packs. These are stored on the internal storage and are usually a few hundred megabytes a piece, so I don’t understand why there isn’t some sort of DRM token installed on the machine.
The Controls
Like most pre-built arcade games, the buttons are pretty bad. They bind, squeak, and are inconsistent during rapid presses. I had to replace mine with Ultimarc GoldLeaf buttons, and that improved my experience quite a bit, but most people won’t want to take apart their machine and risk ripping off connectors on the buttons. It is worth the upgrade. I didn’t bother replacing the forward tilt and rewind buttons, as you don’t use those to play the actual game. The home and menu buttons are also different and work just fine for what they are. You get two flipper buttons, two side tilt buttons, and a front tilt button. The game does have force feedback, and it works great here. You feel the ball rolling down the table, and it shudders and jumps, which really adds to the experience. I didn’t feel there was feedback lag compared to what was happening on-screen.
There is also a D-pad at the bottom of the display, and my God, is this an awful D-pad? It’s mushy and skips and jumps around on the menu, and there’s no way to replace it at the moment. Sadly, it’s needed for navigation and entering text on the keyboard. You might want to rig up a wired USB controller with a mount on the back to avoid using this awful thing.
The Arcade
Okay, I will never understand why this is included. You can’t even argue that it increases the value of the system. The arcade games are mostly horizontal, so they are very small on the display, and they are streamed onto the device. That’s right. This is basically cloud gaming on this thing, and you need a controller to play these The pinball micro has no option for a separate control panel like the larger version does. The streaming is awful and sluggish, and there’s serious lag. Even being right next to my router and having a gigabit connection, even with Ethernet, it just didn’t work right. The visuals degrade rapidly, like a video stream buffering on a slow connection. You also have to pay a subscription fee for this lousy experience, and the games are so limited. You mostly get Taito, Activision, and Data East games on here. They aren’t updated very often, and you will most likely get bored with them after an afternoon. I can’t fathom paying a monthly fee for a service that rarely adds any games. You can also play these online with other people, but it’s not like these machines are PlayStations with millions in the home. You’re most likely stuck with local multiplayer. This is where the CoinOpsX OS comes in, so you can play your own games from the USB drive, and that’s the way to go.
Conclusion
Overall, the AtGames Legends Pinball Micro is a fantastic and versatile machine. The digital pinball is really good, with 60FPS gameplay and virtually no lag. This makes the games look real if you’re standing up and looking down at the machine correctly. The option to use a VIBS board and connect to a PC to play other digital pinball games on the machine is a great option as well. There are a lot of multiplayer, diagnostic, and optional OS features. You really get your money’s worth, and I praise AtGames for not locking this machine out. The system does have its issues, such as the horrible arcade game streaming, the rarely updated service, downloadable tables having always-online DRM, and the OS being a bit slow and unresponsive, but these are things that can be fixed.
I don’t like how low-quality the buttons are, as these are really important things, and the D-pad is horrendous and can’t be changed out. Thankfully, the machine has great build quality and is rock solid, with a beautiful display. I wish the back display screen was a bit larger, but it works for what it is. The speakers and audio quality are amazing, with loud volumes and no distortion. The force feedback works well, and the main display just looks so good. I also want to mention that you can optionally put legs on this thing, so it can be a stand-up machine too.
I can’t believe we’re finally here. 20 years ago, it was a science-fiction dream of what the PS5 would be. Before the PS3 was announced in 2005, I remember seeing futuristic mock-ups of the system; some have circulated the net and become iconic images, but I never imagined how ordinary the PS5 would be. Let’s face it. As of the last generation cycle, consoles are just lower-end PCs. With the change to 64-bit architecture and no more custom chips, these systems are just that. What has changed is a more seamless UI, a revolutionary new controller, and a funky physical design.
One factor that has played a huge part in this console cycle that we have never faced before is a worldwide pandemic. Every person on the planet has been affected, and every gamer knows why it’s so hard to get a new console. It took me two years of waiting to finally see one in a store. In a small town in Oregon while visiting my mother, that’s what it took. I walked into a Wal-Mart and just looked in the PlayStation case, and I saw six! I couldn’t believe it. Now, it’s common for the first year of a console launch to be hard to find. Especially during the first holiday season that they are out. I struggled to find a Wii for nearly a year. However, two full years and possibly going on three is unheard of. Thanks to scalpers and the worldwide chip shortage, most people still don’t have one.
With that out of the way, the unboxing experience has also been affected. Sony had to cut down on cardboard use and packaging due to the cardboard shortage, so this is the most bare-bones unboxing of a system that I have ever done. What is nice is that everything can be recycled as there is no polystyrene being used for packaging. It’s all 100% paper. You get a manual, a power and HDMI cable, the controller, and a USB-C cable, and that’s it. Pretty bog standard.
The PS5 itself has a really interesting physical design. It was made fun of during its announcement for looking like a router. It kind of does. It’s the first PlayStation console to be designed to sit upright and vertically. It has large fins on the sides and a rounded middle part that’s all black. I personally think it looks awesome and different. While not a sleek box like previous systems, it also does not have a George Foreman grill look like the PS3. I’m sorry, but I never liked the PS3 design. Size-wise, it’s a far cry from the Slim PS2. Sony’s smallest home console is the size of a DVD case. This thing is massive. About as big as a small form-factor PC tower. It’s also hard to find room for this thing. You need a big shelf, as it will take up a lot of space. The system comes with a stand for the first time ever, and this allows you to orient the system vertically or horizontally and keep the system flat. The stand even has a neat design that holds the screw inside.
I have the newest 1200 series model that came out in August 2022. This version is half a pound lighter due to the shrinkage of the heatsink. It also runs 10 degrees cooler and uses 10% less power. When it comes to fan noise, the system is quite loud, but that’s not surprising. This thing is packing the equivalent of an AMD RX 5700 XT; however, in terms of raw performance, it’s closer to an Nvidia RTX 2070. The PS5 has a custom AMD Oberon GPU and uses an APU architecture to keep the form factor down. While the RTX 2070 isn’t the most powerful in the line of 2xxx GPUs, it’s miles better than the PS4 and even the PS4 Pro. To compare, the base PS4 is equivalent to an AMD Radeon 7850 or Nvidia GTX 750ti. The PS4 Pro is equivalent to an AMD RX 580 or an Nvidia GTX 1060. While it’s not the performance boost I was hoping for, we are far beyond the point of the generational leaps we were getting with older consoles. We’ve hit a kind of plateau at this point, and people won’t be as impressed. If you’ve played on a high-end PC in the last five years, you know what to expect already. I do miss the magic of the graphical leaps that consoles used to have back in the day. For example, the biggest leap was into HD gaming. The difference between the PS2 and PS3 is insane, but that kind of gap has shortened a lot since then.
Now, one thing consoles do is push current hardware to its limits. Developers have a way of doing this that makes these games look better than anything a PC can do. This is due to the challenge of a single piece of hardware and the need to push it to its limits. PC games have sliders, so graphical fidelity is on a scale. While the PS5’s job is to push native 4K gaming, this is still not a reality. The PS5 still runs games in checkerboard 4K or native 4K at 30FPS. Games that push the system to its limits won’t hit 4K 60. A new addition to the PS5 is light ray tracing, but honestly, it’s not very noticeable. It took the 3xxx–4xxx series of Nvidia GPUs for ray-tracing not to truly tank frames, and that’s still with DLSS (AI scaling) enabled. The PS5 doesn’t have AI scaling to help boost frames. A few games look mighty impressive rendered at 4K, but the cost of performance just isn’t worth it. We’re still not there yet. We are also still stuck with cross-generational games. The PS5 won’t truly be impressive until PS4 support is dropped. The rare exception is a game like The Last of Us Part 1, which isn’t for PS4. This was an issue during the last console transition. PS3/PS4 games looked dated. We needed to drop PS4 support from the start, and I’m not just saying that because I have a PS5 now. I thought that even before. I wanted to have a slew of PS5 exclusives that really pushed the system when I finally got one, and what we have isn’t that.
With the performance stuff out of the way, I do want to mention that the PS5 now has an M.2 SSD. It bypassed the 2.5″ SSDs that consoles had missed out on already. The PS4 shipped with a laptop platter drive. These are prone to failure, but M.2 SSDs offer performance and a small form factor, but at a high cost. It’s one of the reasons why the PS5 costs so much. The PS5’s main weapon is its custom I/O speeds. It can read at 5.5 GB/s with uncompressed data. These speeds are insane, and no SSD even matches them yet. The future proof of the PS5 is typical Sony language. They future-proof all of their systems in some way. While we don’t see any games that take advantage of these storage speeds just yet, a few games have insanely fast loading times. The PCIe 4.0 interface is barely available on the newest PC motherboards.
The PS5’s USB ports are also up-to-date. A single 10 GB/s USB-C port on the front will be used for PSVR2, as well as two 3.1 Type-A ports on the rear and a single 3.0 Type-A port on the front. Sadly, there is no DisplayPort on the back, but HDMI 2.1 is present for VRR (variable refresh rate); however, this tech is only available on TVs from 2020 onward. With a USB-C port, you can bet that the new DualSense (RIP DualShock) controller uses USB-C. The overall hardware design of the PS5 is nice, and I personally think it’s fun and less sterile than the Xbox Series X.
Software-wise, it’s pretty much the PS4, but more integrated. It’s snappier and prettier with rounded edges on everything, and it just feels updated. The PlayStation Store is now integrated into the main home menu. It’s no longer an app. Everything feels more consolidated and minimalistic, and that’s a good thing. The Xbox still can’t figure out what kind of UI it wants, and Sony has had the best UI since the PS3 of any system. Most of the settings from the PS4 are here, but you now get more tech. 3D audio separation, VRR, ALLM, and better HDR support, but no themes! For the first time since the PS3 themes are now gone. This has a lot to do with the better integration of everything, and you can see why there are no themes now. The quick menu that pops up when pressing the home button is sleeker and customizable with more options. Everything just feels more streamlined and simpler and feels less “in the way”.
How do the games play and look, you ask? Well, like higher-end PC games. Console exclusives such as Returnal, Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Mile Morales, and God of War: Ragnorok all look insanely good. However, as previously mentioned, we’re still plagued with cross-gen graphics options. Either really pretty and slow or really fast and okay-looking. 4K 30FPS or 1800p-ish and 60FPS You also lose some graphical fidelity, such as ray-tracing, draw distance, lighting effects, etc. For slower-paced games, I opt for 4K 60. Faster games should be played at 60 FPS. However, games like Horizon: Forbidden West are an exception to playing at 4K 30.
One of my favorite features of the PS5 is the new DualSense controller. Not only are vibrations more detailed and minute with things like being able to feel speech through the controller and various changes to footsteps, but so are the triggers. My god, the triggers They have tension now. Pulling a trigger to aim a weapon has more resistance than using the right trigger to shoot, which has various states of resistance from feeling like recoil. It’s insanely cool and actually adds to the gaming experience. I actually want to play games with trigger support on PS5 over PC now just for this feature. It’s not bumper vibration like the Xbox One introduced. It’s something completely different and new in terms of player interactivity. Feeling the tension in a bow, the resistance of pedals in a car This is how you advance the controls. It’s probably the biggest controller innovation since the Wii remote.
In the end, the PS5 is a fantastic new system that has faced some serious odds. With a radically new physical design, a snappy and streamlined UI, support for all of the modern cutting-edge display technology, and a revolutionary new controller, the PS5 is the best system out there in terms of an overall worthwhile package. While the games need to move away from cross-gen support to really utilize the PS5 to its full potential, slow sales and unavailability are preventing this. However, with patience, I think the PS5 can really be something amazing in the next few years.
USB-C docks are fairly common and can be used with the Deck. However, the unique handheld console form factor of the Deck makes it awkward to prop it up on something. If you use an external monitor this isn’t a problem, but I want to tinker around in desktop mode on the Deck’s screen itself which is just fine. The dock also keeps the Deck up off the table and just makes it look nicer in your setup.
The dock itself is built with high-quality aluminum. It’s solid and has a bit of weight. My biggest fear was the cable that goes into the Deck itself. Thankfully is fairly thick and the point where it goes into the dock itself feels solid. It would take a massive tug to pull it out. I would have preferred a braided cable here. The end that goes into the Deck is bent at a 90-degree angle and is very solid and won’t go anywhere.
The ports themselves are tight as well and not loose. The three USB-A 3.0 ports are a nice touch. You can have a keyboard, mouse, and external drive. Any combo of USB accessories will not be limited with this dock. The HDMI port is a nice touch since it’s full size. I also like the addition of an ethernet port. It works well and has access and status lights. I would have preferred the ethernet port on the rear as well, but you can only fit so much back there. I also would have liked an additional USB-C port that may be on the opposite side of the ethernet port. Missed opportunities, but what’s here is fine.
The docking part itself has rubber pads to keep the Deck from moving around and is molded perfectly the to bottom. The actual dock itself has rubber pads on the bottom so a simple bump or shake won’t knock your Deck over. I was even able to hold the Deck while it was docked to use the controls for testing things and it wasn’t an issue. The dock is also light enough and small enough to fit into a bag. It’s a high-quality product and I also didn’t have issues displaying 60hz at 4K, but why you would want to do this with the Deck is beyond me. It can’t game in 4K. Maybe in desktop mode with YouTube videos? The option is there at least.
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Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.