Analogue Pocket brought all my old Game Boy games back to life
Gaming
Speaker 1: My childhood was surrounded with game boy games. I don't really have a game boy that works anymore, but that's where the analog pocket could be. Your ticket back to your cartridge past The analog pocket. Is this handheld that's been anticip for a while. It's finally here. Well sort of if you preordered it for a lot of people, it's still really hard to get, and it's a handheld that is a dedicated retro [00:00:30] super device.
Speaker 1: So this is specifically if you were the type of person who has collected a lot of old cartridges and doesn't know what to do with them and feels nostalgic. Analog has other hardware that they're well known for recreations of the super NS and the Genesis. And they're really beautiful. And they work with H DMI. The analog pocket is kind of the same idea. This is a bright 3.5 inch L C D display that's high resolution. It [00:01:00] charges with the USBC. It connects with your TV with a doc over H DM. I, and it plays a bunch of games, but specifically GameBoy games, game, boy, game, boy, color game, boy advance. And with adapters Sega game gear, Neo G pocket, and at tardy lengths, it doesn't play DS games, just letting you know who isn't this for. Well, I mean, if you're a handheld gaming person and there are a lot of gaming handhelds out there, including the Nintendo switch, [00:01:30] this may not be that system for you because it's not internet connected.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna download games. Uh, it's not going to update software. It's not a repository for lots of subscription gaming type thing. I mean, if you get an intended switch, there are a ton of great games. And that's the thing is the switch light is $200, same territory as this, but it's apples and oranges completely because if you're buying one of these, you are looking for something that can play old games and can play them really, really well. What's interesting about the analog pocket [00:02:00] is that all of their game playing hard wear is built into the chips. They're not about emulators and it's also not about playing ROMs. So there's a whole other market out there that if you're going to be getting in a retro is about downloading. Um, this is gray area of downloading ROMs for games. People do it or raspberry pie, and other things like that.
Speaker 1: This doesn't do that. This is not a rom game system. This only plays cartridge games. Although you could design games that play [00:02:30] on the pocket, analog supports a G GB studio software program that allows you to create retro games and then download them in a pocket form pocket file that can load onto a micro SD card and then play on these all. So if you really want to go down the rabbit hole of retro tech, there is a video game music software program called nano loop. It's really a sequencer that plays all sorts of, uh, retro tones and other things it's mid compatible. And you could use this as a musical instrument. [00:03:00] I launched Anou on this and had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Okay. It wasn't my childhood, but it was high school that I played a lot of GameBoy games. I'm older, and I still have a bunch of them. Not all of them. I have alleyway in my ever quirk the tomato, which was in acclaim game, which is a, a puzzle. These games play really well on the analog pocket. When I plugged them in, they all played and they look [00:03:30] fantastic. The display is super crisp and has a variety of extra modes. I mean, if you want to customize this, you can not only in terms of where the screen is placed, but in terms of the color palette, the analog pocket has retro palettes that are matched to different variants of the hardware. You can bring up the green and black game. Boy, you can bring up what the game boy pocket had. Some of the back lighting effects, there's even a red L E D version that is mimicking the round pinball [00:04:00] matrix display.
Speaker 1: That kind of looks like a virtual boy. There's also analogs own, you know, sort of perfect version of the black and white monochromatic mode that looks really crisp and sharp. I really appreciate those extra touches and the hardware feels really good. The display is great. The sounds good. The but are pretty good too. I still love the original game boy buttons, but the DPAD and these four buttons are fine. The shoulder buttons here, which work with game boy, advanced games are a little [00:04:30] cramped feeling, but they remind me of the game boy, advanced SP that would fold up.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind too, that yeah, you could play GameBoy games on a Nintendo DS or three DS and download some of those games, but Nintendo doesn't make the DS or the three DS anymore. You kind of have to shop around and you might have one and they haven't put those libraries onto the switch. So you have this unique catalog of games that it's compatible with that you may have fun with. I found [00:05:00] plugging in one to the time was a kind of a refreshing remove from reality. I found like I wasn't worried about updates and I didn't feel tempted by other games, but I forgot how simple some of these games are. And in some ways that's nice kind of head clearing. Other times I felt like, you know, maybe I had enough of it. So it turns out I don't just have, have a lot of game boy games.
Speaker 1: I have a whole bunch of game gear games and a Sega game gear that I used to play a lot too. The Sega game [00:05:30] gear cartridges play on the analog pocket with a separately sold adapter. It plugs into the back. And then you plug your game gear games in, uh, it's a little bit fragile feeling. Uh, so I took air plugging it in, but so far all the cartridges I have work mostly. Sometimes I had to blow the dust out a bit, no surprise. Other times, a couple of games like, um, Joe Montana football looked like they were performing a little weirdly. And I wasn't sure if castle of illusion with [00:06:00] Mickey mouse was cutting off some of the borders, but a lot of the games looked a lot CRISPR than they do on the game gear screen, which somehow surprisingly still works.
Speaker 1: Now I love that I can tap into these. I do feel at some point I'm gonna get tired of it. And I'm probably going to go back to my Nintendo switch and my game consoles and VR and iPad and all that other stuff. [00:06:30] I'm drowning in gaming content. So it's not like I have a real need or even time to get back to all of these games, but it's really fun to revisit. And if you're a collector and you love the idea of getting these games, I don't think there is a nicer, dedicated piece of hardware right now that can play classic game boy games like the analog pocket does. I mean, it's a real love letter to the hardware, whether you'll be able to get one that is the quest, but I wouldn't really feel a lot [00:07:00] of FOMO or regret about this if you're any other type of a gamer, because I think you're much better off going with some other option. It is cool though, that you could plug in your game boy games and play them on a TV with wireless controllers. You could even connect another game boy or analog pocket to it with a game boy link cable, because it has the port for that. It's a really complete and interesting idea.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect out of the analog pocket. I thought maybe I'd be getting [00:07:30] the best game boy experience ever. And having played just about every game, boy that has ever been made because I owned them all. This is the, the best GameBoy I think that's ever been made. I mean, the display is spectacular. Uh, I love that it's got a rechargeable battery that lasts about what did they say about six to 10 hours. It seems to be lasting pretty well so far. And with updates, this could get a lot more interesting. There is going to be this whole analog OS. That's going to catalog [00:08:00] all of the games that are out there. Now. It's not going to be a way to download those games, but it'll be able to identify apparently which cartridge you have and maybe what variant of the cartridge and could be a doorway to sharing game.
Speaker 1: Save states. The thing that's just great is that it will eventually have the ability to save games right now. There are no game save, uh, capabilities on this, on the version I tested except for a beta software update that allows you to do a quick save state, um, when putting it to sleep. But [00:08:30] the fact that you could save any game at any point is really exciting too, because some of these games didn't have any battery save backup type things. I mean, some game still have saved states on them, uh, like my Zelda game and, and ones like that and infusion, but a lot of them do not. So it would be great to get that, uh, to get that feature added in.
Speaker 1: But the thing is what I carry this around. You know, the analog [00:09:00] pocket is a little big. It's a little heavy. Um, it's not actually all that pocketable. Uh, it's a little bit of the size of a nindo 3d XL when closed. And the display is a bit raised. Although it's gorilla glass, I'm worried about scratching it. There are glass protectors, and there are hard cases that analog makes for this. But I feel like I want to display this or dock it or coddle it as opposed to take it around with me. And I don't think I carry that many cartridges. [00:09:30] I think the analog pocket is a system that I'd want to keep around to play the games I already, but it wouldn't replace the handhelds that I already use. Anyway, that's my thought in the analog pocket at the end of 2021. I'm Scott. Thanks for watching. And if you have comments, leave him down below.
