Nothing completed this month, which is much more like me to be honest.
Games played during March
Bravely Default 2 – Switch
This is pretty much all I’ve played aside from arcade stuff on my cab. Think I’m at around 90 hours in and closing on the ‘ending’, but I have very much been enjoying myself. Already wondering where it’s going to land when I revise my Top 5 JRPG’s list.
This is the Bravely Default 2 bundle* I got from Amazon
Arcade Games
Have spent a decent amount of time playing on the arcade machine though, mostly Black Tiger and Darius Gaiden, playing along with the Ten Pence Arcade podcast. As well as a lot of Robotron 2084, Smash TV and Robotron X as research for the latest episode of Maximum Power Up, Twin Stick Shooters.
Also rediscovered the game Bubbles in conversation during the recording of the above show, so I’ve been playing that too.
March Pick-ups
NBA2K Playgrounds 2 – PS4
I’ve had my eye on this for a while, mostly out of curiosity. It popped up on sale cheap for a physical copy on PS4. I grabbed two copies and sent one to a friend, and we then found time one evening to start playing a season together online. It’s great fun, really captures the 2v2 mayhem of classic NBA Jam but with more modern functionality. Looking forward to playing it some more.
Pick it up here*, also on Xbox and Switch
Arcade Cabinet upgrades – Raspberry Pi4
Well that didn’t take long did it. Talked myself into spending a bit more money on the cabinet and replaced the Raspberry Pi3b+ with the Pi4 4GB* model. I was very tempted to get the 8GB but everything I read suggested that would be overkill for what I needed. A good chance I’d have been fine with the 2GB version but happy to stick with the 4GB.
I did have to pick up a different HDMI and power cable which were pretty straight forward, but the two main purchases were the Pi itself and the Flarc case* for it, which also helps keep it cool quietly. I picked all the parts up from The Pi Hut for around £85. There are decent bundles* available too but there wasn’t one quite suitable for what I wanted.
I had to get a new build of the RetroPie software suitable for the Pi4, but was minimal effort setting it up using the same usb flash drive with roms I’d configured for the Pi3b+. It was all worthwhile as it has meant I could add Dreamcast fighting and shmup games to the cabinet, as well as expanding how many MAME games it’s capable of playing.
You’ll also notice in the image at the top of the page I upgraded the cabinet with a bar table*. Having somewhere to rest my drink has made all the difference, very pleased with this one for the money and goes nicely with the bar stools I picked up previously.
If you haven’t already read it, I wrote about the cabinet build in my MAME Arcade Cabinet post (and also part 2).
*As usual, these links are affiliate ones, which may earn me a small commission if you buy something.