My Slow Road to Recovery

 Let's face it, I've never been a fast & frequent blogger! LOL

Just Bumping Along...

OK, for the few of you who do read my blog you know I am inconsistent in my posting at the best of times. But since the stroke I've been even quieter than 'normal' (whatever that is)!

This is due to the challenges that have been going on with my recovery. I'm not wanting to make a big issue about this, after all mine were small in comparison to some who have suffered from far more major stroke evets than I did (I just had several 'small' strokes')...

BUT, your moral does take a big knock back, particularly when you find that that certain things that used to be easy and now difficult or problematic.

The rehabilitation over the past year has gone well. But, my day to day schedule has been impacted - hence, hobbies are even more painfully slow in producing blog worth results!

Happy Days Are Here Again!

OK, pity party over - there's LOTS of good news to concentrate on instead. For example, the model railway collecting is chugging alone nicely and I am experimenting with getting back into model making via this outlet. 

In the meantime, I'm concentration on the collecting of the track I will need for my first layout design...

Model railways seem appropriate to my 'old geezer' status as it's a very tranquil and pedestrian pace hobby where you can do as little model making as you like, or lots. (There are plenty of pre-made models or partially made kits you can make if you want to enjoy the experience of adding models or 'making' models without the intensive scratch building.)

SO, I'm a very happy guy on this count...

Rehabilitating My Video Gaming!

Another hobby that has taken a slight knock over the past year is my computer gaming. While once I was an avid - and some might say obsessive - gamer my issues with coordination and the slight weakness on my right side has been a bit of a issue as I primarily used a mouse for playing.

With the encouragement of the local Stroke Team and their Physio I have been doing daily exercises to strengthen my right hand (hence the daily sketching) and my ability to use the mouse.

But it's knocked my confidence a wee bit and playing 'twitcher' games (fast shooters for example) which demand a quick reflexive coordination have suffered and I have had to switch, first of all, to more relaxed 'casual' game type.

BUT, good news again, I happened to be reading some stuff about 'Retro' gaming and a new(ish) gadget called  the EVERCADE system.

The Evercade EXP - as that's the version of their products that I plumped for - is*specifically* a retro-game machine. No high power innards in order to play the latest games - like the Switch or the Steamdeck - it's targeted wholly at those who are seeking the nostalgia of older 8 bit and 16 bit arcade, consoles and home computer games.

I cannot emphasis that enough. It's the Nissan Micra of handheld gaming machines and should NOT be compared to the Switch and or the Steamdeck. They are NOT in the same class nor have the same scope.

What you do get is an affordable - and I think in the tech world we can say that £100 is 'affordable' - one trick pony, that trick being the *easy* accessibility to retro games.

New Trick to an Old Idea?

Now retro gaming in nothing new, so why am I jumping aboard now?

Well there are a couple of reasons. First of all, I have been retro-curious fro a number of years, in fact I have tried out several emulators in order to sample old ZX Spectrum and Atari ST games (which is the platforms I started with in the late 1980s and early 90s). BUT, I always found the available emulators too much of a faff, in particular the sourcing of rom images for the game was a bit of a pain.

It was something of a shambolic experience best left to hard core retro fans, who I suspect to this day sorta liked the kinda exclusivity and lack of easy access to this type of gaming. I'm sure it made some of them feel 'leet'. (I noted some of the criticism of the Evercade system and I sensed a bit of snobbery about where it was coming from).

Above: Retro gaming isn't all about well-known 'classics' that - graphically - stand the
test of time due to 'low-fi' aesthetics (like pixel art) being popular. Hard core retro
gamers are just as keen to play very early examples of the genre like these Atari games.

You see, the Evercade system does NOT present itself as the ultimate emulation machine. It just targets a particular part of the market for retro gaming, which is the 'no fuss' plug and play consumer. And that's me!

You just wack in a cart and the game plays - no searching dodgy web sites and downloading image files (that sometimes don't work), then doing another search to find the commensurate game manual. It's all packaged very smartly and looks the business. In fact the marketing for the whole cart, box and manual format that Evercade has been something of a surprise hit as it has hooked the collecting bug aspect of many nerdy folk and many Evercade fans seem ferociously intent at completing thier collection of sneakily numbered carts!

Well played Blaze (the makers of Evercade).

Is It As Good As You Thought It Would Be?

Nostalgia is a bit of a tricksy thing. You *think* you are gonna love all those things that yo remember loving when you were younger, but often times - given the chance to reexperience them - you are left sadly disappointed.

This is such a common complaint about retro gaming, playing old games after you have evolved your expectations in line with years of progressive development means that having a go at a 30 year old piece of coding can sometimes fail to live up to your expectations. Even if you have fond memories of many hours spent with a much loved title your memory of just how good it was can be tempered by the soft focus of time that has passed.

However, I found myself pleasantly surprised by *some* of the games in my introductory Evercade EXP pack. There were some well thought of classic titles, several of which I had spent long hours feeding coins to in the arcade or painstakingly loading via cassette or disk in the early 1990s.

To be honest, I - like a good number of other modern computer gamers - had become somewhat jaded and fatigued with the Triple-A behemoths from today's studios. So often, nowadays, we are let down by overhyped titles that are released unfinished and that always seem to have promised features missing on release.

By contrast there was a simple understatement to early video games that tended to make up for their lack of graphical sophistication with some rather ingenious gameplay. I'm not saying all old games were better than their modern counterparts, there were definitely a fair number of stinkers there as well and I'm NOT going to try and tell you that 'Horace Goes Skiing' is in any way better than 'GTA 5', that would be stupid. But, I think that our expectations were a lot lower back in the day so we weren't as disappointed as much as we get these days when a hugely hyped blockbuster game - which has been in development for years and cost millions to make - turns out to be a lemon. </rant> 😉

So my first hour or so of Evercade EXP play was a real breath of fresh air - a heady mix of nostalgia and excitement at playing old favourites plus fair bit of pleasurable discovery of old titles which I may have heard of but never played at the time.

This is one additional 'feature' of the Evercade, it gives me access to the games my console owning friends had (and used to bang on about) that I didn't have access to either in the arcades or on my home computer platforms. Gameboy, SEGA and SNES were something of forbidden fruit to me...But not now!

Is The Evercade Worth It?

As long as you go into this understanding the obvious limitations of 30-odd year old games there isn't much not to like about the Evercade systems, particularly because of the cost.

When you consider that the most talked about handhelds at the moment are anywhere between £150 (Switch) to £400 (Steamdeck) more expensive the £100 price tag of the Evercades looks very good value, though *again* it's not really a like for like comparison, I'm just saying.

Now hardcore emulation/retro gaming fans might say that you can do this form of gaming cheaper (and even free) by using other platforms, but as I have said - for the casual or occasional retro gamer - the Evercade offers a no-fuss option that is far more pick-upable.

Blaze have really done their market research about their form factor as the physical carts and the ideas of collections has turned out to be a real hit.

Above: Evercade have already established a very substantial library of retro gaming
cartridges covering the genres of arcade, console and now home computing
classics. Link to the Evercade Cartridge Library.

Yes, each cart does have it's lemons - depending on your preference - but which game in the selection on a cart is the lemon can really be a matter of preference. But at about £17 a pop for a cartridge - each with multiple games - doing a bit of research before you buy a particular cart can mean you really get great value. (I tend to watch cart reviews by the likes of CrazyBurger or Crow Evercade to get a good idea about which carts to buy and which to avoid).

One unexpected feature about some retro games is the very simplicity of them and the fact that you can pick them up just for a very quick blast if you have a wee bit of time to kill (or if your wife insists on watching one of 'her programs' on the big TV)! And I should add that the EXP handheld does have a 3.5 jack for headphones here! 

To be honest, if you want to retro game it's kinda hard to say what's not to like!

My opinion is that the Evercade is what it is, it fulfils a niche bit of gaming at not too high a cost or is too fiddly to just pick up when you what to scratch that retro itch. As you can tell by this point, I'm a fan and I have already made some headway in my cartridge collection:

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What I have:

- CAPCOM Collection [Built in on the EXP]

- [07] IREM (Comes with the EXP pack)

- [06] NAMCO vol. 2

- [27] Cathedra/Alwas Awakening

What's 'On The Way':

- [03] GAELCO Arcade 1

And on the 'Wish List'

- [02] NAMCO vol. 1

- [08] TOATPLAN

- [09] PIKO vol. 1

- [17] Indie Heroes vol. 1

- [22] Bitmap Bros.

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I'm slowly working my way through each cart - starting with the included CAPCOM collection which is preloaded on the EXP - and finding which are my favourites.

My favourites from the CAPCOM collection so far.... Ghosts N' Gouls, 1944 and Breath of Fire!

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