Not long ago Jim Ryan, now former President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, retired from the company after 30 years. During Ryan’s retirement party, he was apparently gifted a PS5 that was completely done up in the fashion of the original PlayStation. A lot of folks were wondering whether this particular model might be released to the public since it seemed pretty over the top to do only one instance of it. Now, we have our answer.

The upside of indie development of products is you get really niche and cool products like this case which has physical buttons to use with emulators and make your phone act kind of like a GameBoy. The downside is these products are such small runs that they only target a very small set of phones for compatibility.

In my personal time I like to try old games which were released when I was growing up but never got to play. This week I came across Warzone 2100, which I'd never heard of before, but was apparently an RTS (Real Time Strategy) waaaay back on the original PlayStation (PS1). In checking the wikipedia page I came to find out it's also open source and available to play on any modern computer.

Given that researchers found last year that 87% of video games created were not represented in the current market it is remarkable to find a PS1 era release simply available to download and play without any emulation or ethical concerns.

Arranger caught my eye a few months ago when I saw a gameplay trailer and I knew it was going to be something worth playing. Consider this: classic tile based movement, but all the tiles ahead and behind you move along with you. It released today and I am already loving it (being 3.5hrs into playing it). The puzzle dynamics are excellent and some of them evoke a nostalgic sense for puzzles from Chip's Challenge which I grew up playing.

It's available on Steam, Epic, Playstation, and Switch right now if you want to check it out.

Apparently Capcom posted a simple statement and photo on X (formerly Twitter) last week noting the 25th anniversary of the original Dino Crisis game being released. Without a doubt, Dino Crisis is one of my all-time favorite games and it represents, to me, an excellent example of linear story telling with interesting gameplay, puzzles, and ambience. In particular, I love the dynamic camera work that appears in the game and the fully 3D environments that separated it from the similar Resident Evil games at the time.

While I will be expecting nothing from this I do share the hope it'll be revived some day. I also hope and recommend you, dear reader, look it up and either play it (on your original consoles or through emulation) or watch a full playthrough to see what it's like.