You know, on more than one occasion yesterday I thought "I really should remember to do my blog", and then I went and just… didn't do it. I don't really have a better excuse than that.

Well, I sort of do, I guess; yesterday was quite a busy day, what with an appointment in the morning, videos to record, edit and upload, articles to write and games to play. It's still not a good excuse, but it is a sort of excuse. So, well, apologies for that; you will get two posts today as suitable recompense, since you can't fudge the dates on Patreon to make it look like I actually posted this yesterday all along and you just didn't see it.

So what is there to update? Hmm. Well, the main thing is that I've already launched my new Atari A to Z series, delving into the 150 games that make up the Atari Flashback Classics collection on Switch. I'm just going through the games in the order they are presented on the game's menu, so that means all the arcade titles will be first, followed by the 2600 and 5200 games that comprise the bulk of the library.

There's a lot of reviews of Atari Flashback Classics that have mumbled and groaned about these games "not holding up" today… but one thing occurred to me yesterday while I was playing Sprint 2 on the toilet: these games are absolutely perfect for handheld play, making the Nintendo Switch an ideal platform for this collection.

I'm serious. Your average timed 2600 game lasts for a standard duration of two minutes and sixteen seconds — if you were wondering why such an odd number, it's because this amount of time is 2^13 frames at 60Hz, which the original American 2600 systems would have been operating at. This duration was calculated by Atari's boffins to be that "sweet spot" for arcade games where punters wouldn't get frustrated at their game being over too quickly, and equally people waiting in line wouldn't get fed up of waiting their turn. In the words of Joe Decuir, who played a key role in the development of the 2600, the Atari 8-bit computers and Commodore's Amiga, "2:16 is long enough to have fun without being exhausting. Sometimes there would be others waiting their turn to play. Plus, the Arcade operator would want more quarters… In the case of a home machine, it doesn't overtax a parent's patience. 'Mom, wait until I finish this game.'" Now you know.

But I digress. The short average duration of a 2600 game or early Atari arcade game makes it perfect for handheld play, because although the Switch does play host to plenty of long-duration, "big" games, sometimes you just want to pick up the system to play for a few minutes. Sometimes you don't want to play a shitty tablet game that bombards you with requests for microtransactions every level, or ads, or crap like that. Sometimes you just want two minutes and 16 seconds of pure game. And that's what you get.

On top of that, the delightfully big, chunky graphics of 2600 games mean that there's no squinting at the screen in handheld mode to understand what's going on. Everything (well, almost everything) is immediately understandable and clear, so long as you know how to play the game, so you can just get on with enjoying it.

Of course, some people will continue to be flat-out resistant to these games, believing them to be "too old" or whatever, but eh. I'm more than happy with this collection, and it's a particular delight having it on Switch ready for both solo play on the go and multiplayer tabletop action at a moment's notice.

I apologise in advance for the somewhat self-indulgent post ahead, but, well, you're reading my daily personal blog, so a certain amount of this is to be expected, surely!

I've become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned over the past few years with the one thing no-one tells you about "growing up": the fact that, over time, you will probably lose most of your friends, and the ones you do manage to maintain become impossible to get hold of or do anything with.

To be honest, it's hard not to take that personally sometimes, even though I know in many cases it's down to different people various having busy, demanding jobs or a family that demands their attention. I just get to feeling like sometimes it would be nice to have someone go out of their way to do something enjoyable with you rather than doing the same old thing day after day. I'm aware how selfish that might sound — but I'm not asking for favours or anything here; often it's just simple requests to socialise that get stonewalled.

I noted yesterday that I was hoping to get some local friends involved with recording some videos for Atari Flashback Classics on Switch. Earlier today I raised the possibility, with a detailed, enthusiastic explanation of what I was proposing and why. So far I've had no response from three out of the four, and one rather blunt rejection because it "doesn't interest them". Despite us having had successful and enjoyable gaming days together in the past.

This is frustrating. Yes, this is more of a "favour" than a simple request to hang out in that it will help me produce something, but it's still something that should be fun and enjoyable as well as an opportunity to socialise. To be outright rejected apparently without a great deal of consideration… frankly it kind of hurts a bit, although I do accept that the feelings of anxiety it causes may well be brought on at least slightly by the fact I forgot to take my anti-anxiety medication this morning.

You know something… interesting? Out of all the people I'd regard as "close" friends, very few of them support what I do on MoeGamer, on Atari A to Z or on Videopac Games, even where it is relevant to their interests. I'll often enthusiastically share something I've written or recorded with them and hear absolutely nothing back, whether as a direct response or as a comment on the article/video… and they don't do social media so they can't do something as simple as a share or a like that would help me out at minimal inconvenience to themselves. I've got to the point where I don't really want to share my stuff, the things I'm most proud of, to my closest friends because their apparent total lack of interest in it is rather demoralising. 

All this is a massive bummer, of course, particularly when it concerns a project where it would be really useful to have people nearby to collaborate with. But on the other hand, it also makes me even more grateful for those of you who are kind enough to be reading this — those of you who have supported me; those of you who do believe in and appreciate what I do; those of you who understand how important my hobbies and interests are to me, particularly as someone who suffers considerably from social anxiety and consequently finds a lot of "normal" activities a rather daunting prospect.

So thank you for that. And apologies for venting. I will remember to take my pills tomorrow and hopefully my brain will be churning a little less. Have a lovely Friday night.

It may sound strange, but one of my most anticipated new games that is currently winging its way to me is Atari Flashback Classics for Switch.

For the uninitiated, this is a compilation of 150 old Atari games, encompassing arcade releases, Atari 2600 games and, for the first time in a bundle like this, Atari 5200 games. I already own the first two volumes of Atari Flashback Classics on PS4, but having all of these games plus a bunch more readily available on Switch is something I'm very excited about. You can find out more about the package here on Atari's site.

Firstly, I'm simply excited about these games because I love revisiting ancient classics. The 2600 was just slightly before my time, so I always find it interesting to check out the games that led to the experiences I grew up with on the Atari 8-bit. The Atari 5200, meanwhile, was effectively a consolised version of the Atari 8-bit computer range (although not quite so much as the later XEGS, which literally was an Atari 8-bit computer designed to more closely resemble a console) and as such has a number of games that outright are games I grew up with. And it's always cool to see arcade-perfect ports of both classics and lesser-known titles.

Secondly, I'm excited to cover the package in an Atari A to Z series of videos alongside my 8-bit and ST episodes. Thus far I've seen relatively limited coverage of the package online, and the majority of it is surface-level "these games are old and don't hold up very well" criticism that doesn't appear to be making much of an effort to engage with them. Sure, some of those games don't hold up very well, but in those cases they weren't much good in the first place. (see: Basic Math) Meanwhile, there are a bunch of games that do hold up extremely well, particularly if you have the opportunity to play them with a friend.

This latter aspect may make the video production process a little more challenging, as for titles like Combat and company, it will be important to have someone alongside me playing along rather than simply playing the game solo. I will do my best to try and rope someone into helping out, however, and I think there's scope for a lot of fun to be had. Last time I hosted a "gaming day" for my local friends, some of the most popular games on the agenda were the Atari 2600 titles — particularly RealSports Soccer, which even the most vociferous football haters among us had a blast with thanks to its unusual and highly entertaining mechanics.

Sadly for my European readers, Atari Flashback Classics for Switch doesn't appear to be getting a release in our home territory — PQube, who distributed the previous bundles for Xbox One and PS4, haven't been approached by Atari this time around for whatever reason — so I've had to import a copy from the States. And the physical release seems to be oddly limited, too, so I had to source one from a seller on eBay rather than a regular retailer. Still, it's on the way now, and for those who don't mind going digital, apparently it's straightforward enough to set up a US eShop account, too.

Anyway. This should be with me sometime this month (hard to be precise with mail from overseas — though apparently the package is already in the UK, according to tracking) so please look forward to my videos on it… because I'm really looking forward to making them!

The more I play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the more I think there's actually a lot of interesting things to say about it that I haven't seen talked about all that much.

To put it another way, I know I said a few days ago that I probably wouldn't give it a Cover Game feature… but I'm starting to feel like I might. It's a significant and noteworthy game for a number of reasons, and I feel like I might want to talk about it in depth.

It's also a massive game, however, so it'll take me a while to get through it to a stage where I'd be happy to write about it in detail, so at present if I do go through with it at all, I think it'll be the third Cover Game feature of the year, falling roughly in the March period. In the meantime, I need to plough through the rest of the Arland games and I've pretty firmly decided that I want to cover 428: Shibuya Scramble as the second feature of the year.

It really is a fantastic time to be a fan of gaming. There are so many wonderful titles around to enjoy at the moment… but I have to say, having put off playing them for year after year for one reason or another, I am really enjoying the Atelier Arland games. I'm impressed that a series of games that are, by this point, nearly ten years old hold up so well today. Yes, there are aspects of them that might seem a little dated in places (and with Atelier Rorona having been remade after Totori and Meruru, the series finds itself in the curious position of having its first installment be probably the most mechanically refined) but that most certainly doesn't stop them from being very, very interesting and enjoyable games.

In fact, I find myself constantly surprised and delighted that we're in a period where games from so many different generations of hardware still feel fresh and relevant as more than just "retro curios"… and where we have easy access to most of these games without having to make significant financial outlays. It's been a continual joy to explore the PS2 library in particular; PS2 games make up the largest part of my collection by a significant margin, and there are loads of games on those shelves that I'd love to cover in detail. Also, for the most part, they're cheap as all hell; while there are a few more expensive outliers (Rule of Rose is still the most pricy and elusive) for the most part you generally won't have to pay more than £20 for a PS2 game at the absolute maximum; more often than not you'll be paying single-digit prices, with lesser known, obscure or extremely common titles often retailing for 50p.

If you find yourself ever getting frustrated about the more idiotic aspects of the modern games industry — lootboxes, season passes, excessive DLC, constant updates, design-by-committee — then it's worth remembering this. All these amazing games from past generations are still out there — and there are still a bunch of developers operating today with distinctly "old-school" sensibilities, too.

I'm delighted to be a gaming enthusiast in 2019. And I can't wait to share some more of that enthusiasm with you in the coming months.

You're supposed to make resolutions for the new year, but I haven't really done so for the past few years. No-one particularly takes them seriously and you only have yourself to blame if you break them, which isn't necessarily a good motivator.

Now, if you were to share those resolutions on the Internet, on the other hand, so people can keep you honest? Well then!

1. I will eat better.

I'm not sure if this is "cheating" or not because Andie and I are already technically doing this (although the Christmas-New Year period has been… variable) but… yes, in 2019, I will eat well, lose weight and do my best to sort that particular aspect of my life out. Because I know it's self-inflicted, but it still bothers me a lot. So while I'm feeling motivated to do something about it… I should do something about it.

2. I will exercise more.

These are proper cliches so far, huh? Well, I do want to get some more exercise because besides simply being overweight, I'm tired of feeling exhausted anytime I do anything vaguely physically strenuous. I don't think I'm going to join a gym or anything though, at least not immediately; I will likely do some combination of walking (which I enjoy) and perhaps making use of either Wii Fit U or the new Fitness Boxing for the Switch. I tried the demo of the latter the other day and it seems quite good.

3. I will avoid the unhealthy side of social media.

I've talked about this a bit in the past, but I need to make sure that I specifically avoid the aspect of social media that is just itching to start a fight over the most stupid stuff. If someone decides they want to be a dick? Mute, block, disengage. The tools are there to not have to deal with nonsense, and there has not been a single instance I can think of where engaging with someone being a twat has made me feel better.

4. Maintain my positivity.

One of my favourite things about MoeGamer and my other projects — and something that I feel distinguishes what I do from a lot of other content creators out there — is the fact that I make a specific effort to remain positive. I describe it as "finding the good" — looking for the redeeming features in even things that have had a poor critical reception. I'm yet to find anything completely irredeemable, and in fact more often than not I've found great enjoyment from things that have been declared "bad" by others.

I fully intend to unapologetically maintain my positive outlook, celebrating the games I've found worthy of highlighting on the site for one reason or another. You won't see a "WORST [X] GAMES EVER!!" on MoeGamer or my YouTube channel any time soon.

5. Do more music.

I finally got my piano tuned now the room it's in isn't freezing cold, so I need to make some time to play it more. Specifically, I need to make some time to practice things rather than just playing a few things every so often. Doubtless this blog will help keep me honest… I'll try and share some things every now and then!

6. Return to studying Japanese.

I need to get back into this. I'm going to try and use the textbooks I've acquired rather than rely on Memrise and Duolingo, because although those two services are good and I've learned a lot with them, they don't go into enough depth about grammar and the like. I want to have a good understanding of the language as a whole, not just memorise and recognise key phrases.

Well, I think that'll do for now. What are your resolutions for the coming year?

I was annoyed and upset yesterday. Today I'm feeling a bit better, because I had a fiddle around with the audio I recorded with Woody and it was by no means unsalvageable.

Okay, it's still kind of shit quality, but rather than sulking about it, I thought I'd just embrace what I did have, and the result was… well, go have a listen.

Anyway. That's that. Now it's the last day of 2018 and indeed the final hours of said day, so I believe it's obligatory in blogging to do some sort of "roundup" post contemplating what went on in the last year. So let's do that.

In no particular order, here are Things That Happened in 2018:

MoeGamer turned four years old.

I'm pleased with this. MoeGamer has been a passion project since I was unceremoniously given the boot from USgamer, and I'm delighted with what I've been able to build it into. 2018 has been its best year yet, and things are only going to get better from hereon. I'm happy with the site's core format (with a few minor tweaks, which I've already talked about previously) and I'm really looking forward to the games I'll be covering in the new year.

I got back into podcasting.

My friend Chris and I had been knocking around the idea of a podcast for a while, and 2018 was the year we finally went through with it. I used to really enjoy podcasting, but regrettably, most of the friends I used to podcast with seem to no longer think I exist or am worth talking to. (At least one of them has become a complete asshole, too, so I think I'm better off without him, frankly.) Look forward to more episodes of the show in the new year!

I held down a job.

I started 2017 in a rather unsteady employment situation. The freelance work I'd been relying on since leaving USgamer (and nearly having a nervous breakdown after working for the horrendous, horrendous company that is energy company SSE) had dried up, so I was in a bit of a desperate situation. Thankfully, I managed to find a company willing to take a chance on me… and I've been there ever since. Even better, they seem to think I'm doing a good job, which is nice. This is a huge load off my mind… although it does take time away from the things I really want to do, like MoeGamer, Videopac Games and Atari A to Z! Still, I can't complain too much…

I re-established contact with some old friends.

Woody, with whom I did the most recent podcast episode, is someone I knew at school, and someone whose friendship I have always truly valued. He's someone with whom I feel at ease and with whom I can be myself, and I think that probably comes across in the podcast despite the shitty audio. I hadn't kept in contact with Woody much for a few years — at least partly due to his desire to stay well away from social media! — but WhatsApp Messenger allowed me to pick up where we left off in our friendship… accompanied by fart and poo videos from our mutual friend Matt.

I played Dragon Quest for the first time.

I figured out a way to cover lengthy series over the long term with the "Delving Into" series, and played through both Dragon Quest IV and most of Dragon Quest V. I've kind of fallen off the wagon a bit with how much I tried to pack into the end of the year, but I'll be getting back to the Delving Into series in the new year, finishing off Dragon Quest V and moving on to the subsequent installments over time.

I had to confront and accept the fact that time passes and things change.

I don't want to go into too much detail here, but, well, let's just say as we all get older, we all have to deal with certain realities. People — friends, family, loved ones — who you'd taken for granted as being a constant presence in your life… there might come a reminder that you can't always rely on that forever. Thankfully, the "scares" we encountered in this regard seemed to… if not get completely "resolved", then things are certainly moving in a good direction. And in the meantime, there was one of the aforementioned Delving Into articles linked above that helped me process some of the things I was feeling at the time. I'll leave you to determine which one.

We lost a beloved friend.

Ruby's passing hurt me deeply and I'm still feeling the effects today. There's not a lot more I can say about this aside from the fact that I miss her every day… and her not being here any more makes the time I get to spend both with Meg (my cat) and Andie (my wife) all the more precious. We all have to deal with loss at some point in our lives… but you shouldn't forget about the people (and cats) who are still there for you.

I established some solid formats for my YouTube channel.

My viewer figures may be low, but I enjoy what I do. The combination of podcasting and themed Let's Plays is working well for me, and I intend to support that further with some "readings" of articles in the new year. I'm going to set aside Saturdays for video production purposes and try to prepare a bunch of stuff in advance. A sense of organisation has really helped with MoeGamer in general, so it can only be a good thing for the YouTube channel too. Speaking of which…

I launched two more creative/historical projects.

I grew up with Atari computers and a Philips G7000 Videopac Computer (aka Magnavox Odyssey 2) and I've been wanting to find some means of celebrating these for some time now. I eventually settled on themed Let's Plays for the Atari games as a means of showing what both the 8- and 16-bit Atari computers had to offer, and a dedicated site for the Videopac games. I'm going to try and make much more of the latter in particular in the new year, and continue with the Atari A to Z videos as I'm really enjoying making them.

—

This almost certainly isn't everything of note, but as I sit here at 10pm on New Year's Eve, it's everything that occurs to me. Contemplating stuff like this at times like this is a good opportunity to take stock of what is really important. And thinking about it this way, it's easy to see that some of the things that have stressed me out the most this year are… completely irrelevant. So it would probably make sense to try and cut those stressors out of my life as much as possible in 2019, huh?

Anyway. I'll wish you all happy new year properly tomorrow… but for now I'll just say I hope you all have a pleasant New Year's Eve, whatever you happen to be doing (even if it's "nothing", like me) and that you are able to say either a fond farewell or a saucy "good riddance" to 2018, depending on how things have gone for you.

Happy new year, everyone. And thanks once again for your support.

I'm annoyed with myself.

I took the time to go and see my friend to record a special episode of the podcast today and… I kind of messed up a bit. Instead of recording our conversation with my nice mic that I normally use for the podcast and videos — and which I'd gone to the trouble to bring with me — it seems I inadvertently used my laptop's shitty inbuilt mic instead. As a result, the conversation is audible, but the quality is pretty crap.

Essentially, complacency is to blame; my computer at home is set up to use my nice mic by default, so changing the input device when recording in Audacity simply didn't occur to me during this session. Rookie, stupid mistake that I am kicking myself for. You can bet your ass that I won't make that mistake ever again, however!

This is a bummer, as we had an entertaining nostalgia-fest about growing up gaming, our changing attitudes towards gaming over the years, and all manner of other things. However, with the crappy sound, the whole thing simply isn't up to the standards I've set for myself on the MoeGamer Podcast and on my online media channels in general, and I don't think I'd be entirely happy putting it out as is.

Oh well. Nothing that can be done about it now, and it's not as if this is the last time I'll see that friend (I hope; please don't die, Woody) so if the worst comes to the worst we can always revisit the topics at a later time. And in the meantime, I'm at least going to see if there's anything I can do with the audio; if people are interested but I'm still not happy with the sound quality, I can always do a Patrons-exclusive "rough and ready" episode or something, just be aware of what I've described above!

Ah well. Mistakes happen, often at the worst of times. This ultimately isn't an especially important mistake in the grand scheme of things, but it's still upset and frustrated me a bit, given that I'd been looking forward to getting this done.

Well, like I say, I'll see what I can do with the audio when I get home. Something may be salvageable. We'll have to wait and see! Apologies to those of you who were looking forward to something interesting and unusual…

Andie bought me Breath of the Wild for Christmas, as I believe I've mentioned already, so I thought I'd fire it up and give it a bit of a shot today.

I came away very impressed with the experience.

I've spent the last couple of years thinking I don't really like open-world games all that much, when in fact a few hours with Breath of the Wild today made it pretty abundantly clear that I don't like Western open-world games all that much.

I've been over this on the podcast a few times, but the main problem I have with them — primarily if they unfold from a first-person perspective — is the sheer feeling of "weight" to movement. And I don't mean this in a "weighty, satisfying combat" sort of way — I mean it's a real chore simply to move around in a lot of cases.

Rockstar games are a prime offender in this. In many open world games, I really enjoy moving around on foot in preference to faster forms of travel — it enables you to seek out interesting viewpoints and perhaps find a few secrets here and there. But in Rockstar games the physics on the player character are so painfully exaggerated — or perhaps they're just "realistic", and that's the problem — that it's just a chore to get around sometimes.

In Breath of the Wild, the controls are delightfully responsive. Push a direction, Link goes that way. Walk into a wall, Link will try to climb it. And he can climb most walls. This gets around one of my main frustrations I had with games like Skyrim and The Witcher 3: knowing the place you want to get to is on the other side of the big-ass mountain that is right in front of you, but not having the ability to actually climb that mountain and get over it, necessitating a long and irritating orbit of the base, hoping to find a pathway. In Breath of the Wild, assuming you've got enough stamina or can find suitable ledges to rest on on the way up, you can simply climb up the cliff face and hop down the other side if necessary.

Although this brings up another interesting point: although I'm early in the game so far, at no point have I felt that is necessary, because simply navigating around the world "as intended" makes so much sense. There are plenty of landmarks and pieces of interesting scenery to navigate by — there's even a "Pro" mode where you remove the minimap and compass if you so desire — and the game's core gimmick, the "Sheikah Slate", allows you to easily set waypoints by line of sight, not just by dropping pins on a map. Delightful.

The game also nicely sidesteps the "map covered in dots" thing that Ubisoft games in particular tend to run afoul of, but is also evident in Rockstar games, titles like Horizon: Zero Dawn and even The Witcher 3. Rather than the game world feeling like a checklist of things to do, in Breath of the Wild you appear to discover things naturally and organically. Yes, there is a "main quest" to follow that takes you to various different places, but in the often long journeys between main story beats, there's plenty to see and do just by going "I wonder what that is" and discovering something interesting.

I also really like the special "Rune" abilities. You unlock several of these quite early on, allowing you to create climbable icy pillars in bodies of water, manipulate metallic objects using metallic fields, freeze something in time for a few seconds and build up kinetic energy ready to release it when its time unfreezes, and summon both spherical and cube-shaped bombs. Between these abilities — and there's a few more still to unlock, I believe — your options for getting around and manipulating the environment are considerably more interesting than in many other games of this type, and they allow for some creative solutions to problems.

In one situation, for example, I was coming up on a group of Bokoblins around a camp fire. Rather than rushing in with one of my rather fragile weapons swinging, I noticed a metallic crate nearby, grabbed it with the magnetic rune, then simply "swept" all the Bokoblins off the top of the cliff they were camping on, removing any need for me to actually fight them conventionally. While it is possible to get into situations like that in Skyrim with some creative use of magic items, in Breath of the Wild you have the capability to set up entertaining incidents like this pretty much from the outset.

I'll provide a more detailed write-up on MoeGamer when I've played a bit more (or, more likely, actually beaten it) — I doubt I'll do a full Cover Game feature on it as it's not exactly a game that "needs" any more attention than it's had to date, but I'm definitely having a real blast with it so far, and I approve of it heartily as my Christmas present.

Now, I better get some sleep. Fingers crossed my friend(s) will be available for podcasting tomorrow… we shall see!

Greetings from somewhere other than where these posts usually come from!

Yes, I'm bringing this to you live from my parents' place and my childhood home; having spent Christmas itself with my in-laws, we've come to see my family for the "post-Christmas" festivities. I say "festivities"; what I really mean is "a nice bit of peace and quiet".

Incidentally, the "away from home" nature of this post and the next few mean that I will be typing at least some of these on my phone. The Patreon phone app is a laggy piece of crap so I apologise in advance for any spelling or layout issues.

Anyway. As I was saying, I am away from home. Or back home, however you choose to interpret those words.

I've come to appreciate the peace and quiet of the country village I grew up in a lot more as I've got older. I'm not sure I'd actually want to live here again as it takes a long time for services we take for granted in towns to arrive here — I can't remember offhand if they have fibre optic Internet here yet, for example, and forget about lazy man's services such as Deliveroo — but it's definitely nice to spend a few days here now and again.

I appreciate the portability of the Switch on trips like this, too. Not only can I play it in handheld mode, it's a simple matter to bring the whole dock with me and play it on the TV, so I don't have to be away from the games I'm playing and that I want to cover once the New Year gets underway.

I've spent the evening eating good food and playing Atelier Totori, and I imagine much of tomorrow will be spent in a similar fashion. With any luck on Sunday I'll be meeting up with an old friend to record a special episode of the podcast, but this isn't a sure thing just yet. We'll see.

For now I better get some sleep in the eerie silence of the country, although at least I can count on my cat Meg to break the peace by having a noisy wash or scratch every so often.

Good night!

No-one has actually specifically asked me about this, but I know it's a popular subject that people like to find out more about, so I'd like to take the opportunity to outline the various boxes and wires I have under my TV for everyday gaming and video/screenshot capture.

At present, I have fourteen consoles around my living room TV:

• Nintendo Switch
  – Sega Dreamcast
  – Super Nintendo
  – Wii (softmodded)
  – SNES Classic Mini
  – Wii U
  – Xbox 360 (old-style casing, but the model that didn't RROD/had HDMI)
  – Two PS2s (one PAL, one US NTSC)
  – Nintendo 64
  – Sega Mega Drive
  – PlayStation 3
  – PlayStation 4 (with PSVR)
  – PSTV

I'm probably going to make some changes to this in the new year; most notably, I think the 16-bit consoles are going to move upstairs into my "retro room" which is currently dominated by Atari computers and the Philips G7000 Videopac. There's also an NES up there, and the TV monitor I use those on is small but works beautifully — it's an old-school Trinitron, so still pretty much the best of the best you can get in terms of CRT quality.

However, even with the Mega Drive and the SNES going upstairs, you'll still notice that there are a lot of systems there, and TVs only have so many HDMI ports. I also make a specific effort with my setup to avoid plugging SCART cables directly into the TV as much as possible as the quality is not very good.

Rather than having HDMI switchboxes, the core of my setup is my Elgato Game Capture HD (Amazon). This is the slightly older model that only does 30fps capture (and is compatible with older versions of Windows) but it works absolutely fine. It's powered by a USB cable that runs to my TV — my TV has two USB ports that carry power — and has an HDMI output (that runs to the TV) and an HDMI input (which I simply swap to the relevant cable according to what system I want to play or capture).

Pro-tip here: label your HDMI cables if you have a lot of them. You'll thank yourself later.

Anyway, so the basic idea is that I decide what I want to play or capture and simply plug in the appropriate HDMI cable, then I'm away. The Game Capture HD does HDMI passthrough as long as it is powered via USB, so there's no need to run the Game Capture software. As such, as well as allowing easy capturing from consoles that have no built-in capture facilities, it's also simply an easily accessible HDMI port.

With most HD consoles, that's all you need to get started. There are a few additional hookups required for certain specific cases, however, so let's look at those.

This bad lad is an HDMI splitter, and you'll need one of these if you want to capture footage from either a PlayStation 3 or a PSTV. You can also use it to capture from a PS4 without having to turn off the HDCP setting.

What this box actually does is take a single HDMI input and split it into two HDMI outputs. That's not what most people use it for, however: a side effect of the splitting process is that it strips out the pesky HDCP copy protection that is carried out from the PSTV and PS3, normally preventing you from capturing footage from these devices.

There are many different models of this available; I simply went for a cheap one with good reviews that you can find on Amazon here. It's powered by USB, so again my TV powers this, and it's simple and straightforward to use — just plug and play.

Next, if you, like me, wish to avoid using the SCART port on your TV (if indeed you even have one), you'll need some sort of upscaling device to connect older SD consoles to your shiny new TV. There are cables that can simply convert the signal, but to get the best possible picture you'll want to use some sort of upscaling device.

Many retro gamers swear by the Japanese FrameMeister devices, but these are extremely expensive, costing as much as a brand new console in many cases. They do output a fantastic picture, but they require a fair amount of setting up and fiddling with to get going in the first place.

The device pictured here is a cheap and cheerful upscaler I picked up, once again, from Amazon. It takes a SCART input and outputs to HDMI in a number of different resolutions up to and including 1080p. I've found it to work absolutely perfectly for my purposes, providing minimal input lag and an excellent quality picture. Some 50Hz PAL games can "judder" a little bit, but I think this is mostly down to shoddy programming in a lot of cases rather than a problem with the device. For PS2 in particular it outputs a beautiful quality image — here's an example.

There's an additional piece to the puzzle you'll want to include if you really want the best possible picture from SCART-capable consoles, and that's an RGB SCART cable. These provide the best possible quality output from the console, and thus upscaling this to 1080p gives you the best possible picture at the best possible resolution. I have RGB SCART cables for my PlayStation 2, Mega Drive and Super NES, and I got them all from Retro Gaming Cables. They're seemingly expensive for what they are, but they're well worth the outlay if you're serious about getting a good picture.

One additional thing you may want if you're using an original Wii is a device such as this, which simply plugs into the back of the Wii to provide an HDMI output instead of composite or component. It's by no means essential, but I found it a bit more convenient than running it through the upscaler.

Altogether, that's everything you might need to capture from both SD and HD consoles if all you want to do is capture gameplay and/or screenshots. If you want to record commentary, however, there are a few additional bits and pieces you might need. Most significant of these is a microphone.

You can use a microphone on a gaming headset if you want, but for the best possible quality you'll want some sort of dedicated microphone. I use the Marantz Pod Pack 1 setup (Amazon), which comes with a USB microphone and a boom arm. I also added a pop shield to put in front of the microphone to prevent plosive sounds from making loud bassy noises on recordings. These are all much of a muchness; you can even make one yourself by stretching some tights over a coat hanger if you're feeling really cheap.

The Pod Pack 1 setup is very cheap for what it provides. The microphone quality is excellent and the boom arm is nice and stable. My only slight objection is that the microphone is too heavy to stand "upright" on the end of the stand, but it works absolutely fine "upside down" so I just use it that way now instead.

One issue you may run into when recording some consoles with commentary is that they don't have the facility to connect a headset and listen to the game audio. This forces you to mute or turn down the audio on the TV while you are recording, meaning you can't fully enjoy the game. I needed a solution that would allow me to listen to games on systems such as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 while I was recording, and the simplest way to do that was to get a device that would let me connect headphones to my TV. Apparently TVs simply do not have headphone jacks any more.

Anyway, I came across this device on Amazon which takes an optical input and converts it to an analogue signal through either a 3.5mm headphone jack or red and white phono cables. There's no amplifier in the device, so the audio output on headphones isn't super loud, but it's definitely sufficient to let you get immersed in the game while recording.

And if you're lazy like me (or just don't like switching optical cables around because they're a pain in the arse) you may also want this thing:

This was yet another Amazon find, of course — by the way, none of the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links or anything, if you were wondering — and simply takes one optical input and splits it into three optical outputs. It needs powering via a 5V DC adapter, which is provided, so you'll need a spare electrical socket — you might be able to get away with powering it via USB, but I haven't tried that.

So there you have it. The reason I have so many cables under my TV, but this setup allows me to record anything with ease, switch between systems and enjoy them either through my speakers or on headphones. I hope this has been of some help and/or interest to those of you interested in optimising your gaming setup!