All posts tagged: portable gaming

Pokémon Cards Are Back—No Binders Needed

Pokémon Cards Are Back—No Binders Needed

Published by skeptic

In the mid-1990s, the masterminds behind Pokémon were building a powerful trifecta: a handful of role-playing adventures for Nintendo’s Game Boy, a physical card game, and an animated kids’ TV show following the adventures of a tween and his best friend, Pikachu. It was the early days of one of pop culture’s most beloved and enduring franchises, an intoxicating combination of cute, colorful creatures and the jingle-friendly demand to collect everything. “Gotta catch ’em all” remains a powerful mandate, even as physical media has fallen out of style. As a kid, I kept my Pokémon cards in carefully preserved laminate sleeves. Today, they live on my phone, thanks to Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, which lets players collect digital cards and use them to battle, just like they used to with physical cards. Pocket, released October 30 for iOS and Android, ditches the physical binders and booster packs in favor of a slick, mobile version that can sink its fangs into your wallet faster than you can finish a match. Like Pokémon Go, a hit …

10 Best Mobile Games for iOS and Android

10 Best Mobile Games for iOS and Android

Published by skeptic

Don’t doomscroll more depressing news, use that phone to lift your mood instead. The best mobile games will bring a little joy to your day, whether you’re killing time on the commute or chilling on the couch. And these games are all addictive slices of gaming pleasure that we have been gorging on for years. As smartphone screens and processing power have grown, the lines between mobile gaming and just gaming have blurred, and you can find tons of great mobile games that have been ported or adapted from other systems (Minecraft, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Roblox, Stardew Valley, Grand Theft Auto, and the list goes on). But all of these titles are best enjoyed on other platforms. Our picks here are games that work especially well on your phone. Snag one of the best mobile controllers to level up your smartphone gaming. You may also be interested in subscription services like Google Play Pass or Apple Arcade. You can even play some Android games on your PC now. Power up with unlimited access to …

Razer Blade 18 (2024) Review: The Gaming Laptop of the Future

Razer Blade 18 (2024) Review: The Gaming Laptop of the Future

Published by skeptic

Razer’s Blade 14 is my go-to recommendation for anyone hunting for a good gaming laptop, but as impressive as it is, it trades power for portability. If that’s the kind of sacrifice you don’t want to make, then say hello to the Razer Blade 18—this is the powerhouse you’re looking for. Side-by-side with the Razer Blade 14, the Blade 18 looks like a protective big brother. You can see the family resemblance, but the larger Blade is more imposing. Its 18-inch Mini LED display is so bright it’s almost overwhelming in dark rooms, and it produces vivid colors that rival the already stunning screen on the Blade 14. The Blade 18 starts at $3,100, but the model I tested is $4,500. You get a lot of power for the price. It packs a 14th-generation Intel Core i9 14900HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU (upgradable to the beastly RTX 4090, which is what I tested), 32 GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. It’s the kind of power that can tear through …

Dell Alienware m16 R2 Review: Gaming Power in a Business Suit

Dell Alienware m16 R2 Review: Gaming Power in a Business Suit

Published by skeptic

The Alienware m16 R2 uses a 2,560 X 1,600-pixel resolution IPS display that’s decent for its price but not particularly remarkable. The display lacks HDR support, instead opting for a basic sRGB color gamut. This isn’t a huge deal, but when similarly priced laptops like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 pack vibrant OLED panels, it’s hard to ignore. It peaks at 300 nits of brightness, which is slightly lower than some gaming laptops I’ve recently tested. Sitting next to a window during the day, I could still easily make out what was on the screen, but I started to struggle while outdoors in broad daylight. The m16 R2’s display does have one advantage: It has a 240-Hz refresh rate, which is especially welcome in fast-paced games that can take advantage of it. While playing Doom Eternal on medium settings, I got an excess of 200 frames per second, which made jumping around and shooting demons a buttery-smooth experience. Many other gaming laptops at this price (like the Zephyrus G14) are limited to 120 Hz, so …

Acer Nitro 17 (2024, AMD) Review: Great Power Yet Affordable

Acer Nitro 17 (2024, AMD) Review: Great Power Yet Affordable

Published by skeptic

With all the chatter about the artificial intelligence features of Intel’s new Core Ultra CPUs, it’s easy to forget that AMD has been busy doing AI too. AMD has outfitted many of its Ryzen processors with neural processing units (NPUs) since mid-2023, and it’s continued to expand its AI offerings ever since. Acer’s latest Nitro 17 gaming laptop (model number AN17-42-R9TH) is built atop an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, which sits near the top of AMD’s product line. If you’re engaging with AI on the desktop, you’ll probably bypass the CPU altogether. With the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics processor in the Nitro 17, everything from gaming to AI image generation gets a significant boost. Aside from the processors, Acer hasn’t exactly pushed the specs to the limit here: 16 GB of RAM and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive are more or less entry-level options today. That’s just what’s under the hood. On the outside, the Nitro 17 is every bit the beast you are probably expecting, with a 17.3-inch screen (resolution limited to 1,920 X …

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: A Gaming Laptop Perfect for Both Work and Play

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 Review: A Gaming Laptop Perfect for Both Work and Play

Published by skeptic

A beefy graphics card paired with the lovely 14-inch screen size at an affordable price? That’s the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14, and when you add extras like an OLED display and battery life impressive for a gaming laptop, it’s hard for me to not fall in love with this thing. The G14 is the smallest model in the Zephyrus line, so it’s extremely portable. You can outfit it with an Nvidia RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics card, depending on whether you want to save some cash or max it out. It feels as comfortable to use as the Macbook Air M1 (2020) that I use for work, but it comes with luxury features that make playing games—and even watching movies—a top-tier experience. Work-Life Balance The Zephyrus G14 isn’t built to be a powerhouse—consider a laptop like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 for that—but what power it does have is well allocated. The Zephyrus is powered by AMD’s Ryzen R9 8945HS, a powerful processor, paired with the RTX 4060 laptop graphics card—it tackles most games …

The 6 Best Handheld Gaming Consoles (2024): Switch, Steam Deck, and More

The 6 Best Handheld Gaming Consoles (2024): Switch, Steam Deck, and More

Published by skeptic

It feels like a distant memory by now, but right before the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017, it seemed like portable gaming was on its last life. Mobile games had gobbled up huge portions of the market, and most modern games required a lot of power to run on devices like the Nintendo 3DS. Fast-forward to today, and there are more ways to take your games outside the living room than ever. This is a bit of an odd category because, to be quite frank, many of the devices currently on the market aren’t very good. Valve’s Steam Deck kicked off a wave of manufacturers looking to compete with the Nintendo Switch, but many of their offerings are rushed, buggy, or just not a great way to play games. A few have risen to the challenge, and I’m comfortable saying that there are finally some good options to choose from. I’ve spent hundreds of hours testing as many gaming handhelds as I could get my grubby hands on—these are the best. Be sure to check …

Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2024) Review: Portable Powerhouse Gaming

Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 (2024) Review: Portable Powerhouse Gaming

Published by skeptic

The Mini LED display is the primary differentiator between last year’s Strix Scar 18 model. Both can be upgraded to the RTX 4090, and both come with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM (though the 2024 model’s is a bit faster). The 2024 model has a slightly newer 14th-generation Intel Core i9-14900HX processor. Based on specs alone, I might be tempted to suggest looking for last year’s model on sale, but the Mini LED display with local dimming is such a great upgrade that it makes the newer machine stand out. A Powerhouse Engine It’s hard to find a more tricked-out gaming laptop, and the ROG Strix Scar 18 performs like the beast it is. The Intel Core i9-14900HX is one of the best laptop processors for gaming in raw power, and the Nvidia RTX 4090 laptop GPU is a powerhouse. In Starfield, I consistently hit 60 fps even in high-density, low-optimized areas like New Atlantis, and regularly hovered around 80 to 90 fps in less demanding areas. Cyberpunk 2077 hit an even more impressive 90 …

Mobile Gaming is Having a Moment—and Backbone Wants to Unite It

Mobile Gaming is Having a Moment—and Backbone Wants to Unite It

Published by skeptic

Other perks to being a Backbone+ subscriber include game capture, recording, and editing tools for folks who like to share content on social media. There are promotions, like free months of Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass, in-game content for titles like Diablo Immortal, and 30 percent off new Backbone products and accessories. Unfortunately, this convenience comes at a cost. Yet another subscription is a hard sell nowadays. As nice as it is to have a single portal, shelling out for Backbone+ may not be worthwhile for everyone. If the one-stop shop interface for all your games is included as part of the free app, it would be easy to recommend, but $50 a year is too much to pay for folks who don’t care about the other functionality or promotions. That old expectation that mobile games should be free is persistent. Most folks are yet to be sold on alternative models to in-app purchases and advertising, like Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass. The latest rumors suggest Apple Arcade’s future is in doubt. That …

‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ Initial Prototypes Were ‘Chaos’

‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’ Initial Prototypes Were ‘Chaos’

Published by skeptic

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s developers had a problem: the land of Hyrule kept falling apart. Anyone who has played Tears of the Kingdom might be able to guess why. Some of the game’s big advances—Link’s Ultrahand and Fuse abilities, which allow players to create any tool they’re clever enough to stick together—required a lot of new and intricate development. Nintendo wanted to build something bigger and better with their Breath of the Wild sequel, but, as the team worked on the game, the tools that would allow players to make all those shield skateboards and log bridges broke it. A lot. It was, programmer Takahiro Takayama says, “chaos.” During development, Takayama said he’d often hear devs exclaim “it broke!” or “it went flying,” Takayama said Wednesday at the Game Developers Conference. “And I would respond, ‘I know. We’ll deal with it later.’” The problem was the physics of it all. “We realized removing all non-physics-driven objects and making everything physics-driven will lead us to the solution we were looking at,” Takayama …