MODEL DROP MODEL DROP!!!!

okay i hope everything works!!!! write to me if it does not

if ya like it you can blame @iamtiredofyourhorror (: /pos. They have waited long enough lol

ye and remember that im still a noob and know little to nothing besides what i do (and i figured that out by trial and error lol)

E3 2019 in photos: Gooigi, crazy arcade machines, and a DOOM museum

"Great work!" — Plus, the National Videogame Museum returns with some of its craziest rarities yet. Sam Machkovech and Kyle Orland - Jun 16, 2019 1:00 pm UTC LOS ANGELES—If you couldn't or didn't make it to E3 2019, you're not the only one. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was the most poorly attended E3 in some time (though its organizers at the ESA insist that this E3 had only 3,000 fewer attendees than 2018's jam-packed affair), owing perhaps to Sony's no-show or the abundance of live-streamed options for enjoying the event at your own home. Luigi and Gooigi attracted hordes of attendees excited to pose for photos. Sam Machkovech Inside the Luigi's Mansion 3 booth, fans could pose with a guy in a Luigi costume. Nintendo went all-out building a haunted house for these kiosks, but my photos of it turned out terribly. It was easier to get photos of the toy dioramas built around the Link's Awakening gameplay kiosks. Nintendo built four of them in all. A closer zoom on the plastic minis Nintendo built just for this occasion. Link delves into a dungeon. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" "Wrong series, dude." I'll admit, I kinda lost my mind seeing this adorable Link and Marin meet-cute diorama. Marin in Smash Bros. Ultimate? A guy can dream, right? The EA Play event at the Hollywood Palladium included this impressive cast of paid Apex Legends cosplayers. Yes, the person cosplaying as Octane is a bilateral amputee. You couldn't buy these impressive 10" Apex Legends statues at EA Play. But you could buy a ton of shirts and hoodies. As an Apex Legends fan, Ars's Sam Machkovech nearly bought the "bamboozled" one. For some reason, EA Play hosted an Anthem gameplay session... and for some reason, attendees actually waited for it. FIFA '20 hosted an arena-soccer match. The McLaren Senna features in the new LEGO Speed expansion pack for Forza Horizon 4, so naturally, Microsoft had someone make a life-sized McLaren Serra model out of LEGO bricks. They went to pretty insane trouble to include significant elements from the real deal. Real wheels, real LEGO blocks. This refreshed version of the Xbox Elite Controller (dubbed "version 2") will launch in November for $180 and features such perks as a rechargeable battery, a controller-charging case, increased hair-trigger responsiveness, and more. We couldn't test the new XEC with any games, but its newly texturized grip and significant heft felt good to hold on its own. C'mon, Xbox, you think we're gonna steal this thing? How dare you. Say hello to one of Gears 5's newest, most disgusting monsters. It's not a Gears of War character if it doesn't have chest-high cover nearby. The best thing about Gears 5's new "Escape" mode is that it supports three-player split-screen co-op. More of this kinda thing, please, Xbox Game Studios. The newest LEGO Star Wars release this coming holiday season revolves around the "Skywalker Saga," so naturally, it's time to trot out the old LEGO Han in LEGO carbonite statue again. Coach's Pac-Man line of bags and accessories. For the discerning, fancypants gamer. More Pac-Man and classic-Namco swag. Pretty solid 10" Tekken statues. The entire Bandai Namco fancy-collectible wall was pretty great, honestly. I couldn't take photos of the Final Fantasy VII Remake gameplay kiosks, but I could take photos of the series' Shinra Corporation stuff all around it. For example, this recreation of an iconic FFVII backdrop. Square Enix put up a few Shinra advertisements around the kiosks. See? They have Midgar's best interests at heart! I really hope there's a full cartoon series hidden inside of FFVII Remake starring this cartoon dog. Someone please translate this for us. A small detail of the amazing theater room for Psychonauts 2. TEETH! Arcade1UP had a significant E3 presence with its home-friendly versions of classic arcade machines. The manufacturer used E3 to reveal its newest product: a Star Wars Atari arcade trilogy collection, coming "late 2019." Another look at its handsome side cabinet art. I had to stand on a stool to get a better look at the screen and controller. Because this cabinet was set up on a precarious platform, it was not playable at E3. An Arcade1UP representative said it collaborated with Disney and Lucasfilm in the making of this cabinet, then studied original classic arcade hardware to recreate the controller. Rather than answer my technical questions about how the controller was constructed in this modern version, the Arcade1UP rep insisted that it sought input from arcade cabinet collectors to confirm that its version nailed the original cabinets' feel and mechanical action. Another new Arcade1UP cabinet: the TMNT collection, which includes both of Konami's four-player brawlers in one cabinet. (Most of their cabs include at least two games, if not a few more.) It seems to comfortably support four players, but I liked this group's tweak: letting the middle player simultaneously control two turtles. Then there was this absolutely ridiculous thing that Arcade1UP built for the heckuvit. That's intrepid Ars Technica editor Sam Machkovech up there pretending to play the game. I hope the hand on the joystick makes clear how stupidly massive this whole rig was. But it worked... and Sam won his match. Really, Sam? Be professional. Sega's booth had its own oversized-controller gimmick to celebrate the impending launch of the Sega Genesis Mini this September. It's not really E3 until Ubisoft has a stage full of professional dancers and average fans getting down to Just Dance as one awkward collective. A peek at the poster-covered walls inside of Cyberpunk 2077's behind-closed-doors booth. Capcom had a relatively meager showing at E3, with this new Monster Hunter World expansion taking up most of the company's booth. But, hey, at least they had some nice 10" dragons under glass. Hold me closer, tiny draaaagonnnnns. Sorry, Street Fighter fans. Capcom didn't come to E3 2019 with any news about either SFV or any new fighting games. Just 10" figurines. Chun-Li and Cammy, kicking ass beneath glass. Larger than life. Just like Borderlands should be. Kyle Orland This was by far the best part of the Destroy All Humans revival attempt. Kyle Orland Pixl Cube was one of the more inventive games at the Indiecade booth, a tilt-sensitive box with LED dots that moved through a maze as if pulled by gravity. Kyle Orland In the entryway for Youtube Gaming's creator space, blocks from the show floor, a Google Stadia controller sits behind glass with a mock-up of a retro game store. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming space also featured some streamers on old-school CRT TVs, which was a weird look. Kyle Orland Cute. Kyle Orland The YouTube Gaming logo sits on a fake cartridge alongside... Hyper Chroma Ultra? Kyle Orland Nothing says "E3" like a guy in a Yoshi/Mario costume livestreaming himself as he balks loudly at the show floor's $6 pretzels. Kyle Orland New Wave Toys is expanding its Replicade line of authentic miniature cabinets with the likes of these two Capcom classics. Kyle Orland MyArcade is expanding from miniature cabinets to massive portable systems capable of playing actual NES and SNES cartridges. Kyle Orland MyArcade's upcoming Contra cabinet even includes link cable support for two player action. Don't you DARE touch this actual Contra cabinet in the MyArcade booth, though. Kyle Orland That being said, we attended, and Ars Technica came back from Los Angeles with plenty to show for it. In addition to a few more hands-on previews coming (which will build upon the best-of E3 2019 list we already filed), we took our cameras out at both the official E3 halls and nearby events (Xbox Fan Fest, EA Play). I gotta say, in this modern political climate, I have been calling every year "the year of doom." A very nice pencil sketch taken from the original PC game's box art. I'd never seen these minis before, but now I want to play DOOM-opoly. A better zoom on these metal beasts. Collect me plenty. Now for some impressive 3D molds of famed DOOM demons. See? It's like a museum. Funnily enough, this is my "I don't know what to do with my hands" pose when I stand for photos. The secret for awkward photo poses: turn your arms into massive rocket launchers. Way less awkward! As one of DOOM 64's longtime fans, I stood at this specific panel for a while. This might be the least-blurry these N64 sprites have ever looked. (The N64 famously smothered its sprites in a disgusting, smeary blur.) More figurines on display. More figurines on display. More swag on display. More swag on display. The result is a whopping three image galleries here. The first is a catch-all for most of the basic, expected fare, while the second and third focus on retro elements: a DOOM-specific mini-museum, and a curated collection of very rare gaming hardware and collectibles courtesy of the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Tex. (If you've never been to that physical location before, we strongly encourage you to book a trip.) You know the retro portion of E3 is serious when they put this thing behind a rope. Truly one of a kind. Click the image to get a better look at the information placard. Yep, those are traditional Saturn controller ports. We'd never seen these Vectrex prototypes and variants before. The innards of a prototype color Vectrex system that never saw production. Kyle Orland Anybody think they can repair this thing? Yes, the only scoring cart that remains from this Super Nintendo championship event. Also, a killer Vectrex jacket. How the heck does the NVM keep finding and showing off such incredible game-history rarities? Some cool mementos from the original Mortal Kombat. The placard explains how rare this system is... ... based on this specific message signed by none other than Bill Gates. I don't care how puffy this jacket is. I'd wear it. Every year, the National Video Game Museum trots out at least one previously confidential binder taken from a major gaming company. This year's was Nintendo. I'm always fascinated by internal '80s and '90s documentation about piracy and cartridge backup systems. This section went on for a few more pages and even included grainy photos of various cartridge-copying devices. Video games: the board game! Video games: the, uh, VHS game! Well before the Game Boy revolutionized portable gaming, kids of the '70s and '80s were stuck with these clunkers. One wall was dedicated to particularly rare game consoles that launched solely in Japan. Eat your heart out, Donkey Konga. This is one of Gunpei Yokoi's classic electronic games that he designed for Nintendo in the '70s. This makes me wish Ulala was in an actual '80s cartoon. Kyle Orland In addition to popular and common fare in the coin-op section, the NVM trotted out a few machines we rarely see at classic gaming expos, like this fetching Jungle King cab. True story: we asked Double Fine studio founder and creative director Tim Schafer if he could step back for a second so we could take a photo of this handsome Omega Race cabinet. "I used to play this game all the time as a kid," he remarked before stepping away slowly. (If you're wondering, he signs his name "TIM" in high-score tables.) And we couldn't leave E3 without a walk through the almost carnival-like selection of vendors and inventions in the expo's very back hall. Look below at the show's weird "et cetera" section. Here's a gallery of E3 2019's oddest booths and products. "Wow, how nice and COOL!" we're sure you are saying to yourself. Kyle Orland Thermoreal uses superconductors (?!) to simulate a cold or hot feeling in metal. The company integrated this tech into VR-compatible gloves and a VR headset. As the VR environment changes, so does the sensation of real-life temperature. Trippy! Kyle Orland This 1,000 MaH battery pack for the Switch was heavy, but the harness made it pretty easy to slide on and off to use only when it's needed. Kyle Orland Some extremely generic-looking custom chip boards for use in mini-arcade devices and portable emulation devices. If anybody reading this has the rights to the Atari Jaguar Mini, look them up. Kyle Orland Why stream games to a smartphone with Google Stadia when the Smach Z packs an entire 1080p gaming PC with a 6" screen into a rather bulky portable package? Doom (2016) ran with noticeable judders, and the unit got noticeably hot in our test. But the fact that it works at all was impressive. Kyle Orland The Tactsuit haptic system jolts your body when playing compatible VR games and software. Kyle Orland The Vuvana system has something to do with using a new blockchain cryptocurrency to buy and "own" items in virtual reality, which you can view on a cell phone with this included viewer, apparently. Kyle Orland Oversized controllers were all the rage at E3 2019, but this one went to the trouble of building in a monitor for its game, Street Fighter 2. Kyle Orland Remember the iCade Mini? Someone sure does... Kyle Orland GameBoks is just like it sounds—a wooden box that houses a monitor, power supply, and a space to hold and connect your game console. Between this and the new Atari VCS, wood paneling is apparently the hot new retro-hardware trend. Kyle Orland Proximat is being sold as a "mousepad for your virtual reality feet." It gives VR players a physical indication of their play space's center point, complete with high-grade gel for foot comfort. Kyle Orland If this is a thing you're looking for (for some reason), E3 has you covered. Kyle Orland Amazingly, a product with "360 ONE X" in its name has nothing to do with Xbox (it's a 360 degree camera designed for VR) Kyle Orland Neither vinyl nor fidget spinners are dead at E3 2019. Kyle Orland I need some quick energy after seeing all of these amazing products. It's my lucky day! Kyle Orland How do you make money selling $100 worth of stuff for $40? It's an economic miracle! Kyle Orland This balance board is mainly meant for some easy exercise while at a standing desk, but its producers were marketing it to gamers with a Mortal Kombat 11 display. Kyle Orland And the award for "most dystopian sounding slogan at E3" goes to... Kyle Orland "In the 1989 Future" is a legitimately great tagline, we have to admit. Kyle Orland Listing image by Sam Machkovech Read More Read the full article

Ditch the Desktop and the Laptop and Switch to an iPad

By Don Hall

By the time Dana and I packed up our stuff and headed to Las Vegas, I had two iMac desktops, a 21 inch and a 27 inch screen. Both were 2011 computers and were functional but feeling their age. Dana had a MacBook Air and I had an iPad Pro but my desktops were getting seriously creaky.

Over the course of our first year in the desert both desktops became steadily more obsolete. Internet became spotty at times. Load times for everything from spreadsheets to word processing to simply watching Netflix took much longer. I stopped updated the OS on either and went backwards to Snow Leopard because the newer OS programs took more juice than these beautiful reminders of eight years in Chicago could handle.

Increasingly I had to rely on the iPad Pro for more and more of my computing needs. The iOS was not ideal for a lot of the heavy lifting I needed but I figured out workarounds and made some compromises in complexity. Use the tool you have and all that jazz.

A year ago the 21 inch iMac bit the dust and after researching and realizing to fix the thing would cost somewhere around $500.00, I decided to sell it. The 27 inch now sits in our bedroom and is used solely for watching DVDs because that’s pretty much all it was good for. For the past twelve months my only real computer has been the killer combo of my iPhone and my iPad Pro.

With my monthly subscription to iCloud ($9.99 per month for 1TB of storage) I no longer need a hard drive. I have everything from a massive photo library to my podcast files (both raw audio files and fully edited MP3s) to thousands of archived writing stored in there. Given that, at least in the meantime, Apple is going to continue to be the juggernaut it is, I feel pretty safe with this.

FIVE REASONS IPAD IS BETTER THAN THE SHIT YOU’RE USING

Streaming Movies are awesome on it.

You can type, use a mouse or a track pad, and use your hands to make shit happen.

It can do everything your shit does but does it with style.

Apps for everything from word processing to tracking your sleep.

It makes you feel like you’re a character in Star Trek.

For much of the year, I used my wireless Apple keyboard Bluetoothed to the iPad for the real typing but have become adept at the glass keyboard for emails and short notes. Recently I upgraded to the Magic Keyboard with built in track pad, backlit keyboard and magnetic charging and I love it.

Keep in mind, if I needed high-powered graphic design or video making technology, this set up would not do. When I recommend you ditch your computers for the iPad Pro, I advise from the perspective of my own specific workflow. Here’s a quick list of tasks I’ve found far better rendered with my set up:

Writing

I’m a huge fan of Apple Notes. For a good long time, Notes was my go to writing app. Simple but flexible. Given that my writing comes in three forms (Literate Ape stuff, Random Ideas and Bullshit, and Books I’m Writing) I can make multiple folders and archive everything all in one spot. A month ago I re-downloaded IA Writer to see if it was better than a few years ago. It is. A lot better. So now I’m using that for the Books and Ape articles and Notes for Podcast Notes, Random Shit, and Business Stuff (like bank records, scans, and passwords, etc.).

Literate Ape is on Squarespace and they provide a couple of excellent apps (the Blogging app and the Analytics app) that I use daily. IA Writer includes comprehensive Markup capabilities so I can format everything including links and just copy it straight into Squarespace.

Podcasting

iPhone 11 Pro Max + Shure MV88 Digital Stereo Condenser Mic + Shure Motiv Audio Recording app + Ferrite Audio Editing app = solid podcasting capabilities.

The condenser mic was something I latched onto a few years ago and it’s perfect. When I record Peculiar Journeys I can do it almost anywhere and it sounds clean. With the Literate Apecast David and I record in Chicago and Vegas via FaceTime with good headphones. Then he sends me his half of the conversation and I use Ferrite to mix the two and balance it out.

When the world isn’t locked down and we can do live events, Bughouse! is the same set up except I put the phone and mic on a grippy tripod attached to the mic stand in the venue. Set at a wider sound grab, the MV88 does a great job with that, too.

Ferrite is just the easiest audio editor I’ve ever worked upon. Just enough add-ones to tweak sound, incredibly easy to edit. I’ve worked on software at a radio station that isn’t as effective.

Emails

I like the Apple Mail app. Simple, easy to add multiple accounts. Some people dig third party apps and of those I dig Readdle’s Sparrow but I always come back to the native app.

For work, I’m using the Boxer app connected to an encrypted server through the casino company.

It’s funny that email seems almost antiquated these days. I also old enough to have lived a chunk of life without any of this technology so even email still kind of amazes me.

News

Again I go with Apple News. I subscribe and it gives me plenty of aggregated news. I also use Feedly, Flipboard, and a subscription to the NYT. In my Doomscrolling, I have more than enough Troughs of Misery to wade through.

Photos and Video

Apple Photos and iMovie. Simple and effective.

Movies

While the iPad is a perfectly capable computer, this is where this little fucker excels. Great screen resolution, great speakers, and when I use those incredible AirPods everything from Netflix, AppleTV, Prime Video to HBO Max and Shudder just sings.

I like racing games of the Asphalt type and a few gambling games but mostly I’m consuming or creating media. I love FaceTime to chat with my mom once a week and iMessage to text my wife.

I had an Apple Pencil but gave it to my mom when I gifted her my older model iPad but I ended up buying a Logitech Crayon which works just as well and it’s flat design makes it easier to set down when doing other things.

Perhaps it is due to the fact that I didn’t have much choice in the matter but I love my rig. I like having what can feel like a laptop except when I want to use my digits to move things around and pull the monitor off and compute.

Desktops are cool if you spend more time at your desk and laptops are likewise fine but there is something almost out of science fiction carrying your entire computing rig around like a thin book. If your iMac or MacAir are in fairly good shape, stay put. But if they’re starting to get a little dusty, at least swing over to the store and play around with an iPad Pro. Perfect size, perfect computer.

I recommend it.