With the drawn-out death of video arcades and the rise of online multiplayer, opportunities to play video games with friends in the same room are becoming fewer and farther between. Swedish designer Love Hulten has created an elegant, nostalgic answer to that dilemma in the form of Battlecade, a custom, portable, two-player gaming platform that hearkens back to classic arcade cabinets and the board game Battleship.
“Conceptual arcade console for two players, inspired by classic board games like Battleship,” reads the description on Hulten’s website. “Instead of the classic side-by-side setup, you and your opponent sit facing each other. With a mid section including two 12-inch LCD monitors, neither of you can see the other’s game strategy. It has built in storage for quick access to accessories like power supply and detachable joysticks. When not in use, the console in three sections folds into a convenient carrier.”
Hulten, a Gothernburg-based designer and craftsman, fuses modern technology with a beautiful, retro aesthetic and fine woodworking to create functional works of art. He drew some American press earlier this year for his gorgeous Pixelkabinett stand-up arcade cabinet.
Despite the cheeky, Milton Bradley-reminiscent mock-up above, don’t hold out hope for a retail version of the Battlecade any time soon. Hulten’s works are all handcrafted, and thus more suited for the expensive tastes of collectors than those of your average gaming enthusiast. He lists a few of his creations (although not the Battlecade, currently) for sale on his website, but costing on the order of 2,500 to 3,700 euros (or roughly $2,900 to $4,200). If you’re looking for an extremely high-end gift for a very lucky retro gaming enthusiast in your life, you can contact Hulten about commissions. The rest of us in the 99 percent will simply have to gawk from afar or take up woodworking.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.