A grandson shared the news on Reddit today when his grandmother beat The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess after a total of 755 hours. Chris, known on Reddit as millerischris, posted the accomplishment and shared that his grandmother isn’t a hardcore gamer but loves the Zelda franchise. Via Twitter, he told us that her love runs all the way back to playing the game on the NES.
“As a kid I would come visit her and she would always have the system hooked up and ready to play,” Chris said. “The funny thing is that at one point she got stuck in the game, so she actually reached out to Nintendo on their site and they shipped her a physical print of the map so she could beat it.”
Inspired by that, Chris’ parents purchased his grandmother a Nintendo Wii with a copy of 2006’s Twilight Princess and she finished it 11 years later. She played on her own and would send text updates to Chris. When she’d visit on holidays, she’d even get a little bit of help with some parts. Website HowLongToBeat says The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess will take roughly 44 hours for “all styles” of play but Chris’s Grandma, now GramieGreat on Reddit, had a lot to overcome.
“You know if there’s one thing I know about GramieGreat is that she’s incredibly determined,” Chris said when I asked if he believed she’d finish the game early on. “Every year for family vacation she brings a puzzle. Sometimes 500 pieces. Sometimes 1000. And somehow every year she manages to finish it. It’s incredible really. She’ll be up at midnight on the last day of vacation just to get it done.”
Chris was actually more concerned that she wouldn’t be interested in playing a newer Zelda with more advanced visuals than the NES game and Wii’s motion controls, but it became apparent over the years that she’d eventually finish.
“Seriously, she really is an incredible person and I’m very lucky to have her in my life,” he said. “So who knows, maybe Skyward Sword next? Or Breath of the Wild? If she’s fast enough she might even be able to do it in less than 755 hours!”
Chris says 82-year-old GramieGreat handled about 99% of the challenge of completing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and, learned via text messages he shared on Reddit, she definitely did her homework. She read walkthroughs, watched YouTube videos, and even purchased a book to help figure things out.
When she finished the game, she took a picture of the accomplishment and wondered if Nintendo offered any rewards for the longest time ever to finish a game. The story all around is charming and feel-good. If Nintendo catches wind of it, GramieGreat could be recognized for her diligence. Until then, we can all appreciate this cool journey.
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.