Tim Biggs

Finally I can retire the YouTube Music app, where I uploaded my CD of this OST like a decade ago, and just get my regular fix of Yoshi Star Galaxy direct from the source.

About TREATY for Victoria | The First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria Treaty is our opportunity to make sure we – the Traditional Owners of these lands – always have the freedom and power to make the decisions that affect our communities, our culture, and our Country.

Proud that our state's the first in Australia to introduce legislation for a treaty, not that it should have taken anywhere near this long. Huge congratulations to everyone who's been pushing it for more than a decade. firstpeoplesvic.org/treaty/

Samus the cat does not think I should be allowed to work.

But the extra cool thing is you can control the scale in the settings. If it's on a huge TV or you're close to your monitor it's a bit much to look at, so you can make it smaller. And if you're playing in 1080p, since 7x is only 1008 high, you can choose to stretch full screen or leave it sharp.

Played Mina the Hollower demo over lunch. First impression was to nerd out about video settings. The game's running at 256x144, so GBC but wider, and uses a perfect integer scale: 15x for 4K, 10x for 1440p, 7x for 1080p, 5x for 720p. Looks amazing, and on Switch 2 it runs 120Hz handheld and docked.

Fun fact: my copy of Final Fantasy has pen writing I've never thought to translate until now. The bit at the bottom says the game was completed on 31/1/89, which rules. But I have no hope of translating the upper message. I wonder what this RPG-beating badass was writing on their games 35 years ago?

We’ve adopted a kitten. The home said she was rescued off the road at five weeks old, having fallen out the back of a moving ute. But she’s tough. I’ve called her Samus.

Our favourite games of 2025 so far Ten great games that you can play right now.

It's our twice-annual Games of the Half Year special! Come get your recommendations for things to play that released between January 1 and now! pressanybutton.substack.com/p/our-favour...

YouTube video by Digital Foundry Switch 2 Free Upgrades For Switch 1 Games Tested: Link's Awakening, Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 3 +More!

I've been v impressed with a lot of Nintendo's free upgrades, including fixing the frame rate on Echoes of Wisdom and removing interlacing on Odyssey. But it's cool to see DF break it all down. Splatoon 3 being 4K 60 is wild, and Bowser's Fury look's so good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L8G...

I reviewed Mario Kart last week, and today put the link in my spreadsheet of reviews, finding I've now covered more than 300 games for Age / SMH over around 11 years. My dream is to one day fill in the (substantial) gaps and put out a Leonard Maltin style review book. Could cover a whole decade!

Nintendo enters the 4K era with a straightforward Switch successor The Switch 2 is better in every way with more power, better controls and expanded platform features. But it’s a revision rather than a revolution.

My verdict after a week of Switch 2 is up, though I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you it rules. www.theage.com.au/technology/v...

Inside the secretive labs where Apple’s torturers put iPhones to the test At an unmarked facility in California, tens of thousands of devices a year are dropped, dunked and dismantled.

In California last week I took a rare media tour of Apple’s durability labs in Sunnyvale, and it was legitimately very interesting. Come read about the several rooms and tests I observed, three of which I was even permitted to take pictures of! www.theage.com.au/technology/i...

Can confirm my favourite modern cube controller, the BattlerGC Pro, works great with Switch 2! Perfect in the GameCube app, but also any time you don’t mind octagonal gates and a big ol’ primary face button.

Halfway is pretty damn optimistic tbh.

Update: now that I believe I’ve seen all the clips, it’s a much better concept than my original theory of an alien transmission interrupting weird Earthlings. I love this campy 90s-style FMV game. Can’t wait for the update.

Crops are the real water hogs! I love the implication that we should consider eating less before we complain about AI energy efficiency. Also, I don't think we need AI to tell us how we can turn plants into food without giving it to cows first :D.

PlayStation's summer of tumbleweeds Plus Playdate, pride month, Switch 2 games and Perfect Dark.

This week on Press Any Button, at the eve of not-E3, we’re wondering how Big Hype Sony became One Game Per Year Sony, as well as talking Playdate, Pride month, Switch 2 games and Perfect Dark! pressanybutton.substack.com/p/playstatio...

Such a vibe. I love how gold that game is. It will never age.

Oh shit, Confetti Cowboys is on.

The first download of Playdate Season 2 came with an absolutely cooked “live broadcast” service called Blippo+. There’s heaps of stuff on but it all seems to be degrading and interrupted by an alien transmission. I love it.

After 30 years of guns and gore this franchise is turning to story Doom: The Dark Ages is the closest to a Hollywood blockbuster the series has come, though a human weapon destroying demons is still at the core.

I spoke to the Doom devs … actually quite a while ago now … but the story’s just gone up and it’s still worth a read!

“His greatest strength is not his guns, IT’S HIS WILL TO PERSEVERE!”

www.theage.com.au/technology/v...

A screen grab showing the App Store listing for the new Sonic Rumble game describes it as the “first multiplayer party game in the iconic game series”.

EXCUSE ME?! This is Sonic Shuffle erasure!

My eight year old:

“There are two voices that I am REALLY good at. Mario, and Dracula.”

[Bad Mario voice] LEts-a-GO!
[Identical Mario voice] I WAnt to SUck your BLood!

When I wrote about game / console prices last week I knew a Microsoft price rise was imminent. Xbox was just suspiciously too far left in the graphs. Too late to update the story now but here's what the console graph looks like adjusted for today's Australian price rise.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is $700 – are video games getting more expensive? High-end games and systems are more popular than ever, but what about their price tags?

Had a deep dive into game prices. Turns out it's possible for "games are getting more expensive" and "games were more expensive in the 80s" to both be true. Also, the internet sucks for finding out Australian prices for anything pre-2000. Google AI straight up lies. www.theage.com.au/technology/v...

Wild timing on the Oblivion remaster. One of my favourite RPGs of all time and this year I set a goal to finally finish all the main quest lines. I did it over Easter. I think I may be all Oblivioned out for now. JK, I’m off to start my 100th wood elf archer.

Me too! I don’t think I ever had enough people in the room for 8 player, and I certainly didn’t have 4 controllers, but it was nice to have the option.

The joys of subs and seasons New Playdate games, Apple Arcade updates, and remembering Micro Machines

ICYMI! Yesterday in the newsletter we covered:

🏗️ New season of Playdate coming
🍎 Puffies, Katamari, Roller Coaster Tycoon and all the April Apple Arcade drops
🏎️ The wonder of Micro Machines

pressanybutton.substack.com/p/the-joys-o...

That is true, and to be honest I do the vast majority of my “grown up” watching at night. But also have you seen how internet people talk about CRTs now? It’s all about perfect geometry and slot masks and stuff we didn’t give a toss about in the 90s. The tech is fine, just majorly over analysed.

This is an internet problem, not a TV problem. The C4 is bright enough to watch in the daylight. I have a big ol’ window facing mine, and it’s no big deal. The discourse wants to watch pitch black TV shows in a reference mode that limits the panel’s brightness, while they shine torches at it.