Hi
Have any of you play Poker Club
Its on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X BOX And XBox X One
More Info https://www.pokerclubgame.com/
Don’t have the required platforms, so sorry–no.
I didn’t get a PS5 for Christmas but I got something pretty cool!
The mini game anniversary edition of the Nintendo!!! This system has 621 classic games built in. I’m looking forward to trying it tonight!
-Marc
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How fun! Enjoy!
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Here are my first thoughts on this mini “Nintendo” system. The reason I put Nintendo in quotations is because I noticed no where is Nintendo branding. Neither nowhere on the box or console. On the console it says “Entertainment system.”
I wasn’t alive when Nintendo first launched so I don’t know for sure how accurate this console is to the real one.
For the most part the games do run and work correctly. However my brother got the same system for Christmas and he noticed that when he selected to play the game “Paperboy” in one of the game menus it would load a completely different game. We tried playing Paperboy on my console and it did the same thing. Obviously with their being over 600 games I only got to try a few of them including Super Mario Bros 3 and a Sonic game.
I quickly got hooked into it trying to remember level patterns and I enjoyed playing these games. There are no save features and your only given 5 lives per game. So say if your on level 5 but loose all your lives you have to start all the way back at level 1. I honestly don’t mind it in these arcade type of bases games,
The only issue I have with the controller is after awhile your fingers start to get tired from holding the left, right, up & down directional controls, other than that I like the controller.
One plus is they give you 2 controllers with the console so me and my brother are already talking about having Super Mario competitions.
From the research I’ve done this console only cost 30 - 40 dollars so if you like these old type of games I’d recommend it
-Marc
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So after further research I’ve found out this is actually an emulator system. For an emulator it runs pretty good games. Some are original Nintendo games while others are not.
As a casual gamer I really don’t mind that this is an emulator. There are good games on here and for the price of 30 to 40 dollars I think it’s worth the price.
-Marc.
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KFC is bringing out a new console called the KFConsole, its shaped like their chicken bucket! lol but it actually has really powerful specs and my guess is the price will easily be between 3k-4k. But the most unique thing about it is, wait for it… it has a chicken warming drawer installed in the center 
, true story lol
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I’ve had my “Nintendo” clone emulator for nearly 2 weeks now and wanted to share some more thoughts on it.
First there are actually real, authentic games on this system. For example Super Mario Bros, TinyToons, Pacman, Contra, Galaga etc… all appear to be the real versions of those games. This system was advertised as having 621 games however there are copies games. Realistically If I had to guess there are roughly 321 different games.
Some games are hacked / homebrewed versions of games. For example in one of the Tiny Toons version of games instead of playing as a Tiny Toons character you can play as Mario which obviously isn’t a real version of the game.
Some games aren’t in English at all. Some games only have Japanese or Chinese languages.
If your a video game collector this probably isn’t the system for you. However if you just want to be able to play old classic games for a cheap price I’d recommend this system. The controls are responsive and there’s no lag at all. (See above posts for photos of the console and controllers.)
They do give you 2 controllers so you can play 2 players for most games on the console and unlike similar consoles that only have the old AV plugs the console I got does support HDMI for easy plug and play.
EDIT: Video review coming later today.
-Marc
Here is my video review of the NES Clone Video Game Console!
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I was never a big video game player, more pinball wizard and of course Pac-Man and Mario brothers but now that I bought my grandson a Nintendo Switch game console for Christmas I have no idea what he’s talking about when he FaceTimes me. Best Buy here I come for mine 
lol 
Minecraft? Omg 
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I’ve been thinking about this and thought it would be a fun question to ask:
What is your favorite feature about modern video game consoles?
For me it’s simple. I love that consoles have headphone jacks built into the controller or you can connect wireless headphones by Bluetooth. I do a lot of my gaming at night so it’s just nice being able to plug in my headphones and play games at the volume level I want and know that I’m not disturbing other people in my house while they are sleeping.
I remember the early Playstation / Gamecube days as a kid trying to play games at night and having the volume on the TV hardly on because I didn’t want to wake anyone up.
Plus wearing headphones improves the gaming experience in some games.
-Marc
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I’m not the gamer in the house, but I will join you in praise of headphone jacks or blue tooth headphone options. Why do I care? Because I’m concentrating on my quiet poker game while behind me someone is blowing up aliens in a video game! At high volume! So headphones have saved a marriage. And improved my poker game. lol
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I finally started playing “The Last of Us” series! I was able to buy the first game for sale on the Playstation store. The series is made by studio / developer Naughty Dog (the same company that made the Uncharted series as well as Crash Bandicoot)
I’m currently playing the first “The Last of Us” game and the story so far is amazing and without trying to reveal spoilers the game fits well with the pandemic we are going through. The only difference is there’s no zombies in our pandemic.
A lot of the gameplay feels a lot like Uncharted but there’s still noticeable differences. For example in this game you improve your health with bandages that you’ll find as you go throughout the story or your allies will give you some if your low on health. Uncharted never had a health system like that.
There is a lot of stealth in this game. I’m not much of a stealth game player however after a few hours of playing it I’m starting to get used to the gameplay techniques and have noticed improvement in playing in those stealth situations.
So far through my playthrough I’m enjoying it. My favorite thing about this game is the story and I can see why there’s high praise for this series. I plan on buying. “The Last of Us Part II” when I finish the first game.
-Marc
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Hi everyone,
I got a few requests on Social Media & YouTube to show some more games from my NES Console Clone so last night I recorded part 2 of my review of the console and I show more games as well as some of the knockoff games on this NES Clone / Emulator. Below is the video:
-Marc
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Very cool 
.
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I’ve been thinking about gaming from when I was a child and how much the industry has changed since I’ve been a kid. One thing I miss from gaming as a kid is instruction books and sometimes posters that you got when you bought a new video game.
Today when you buy a physical game all you usually get is the video game case and the game itself. It’s rare a game comes with a poster or instruction booklet.
I think that is part of the reason why the video games I buy these days are all digital games. I can honestly say I didn’t buy one physical video game in 2020 and so far that trend is continuing into 2021. I’m sure part of the reason for that is because of the pandemic but really nowadays there’s not much incentive for me personally to go out to the store and buy a physical video game.
I remember as a kid when my parents bought me a video game and on the 10 minute ride home from the store I would be reading through the instruction books which had good tips for the game and photos of gameplay. Some instruction books even had character bios and sometimes you could find out some interesting things about a character that weren’t mentioned at all in the actual game.
Another thing I think is that most covers for video games these days aren’t as good as when I was a kid. I feel that cover designs were better and more creative when I was a kid in my opinion.
I know it costs money to create instruction books and posters for games but I really feel those added to the gaming experience. I think the lack of them is part of the reason why I buy digital games now.
-Marc
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I haven’t tried that game yet, but I’ve played many different poker games on console over the years. How do you like it so far then? Is it worth the $25? (think that was the price lol) I play xbox. But recently my xbox decided to bite the dust, and I’m currently torn between splurging for the new gen xbox or just buying a replacement xbox1 for now… I had been playing Prominence Poker before my console died. Which is a free poker game that’s been out for several years now, I was attempting to finish the last few achievements I had left in it, otherwise I’d played it out and was actually getting real bored with it lol, basically had nothing good left to buy in that game so my drive at further building up my bankroll was well faded.
I was surprised to see no one else mentioned any of the tons of console poker games out there, I can think of so many too lol.
I initially discovered my love of poker through xbox games… back in like 2011 my boyfriend got this game TDU2: Test Drive Unlimited 2… which was a pretty decent freeroam racing game, and there happened to be a casino where poker tournaments/cash games could be played online against other players (as well as other casino-y games, slots, roulette, etc) It looked fun, so I picked up a copy too, (we have our own xboxs) we were quickly addicted lol. Any winnings from the casino could be spent on your cars, houses, clothes etc. Which was awesome, it gave me the drive to want to win the fake prize money so I could supe up any cars and my character. Eventually I was ballin in the game because of playing/winning poker tourneys. It was more about the poker (and its leaderboards) than the racing and cars the game was supposed to be about! Haha. This became the way for a bunch of the people playing TDU2. Lots of people had become regulars at those poker tables, it was its own little community, so I made friends with a bunch of good poker people, that I’m still connected with to this day. Eventually I met a group that had formed a league, Lucky9Poker League (which I’d joined) … TDU2 had a good run but as with all online xbox games it slowly died out and closed. I still miss it and often wish I could still play poker there, no other xbox poker game has even been close to comparing to what I got to experience through that game.
The league (Lucky9) moved over to WSOP2007, which is actually not a bad poker game either (same with WSOP2008) I played with this league for a few years, until I needed a break from always playing 3 tournaments every week for so long. My life revolved around playing in that league and I eventually wanted to just retire from it. Every top 3 of a tourney got you points on a monthly leaderboard(with a year end final table) extra points for winning a hand with 4 9’s. I learned a lot from the peeps in Lucky9 (they still play league games to this day even years later) .
I’ve loved playing poker ever since!
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I finished playing the first “The Last of Us” last night and really enjoyed it. Here are some of my thought’s on the game and story. This will be a lengthy post.
Note: There will be spoilers in this review. If you haven’t played the game and don’t want to be spoiled I recommend avoiding this post until you’ve played and beaten the game.
The Story:
The game starts with us (the player) seeing how the Cordyceps Brain Infection virus (CBI) starts that is the virus in the game. In the panic of everything going on Joel, his daughter Sara and Joel’s brother Tommy try escaping the city. It is revealed the virus is quickly spreading throughout the country and unfortunately a solider is ordered to open fire at Joel and his daughter and Joel’s daughter Sara does not survive. The reason why the solider is ordered to open fire is because this is the start of the pandemic and they assume that everyone is infected with the virus.
After this the opening credits of the game roll with news reports on how bad the CBI virus has affected the world. The game fast forwards 20 years in time where Joel and his partner Tess are living in a quarantine zone in Boston MA. I didn’t realize for awhile this part of the game took place in Boston. It wasn’t until the Subway station I realized this part took place in Boston. I thought this was pretty cool since I live about 40 minutes north of Boston. Anyway we find out Joel and Tess work as smugglers. They decide to track down a guy named Robert who stole some of their merchandise. Robert reveals that he has sold the stolen merchandise and Joel and Tess kill him in revenge.
We find the woman who bought the stolen merchandise and she offers to return it if Joel and Tess smuggle her daughter Ellie to the State Capitol building outside of the Quarantine Zone where her friends have a group known as the Fireflies led by a woman named Marlene that will take Ellie off their hands. She and Joel and Ellie successfully make it to the Capitol building, only to discover upon arrival that the people they are meant to find are all dead. Throughout this we travel through the Boston underground and Subway system while fighting off the infected people who have turned into zombies. I can say they got a lot of things accurate with the Boston subway system like the names of the stations and the color scheme. We also find out that Ellie is infected but has some type of immunity to the virus as she says she was bitten over 3 weeks ago.
At the Capital Building it is revealed Tess has been infected and she makes it clear that she doesn’t want to turn into one of those infected zombies. Tess orders Joel, as a last obligation to her, to find Tommy and get Ellie to the Fireflies, before sending them off while she covers them. Tess is then killed in the subsequent gunfight, ensuring she never turns into a zombie
Joel and Ellie decide to go find Joel’s friend of his named Bill who lives in Lincoln near Boston. Joel wants Bill to pay off a debt by fixing up a car that he and Ellie can use. Bill can’t fix up a car for them but he reluctantly helps them find a car that Joel and Ellie can use. They make their way to a high school while fighting off more of the infected zombies.
After finding a car Joel and Ellie eventually make their way to Pittsburgh while there they meet two brothers named Henry and Sam while trying to escape from a group of hunters. Sam is about the same age as Ellie who is 14 years old and Joel and Henry initially think each other are hostile.
Shortly after meeting they decide to team up and help each other. Joel tells Henry that he’s looking for the Fireflies. They decided to make a breakout from a quarantine zone and take out guards who try and stop them. They decide to escape to an abandoned radio tower in the Suburbs.
After they get to the station Joel and Henry bond over they likeness of motorcycles while Sam and Ellie have a conversation about death and the infected. After Ellie leaves the room to go to bed for the night it is revealed to the player that Sam was bitten and infected. This happened sometime during the chaos of breaking out of the quarantine zone.
The next morning Ellie goes to wake Sam up and by then he’s infected and tries attacking Ellie. Henry is forced to kill his brother to save Ellie but can’t live with the guilt of what he’s done to his brother and immediately takes his own life after that.
After these events the game fast forwards to Fall. In the fall, Joel and Ellie finally find Tommy in Jackson, Wyoming where Joel convinces his brother Tommy to take Ellie to the Fireflies. Joel decides to leave Ellie with Tommy, but after she confronts him about his daughter Sarah, he lets her stay with him.
Tommy directs them to the Fireflies last known location. A University in Eastern Colorado. Joel and Ellie arrive to discover the University abandoned but find out where the Fireflies relocated too. They have relocated to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. While escaping the University Joel and Ellie are attacked by bandits and Joel is severally injured in the altercation.
The game fast forwards to winter where Ellie and Joel, who is on the brink of death after being severally injured by the bandits are taking shelter in the mountains living in an abandoned home. When Ellie is out hunting for food and medicine for Joel she encounters two men named David and James, They are willing to trade Ellie a deer she just hunter in exchange for medicine. While James is gone back to camp to get the medicine Ellie and David team up to fight the infected zombies who go after them. David turns hostile to Ellie after revealing the university bandits were part of his group.
The next day Ellie is awoken by David and his group who are looking for Ellie and Joel as their goal is to take Ellie and finish off Joel who is still unconscious and heavily medicated. Ellie manages to lead David’s group away from Joel, but is captured in the process. David tries recruiting Ellie but she refuses to join him.
Ellie escapes after killing James, but David corners her in a burning restaurant. Meanwhile, Joel awakens and is somewhat recovered from his wounds (but not 100%) and senses something is wrong and sets out to find Ellie. Joel reaches Ellie just as she kills David with a machete, an act which traumatizes her, and comforts her before they flee.
The game fast forwards to the spring where Ellie is showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder from the events Winter. While trying to sneak past the infected (because there are too many to fight) Ellie is rendered unconscious after almost drowning while Joel is attempting CPR on her they are captured by a Firefly patrol guard. Joel awakens in the hospital where Marlene tells Joel that Ellie is still alive but is being prepped for surgery.
She tells Joel in hope of producing a vaccine for the infection, (which remember Ellie is immune too) the Fireflies must remove the infected portion of Ellie’s brain, which will kill her. Unwilling to let Ellie die he fights his way through the hospital taking out guards and makes his way to the operating room just in time and kills the lead surgeon.
With Ellie in his arms Joel races to the parking garage where he is confronted by Marlene. Joel puts Ellie in a car and then shoots Marlene saying that if he lets her live the Fireflies will just come after him and Ellie. On the ride out of the city Ellie wakes up, Joel claims that the Fireflies had found many other immune people but were unable to create a cure, and that they have stopped trying. He is lying to Ellie in order to protect her. The game ends with Joel and Ellie arriving back at Tommy’s and Ellie expresses her survivor guilt. At her insistence, Joel swears his story about the Fireflies is true and the end credits roll.
My Thoughts:
In my opinion the storytelling in this game is phenomenal. From Joel losing his daughter Sara at the start of the game to saving Ellie at the end of the game is fantastic. When Ellie and Joel first meet there is clear resentment from each other, Joel is hostile towards Ellie but they grow and start caring for one another. We lose many likeable characters that we get to know throughout the game like Tess, Sam and Henry. Something that Naughty Dog (developers of the game) were afraid to do in Uncharted was to kill off main characters.
In this game they do it on multiple occasions and the timing off all the events was great in my opinion.
I think Joel and Ellie start caring about one another like father and daughter when Joel is injured at the University and at the end of Winter when Ellie kills David, Joel shows up and immediately comforts Ellie.
At the end of the game yes Joel does lie to Ellie but it’s to protect her. He couldn’t lose Ellie who to him has become like his own daughter. Joel couldn’t live with losing her. To him it would be like losing Sara all over again. He lied because he knew Ellie would sacrifice her life if it meant saving the world and ending the pandemic. Joel couldn’t let go and in my opinion there would be no guarantee even if Joel let Ellie go that the Fireflies would be able to find a vaccine. This also sets up a potential plot for “The Last of Us Part II.” I haven’t played that game yet but I’m hoping to soon.
Here is how I rate the game on a scale of 1 to 10:
Story: 10/10 (Great, fantastic storytelling)
Gameplay: 8.5 / 10 (At times it felt a bit repetitive but it was still fun to play.)
Graphics: 9 / 10 (I played the remastered version on PS4 and the graphics are fantastic.
I highly recommend this game to anyone who hasn’t played it if you enjoy a great story and a lot of action. I hope you enjoyed reading this review! Apologies for the length of it but there was so much to talk about.
-Marc
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Marc, I want to keep my husband busy playing video games, so I can focus on poker here. 
He’s running out of options but balks at buying new platforms. “The Last of Us” sounds great and right up his alley. I’ll use your experience to encourage him to get this into his queue!
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