Launch it and you will be faced with the 3Dos custom operating system. Like the console itself, it takes a strikingly minimalist approach, all with precise white pixel text on a stark black background. The operating system as a whole is still going strong – more on that later – but it’s already showing signs of being a game archivist’s dream. It creates a library for each cart you play and displays information such as developer, publisher, the regional version of the cart you inserted, the number of players supported, and more. By default there is no graphic for the cart library, but you can add icons manually and the image will be assigned to the cart accordingly – my review unit had a few included to demonstrate the feature, and you can expect community-led image libraries almost immediately upon launch.
Looks good for her age
I was skeptical about how well Analogue3D would hold up when actually playing decades-old games, but that cynicism was immediately dashed. I spent over a week trying out more than a dozen games on it, a mix of US and UK versions, and it accurately identified and ran every single one of them.
The only shopping carts that experienced some problems were British copies of 007: The world is not enough And Star Wars: Rogue Squadronwhich initially refused to start. In such cases, the Analogue3D displays a black screen, which is a bit confusing as it makes you wonder if it is locked, crashed, or simply still loading. However, a quick use of the car cleaners and the tried and tested trick of blowing on it solved the problem.
The lack of a region lock is particularly pleasing – for example Wave race 64 I suffered from slowdown on the PAL version, but I played the NTSC version without any issues while still completely engaging with it Ogre Battle 64which was never published in the UK at the time. It’s also nice, if a little strange, to play Star Fox 64, instead of renaming Lylat Wars Version I grew up with.
