Patrick O'Rourke's 5 favorite things of 2024

Summary

I transitioned from Editor-In-Chief at MobileSyrup to managing editor at Pocket-lint and back to EIC.
I enjoyed playing Ship of Harkinian on the ROG Ally X, reliving Ocarina of Time.
I attended a surprisingly empty pop-punk festival and got a private concert experience (sort of).

2024 was a year of change for me. I left my job as the Editor-In-Chief of MobileSyrup after running and helping to build Canada’s premiere technology website for more than 10 years, for the devices managing editor role at Pocket-lint. I then found myself back in the EIC role a few months later, but this time at Pocket-lint.

I’m thrilled to take the helm of a historic publication like Pocket-lint, and the stellar team and I have big plans for 2025, including content that aims to offer a glimpse at the small but nimble editorial team behind the site. This “my 5 favorite things” story is an example of this — and yes, if you’ve followed my work in the past, you’ll recognize the format from MobileSyrup 😉. You’ll see other members of the Pocket-lint editorial team’s five favorite things stories hit the site in the coming days.

Outside of work-related changes, there are a lot of things I liked this year, ranging from playing Ship of Harkinian (a PC port of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) on the ROG Ally X to the Fallout TV show and a surprisingly empty pop-punk festival experience.

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1 Ship of Harkinian on the ROG Ally X

Reliving one of my favorite childhood games has been a blast

If you told me a few months ago that I’d spend 30 plus hours playing Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time towards the latter half of the year, I quite simply wouldn’t believe you, but here we are. I’ve known about Ship of Harkinian, a PC port of Ocarina of Time, for quite some time, but I’ve never bothered to get it up and running until recently. It seems like the perfect game to play on the Steam Deck OLED, but any time I looked up the steps to get it working on Valve’s handheld, it just seemed too complicated.

This is where the Windows-based ROG Ally X comes in. Because it runs Windows 11 (which is both its best and worst feature), you can do pretty much anything you can with a laptop on the handheld, allowing me to get Ship of Harkinian and a 4K texture pack called OoT Reloaded installed in just a few minutes. Ocarina of Time has aged remarkably well for a game that released way back in 1998, and that extra sheen of high-resolution textures and 60fps brings its visuals up to par with its remarkable gameplay. I’m surprised at how much I remember about Ocarina of Time but also how much I’ve forgotten, especially when it comes to some puzzles early in the game (the number of times I’ve needed to use a walkthrough is embarrassing).

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2 Fallout TV show

I’m still surprised at how much I enjoyed it

Amazon

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Fallout

Genre: Sci-Fi
Number of Seasons: 1
Studio: Amazon
Creator: Jonathan Nolan
Starring: Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, Aaron Clifton Moten
Format: TV series

Unless it’s The Last of Us, I’ve pretty much given up on video game TV shows, but I’m glad I gave Amazon’s Fallout TV show a shot. It pretty much perfectly captures the game series’ tongue-in-cheek tone, and Ella Purnell (Lucy MacLean), Aaron Moten (Maximus), and Walton Goggins (The Goul 🥵) offer excellent performances. It’s a bit crude and shockingly gory at times, but there’s also heart to it, just like the long-running game franchise.

Part of why I think the Fallout TV show works so well is because it’s only set in the game’s universe, giving its creators (which includes executive producer Jonathan Nolan) free rein to do pretty much whatever they want within the confines of the game’s universe. I’m looking forward to season 2 when it likely drops at some point in 2026. The Fallout TV show is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

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3 Attending All Your Friends Fest

Getting a private concert from Gob was pretty cool

Silverstein playing at All your Friends Fest

I’m a sucker for nostalgia, so when my partner managed to get her hands on VIP tickets to All Your Friends Fest, a pop-punk/emo festival that seemed like it aimed to be a smaller scale When We Were Young, I was all in. Then I found out it was way out in Burl’s Creek, a festival venue that’s roughly two hours away from Toronto, and my excitement quickly disappeared. In fact, at one point, my partner and I planned to skip the festival altogether, but I’m very glad we didn’t.

As a compromise, we hit up only the Friday date, and to my surprise, the venue was pretty much empty. This gave us the chance to watch Silverstein, Gob, Billy Talent, and more, from the front row. In a way, it almost felt like a semi-private concert experience. I doubt next year’s festival will be as low-key, so I’ll always treasure having the opportunity to see several of the brands I grew up listening to up close and personal. And hey, Gob may not have played Ming Tran, but at least I got to listen to Soda while standing 5-feet from the stage.

Apple's iPhone 16 being held in front of flowers

The iPhone 16 offers nearly everything I want from a phone

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4 Anbernic’s RG35XXSP taught me the importance of authenticity

Playing retro games is all about the platform you’re gaming on

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I used to think it was silly to want to play retro games with old school controllers or, in this case, a familiar-looking device. “It’s the game that matters, not the device,” was the opinion I held for years. Then I came across Anbernic’s RG35XXSP, a retro handheld that’s a little more than inspired by Nintendo’s classic Game Boy Advance SP, the first backlit Game Boy released in North America.

If you put the two handhelds side-by-side, most people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. Anbernic has recreated the GBA SP in a remarkable way, right down to its clamshell design, button layout, and the several smart software tricks it offers, like pixel scaling, a virtual drop shadow border around the display, and more. In some ways, I’ve found that playing GBA games on a handheld with this familiar design is a better experience than the far more expensive and premium-feeling FPGA-based Analogue Pocket (you can pick up the RG35XXSP for just $60). I also can’t complain about the countless ROMs that may or may not be already installed on the RG35XXSP depending on what storage configuration you opt for, or its small size, which makes it easy to take with me on work-related trips (the above picture is me gaming away on a plane).

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5 Going to the Tea House at the Royal Botanical Gardens

Checking out flowers and eating tasty treats

I really like technology, and that’s a big part of why I got into the journalism space. But I also like totally unplugging, flowers, gardening, and drinking tea. In an effort to briefly disconnect from our busy lives, my partner bought tickets to the Royal Botanical Gardens Tea House, a beautifully decorated and historic tea house located in southern Ontario, for my birthday. For a few hours, we munched on scones, macarons, tarts, and more, and, of course, also had tea. We then spent the afternoon wandering around the Royal Botanical gardens, checking out the sprawling park’s walking trails, stunning flowers, and its tropical plant-filled greenhouse.

It was a short respite during a year that feels like it’s been absolutely non-stop for the both of us, and whenever I’m having a tough day, I think back to that very chill experience and do my best to remember that life isn’t always a relentless whirlwind.