Recent reviews by kart0shkah

Probably the least user-friendly "game" I've ever experienced. No control instructions are given, and you have no idea what you're supposed to achieve or how to go about doing it. The creepy graphics remind me of the first Tomb Raider game from 1996, and there's no audio whatsoever. I refunded it after 5 frustrating minutes.
The concept is good. I'd love to have a fun game that teaches accounting, but this really needs a helpful guide.

Bought it during the 2017 winter sale for $5 + $8 shipping. Came with its own ethernet cable and HDMI cable, so that alone may be worth the price to some.

Plugged the HDMI cable into my 2015 Sony Bravia 4K TV, the ethernet cable into my Comcast modem/router, and the power cord (so make sure you have an empty outlet), and that's pretty much all it took.

Once I switched over to my 2nd HDMI source I had to look at an empty screen for about 20 seconds, and then an update started downloading with a progress bar. I guess it took around 6 minutes for the Link to download this update, install it, and finally reboot. No input necessary during this automated process.

Afterwards, there's a quick setup where you have to enter a 4-digit number on your Steam PC client, and then you get to choose your language and screen settings, etc. Pretty painless, actually.

Once into the main menu I could see all 200+ games I own on Steam, minus the ones I've chosen to hide. If you scroll to the right you can unhide and turn on various filters. Good way to hide "certain games", I guess. Tried a few games with positive results (see below). There is sometimes some minor "stuttering" with the sound upon launch. It may or may not come back intermittently if I have extra internet devices such as tablets or computers downloading files, etc. Best to turn them off if I'm going to be gaming on the Link, I find.

The graphics look nearly identical to what I see on my monitor, with only subtle differences with regards to sharpness. The image looks a tad blurrier on the TV, but I don't think most people would notice. The frame rate is very smooth, and there doesn't appear to be any lag that I can discern. If I can get 60fps on my computer, I can get 60fps on the Link.

I ran the following games with no negative performance or lag effects: Ultra Street Fighter IV, WWE 2K16, Trackmania Valley, Disney Infinity 3.0, Mysterium, Broken Sword II, Jets N Guns Gold, Drawful 2, Virginia, Mind Snares: Alice's Journey, Metro 2033 Redux, & Transformers: WfC. I'm not a competitive PvPer, but I honestly didn't see anything that would frustrate me with the Link's performance even if I was.

At first I had trouble launching a few games: Transformers, Disney Infinity 3.0, and Metro 2033 Redux. Each game would appear to start launching but then two seconds later I was back in the menu. I did some troubleshooting and eventually got all 3 to work, and they now run flawlessly. I had to do 2 things: update my graphics driver and launch the Steam client from my computer in Offline Mode. Not sure if it was one or the combination of those, but it worked, so if you have these issues with these games (or similar) it may be worth trying out.

It's also compatible with wired Xbox 360 controllers and USB hubs, so you can have 4 controllers plugged in for 4-player couch fun!

Where this device really shines is with multiplayer party games. Drawful 2 is amazingly fun with friends, so that alone is worth the whole thing! Mysterium is another fun one. If you know any others, please feel free to share them in the comments! I'd be most grateful.

Overall a solid little device if you're a Steam gamer but want a change of scenery from sitting in front of the PC monitor.

Mildly entertaining racing game that gets old really fast.

For a 2009 game the graphics still hold up fairly well, and it performs smoothly at 1920x1080 resolution. It's fun to race and take down opponent cars by slamming them into obstacles, but the experience grows stale too quickly.

The environment is limited to one city so you'll see the same roads and scenery over and over again. The cars all handle pretty similarly so there's not much variety there, either.

Where things get really frustrating is the user friendliness. The game doesn't do a very good job of showing where to go, so you can easily get lost while trying to race ahead of your opponents. Who wants to constantly be looking at the map while driving? It's easy to lose races because of this, and when it happens there's no way to quickly retry. You have to drive all the way back to the beginning, which can sometimes take a good 5 minutes. Given how repetitive this experience is, the game feels torturous and you feel like you are getting punished for not memorizing the city's layout.

There are cars that you can't unlock because the online servers are dead forever, so they're just there to tease you.

There's really not much here to recommend, to be honest.