Agreed. It's one of the only competitive arcade games from the 1980s that remains very playable still today. Nearly perfect.

Three books I can happily recommend:

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs One of the many influences on Star Wars https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62

Gladiator by Philip Wylie Supposedly an influence on the creation of Superman and modern superheroes https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42914

Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott Philosophical and mathematical and kinda touching all at once https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/201

And while not sci-fi, if you're into superheroes, Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro are fun early secret-identify stories:

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60

Mark of Zorro https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61620

I didn't consider using newer Nintendo hardware to play these old games. They definitely have "that feel" to the controls. Any good websites to check out or keywords to search for to help figure this out?

Chocked full of beany goodness.

One of my favorites!!!

Not exactly the same topic, but can you still do in-home streaming from Xbox to a PC or phone on the same wifi?

Played "Camel Up" and "Mantis" recently. Both really fun and very accessible for both kids and casual board gamers. Some all-time faves in a similar vein are "Coup", "Santorini", and "Machi Koro".

The Switch and Steamdeck are too big for me. Maybe the Switch Lite would be an ok size? I'm not crazy about the horizontal layout with the controls on the sides of the screen, much prefer the GameBoy / GBA SP vertical design with the controls below the screen.

Oooh being able to sleep the device mid-game is pretty nice. I've been putting off buying a Pocket cause it's a more expensive option, and rarely seems to be in stock when I'm hankering to buy one.

Holy crap thanks for all the awesome recommendations! I've become a Lemmy fan! ♥