Save in any game, anywhere

Games from 1991 never had a save function. Yours does now — mid-boss, mid-level, mid-anything. Drop a save and pick up on that exact frame tomorrow.

• 01Press the Menu button while the game is running. The game pauses where it is.
• 02Choose Save State and pick a slot. You get several per game, so you can keep a safe one and an experimental one.
• 03To come back: Menu → Load State → same slot. You resume on the exact frame.

The Nintendo DS library is already on there

This is the one almost nobody finds on their own, and the one people email us about the moment they do. Dual-screen games are already loaded — they just need the controls mapped to a console that doesn't have a touchscreen.

• 01Open the DS category from the main console list.
• 02The right analog stick acts as the stylus. Move it to move the pointer, press it in to tap.
• 03L2 and R2 switch which of the two screens you're looking at.
• 04Prefer both screens at once? Menu → Screen Layout → stacked or side-by-side.

Playing on your TV

One cable and the handheld becomes a couch machine. Same 15,000 games, four feet wide.

• 01Connect the console to any free HDMI port on the TV.
• 02Switch the TV to that input. The console output follows automatically.
• 03Pair a second controller if you want couch co-op — hold the pairing button until the light blinks, then select it in Settings → Controllers.

Two consoles, linked

Two GameLabs can play each other directly. No accounts, no passwords, no wifi — the consoles talk straight to one another. Works on a plane, in a car, at a campsite.

• 01Plug a dongle from the Multiplayer Kit into each console.
• 02Open the same game on both.
• 03One player picks Host, the other picks Join from the link menu.
• 04That's it. Racing, fighting, and the trading-and-battling games all work the way you remember.

Twelve games worth starting with

Fifteen thousand games is a lot of scrolling. The real problem isn't choice — it's opening the list, recognizing nothing, and putting it down again. So: twelve, grouped by the time you've actually got.