A Meagre Emulator

During a brief mission into our garage on Saturday morning, I stumbled across a box of my old Amiga games.  It contained a few boxes (Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge, Strider, Player Manager, Pro Tennis Tour 2..) and a load of loose disks.  I'd forgotten when we'd moved into our current house that I'd kinda dumped all my Amiga stuff in various random places.  Somewhere there lurks a black bin liner full of disks (really need to find that now) and there are other boxed games lurking elsewhere (James Pond is in a box of retro gamer mags in the spare room, and Kick Off 2 is safely tucked away with some Star Wars stuff.  But its got me thinking - I really need to find it all, and sort it all out and store it properly.  Chances are a lot of the disks no longer work (I'm not sure what the lifespan of a floppy disk is, especially one that's been in a garage for about 4 years).  For some reason, I'd carefully stored away my CD32 games in with my console games, but the floppies are all over the place. Shame on me.

 

As a result of this, I've been digging out my old Amiga emulation stuff.  I'd downloaded the latest version of WinUAE (the emulator) and various CDs with ADF files (the game disk files) and got a few running.  Then after visiting everyones favourite Amiga site, LemonAmiga.com I discovered Lemonade - a nice frontend / database / for WinUAE.  I was really impressed, but discovered its no longer a live concern and the database is a little out of date etc etc.. but got pointed in the direction of GameBase Amiga.  I'd previously come across GameBase when doing my old SNES website, but hadn't realised there was an Amiga part for it.  Basically, it's a huge database of games for various systems, which contains details of each game, when it was made, who made it, etc etc but also with the ability to link into your emulator and games.  I quickly googled "GameBase Amiga" and found a download page.  This page is very basic, saying it's a holding page until the real site gets re-done, but it would appear to have been created in 2009 so I guess that's not going to happen.  Anyway, there is the download for Gamebase Amiga and something else, but theres also a directory there.  This directory contains real treasure :-)  Theres a 7z (fancy zip format) file containing screenshots for all the games, another containing music from the games, another containing extras (box scans, hints n tips documents etc) and another labelled games.  The games file is just over 2gb, but after downloading I found it contained something along the lines of 3000+ games.

 

So, download all the above.

You'll also need to download and install the latest Gamebase programme.  A quick google will provide you with the homepage where you can download it.  Once you've installed that, you can install the Gamebase Amiga programme.  That will say something about needing version 1.11 of Gamebase but it can't detect anything after v1.12 and the latest is 1.13 so you can proceed and ignore any messages.

 

Once you've installed that, download and install WinUAE (you will need to find some Kickstart ROM files, which could be the hard part).

 

After installing WinUAE, start up Gamebase.. It'll do some database updates and then prompt you to set up your emulator.  You'll probably need to manually browse and point it at your winuae.exe file.

 

Once you've done that… unzip the games file, the extras, the screenshots etc (put them in subdirectories under the gamebase amiga directory), then go to the menu option that lets you specify paths and point the relevant sections at these.  Then restart Gamebase to pick them up.

 

You should now see nice screenshots for most of the games, as well as be able to view the extras and marvel in nostalgia at the old game box scans :-)  You should also be able to "Play Game".  If, like me, you click Play Game and get taken to the Workbench "Insert disk" screen, then you need to do a small file hack to fix the issue.  You should be able to find the solution via a quick google, otherwise let me know and I'll dig out the link.

 

That should get you up and running :-)

 

If you have a wired Xbox controller, you should be able to get this working in Windows and be able to play using it.  I'd got this working on my previous laptop for Mame stuff, so don't see why this won't work for WinUAE (am now ready to be proved wrong).

 

Be sure to pay LemonAmiga a visit.  It's a cracking site, with a decent user community and forums.

Plus for most games, theres links to where you might be able to find the corresponding ADF files..

 

Remember kids: Piracy is BAD.

 

In other gaming news, I picked up Test Drive Unlimited 2 yesterday.  Really enjoyed the first one, and despite mixed reviews I thought I'd give the new one a blast.  I've not had the chance to try it yet, but will report back when I do.

Mondays

Monday. I hate Mondays, although not too much as its 5-a-side footy tonight.

Saturday night provided a rare gaming opportunity as the missus went out, so I grabbed it with both hands and jumped back into the Mojave wastelands and played some Fallout New Vegas.  The game is now trying its best to really get on my nerves, and to a certain extent, its succeeding.  I'm now down to a very small set of available quests (ie 4) and most of these are now hard.  Or appear hard.  I did manage to get past one hard quest on Saturday, by simply running like a girl instead of standing and fighting like a man.  That was in the REPCONN building, second floor, after I'd triggered the alarms and a seemingly unending supply of robots came along to kill me.

But after completing that quest, I'm now left with the following four options:

i) kill Mr House

ii) blow up the secret bunker

iii) kill the Van Graafs

iv) steal evidence from the Van Graafs and Crimson Caravan

The problem here is:

i) I don't want to kill him, as I'm doing his quests

ii) if I set the self destruct sequence on the bunker, I get attacked by everyone in the bunker, which is LOADS of people. So it's a no go

iii) if I kill them, I fail mission iv

iv) I can't pickpocket the safe key at Crimson Caravan without being detected and the Van Graaf place is armed like hell.

So, at the moment, I appear to be out of options.  Think I need some lateral thinking, or I'm missing something somewhere.

 

Rather than get frustrated with the game, I booted up Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.  I decided to play some online, which was enjoyable, although I was rubbish and got called names (only by the one guy I kept taking out). It only helped to reinforce my previous decision to stop playing games on Live.  My gaming time is limited and precious these days, so I don't see why it should be spoilt by some uneducated, ignorant kid calling me names.  I didn't have my headset on, so couldn't respond, so instead I choose to continue playing which only seemed to annoy him further.

Anyway, I've since gone back to the Career mode and am quite enjoying it again.  I do crash far too often, usually cos I have no idea where the corners are unless I keep watching the little map instead of the screen.  Either that or I just have a head-on.  Yes, HEAD, not hard ;-)

 

I've also caught up on some gaming reading too.  The OXM article on Skyrim was good, with some nice new features appearing.  Really looking forward to that one.  A definate must buy.  Although part of my brain is saying "what if they mess it up?".  And I read the Retro Gamer article on isometric games, which was very interesting.  Ant Attack was one of the first games I got for the Spectrum, and I'd never realised how important it was in the history of games.  But now, looking back, I can appreciate it a lot more.  Its also got me thinking I should revisit some of the Spectrum isometric games.  Theres a lot of old games I really need to revisit.  I should probably compile a list, but it could be a very long list.  Theres not only games I've previously played, but games I'd never played, such as Cadaver on the Amiga.  I always fancied that, but never got it.

 

Talking of the Amiga, its got to be one of my favourite all-time machines.  Its probably the one I have the fondest memories of (although the Speccy will run it very close).  If you've never visited, be sure to check out www.lemonamiga.com for a real blast from the past. Its an awesome site and never fails to bring a smile to my face every time I visit.  I must go back and check the Top 100 games list on there, and review which I have and haven't played.  They also have something on there called Lemonade which was a front-end thingy for the Amiga emulator.  Although it apparently has issues running on newer versions of Windows.  The site has an amazing database of Amiga games, with screenshots, user reviews, lots of details on the games, and even links to other sites where you can find ADF files of the game disks.  Which does make me think - what is the life expectancy of a floppy disk? I have loads of Amiga game disks, but I'm not sure how long they'll last.   Its something that has made me try and find all the relevant ADF files, just in case.  I found a black binliner full of Amiga games on Friday afternoon whilst tidying the garage.  I really should store them better!  Think its time I had a bit sort out and store them all properly somewhere.  That's if any of them still work.  It's a bit silly really, as all my console games are nicely boxed up, but the Amiga disks that are probably more likely to fail if not stored properly are just dumped.

 

Also, whilst reading in Retro Gamer, I noticed that there are still new games being made for the Dreamcast.  How cool is that?  I'm tempted to try and pick some of them up.

Kindle Surprise

Books.  I read a lot. I also tend to buy more than I read, and have a constant stockpile of books to read.

This tends to result in our main bookshelf getting a bit swamped with books (and games).  Every now and then I'll box up the books I've read, and put them in the loft. I'm a hoarder, as I'm frequently being reminded by the missus.  Chances are, I'll never read any of the books again.  The only books I've read more than once are childhood favourites The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings (I have fond memories of walking to primary school with my mate from a couple of doors down, discussing where we were in Lord of the Rings).  I've read those many a time, and will no doubt read them again.

 

I've always said, I'd never go for eBooks.  I much prefer the feel, smell and all round 'experience' of a real book.  Add to that, the fact that real books are so cheap - I can regularly pick up something decent in Asda for between £1-£4.

 

My only experience with eBooks so far, is the iBooks app on the iPhone.  I've downloaded 20-30 free books, but have not got on with reading them on the small screen.  Its just not the same. It doesn't feel right.  And the books that you have to pay for are so expensive - usually double what you can pay for the equivalent paperback.  Paying £6+ for a pdf file just seems wrong to me.  Surely eBooks should be cheaper than real books - they're easier to mass produce, theres no transport costs or storage costs as such.

 

Which leads me on to this… I'm strongly considering getting a Kindle.

I had considered buying an iPad not so long ago, but in reality I knew it would be a gimmick like the Wii that got used a lot for a couple of weeks then just gathered dust.  Instead, I bought a new laptop that I've used pretty much daily ever since.  Yes, I could read books on the laptop, but its not portable like a book is.  You can't really sit in the bath with a laptop.  So I've been thinking about the Kindle.  Its purpose built for the job, so should be pretty damn good.  Its certainly got a lot of very good reviews.  And the important factor is its cheap.  £111 for the wi-fi model.  You could pay £50 more for the 3G and wi-fi model, but I don't really need to buy books whilst out and about. That can always wait until I get home.  It would also mean that if I finished one book, I'd immediately have others to start on.  You can store about 3,500 books on it.  That'd keep me going.  Plus the battery life is awesome (certainly compared to my charged multiple times a day iphone and my laptop).  It lasts for weeks.

 

I still have a big pile of books to work through, so theres no rush to get one, but I'll certainly be reading up on it a bit more.

A Short Word On Collectors Editions

I think I'd previously mentioned about ordering a couple of Fallout New Vegas collectors items in a recent post.  The Collections Edition of the game from CEX and the Collectors Edition of the Guidebook from Amazon.com.  I was expecting the game to come within a couple of days, and the book had an estimated delivery date of early - mid March (which was ok with me as it was coming from the US at the cheapest postal rate).

Both turned up Saturday.  Which meant the game took about 10 days to arrive, and the book was a month early.

 

I opened the game first, and have to say I am very impressed with it.  It comes in a "worn leather" style box, which looks and feels nice.  The contents are really good too:

- making of.. DVD

- hard cover comic book telling the story prior to where the game kicks in

- "platinum" chip

- selection of normal poker chips from the various in-game casinos

- pack of cards

 

It doesn't sound too amazing, but the quality of the items is tip - top (apart from the platinum chip which is a bit naff).  The normal poker chips were the one item I expected to be rubbish, but they feel really nice.  They have a good weight and just ooze quality.  The fact that they are different styles and different branding to match the in-game casinos is a lovely touch.  The comic book feels nice, and looks good.  I'll be reading that very soon.  And then theres the playing cards.  I was expecting these to be a "whatever" kind of item like the cards in the Fable 3 collectors edition, but these are just so good.  Each card has a different in game character / item on the front with one sentence about it.  The backs of the cards are where the attention to in-game detail kicks in - they're all a mix of various cardbacks, using the in-game casinos branding again.  So its just like you built a deck of mis-matched cards in-game.  Plus theres a card with the rules of Caravan too.

The whole package just fits in with the game so well, and oozes quality.  Compare this with the Fallout 3 collectors edition with cheap lunchbox, naff plastic fallout boy bobble head… Its so much better.

 

The guidebook is just as I'd expected - lovely.  It's a hard cover, and is pretty much the same as the Fallout 3 guidebook. It has a big pull out poster map, and all the information you'll ever need.  So far, I'm avoiding using it for the game, but will no doubt use it for exploring etc at a later date.

 

This has got me thinking about Collectors Editions of games.  I own a few now, and am a bit of a sucker for CE's.  I tend to not bother with those that simply bundle in codes for downloadable content, as that really doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.  I go for those that have tangible goodies, like the two Fallout ones mentioned above. 

 

Here are a few of the others that I have:

- Bioshock, with big daddy figure

- Halo 3, legendary edition with helmet

- Grand Theft Auto 4, with safety deposit box, holdall, some other stuff

- Fable 3, in book style box with playing cards

- Alan Wake, with book style box, and a book n some other nonsense

- Halo Wars, with metal case, and various goodies inside

- Gears Of War 2, with nothing really

 

If I had to choose my favourite, I'd probably go for the New Vegas one.

 

Does anyone else go for Collectors Editions?  If so, which has been your favourite? Which has been the most disappointing?

Footy Games

Football games.  Love them or hate them, theres no escaping them these days.  Every year theres a new FIFA, a new PES, a new Football Manager, a new Championship Manager… with usually very little difference to the previous years version.

 

I've pretty much always been into footy games in one form or another.

The first football game I played was the original Kevin Tom's classic - Football Manager on the Spectrum.  My dad bought it and played it when I was in bed, but I soon got hooked on it.   It was very basic compared to todays offerings, but at the time it was amazing.  In fact, its still playable today.  In some ways, its BETTER than todays offerings.  By which I mean theres no training nonsense to worry about. I HATE that in modern management games, and I ignore it entirely.

 

So Football Manager gave me my first taste of football management games.  But what about actually playing football games?  That would be the legendary Match Day. I still recall the Match of the Day tune beeping out of the Spectrum, annoying the hell out of my mum.  Ritman Rovers et al. Ahhh.. great game.. Although it was soon bettered by the superb…. Match Day 2.  I think it was this game that introduced jumping to header.  It was a general all-round improvement of the first game.  The most memorable thing of the Match Day games was the fact that you could run along the pitch with the ball balanced on your head, and there was nothing your opponent could do.  Match Day 2 was then the sole footy game I played up until I made an amazing discovery on the Amiga.

 

In fact, I made 2 amazing discoveries on the Amiga.  Well, 3.

First off, my mate came round one day with this new football game - Kick Off.

I'd not heard of it (cos I didn't buy magazines back in those days), but was totally blown away by it.  Mainly because you could get yellow and red cards, which to a Match Day 2 player was unheard of.  Plus you could slide tackle.  I was instantly smitten, and every spare gaming moment was taken up playing this new game.  Each of the 8 teams had their own characteristics - the Russians (red team) were quicker than the others, the Germans (grey team) were dirty… oh and the refs all had different characters, with some booking you for the slightest thing, others letting you get away with a lot.  That was a key fact in my love for the game - the fact that each game was different, in that one game you'd hack someone down and it'd be a foul, another game it'd be a red card, another game it would be ignored entirely. It made the game interesting.  You'd play a game, knowing the ref was S Screech and you'd get red cards, or it'd be F Zappa and he'd ignore the first challenge, but book the second etc..

Then there was the actual gameplay itself. The ball didn't stick to your feet like in Match Day.  You could ping passes around, do through balls, cross the ball, slide tackle, jump to head.. it took some skill but it was a lot more realistic.  There was no set formula like on previous games, whereby you'd know if you shot up diagonally from the edge of the D, it was a guaranteed goal. With Kick Off, any shot could potentially result in a goal, but at the same time, the keeper could pull off a blinding save.  You just couldn't predict it (this is a major issue that I have with Sensible Soccer, but more on that later).

 

Some time after, another friend came along with Player Manager.  This was Kick Off with a management game thrown in. You could either control yourself (ie one player) or the entire team.  You could change formations, buy and sell players… it was a cracking game and very addictive. 

 

Then, in 1990, along came my favourite game of all time. A game I still play today, 21 years later.  Kick Off 2.  The ultimate football game.  Forget Sensible Soccer, Kick Off 2 is the king.  It took Kick Off and added in the ability to curl the ball, different types of pitches (plastic, wet, soggy..) all of which affected the balls bounce, or whether it rolled a long way or a short way…There were other improvements but those two were the main ones.  Oh, and you could save replays too. I can still pick up the joystick and play this game, knowing exactly where my players are at any moment (I always turn the scanner off). Its like second nature to me.  Every single game of KO2 is different. Theres no set formula for playing.  Its just pure brilliance.  If I could only ever play one game ever again, this would be it.   I could play this game every day for the rest of my life, and I'd never get bored of it.

 

At some point a couple of years after KO2, along came a little game called Sensible Soccer (we'll skip Football Glory with its streakers, and dogs randomly invading the pitch, although it was kinda fun).  Don't get me wrong, Sensi was very good. It had some very good features.  It would probably be my favourite game of all time, were it not for Kick Off 2.  But it isnt. Kick Off 2 was better.  Whilst Sensi had more features, and looked better, it just didn't play as well. Plus there was the old, if you shoot from here and curl it like that you'll score 8 out of 10 times, which I hate.  I love the fact you can score with diving headers, and even do them diagonally.. and the fact you can score by sliding and can even direct your shot while doing this too.  But at the end of the day, KO2 played better. It was more like real football due to being less predictable. When Sensi was released on Xbox Live, I snapped it up. But I've rarely played it.  That says it all about its lasting appeal.  If KO2 was released, I'd need to buy a joystick to play it, but it would be played to death (I still play it on my Amiga).

 

I still actually get very angry when anyone dares say Sensi was better than Kick Off.  Seriously. I have issues. Grrrr!

 

Whilst KO2 was my "actually playing football" game of choice, another game I bought in 1990/91 was to take over my life. I bought the original Championship Manager on the Amiga. It had generated players (I still prefer that to real players names), and was quite similar to the management side of Player Manager… but it took over my life.  Talk about an addiction.  I'd cycle home from sixth form every lunchtime to play it.  I'd play it instead of doing homework.  Every spare minute was taken up with playing the game.  Apart from the TWO HOUR update between seasons. That's when I go outside and play real football whilst it ran.  Yes, kids, TWO HOURS of updating between seasons.  That's unthinkable today.  You can tell how times have changed by one fact - my record signing was some bloke who's name now escapes me who I signed for £2m.  Not only was he my record signing, but £2m was a rediculous amount of money for a player then.  I actually had to think about whether or not to splurge all that on one player.  It was a big deal.  In the end, I did buy him. Ian Smith was his name (if I remember correctly), and he went on to score hatfuls of goals for me, thus making the decision the right one, but it wasn't a decision to take lightly.  Nowadays, you'd pay £2m for someone who might never play for you. Oh how times have changed.  I can't remember if it was CM 92/93 or 93/94 that introduced real player names, but I HATED that.  I still do.  I don't want to play with real players names. Mainly cos I'm biased about them.  I'd play the game, want to buy a good midfielder, only to find the only ones who met my criteria were Giggs n Keane.  I'd then refuse to buy them cos I hated them in real life. And then I'd assign them offensive nicknames in game.

 

So, Championship Manager became my management game of choice.  At some point, I bought Championship Manager Italia from Sports Interactive via Mail Order, and that made a nice change.  Although it was easy as anything. My Fiorentina side won everything, every year for about 20 years on the trot.

 

Nowadays, I'm playing Football Manager 2009.  When Sega and Sports Interactive parted company, Sega took the Championship Manager name, and Sports Interactive took the game.  Obviously, I went with Sports Interactive.  The game has changed a lot since the days of the original CM.  And not necessarily for the better.  I seriously HATE the training side of the game. I want to be a manager, not a coach.  So, I leave that side of things to my assistant.  This generally means my side does well all season until the final quarter, when they collapse like babies and lose week in week out, blowing any chances of promotion.  It almost got to the point where, unthinkably, I almost gave up on football management games entirely.  It certainly isnt anywhere near as fun any more.   But in my current game, I'm doing alright. I've just got Swansea into the Premiership, and am struggling near the bottom.

 

As for proper footy games… on the old Xbox, it was PES 4 all the way.  That game was amazing.  I still prefer that to any game since.  But my current game is FIFA 11.  With PES 4 I'd play online against strangers at any opportunity. Nowadays I play single player only.  I'm currently playing through the career mode as Oxford and am enjoying it more than any football game for a long, long time.  In fact, I'd almost given up on footy games too.

 

So that kinda sums up my football games history.  There are others that I've played that I could mention:

- Brian Cloughs Football Fortunes, as mentioned previously

- Football Director

- United (management game on spectrum, was rather good)

- Premier Manager (by Gremlin, was pretty good)

- Wembley International Soccer Challenge (I loved this on the CD32)

- World Cup 90 (dunno who made this, and it was kinda naff, but also bloomin brilliant too. Played it to death)

- Multi Player Soccer Manager - this game came with a dongle. which was unique. Cracking game. Very fond memories of this one

 

Oh, and there was also the addiction to Football Manager Live.  That was something else.  You basically play against loads of other human managers.  You create your own club, buy n sell players.. blah blah blah… It took FM, changed some rules to suit the online month long season play, and was awesome. I managed to get my side, AFC Oxford, promoted twice in a row, getting them into the top flight of my FA and getting to 2 cup finals.  Then I was poached for another FA and thus entered their leagues and cups and got promoted twice into their top flight.  But then it all went wrong..each FA had mods who organised the leagues etc.. one of ours was a bit of an idiot who kept moaning all the time, non stop. So I called him a bell end and left.  And I've not been back since.  I quite miss the game, and my club and all the great people I met whilst playing it. But one individual totally ruined it for me.  Which was a shame.

Amiga CD32

Retro Gamer 86 is out in the shops today.  It has a cracking isometric game cover, and an article on Mikro-Gen. I shall be picking it up at lunch.  I used to love playing Everyones A Wally, and Pyjamarama on my old Spectrum.  There is also a map of Ant Attack, which was my first Spectrum game (along with Space Raiders). Ahhh good old days.

 

I've been thinking a lot about Retro Gaming again this past week or so, and whilst in a game shop on Sunday I looked at their section of games labelled "Retro".  Previously when I'd been in, this section would contain a lot of NES, SNES, N64, Megadrive and Dreamcast games which in my eyes are retro.  But this time, the section contained nothing but PS2 games which in my eyes AREN'T retro.  Yes, they're not current, but they're not exactly old hat either.  OK, so they might be 10 years old (guestimate), but its still only the previous generation of consoles.  It just seemed a little odd.  To me, to qualify as retro it needs to be a couple of generations old. So maybe PS1 is kinda slotting into that category, but certainly not PS2.  I know its not retro, cos I don't own one ;-)  Having said that, I am tempted to pick one up cheap if I can find one with a huge bundle of games.  Maybe I need to start doing the car boots again..

 

My more casual gaming friends / colleagues don't understand why I have retro consoles when I could "just use an emulator".  They really don't get it.  But for me, theres nothing quite like using the original hardware and controls, and holding the original cartridge / tape / floppy and flicking through old manuals and admiring / laughing at the naffness of old game boxes.  I do have emulators etc but wherever possible I go for the real thing.  My only real issue is having somewhere to put it all.  At the moment, its all boxed up either dumped in the spare room or in the loft.  I'd love to have them all out and usable.  But I can't see that happening anytime soon.

 

I look forward to when my son is a little older, and I can show him the old machines that I used to play on. Although I fully expect him to turn round and say "dad, that's a pile of ****".

 

Despite having a lot of old machines in my collection, it's a bit lacking in actual games so that's something I'm considering fixing in the coming months.  I might try and set myself a target of picking up some of the "Top 10" games for each machine, and maybe some others along the way to boost numbers.  Part of me also wants to go an a "choose a machine and collect as many games for that machine as you can" type mission.  But choosing a machine with a small enough number of games is tough.  I have been looking on ebay at Amiga CD32 titles recently, so might try and pick up a few for that.  Theres certainly a few that take my fancy such as Cannon Fodder and the Dizzy Collection.  Right, that's lunch time sorted then :-)

Retro..

Todays subject is going to be retro gaming.  I'm not entirely sure what angle I'll take as 1) I'm extremely tired and 2) I'm starting writing this so that I've written SOMETHING rather than not posting anything… So if this post feels a little dis-jointed then you'll know why (also, that's how all my posts seem to be).

 

But as is customary round these parts, I'll start off with a little round-up of my recent gaming:

Little Big Planet 2 - I hopped back into this on Saturday night, and finally finished off the first world.  I'm still really enjoying playing this, as I find it very refreshing to play something different to the run of the mill shooters etc. But having said that, I'm getting very frustrated with the jumping.  That was one of the main reasons that I didn't play the first game as much as I would have otherwise.  But ignoring that, it's a jolly little blast of a game.  And, its also the first thing I've played on my PS3 in a year (other than maybe 3 or 4 blu-rays).

Were it not for this game, I'd have loaned the machine to my work colleague who is a massive PS3 fanboy and whos machine has got the yellow light of death.  Apparently he has to pay for a fix AND wait ages for it, unless he takes it to an independent "fixer" for less money and a quick turnaround.  Tut.

 

  Fallout: New Vegas… I wasn't going to write a post without mentioning this. Yes, I appreciate its probably of no interest to anyone, but tough.  I made a reasonable amount of progress on Friday night, and am now at a bit of a cross-roads in the game.  I seem to have 3 paths in front of me, and at first glance it would appear that whichever I choose will close off the other two.  So it's a bit of a dilemma.  Wanting to see the game progress from all 3 sides, I'm tempted to take a couple of backup saves at this point and play through one branch to the end. Then restart from the save and choose one of the other two.

 

Another game I bought and played was Piyo Blocks 2, thanks to the recommendation from David Turners on Joypod.  I was a bit dubious about this, as I'm not a big fan of iPhone games (I tend to lose interest VERY quickly, apart from Flick Kick Football and Orbital), but so far I'm finding it to be a lot of fun.  Its pretty similar to Bejewelled, but has some nice modes.

 

Yesterday, I did something I've not done in a long, long time… I bought a Wii game.  I've only ever bought 2 Wii games - Wii Play and Wii Fit.  Apart from Wii Sports, I've never *got* the Wii.  Its just too childish (yes, that's probably an incorrect generalisation).  I've always loved Nintendo consoles and games, but the Wii has lost me.  There are probably some very good games on it, but they're swimming around in a vast sea of utter rubbish.  Anyway, I bought a Wii game. The game being the 25th Anniversary Mario All-Stars game(s).  Bought purely due to my love of retro, and the fact that I'm a sucker for fancy limited edition / collectors editions.  The game comes in a nice red box with gold logos on, and contains 2 DVD style cases - one is the game, the second contains a soundtrack CD and a little Mario booklet featuring some info about all the Mario games.  It's a nice little package.  I've yet to play the games, but shall report back when I do.

 

Which leads nicely into retro gaming :-)

 

I used to be a regular reader of Retro Gamer magazine. I religiously bought every issue of its old incarnation from issue 1 to the last issue before the publishers went out of business.  When it was relaunched, I bought the first issue and hated the new layout, shiny glossy feel etc and have only bought the odd issue since.  But last Thursday I stopped off at my local WHSmiths and picked up 4 retro gaming magazines - the current issue of Retro Gamer, issue 4 of the Retro Gamer bookazine (half price), the Games TM Retro bookazine (half price) and a retro gaming hardware guide bookazine (also half price).  I've had a quick flick through 3 of the 4, and now have my retro hat back on again.  The Games retro book has some cracking info on the Spectrum, including some photos of some prototype designs as well as some information on the design and manufacture of the machine (the rubber keyboards were made in a condom factory, fact fans).  The Spectrum will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first gaming machine / computer I ever owned.  I remember how the thing would get scolding hot underneath after a days' solid playing.  Which reminds me of something a schoolmate once told me (take this with a pinch of salt, as you know how kids like to brag / exaggerate) - he once claimed his cousin left his Spectrum on and went on holiday for a week, and came back to find the keyboard had melted into one big rubber mess.  I'm not sure how likely that is, but its one of those great stories people would tell you.  Which reminds me of the time someone told me at primary school that if you unscrewed R2D2s head (on the action figure) that you'd find the deathstar plans inside.  I never tried this, although I did believe them at the time (I was 5).  For some totally unexplainable reason, this has made my brain think of the retro games Toki and Dynamite Dux.  Explain THAT!

 

Which now leads me on to something of an oddity amongst games (at least as far as my experiences go) - Brian Cloughs Football Fortunes.  I first played this on  the Spectrum, but later bought it on the Amiga.  If you're not familiar with the game, its basically a football management game but (before you all yawn and leave), there was a difference.  The game came with a board, paper money, tokens and a large number of player cards.  It was a boardgame, combined with a computer game.  You buy players (the cards) using the paper money.  The players are one of 4 types - GK,Defender, Midfield or Attack and each has a star rating between 1 and 5.  When you play a match, you total up the ratings for each of the 4 areas and type them into the game.  You move around the board (the game throws the die to determine how many spaces you move) and various things around the board determine if you can buy a player or other things that I can't remember.  Thinking back, it was quite a bizarre setup, but at the time it was amazing.  If there were a few of you playing, you'd end up with some quite viscious bidding wars on players.  I'm now thinking I need to dig this out again and give it a blast.  I'm not entirely sure where the game is, but I think its in a box with myother "precious"g ames (Kick Off 2 Limited World Cup 90 Edition, Player Manager and the original Championship Manager- I'll no doubt post about those at some point).

 

That'll do for now.

Falling Down..

Theres currently a sale on some DLC on Xbox Live.

It seems to be the year I get into DLC with me now having bought 4 or 5 items, whereas previously I'd bought none.  I downloaded two items yesterday:

Borderlands - the Zombie Island of Dr Ned

Bioshock 2 - Minervas Den

 

Both were 400 points a piece and seem to add a decent bit of gameplay to the games.  One thing to note, the Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare is included in this current sale, so if you haven't got it I'd seriously suggest you get it now.

 

My New Vegas experience took a slight turn for the worse last night.  I have a companion on the game (Cass) and am doing a story thread involving her background.  I had to go investigate something, so I travelled by foot across vast swathes of Mojave Wasteland, getting attacked left right and centre and wondering why she won't help me out in a fire fight… I get to the site, loot it a bit, no sign of Cass… WTF?  So I see a barn in the distance, and decide to go "discover" the location.  I get there, get attacked again by some vicious flying things, but still Cass doesn't help me out.  I flip to the world map, to go somewhere else on another mission and I just happen to spot a marker on the map saying "Cass" - miles away back on The Strip.  Tut.  So a fast travel and some walking later, I find her stood outside the Casino where I'd met Mr House… patiently waiting for me.  Silly cow.

Anyway, we both returned to the site this time and managed to make some progress… until I was told to get some information from two different locations.  The first one is the Crimson Caravan Company and is in a safe.  Which, after waiting around until people had gone to bed, I managed to not only break the 2 bobby pins I had, but I then attempted to force the lock and broke that, thus leaving me requiring the key.  Simple, I thought, I'll go find where the woman is sleeping and pickpocket her… this involved standing around in the barracks until all the guards went off somewhere, and then sneaking up on the sleeping target, finding a spot where I was [HIDDEN] and then pickpocketing the key.  But despite her being asleep, she caught me.  So that was that avenue closed for a while.

I decided to take the other route and visit the other place I needed to go to.. but that place was heavily armed and I couldn't get past the guards. I think for both tracks I need a Steathboy, so will have to try and find / buy one somewhere.

 

This has now got me thinking - if you pick up too  much stuff, you can't move.  So… can you pickpocket someone and fill their pockets so full of stuff they can't move??

 

Oh, and I think I've found my first glitch. One quest is to go into The Gray to look for clues to the whereabouts of Andy and some girl.  There are three quest markers in there, all of which point to thugs.  The thugs will tell you nothing, but theres the option to attack.  Long story short, I've killed them all, but the pointers still point to the dead thugs. Theres nothing obvious on the bodies that might help. Any ideas?  UPDATE: I've just spoken to a work colleague who is suffering from the same problem. 

 

In other news, I have the collectors edition guidebook winging its way to me.  With prices in the UK verging on the rediculous (£35 - £40+), I've ordered it from amazon.com for the paupers price of £20.93 including shipping. Bargain. It won't arrive until March, but that's fine with me. I don't want to be tempted to use it.

Amiga Power

I've just remembered something.  Somewhere, I have every single issue of Amiga Power magazine.  I used to love that magazine (so much so, I bought every issue).  It still remains my favourite magazine of all time, as it just suited my mood and sense of humour so perfectly.

 

It raised quite a stir at the time of its launch by giving away coverdiscs with real full price games on - Bomboozle and Kid Gloves being the first (and only) two.  There was then some big argument or something and they returned to the standard fare of demos and public domain games.  Talking of which, they gave away a game that remains one of my favourites of all-time… Extreme Violence.  Long story short, you and a mate run around a big top-down maze trying to shoot the other player. If you shoot them, they're dead and you win.  It was so much fun.

 

Anyway, I have a big box full of every single issue.  I had considered chucking them all at one point, but now I'm glad I didn't.  The first issue came out in my last two years of school, so that's 19-20 years ago now.  That's a scary thought in itself.  It should make interesting reading, flipping through them again.  It'll also be interesting to see what the boy makes of them in a few years..

 

I'd never kept magazines before Amiga Power, and I've never kept any since (apart from the first 5-10 issues of Retro Gamer).  I'm not so sure modern magazines would have the same appeal to a future me.

 

Retro Gamer - I used to buy this religiously from issue 1 up to the point where the publishers went bust.  Then when it re-emerged under a new publisher, I bought a couple of issues but wasn't keen on the new format and have probably bought less than 5 issues of the new version.  I'm now sit here thinking maybe I should subscribe to it, and buy up some back issues.  The only problem then would be, my love of retro gaming would kick in again and I'd be scouring ebay to buy up any consoles I don't currently own.  Last time this happened I ended up buying a Sega Saturn with about 20 games and a light gun.

 

Hmmm… I'm now thinking of looking for an Atari Lynx and some Gamegear games.  I'd also quite like to pick up a PS2 at some point too.  But not sure that's retro enough for me yet.  Maybe a quick scour of some car boots will produce the goods.

Overdue Update

Its been a little while since my last post, and for that I apologise.  I'd been aiming for one a day, but when you're getting little to no sleep each night thanks to a teething ten month old, something has to give.

 

My brain is still fried, so I'll ease it in with a bit of a roundup.

 

Since my last post, I've been playing more of a certain game as well as picking up a new game for my very neglected PS3.

 

The new game is none other than Little Big Planet 2.  I'd picked up the first game second hand when I got my PS3 just over a year ago, and really enjoyed it.  So getting the new and improved version seemed like a good idea.  I wasn't too sure about paying the best part of £40 for it, but luckily GAME came up trumps on Saturday and let me have it for £14.99 as long as I traded in my copy of The Sims 3 I got free from Cokezone.  It was a no brainer as I couldn't get into The Sims at all.

 

Saturday night was gaming night (these are rare occurrances so I have to make the most of it), so it was a toss up - do I start with New Vegas and then move to LBP2 when I get tired later on? Or start on LBP2 and then switch to NV?  I opted to start with LBP2 (cos its all shiny and new)… that was my first mistake of the evening.  The servers were playing up meaning it took a good 5 - 10 mins to load up a single level.  Needless to say, I soon gave up..  Think I've played about 2 or 3 levels so far, so  can't really comment too much other than to say its more of the same.  The jumping is still annoying as anything, and the moving into and out of the screen does my head in.  But despite these annoyances, it is still fun running around collecting bubbles and stickers and stuff.

 

I'm really hoping to give the creation side of things a proper go this time round. I tried the tutorials on the first game, but never really got anywhere with it. So I'm hoping to make amends.  I think I need to start by downloading a few of the user created levels to get some inspiration and see what others are doing.  I've tried one user created level so far, which was a version of Simon Says, created by my new PSN chum, Snowy.  Although the gameplay itself is fairly basic (this isnt a criticism of snowy! you push the correct button according to whats lit on screen), the mechanics behind it aren't, and Snowy said it took him around 4  hours to create it.  Its fun, and theres a scoreboard too, so you can see how badly (in my case) you did.  It just goes to show the potential for creation that is there.. the only downside being the amount of time you need to invest.  So that in itself suggests I'll get nowhere.. but watch this space.

 

So… after getting annoyed with the slowness of PSN, I switched on the xbox and returned to the wonderful Fallout New Vegas.  God, I love this game.  I don't know why I love it so much when I struggled getting into Fallout 3, when essentially they are the same game.  I'm thinking its maybe the gameworlds.    Fallout 3's grey and dull world, despite fitting the storyline well, just doesn't grab me,  whereas NV's slightly more colourful landscapes and locations do.  Who knows. I'm thinking that once I've done NV, that F3 will just fall into place and I'll be hooked on that too.  I think I'm also playing it in the right way now, and not playing it like its Oblivion.

 

Without going into too much detail, I've just met Mr House and am plodding through a number of side quests too.  I've not had too many glitches yet, the only one I've noticed being a dog floating a few inches off the ground for a while before falling back to earth and running off.

 

I'm still on the lookout for the Collectors Edition of the game, so if you know of anywhere selling it at a respectable price, please let me know. Same goes for the Collectors Edition of the guide book.

 

I wasn't going to mention this, as I'm quite ashamed of myself, but I also bought a new xbox game yesterday.  We were shopping in Sainsburys and as usual I took a look at their sale games.  There was one game for £4.99 which I picked up and was looking at out of curiousity… and the missus comes along and tells me to buy it. So I did. It was Summer Atheletics 2009.  Now, I know its going to be utter rubbish, so I'm not sure why I bought it. And I feel dirty for doing so.  But the boy was rather pleased with himself when we let him carry it around the shop.  So it was worth it for that alone.  I'll report back on it once I get round to giving it a play.