Retro Diary - 27/5/12 - "We're going to play MSR in a whole new time zone!"

Dear Diary,

I decided that instead of writing the entire thing on the Sunday, I'd write it as it happens, so some of the stuff may be in present tense, probably not, but just a warning...

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Friday 25th March 2012

For a while, I've always wanted to try out FIFA Manager 12, because I already had FIFA 12 and UEFA Euro 2012 (Both physical copies!), and it seemed as though if I had manager, that would be the PC collection complete!

So after looking a bit on Origin, I found there was a downloadable demo available, as well as Sims 3 and pets, so I downloaded them, and gave them a go.

I surprisingly enjoyed FIFA Manager, I previously tried the Football Manager 2012 demo, and I found that boring, this was pretty fun, though, even if it's pretty glitchy...

I really enjoyed Sims 3 and pets as well, the Sims 3 "Teaser", as they call it basically give you a minute trial of an area and you move to the next, you get to go to 3 areas, the pets demo is basically just the create part, nothing else. Although now I'm considering getting both games, but I can't, as I'm saving up to pre-order FIFA 13 and PES 2013 on both PC and PS2...

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Saturday 26th May 2012

My sister came into my room while she was visiting, and she asked if she wanted to play Tony Hawk's Underground for the PS2, so I let her, and she was playing for about 10-15 minutes, even though she wasn't doing any tricks, and was hardly jumping, she seemed to be enjoying it for a while.

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Sunday 27th March 2012

This morning, since I recently got a new ISP (O2, we used to have AOL), I thought I'd try FIFA 12 and PES 2012 online, before hand, it just didn't work at all, I was lucky to play half a match on either, but with the new ISP, I played several full matches without a problem!

I won my match on FIFA 4-2, we were both Barcelona. On PES 2012, however, the people there are complete ninjas! The first match, I lost 8-2! Not only that, my 2 goals, were my only shots in the whole game, the other guy had, I kid you not, 22 shots! Another Barcelona, Chelsea moment... The second match I played was even worse, I lost 13-2! I would've rage quit, but if I did, the game would restrict my account, it's nice to know that system works...

It was PS3 week at grans today, we only played FIFA Street, me and my brother, played 2 matches of "Last man standing", which, if you score, the player that scored gets sent off, and player who send their entire team off first wins, he won both times.

The me and my cousin, Giancarlo, played a 5-a-side match, which I won 6-2 I think. Then me and my other cousin, Steven, had a game, I don't remember the result for that.

After that, I left.

Steven came up to our house not long afterwards, and we played a bunch of games!

We decided to try a challenge, and attempt to play all of the consoles that night, we just called it: The Console Challenge, it's good enough, plus it has alliteration.

We started off by playing FIFA 12, in celebration that FIFA 13 was coming to PS2, widescreen and in 60Hz! I went as Barcelona, and he went as Athletico Madrid. We enjoyed it, despite the game being completely different, but not for the better, and the game kept slowing down, we played a match, I won, but I don't remember by how much.

We then played PES 2012 for the PS2, in celebration of PES 2013 coming to PS2, I went Barcelona again and I think Steven went as Manchester City ,more of the same here, except the game had no widescreen mode, not that it's that important.

Then we played Timsplitters, and trying to figure out what to do! If you don't know what we mean, the game's objectives are very simple, literally, every objective is take something, bring it back, me and Steven have an in-joke of pretending that we don't understand the objective! We couldn't pass the level we were on, because we had no idea where the item in question was and there were too many guys pumping lead into us.

Then we went up a step, and played Timsplitters 2! We were on Neo Tokyo, where you had to follow someone without her noticing you, we finally passed it!

Then we played Vib Ribbon on the PS1, I challenged him to complete a 'Weird' Al Yankovic song on it, as I mentioned to him it was almost impossible, he couldn't do it!

Then we played the revolutionary Rise of the Robots for the Amiga CD32! We played a couple of matches, He won the first, I won the second.

Then we played Sonic Adventure 2, we played a Kart Race, I don't remember my position, but Steven came last. Then we played a couple of action stages, I won both, which was enough to show him the levels we never played in before.

Then we played Metropolis Street Racer, we set the time to the console default (midnight 1st Jan 1998), but we set the time zone to a random one to mix things up, and it landed on GMT +9, then Steven said "...and now, we're going to play MSR in a whole new time zone!" Brilliant! At that moment, I knew I was goign to use that for this diary's title.

We played a couple of races, both of which I won, the first one, which was in Tokyo, by quite a margin, 20 seconds between my finish, and Steven's, the second one, which was in London, was close, but it was still clear who won.

Then we played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on the Xbox, so we could get our Horse of the week, we played in the airport level, where it all started! The "horse", was wVjlYSfRR4! I won it despite my handicap! 11-5 to me!

Then we played Mashed: Fully Loaded on the Xbox, we played f*ck knows how many matches, we got addicted for a short while! We had force ourselves out to play something else!

Then we moved onto the Saturn to play Sega Rally Championship we had a race, unfortunately, I won the race...

Then we had a game of FIFA 97, also on the Saturn, and it was awful, but in the awesome kind of way! We soon realised why the Sega Worldwide Soccer games got so much praise back in the day and still to this day has a fan base... this was the alternative!

Then we played Forsaken on the N64, the game is fun on single player, not so much on multiplayer, pretty disappointing, especially since the N64 is the system for multiplayer games!

Then we played 007 Goldeneye, on, what else, the Sega Saturn! Oh wait... We played a game of licensed to kill slappers only, as always, but we had turbo mode on, which, as you might have guessed, speeds up the players, and it was a lot of fun, I expected it to be frustrating, because you might not be able to hit the players, that was the case, but it was still fun! Then, for the first time in a long time, we had a proper gun match, with turbo mode on, but still, and we had an absolute blast! We should do this more often!

Finally, because all we needed was the Gamecube to have completed all the main consoles I have, we played Beyblade V-Force: Super Tournament Battle, once I finally explained to Steven how to launch the Beyblade in the game, once that was over and done with, we played a proper match, and we enjoyed it, well, at least I did.

We were about to play Sonic Heroes on the Gamecube, but Steven had to leave unfortunately, so we weren't able to, obviously.

Before we left, I showed him my recently acquired key chain Beyblade and launched it, and asked him "Doesn't this bring back memories?", he said "Aye, it does.", just thought I'd tell you that.

Here's what we played:

In the order we played them:
• FIFA 12 [PS2]
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 [PS2]
• Timesplitters [PS2]
• Timesplitters 2 [PS2]
• Vib Ribbon [PS1]
• Rise of the Robots [CD32]
• Sonic Adventure 2 [DC]
• Metropolis Street Racer [DC]
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 [Xbox]
• Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
• Sega Rally Championship [SS]
• FIFA 97 [SS]
• Forsaken [N64]
• 007 Goldeneye [N64]
• Beyblade V-Force: Super Tournament Battle [GC]

It was a fun week overall, next Sunday, we're having party for my brother's communion at my house, and all of my cousins are going, it's going to be a frantic week!

The week afterwards will be Wii week, because it's been far too long since we played a game of Wario Ware Smooth Moves!

Article By: Cobra!
Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 15/4/12 - "That's now how you USE a Fire Flower!"

Dear Diary,

Right after I wrote my last entry, I was playing Garry's Mod with my cousin, Steven, we made some new "robots" for our robot wars, I'll make an article with more details.

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On Monday, We went to grans because my gran had leftovers from the night before since it was Easter weekend, Steven was going as well, so I thought I'd bring along a console I wouldn't normally bring, because we're going on a day we don't usually.

So I brought my Amiga CD32 with me, so we can play the game that redefined the fighting genre, Rise of the Robots! We played a bit of that, but we were a bit bored, and there were a whole pile of, albeit burnt, CD32 games that we haven't tried, I haven't even tried them, so we decided to browse through them all to see if there any fun multiplayer games, out of about 20 or even 30, we only found 2 that were multiplayer, or at least playable in multiplayer, and one of them was a football game.

The other game was Shadow Fighter, which was actually pretty good, it wasn't exactly Mortal Kombat, but it was fun to play, although it only used one button, like many CD32 games, and you had to choose between music and sound effects. (although, if you choose music, you still get a few sound effects.)

So we were playing that for the rest of the time we were there, and like I said, it's surprisingly a fun game.

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On Saturday, there were keys given out online to download the new Garry's Mod 13 beta, only 19,000 got it, and me and Steven were luckily among them.

My first impressions were mixed, I understand that it's just a beta and it's mostly for programmers to try out their new entities, props etc. rather than messing about.

The Toybox was absent, and a few garrysmod.com stuff aren't fully compatible, however, the steam workshop is pretty awesome, the menu's improved in my opinion, and the new construct level is pretty awesome, it's far bigger! I still prefer the original, because I think it has a better layout, but I love the new one as well.

I hope they get around to fixing these problems soon.

So we were messing about in that for a while.

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On Sunday, it was N64 week, my other cousin, Giancarlo couldn't be here, I don't know why this time.

This is entirely out of recollection, as I might get some info wrong.

We (me and Steven) started off by playing Goldeneye (There goes the main event... ah well), we played a few game of licence to kill slappers only, as usual, and it was fun, especially since we haven't played it in a while.

We then played wipE'out 64, we played a couple of races, first one I was first, and we was 13th, in the second race, my ship got wrecked, and he reached 11t I think.

Then we played Pokémon Stadium, we played the mini-games, I won the game we had, it was first to 5 wins.

Then we played Super Smash Bros. and we got my uncle, Steven's dad, to play it because he played it with us way back in the day, and I remember he actually at one game scored as low as -34! The lowest he got out of the matches we played was -11 I think, he's improved since the old days!

Then we played WWF Attitude, we had a triple threat match, I stupidly set the time limit to an hour, since I thought the match would end way before then, but as it turns out, it lasted half an hour, but was a fun half an hour, we had a great time!

Then my uncle had to leave, we decided to play a game of TEEEEEN EEEEIGHTY!(1080) Snowboarding, we played a load of games, first few of which I won due to him retiring from taking too much damage, then I say "Oh, Steven's dead... That means Cobra!'s the winner!", it's an in joke we have. The last race he won.

Then we had a couple of races in Star Wars Episode 1 Racer.

Then we played RIIIIIDDGE RAAAAAAACER! 64, and had a couple of races of that.

Finally, we had a quick 2 minute/5 kills game of Perfect Dark, the match ended before either of us got 5 kills, I won due to having more kills.

Then they had to leave.

Overall, it was a fun week, and was problem-free, next week is Dreamcast week, my tied-1st favourite games console ever. (Tied with Playstation.)

Article By: Cobra!

Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 19/2/12 - "Crossbows are the best!"

Dear Diary,

This week was so-so in terms of how busy it was, but the things that happened were great!

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On Monday, I was having trouble with my PayPal account, and my mum invited Steven over to fix the problem, after that was done, my brother wanted to help him with Portal 2, after he did that, we decided to play a couple of games.

First we played the game that redefined the fighting genre, the classic Rise of the Robots on the Amiga CD32, to my recollection, I won a match then he won one, then we quit.

Then we played Mashed: Fully Loaded on the Xbox, I lost count on who won and by how many wins, but who cares, it was fun!

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I go to College every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I'm telling you this because me and my friend always go to McDonald's for lunch on all days, as greedy as it sounds, I can do that and still lose weight, after we eat our McDonald's one day, we had plenty of time before the next class/lecture starts, so we just decided to explore the Toy R Us that was nearby, and we found an Xbox 360 on display and it had Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 demo in it, since then, we always have a match of that after McDonald's.

Also, Toys R Us recently started selling the new Beyblades, it even said you could battle inside, so we went in to where the arena and blades were meant to be, and there was nothing on it, however, my friend looked under it, and found the stuff, they were hiding it, I guess it was to avoid theft, so he pulled it out and put it on the table, and we had a few battles. I'm guessing this will also be on our schedule between lunch and the next class/lecture, I hope so, I loved Beyblade back in the day, and the new Metal Fight ones are fun as well, although they're a bit hard to get the blades on the launcher, they keep falling off.

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On Sunday, it was Xbox week at our grans, and I realised we done Gamecube and Xbox in the wrong order, as the Gamecube actually came out after, some retro fan I am!

Anyway,we only really got to play 1 game, which was 007: Nightfire, which was fun as always, but afterwards, we were actually going to the cinema to see the new Muppets Film, which was brilliant by the way.

So because we only got to play one game, we're extending Xbox week to next week, to make up for it.

So yeah, next week is, I guess you could call it Xbox fortnight part 2.

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 29/1/12 - "There's never been robot opponents this lethal!"

Dear Dairy, I've had a pretty busy week this week, this week was mostly Sega-orientated.

On Monday, 23rd January 2012, my cousin, Steven came up to our house again, and as usual, we played a bunch of old games.

We first played Mashed: Fully Loaded on the Xbox, I won 1 race, he won 2, somehow, and the CPU won a game. If you read my blog regularly, you'll probably know that Fully Loaded is almost exactly the same as the original, because of this, during the countdown, we say, in tune with the countdown; "This-Game's-The-Same!".

Then we had game of Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction on PS2, it was a 6-man annihilator, I won it.

He brought his laptop along with him, so we had a game of TF2 ware on Team Fortress 2, I have no many games we had, tonnes, we were addicted! The game has alot of players, most of them almost impossible to top in a game, but somehow, I won a round!

Then we had a race of Sega Rally 2 for the Dreamcast, which I won.

We then had a game of the Go Kart mini game on Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast, I was 2st, he was 6th, or should I say last.

After that, I showed him a trailer for Rise of the Robots, it had fake claims all over it, it said stuff like Take on droids in order of their technical sophistications in a cinematic 3D arena, with full 360 degree freedom of movement!, Rise of the Robots features fighting moves conceived by a martial arts expert and VR inspired backgrounds designed by an architect!, Opponents actually learn from their mistakes and read your moves! Making strategic decisions down to the last microsecond! There's never been robot opponents this lethal!, Awesome five round bouts are more than kick and punch! Multiple rounds build drama and excitement as gamers sweat every swain, every move! and last, but definitely not least; Rise of the Robots redefines the fighting genre with a futuristic motive proven in focus groups!.

If you have ever heard of Rise of the Robots, you'd know they're all lies. Click here to watch it.

We played the game itself on Amiga CD32 afterwards, we had played 3 matches, all of which were with the Sentry Droid (a.k.a. "Rook"), He won the first match, I win the second match, and he won the third.

Lastly, we played Mario Kart Double Dash for the Gamecube. we had 2 races, one in Luigi Circuit -I was 1st in that one, he was 6th- and one in Peach Beach -I was 2nd in that race, he was 5th-.

Here's the list of the games we played:

In the order we played them:
• Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
• Robot Wars: Arenas of Destruction [PS2]
• Team Fortress 2 [PC-Steam]
• Sega Rally 2 [DC]
• Sonic Adventure 2 [DC]
• Rise of the Robots [CD32]
• Mario Kart Double Dash [GCN]

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On Friday, 27th January 2012, we went to our grans, because it was my late dad's birthday, and to celibate, we were to set off Chinese lanterns.

I was just playing Urbz on the GBA, with the aid of a Strategy Guide, of course, while waiting for our cousins to arrive.

After we set off the Chinese lanterns, we went back in our grans, and it turns out my uncle had brought his Master System, we set that up, and played some games on it, and he let me keep it, if you want read the full story about it if you haven't already, click here.

Here's the list of the games we played:

In the order we played them:
• Urbz: Sims in the City [GBA]
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [SMS]
• After Burner [SMS]
• Sonic the Hedgehog [SMS]

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On Saturday, 18th January 2012, our cousins came up for dinner, me and Steven as usual, came up to my room to play a bunch of games

Of course, by tradition, we started off playing Rise of the Robots on the Amiga CD32, and like always we had playing it, or rather laughing at it, I wasn't able to keep track of how many matched we had, though.

We then played the sequel, Resurrection: Rise 2 for the Sega Saturn, this game fixed all of the problems the original had, and it actually a pretty good game, in fact, there was a part of the narrative in the manual that took the mickey out of the original game, I already mentioned this, but since it was so long ago, I'm mentioning it again, it did so by saying, and I quote: The next generation of robots now had actual intelligence....

Then we had a couple of games of Sega GT on the Sega Dreamcast, we played a race in the normal, oval course, which he surprisingly won, then we had a race at a city level, which is more advanced, and I won that race, by quite a bit, despite his 3 second head start.

We then played Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast, we had 2 races at the go kart mini game, one in the intermediate course, one at the expert course. Then we had a few games of the action stages, most of the at the shooting one, he surprisingly won most of them despite almost no experience with the game, and we had a game of the running game, which I won.

Then we played Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast, we had a couple of races, and it turns out the game has widescreen support! Perfect for my new TV!

We then played Mashed: Fully Loaded on the Xbox, and as always, he had a blast! Quite a few, actually!

Lastly, we played Sega Touring Car Championship for the Sega Saturn, I've been hearing the game was awful on the D-pad, I've mostly been playing it with the analogue, but I only had 1 3D controller, so I gave Steven it, and decided to use the D-pad, at first, I didn't like it, but I got used to it, and started to enjoy the game anyway, it's not so bad, frankly, I have no idea what all those game reviewers were b*tching about.

Sega Touring Car Championship was one of those games you could casually play while talking to your friends, usually the guy you're playing, and I love those types of games, because we'd still be getting our doses of gaming goodness, and also have good conversations with other people, you know, socialising, the thing they say gaming takes away from people...

After that, Steven had to leave, aw! I wanted to play him at Mario Kart Double Dash!

Here's the list of the games we played:

In the order we played them:
• Rise of the Robots [CD32]
• Resurrection: Rise 2 [SS]
• Sega GT [DC]
• Sonic Adventure 2 [DC]
• Metropolis Street Racer [DC]
• Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
• Sega Touring Car Championship [SS]

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Today, at grans, it was Dreamcast week, good timing, I've been in a Dreamcast mood lately!

While I was waiting for my cousins to finish their lunch, I was playing Urbz on the GBA for a bit.

I don't remember much from this despite being recent, so not everything here happened in the right order.

The first game we played was Mortal Kombat Gold with my cousin, Giancarlo, it was hilarious to play, and not in the it's-so-bad-it's-good kind of hilarious! After a good few games

Then we played Metropolis Street Racer, me and Steven had a couple of races, and then I had a game with Gianni.

Then we played Sonic Adventure 2, we had a couple of Go-Kart races, one with Gianni, and the rest with Steven.

We then had a game of Chu Chu Rocket, we would've had a 4-player game, but Gianni had to leave, so it was just the 2 of us, we had a few games, then I became bored.

We put Sonic Adventure 2 back in, and we had a few go kart races again, then we decided to play a few of the shooting action stages, a couple in the Egyptian level, and a few at the highway level, I won the former battles, and most of the latter, he managed to win a couple of them, then we played a few action stages, and boy, were are matches then tense and epic! We had 3 matches as I recall, all of them at Sky Rail and he somehow won 2 of them:

One of them was because I had fallen off at the worst moment, and whenever you reach a checkpoint, even if your opponent never reaches it, they'll go to that check point if they die, so to my recall, I reached the third checkpoint, Steven didn't, he was around the second checkpoint, and he died, and went to the third checkpoint, so it was a race to see who reached the goal, and then I died, and he caught up to where I was and reached the goal.

The second game we had was so, so close! It was virtually neck and neck, constantly switching back and forth being first, both dying at the same time and respawning the same spots and stuff, then when we were at the end, and we were virtually at the goal the same time, it looked like I inched it... but then the game gave the victory to Steven...

The third match we had wasn't as tense as the first 2 games, but it was still epic, at least for me! I was watching my ring count, using time stop as often as I could, made sure not to fall off, and I finally reached the goal first! It was close, but I made it!

Whoo! That was epic! I think Sonic Adventure 2 is my favourite 2-player game of all time now!

Then we had a game of Sega Rally 2, we had a few races, not much to say about that.

and Finally we played Metropolis Street Racer, we had a load of races, then we had to leave!

I think I can safely say that was one of the best weeks we've had since we started this whole week thing!

In short, here're the games we played:

In the order I think we played them: (All DC unless stated otherwise)
• Urbz: Sims in the city [GBA]
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• Metropolis Street Racer
• Sonic Adventure 2
• Chu Chu Rocket
• Sega Rally 2

I've just noticed, we didn't have our traditional 3-4-player game of Chu Chu Rocket or even played Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Dreamcast week wasn't complete, but it was still fun!

Next week is PS2 week, it's a good chance to compare the 2 consoles, see which one's better, Steven thinks the Dreamcast is better, Gianni, at least the last time I asked, thinks the PS2's better, and as much as I love both, I think the Dreamcast is better, so this will be good time to see by how much we prefer them, or maybe we'll change our minds... nah, doubt it!

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Article By: Cobra!
Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 8/1/12 - "He is okay, Wo-mon!"

Dear Diary, I've had a busy week this week...

On Wednesday, my cousin, Steven, came over to fix a problem with my mum's Paypal, so I can get a copy of one of the old McDonalds demo disc 1! I invited him up to my room to play a few games.

First, we had a few game of the infamous Rise of the Robots on the Amiga CD32, being that he was the 2nd player, he got to choose the opponent, I couldn't. I had to stick with the Cyborg.

The first match, he went as the Sentry droid, a.k.a. "Rook", he won that match.
The second match, he went as the Soldier droid, a.k.a. "War", I won that match.
The third match, he went as the Builder droid, a.k.a. "Ape" or "Prime-8", it turns out that Ape didn't have any aerial attacks, and since the game usually consists of them to win matches, that was a bad thing, I won the match because of that.
The forth match, he went as the Sentry droid again, I won again.
It was 3-1 to me, yes!

Next we played World Tour Racing for the Atari Jaguar CD, it turns out that the control setting only apply to the first player, even if it's the second player choosing them, that sucked! We raced in England, which didn't look like England at all. However, we were amazed at the graphics, they were great for the Jaguar, it was a fully 3D textured-polygon game, which is rare for a Jaguar game.

Next, Steven had to help my brother in Portal 2, but as well as do that, he showed us a secret level, which was cool!

We then went on Garrys Mod on my PC, because I said to him the face poser in the game didn't work, it turns out they didn't work with the Team Fortress 2 characters.

We then had another race at World Tour Racing, nothing to say about that.

Then we had a game of wipE'out 64 for, what else, the Sega Saturn!... Wait, that's not right...

2 player in the game was surprisingly smooth and fast, I might even go as far as to say it runs faster than single-player!

After that, he had to leave.

In short, here are the game we played:

In the order we played them:
• Rise of the Robots [CD32]
• World Tour Racing [JagCD]
• Portal 2 [360]
• Garry's Mod [PC - Steam]
• wipE'out 64 [N64]

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The next day, my sister came over, and she discovered that I had a Mega Drive, she had, what is called, a "Nostalgia-gasm", which means, she got a memory triggered of something she remembers dearly, and get exited to play it again. She said for a joke that she wanted to move back into the house.

I popped in Sonic 2, and she pretty much played it all night.

It was probably the first time my Mega Drive had been booted up in years!

She said that she's going to buy a Mega Drive off eBay, and asked me if she does, if I would go over to her house to help her set it up, I said I would, it wouldn't be a problem.

She took a photo of the Mega Drive on Facebook, and said it was okay if I posted it here, so here you go:


She got to Zone 3 Act 2 before she had to leave.

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Friday was an awful day, it was the day my Sega Saturn died, I was trying out Sonic 3D, and it didn't read it, so I cleaned the lens, the outside, pushed the lens to the top, left it for a few hours, even opened it up to see if the drive was connected properly, but none of those worked, it wouldn't read anything...

R.I.P. my Sega Saturn, 2008 - 2012... Oh well, time to find another on Amazon and eBay.

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On Saturday, me and my cousin, Steven, were having a Robot Combat battle on Gmod, can can find more info on that here.

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Today, at Grans, it was 3DO week, and it wasn't as fun a I hoped, but I had a good time nonetheless.

We started off by playing Corpse Killer, which is one of those it's-so-bad-it's-good FMV games, my cousin, Steven got up to a fortress level of sort until it became too hard, not in the challenging way, they just threw too many zombies at him, most of which were invulnerable to bullets, which isn't fair!

If you didn't know, Corpse Killer is an FMV game that tried to be a rail shooter, but fails miserably, the main protagonist, apart from your character, is a one-dimensional stereo typical Jamacan man, who's always saying stuff like "Foo-pah!", "He is okay, Wo-mon!", there's a female character by the way, who has no personality whatsoever, at least not that I've seen.

Next, he played a race in The Need for Speed, not to much to say about it, except while he was playing it, we were writing that Gmod article I linked to above.

Then we played Twisted, we never finished the game, we had to leave before we could, but we enjoyed it.

In summary, here are the game we played:

In the order we played them:
• Corpse Killer
• The Need for Speed
• Twisted: The Game Show

I had a great week this week, next week was supposed to be Saturn week, but as we know, my Saturn died, so we're skipping to Playstation (1) week!

Random Photo (I was bored)

I was bored today, So I decided, since I now have all of the major 5th generation consoles, I thought I'd take a photo of all of their controllers side by side, similar to what some guy did with the 6th gen console on Wikipedia. The reason I didn't do console. because it'd be too much hassle unplugging them all lifting them off, putting them all on my bed, take the photo, lift them all back and plug them all back in, it'd be a nightmare.

Anyway here it is:

Retro Diary - 1/1/12 - "They don't call me Cobradabest for nothing!"

Well, it's now the year 2012, It seams like only yesterday since it was 2011, doesn't it?

I'm so glad to see the back of 2011, as much I enjoyed some moments of it, the bad things really made me glad it's past. Happy New Year everybody!

---

Dear Diary,

On new years day, out of boredom, I decided to play through Darkseed on the CD32, don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but due to it's scary nature, it would've been my last choice to play.

Luckily, my copy of the game came with a hints & tips book, and was glad to find out it had a walkthrough inside, because the game is pretty confusing, some tasks have time limits, and sometimes, you have to be at the right place, at the right time, otherwise, you can't beat the game, it'll go into an unwinnable state.

I suppose to make up for it, the game's short, it's only an hour long if you know what you're doing, but I didn't want to properly delve into it until I had a guide of sorts, so I was chuffed that my game came with one!

So I actually completed the game before the new year, and let me tell you, I was pretty scared playing it, I always got the feeling that I needed to hurry up, or else the implanted alien will be born and it's game over, or someone is after you, and I knew before hand all the bad endings, and I didn't find them scary when I saw them then, but I was scared that I might see them again, I didn't though, I successfully beaten the game, and man, was it a great feeling!

That was the last game I played that year, then of course, it struck midnight, it was 2012!

The first game I played this year, was Motorstorm: Arctic Edge on the PS2, and I won a few races and... yeah, what else can I say?

---

Today, at grans, I brought over the original Xbox, my brother brought his PS3, Steven couldn't be there, unfortunetly, because he had yet another shift at his job, or so we thought!

So me and my other cousin, Giancarlo, had a few games of Mashed, I forgotten how fun it was as a multi-player game! We had a great time! Well, at least I did!

Then we had a co-op game of Timesplitters: Future Perfect, unfortunetly, my cousin had to leave before we completed the level we were on, that sucked!

Luckily, Steven's shift finished early, and he arrived here, pretty much the same time Giancarlo left.

So we also had a couple of games of Mashed, actually more than a couple, we played for at least a couple of hours! We were totally addicted to it! I kept saying, for a joke "They don't call me Cobradabest for nothing!" even at moments where I was getting annihilated!

We tried Mashed: Fully Loaded, to see what had changed, and it turned out, it was exactly the same game! Even the music, the menus and gameplay were exactly the same! The only difference is that they added new cars and tracks, other than that, it was exactly the same!

Imagine being a kid back then, well, we WERE kids back then, but that's besides the point, who loved the original Mashed game, found out another game was coming out, so you saved up your hard-earned pocket money, and bought the game for about £30, expecting a much better game, but then find out it was exactly the same! I'd be p*ssed off myself!

Anyway, because the game has more tracks and cars than the original, by default, fully loaded is the better game.

Nevertheless, the game is fantastic, he had a brilliant time playing it, once again, we were addicted!

We kept playing until one of us won, which took a while, it was always one of the computers winning, when one of us did win, it was Steven, great! It didn't matter, I had far too much fun to care!

We packed up afterwards, and left.

In short, here's what we played, in the order to play them:
• Mashed
• Timesplitters: Future Perfect
• Mashed (The game's so awesome, it deserves a second mention!)
• Mashed: Fully Loaded

Next week, we're starting the schedule again, next week is 3DO week!

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 30/12/11 - Christmas(ish) Special

I haven't been online since Christmas day, well I have, but I've been too busy playing the Sam & Max games to write this, but I decided to take a little break from them to write this. (it was hard to pull myself away from playing them, they're just so awesome!)

I decided originally to forget about writing this, but then I remembered the reason I started this series in the first place, so I can look back and if I forgot exactly what happened in my memories, I can read these entries to remind me exactly what happened.

Anyway, enough blabbering on, let's get started!

---

Dear Diary,

Despite the tragedy that happened in my family slightly earlier this year, I really enjoyed Christmas this year, I got almost everything I wanted, I say everything I mean I didn't get my Sam & Max DVD boxset and the copy I got of Season 2 was a faulty copy, stupid conmen! Also, the copy I got of wipEout 3 Special edition what the 2 games package which came with that and Destruction Derby 2, which I didn't want, I already had Destruction Derby 2, I didn't want it again!

I managed to get it working if I boot it up a certain, obscure way, but I'm planning on getting a legit, UK version of the game plus the Sam & Max DVD box set and a proper copy of wipEout 3: Special Edition from Amazon.

Anyway, here's what else I got:

• Laurel and Hardy DVD box-set
• Gorillaz Compliation Album
• Sam & Max Hit the Road [PC]
• Sam & Max - Season One [PC]
• Sam & Max - The Devil's Playhouse [PC]
• World Tour Racing [JagCD]
• wipE'out 6 [N64]
• wip3out [PS1]
• Darkseed [CD32]
• Mashed [Xbox]
• Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
• Motorstorm: Arctic Edge [PS2]

I haven't got the time to take photos of all them, so, obviously, I can't provide photos. I've been mostly playing the Sam & Max games, I've completed Season One, I'm in the middle of Season One, I've still to play Hit the Road and Devil's Playhouse.

Speaking of, I've been hearing that the PC version of Hit the Road doesn't work on XP and Vista PCs, and that you still need DOSbox for them, but I tried the game out without DOS box, and it work perfectly fine, I don't see what everyone's problem is.

Overall, like I said, despite what happened in November, I had a great Christmas!

---

The same day, we went down the grans for our Christmas dinner, I brought my CD32 and PS2 along, since the main TV was apparently going to be busy, we had to use the other TV in the sitting room, which has dodgy colours, but I suppose it was better than nothing. So me and Steven played a few games of Motorstorm on it, and I showed him Rise of the Robots and how bad it was.

Then my brother and his brother (I still need permission to use their real names) came in with the Xbox 360 and used the main TV, great! Interesting thing though, they were about to play FIFA 12 on it, so I decided to show them that we didn't need their fancy next gen multimedia system, and stuck in FIFA 12 on the PS2 and played that.

I don't remember much else, I do remember having a game of Motorstorm with Giancarlo, but then he had to leave, we left not long after.

---

The next day, we went there again, but this time, I didn't bring a console, my brother brought his PS3, we had 3 games, before we started, he said to me "I'll show you how to really play FIFA!", and I ended up beating him in 2 of the 3 games, yeah, it seams my way of playing FIFA is the superior way!

After that, he had a few games with out cousins, then we were thinking of doing a local-ish tournament, so far, we only have 6 people in it, we need 8! We're going to work something out though.

---

Wow, I thought this diary would be longer, oh well.

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 18/12/11 - "You've landed on the challenge square!"

Dear Diary,

This week wasn't as busy as other weeks, so it shouldn't take as long to write this.

---

On Saturday, while me and my brother were wrapping the rest of our other brothers' presents, when my mum came in with a package, I recognised it, it was my 3DO, my mum said that I had too many presents for Christmas already, so she gave me the 3DO early!

On the same day, me and my brother went Christmas shopping, and we went HMV, Game, we bought a few presents for others in the family, and then we went to The G-Force store, there, I found XIII on Xbox for £2 and the Pokémon Soul Silver Strategy Guide for £10, I couldn't resist.

When we were back, we were going to our Gran's for some reason, but we were still going the next say, and our cousins were coming up, with that said, I decided to bring my 3DO up, the usual happened, I was playing a few games on my own before my cousins came, and my brothers were watching me, I asked them if they wanted a shot, they tried it out, my 8-year old brother hated it, but my 6-year old brother loved it, he was playing for most of the day.

When he wasn't playing it, my and Giancarlo tried out Super Street Fighter 2, it was my first ever time playing it, so I set it to the easiest mode, and I got thrashed every time, I only got a win if I was lucky.

Then we tried Corpse Killer, which is an FMV (Full Motion Video) game, which nowadays, are supposed to be so bad, they're awesome. We almost cried of laughter the fist scene, it had a very bad actor in unconvincing zombie/undead costume zombie and a Jamaican character, who couldn't possibly be more stereotypical if he tried, and then it went to the actual game, it was just awful, we had a blast!

Then we tried Twisted, another FMV game I had for the 3DO, but this time, it was actually a decent little game, it's a board game, it's like Mario Party meets Monty Python's Flying Circus. A major complaint with it, though, is that it's a stricly a 4-player game, you can't have A.I. in the game, so you need to play in 4-player, or you could play it in 2-player if you're playing as 2 characters each, which was what we did.

Most of the squares in the game are called "challenge squared", where you do a challenge (Never(!)), if you win it, you get to roll again, otherwise, it's the next player's turn, it said alot of variations of stating where you've landed, to avoid repetitiveness, and it actually works. When we packed the 3DO, we kept quoting the things said in the game, mostly "You've landed on the challenge square!".

Later that night, my mum said to me that she had all of my presents wrapped except for one, because she ran out of wrapping paper, so she just gave me it early, it was a money bad, with a Mario mushroom picture on it.

Then I came across her room, the door was left wide open, and I saw Driver San Francisco Special Edition for PC, still unwrapped, and my CD32 under it, I told my mum about those, and she just let me have those early too, yes!

---

I tried out Driver: San Francisco on my PC, and it wouldn't install, it wasn't until the next day when I finally got it installed. (InstallAnywhere is a piece of sh*t!)

My laptop just met the game's minimal requirements, heck, the RAM was way above the requirement, meaning that I can run it, right? Well, apparently not, the game ran at like 3 frames per second, the controls were delayed by a full second, and it crashed after a minute of playing. Those liars!

Steven was a work again, so it was just me and Gianni, instead of my original plan of bringing the Dreamcast, I thought that we didn't play enough Twisted, and brought the 3DO again!

We played pretty much the same games as we did yesterday, but this time, the cousin that we played the Dreamcast with a while ago was there, he lived through the era, and recognised the 3DO, he said he never had one or knew anyone who did, but he said he remembered it being around.

We showed him Corpse Killer, and he seamed to enjoy it for it suckage! I would've thought that although the FMV games suck now, they were great at the time, they looks amazing, but my cousin, who was around at the time they were new, thought they were an awful idea, so it turns out they sucked back then.

He actually got further then I did, and we discovered that the game's only attempt to increase the difficulty is to just throw (sometime literally) more zombies at you, they didn't even make them stronger or get stronger ones in the game.

We were also talking about bad films, well, the so-bad-it's-good type of films, including The Room and Troll 2.

In a nutshell, here's what we played, both days coincidentally enough in the same order:

• The Need for Speed*
  
• Road Rash*
  
• Crash N Burn*
  
• Corpse Killer
  
• Twisted
  
• Escape from Monster Manor**
  

* = We didn't play it on Sunday. ** = We didn't play it on Saturday.
Not sure what we'll do next week, because it's Christmas day... I'll get back to you on that...

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 13/11/11 - Prepare to cry, FIFA fanboys...

Dear Diary, and yes, I am going to be adding this every week for authentic-ness, I guess.

On Monday, we sent off the CD32 back to the seller to get it fixed or replaced, because the disc tray wasn't closing properly, we just received an email from the seller saying he got it on Friday and he replaced the top bit of the console and will be sending it back on Monday.

---

When we played FIFA 11 on PS3 my brother said, for a joke, "Imagine FIFA 13 being released for the Jaguar! Or even the Saturn!", and then I added, "Or, more importantly, the N-Gage!", you know, having a laugh. Why am I telling you this? I don't know, I guess to just create conversation. Besides, it was unusual for my brother to make a joke like that, that's usually the type of joke I would make.

---

I've been playing both FIFA 12 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 over the week because I had nothing else to do, and also, to decide which is better, because from the little I've played from both, my opinions were more-a-less the same, but I've played enough from both to decide which I think is better.

Believe it or not, contrary to public belief, I actually think Pro Evolution Soccer is better, the controls aren't as stiff as in FIFA, especially when sprinting, and overall just feel better, and the game also has a far better atmosphere than FIFA. Don't get me wrong, FIFA is still very good, but PES is better in my opinion.

---

As you may already know I went to that charity shop again, and got 6 VHS tapes for £1 and the Matrix Soundtrack for 50p.

What I didn't tell youse, mainly because there was no point, is that on Friday, I got 2 more CDs for £1, the first one is the soundtrack from the Rocky Horror Picture show, I've never seen the film before, but the reason I got the soundtrack is for the Time Warp song! I absolutely love that song! The other CD I got was the Darkness Album "Permission to land", which contained the song "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", which was the song that introduced me to The Darkness, so that was why I bought that.

They both work and I've been listening to both soundtracks.

---

On Sunday, we went back to Gamecube week.

I played a little bit of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 until my cousins came, nothing else to say about that except I was still playing for a little bit even after my cousins arrived, I was talking about what I said back up there, and it turns out one of them agreed with me and that he always thought the same, and that people only preferred FIFA just because they have more licensed teams, even though PES has the better gameplay. (In our opinion)

We were playing that game throughout the day where we pretended it was a past year, and we act like anything that appeared after that doesn't exist, or that we just haven't heard of it. This week we pretended it was 2004.

After that, we had a few games of Mario Kart Double Dash and when I say a few, I mean, roughly about 20 races, it felt like it.

After that, we played Mario Party 6, which is always a blast to play! Unfortunately, we didn't expect for it to last as long as we did, we set it for 20 turns, big mistake there, the game lasted I think 2-3 hours or something, after we finished, he turned off and were rushed to get back home because it was late. Despite how long it lasted, it was on hell of a game, we had great fun!

In a nutshell, here're the games we played:

As usual, in the order we played them:
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
• Mario Kart Double Dash
• Mario Party 6

So yeah, in theory, since it was Xbox 360 last week, due to one of cousins being absent that week, and now it's back to the usual order, it should be PS3 week next week, but my brother, the one with the PS3 wants to save PS3 for after Christmas. So we're skipping to Wii week, and as we all know, the Wii can play Gamecube games...

---

One last thing, I was getting sick of my little brother always asking me questions about what happened in Pokémon Red, Green, Blue and Yellow, spoiling himself, I know he's young, but he should be playing through the game himself to find out these, it's more rewarding, so I told him to play the game himself, then he said he doesn't have it, so I let him play though my copy of Pokémon Red. At the same time, my younger brother asked me if he could play Mario Bros. Deluxe on my Game Boy Color.

Fancy that, I've got my 6 and 8 year old brothers hooked to Game Boy Color games! I don't know if I should feel happy that they're playing proper games, or guilty, because they should be playing games from their time.

That's it for this weeks entry, again, next week is Wii week see how that turns out.

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 6/11/11 - Am I turning... normal?

This week has been crazy!

On Wednesday, my Amiga CD32 arrived, like the 3DO, I've not to actually get it until Christmas, but I had a shot of it to test it, and I have alot things to say about it before playing any of the games...
I thought the Xbox 360's power brick was heavy, I wasn't ready for this, believe it or not, it's even heavier! Honestly, you could probably do reps with it!

The console has the most awkward design ever, the controller ports are on the side, and the power switch is on the back!

The disk tray is massive too, almost the whole left side of the console lifts up, or rather, springs up, you could use it as a catapult!

However, the controller, contrary to what I've heard, actually doesn't feel cheap or plasticy at all, it feels rather well built, actually, and you may not think this from seeing pictures, but the controller is actually pretty big, but fits pretty snug into your hands.

One of the games that came out was the infamous Rise of the Robots, so I decided to try that out, but it wouldn't load, and I kept hearing noises from the disk tray, then I realised that the left side of the tray was a little bit up, it wouldn't go down, when I held it down, it loaded the game, so that was the problem, I use blu-tack to hold it down, if I do that, it works fine, so I was hoping that the seller would give a partial refund, ad it does work, just not properly, but he said if I sent that one back, he'll send us a replacement, so we did that.

Rise of the Robots was pretty much the only game I tried, as I wanted to keep all of the others for Christmas, it was just to test if the console worked anyway.

And Wow, if you thought the SNES and Mega Drive versions of the game were bad, play this, or rather, don't! However, it seams so bad, that it'd be awesome on multi-player!

Overall, although the console has an awkward design, and it isn't very powerful, it can't even do textured 3D graphics like the other consoles of it's generation can, or so I've heard, the console looks so cool, it has some better-than-the-original type ports of classic Amiga games, such as Darkseed and the Lotus Trilogy, and that why I bought one, it was like a best-of package.

---

Throughout the week, I've been playing FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 and Call of Duty: Black Ops with my brother, and you'll never believe this dear diary, I actually started... enjoying them...

...Yeah, I thought I'd never picture myself enjoying a Call of Duty game, at least not one that came out since 4, but I was introduced to the game modes, Sharpshooter, One in the Barrel, Sticks and Stones and Gun Game... gee, how original(!) Don't be fooled by the names though, they actually add a touch of, get this... unrealism, to the game!

I won't be going into detail about these modes, because I want this to stay as a retro diary, and talking about Call of Duty: Black ops isn't exactly sticking to the title, besides, anyone reading this will probably know anyway.

---

At grans today, we had a change of plan because the cousin who makes Gamecube week as we know it had to do something for his charity group, so instead, we skipped to Xbox 360 week, and then back to Gamecube week when that cousin returns.

The only Xbox 360 we played was Portal 2, and that was to play the new DLC... but then it turned out you needed to complete the original Co-Op Test Chambers to play in the additional DLC ones.
I brought up some original Xbox game in case we got bored, and I have to say, that was good call, that was exactly what happened, we had a game of Tony Hawks Pro skater 3 first, we had 2 games of graffiti, where you have to trick on objects, and they'll turn into your colour (Blue or Red), and is yours unless your opponent steals it by scoring a higher score on it, I lost both games.

We played a game of King of the Hill afterwards, you have to get a crown and keep it for the time set, in this case, 5 minutes, but your opponents can take it off you by bumping into you or skating past you when you're down, I won that game.

We then played a game called "Horse", where you take turns to beat each others high score, failing to do so, you'll get a letter and whoever gets all the letters first, loses. You can change the name to whatever you want, we just typed random character, from recall, it was "cpccpQQcOz"! It was alot of fun, this round, my cousin, as he was the first player, started off, he bailed it, so I had to set the score, my brother said "Just do a Kickflip.", so I did, but I bailed from doing that, talk about humiliation... In a funny way of course! For a while afterwards, we just played like normal, then one round, I cracked my knuckles, like a piano player and was like "Let's do this!" like I was really determined, then I bailed the first move, and to think, I've played every Tony Hawk game up to Proving Ground, that's how rusty I've become at these games! In the end, I won it, make my cousin, the cpccpQQcOz!

We then tried to play Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction, but the game was too awesome to play on the Xbox 360's emulator, it seams, bummer.

We tried Raw 2 next, and it worked! We played a match, and well, yeah, it was kind of like WWE All Stars, except the gameplay was much better, we just a laugh the whole way through, then we tried season mode, in 2-player, and it was the same there, just a laugh the whole way through! I asked my cousin, the other guy who was playing what he thought was better, he said that for a laugh, WWE All Stars is better, because of the exaggerated moves, but Raw 2 had much better controls and the graphics were better on it, I have to agree, actually.

After that, we went home. In a nutshell, here's what we played:

In the order we played them:
• Portal 2 [Xbox 360]
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 [Xbox]
• Robot Wars Extreme Destruction [Xbox] (Well, we TRIED to play it.)
• WWE Raw 2: Ruthless Agression [Xbox]

Hopefully, our cousin will be back, so we can have Gamecube week!

Cobra!

Retro(ish) Diary - 30/10/11 - "There are Trip Bombs everywhere!"

It's been a fairly busy week this week.

On Wednesday, my 3DO arrived, although I wasn't supposed to get it until Christmas, (I know it's early to be Christmas shopping, but I found a really good deal on eBay, so I bought it before someone else did.) my dad accidentally put it in my room, like he usually does, he forgot he wasn't supposed to this time around. I was thinking of testing it anyway, to get a preview of it, so I did, I played

• Need for Speed
• Crash N' Burn
• Gex

I only wanted to preview 3 games, being that they were just copies anyway, just to test if the console worked, and it did, however, some of the games didn't, after trying out the first 2, I tried playing "Stargate" and "Samurai Showdown", in that order, both of which didn't work.

The next day, I found an Amiga CD32, the other console I'm after, for £50, unlike the previously mentioned item, it came with a controller and the UK power supply, and, you'll never believe this, I still don't, 1700 games! They're all copied onto 3 CDs, apparently, they're Amiga Computer games burnt onto a CD for the CD32, I'll try them one just to see if the console itself works, then, I'll perhaps throw them away... nah, probably not, and pop in Darkseed!

It was £20 more then the one I mentioned weeks ago (Including delivery), but if I were to buy that one instead, separately, I would have to buy a controller, which are usually £20 plus £2-3 delivery, and a plug converter, which is £2 with free delivery, totalling to £25! So I actually saved £5!

---

It was Xbox week at grans today, well, sort of, my brother wanted to bring his PS3, because it was the rare week when he wasn't playing a match at Rugby, I decided we could bring both, and once we got bored of the Xbox, we'd play the PS3, very much to my surprise though, we wanted to keep playing the Xbox, so we did pretty much, here's what we played:

• Black
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
• 007: Nightfire

Unfortunately, we forgot the one game we started playing the Xbox again for, Timesplitters: Future Perfect, so that was all we played, and only one of them was multi-player, that didn't matter though, because we found new love for 007: Nightfire, we chose to randomise the weapon set each match.

Just so it's easer for me to write and for you to read, we'll label the players of the game, but at the same time, trying not to give out their real name:

• 1st Player - my cousin - Stephen
  
• 2nd Player - me - Cobra!
  
• 3rd Player - my other cousin - Gay Gian
• 4th Player - my brother - Retardo

The first match, we had the usual, a match in the snowy level with a burst sniper rifle, surprisingly, I dominated that match. However came last almost every other match...

The second match, the level was loaded with Golden Guns, which kills people with one shot, although for some reason, Stephen couldn't find them, at least not for the first half of the game. I came last even with that advantage, but it was rather close.

The third match, and the first my brother, Retardo, joined in as the 4th player, we were all armed with a couple of trip beam bombs, and we all ended up setting them at this one tunnel, there were so many trip beams in that tunnel and some of them in the most awkward places, it looked like one of those security halls you see in films, with all the awkwardly placed beams. I always went into this one room, planted all of my trip beams there, so no one can get in, well, that was the theory, and took control of the nearby mini tanks, and killed a couple of my cousins in it, IN THE GAME! of course. However, when I did that a few times, Gay Gian somehow got in without setting off the trip beams I planted, and while I was controlling the tank, pushed me into the trip beams, killing me, that b*stard! In the end, I came 3rd, I think, and Retardo came last, with 2 kills and 22 deaths, what a record!

The forth match, we were armed with sniper rifles, all kills were caused by sniper-ing one another, so not much happened, but we enjoyed it alot, a moment I remember was that me and Gay Gian were at opposite balconies, we were both aiming to headshot each other, but we were both strafing, to avoid the other's fire, it was hilarious, then I saw Stephen in the balcony blow, but he didn't notice us, so I aimed for him instead, and before I knew it, Gay Gian shot me, great! We got ourselves in that situation a couple of times, and he always came out on top. I came last, again, but for a round with just sniper rifles, it was action packed, and fun.

The fifth and final match, and also my favourite, we were all armed with Remote Controller Missiles, There was so much going on, with explosions and all that, that the game slowed down constantly, it seams not even the powerful Xbox can handle the awesomeness of the game! I don't blame it to be honest. I came out last in the end, but boy, what a match that was! I'll be remembering that for a long time!

After that, we put the Xbox away and we started playing the PS3.

All we played on the PS3 was Driver: San Francisco, it was amazing how you can play multiplayer in the full map and still be playable, but for some reason, I had no interest of playing, I just wanted to play more Nightfire!

That was what happened this week, next week is Gamecube week, I hope as usual, that will turn out great!

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 23/10/11 - "It's like they're on the moon..."

A lot happened this week, at least as far as retro gaming goes.

---

On Wednesday, my friend came over to my house to have a game of FIFA 12, on PS2!

He thought it was rubbish compared to the Xbox 360 version, well, he said it was completely different and that it didn't fell right, but he said that it might be okay once you get used to the controls, even though I didn't say so, I agreed with him, because after seeing gameplay of the Xbox 360 version, it looked MUCH better.

We then watched some Red Dwarf and some Fawlty Towers, then he was playing Pokémon Pinball on my Game Boy Color, he was playing that for a good while.

We played a few more games, here's the complete list of what we played:

In the order we played them:
• FIFA 12 [PS2]
• Pokémon Stadium [N64]
• Pokémon Pinball [GBC]
• Half-Life [PS2]
• Timesplitters: Future Perfect [Xbox]
• FIFA Football 2003 [PS2]
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing [DC]

The most fun we had was playing Half-Life and Timesplitters: Future Perfect, we played both of them for hours and before we knew it, it was time for him to go, so we played a couple of games of Ready 2 Rumble Boxing and then he left.

---

On Saturday, my Atari Jaguar Memory Track arrived! So now I can save data on my Jaguar CD games. (well, game)

It says on the back it can box "125,000" bytes of data, that's only 250KBs, even back then, in 1996, where you had the fairly small 1MB PS1 memory cards, that was rubbish, and it says also that it can store data from up to "250 Jaguar games" but when I went to the memory track manager, the previous owner had data from 3 games, Battlemorph, Hoverstrike: Unconquered Lads and Myst, and that almost took up the whole cart, only about 100 bytes remained! 250 games my ar*e!

---

On Sunday, before we went to grans, my brother wanted someone to play him at Co-op in Super Mario Bros. Wii, he asked me first, I didn't want to, so he got our dad to do it.

When I went down for a coke later on, he was still playing and looked so bored playing it, so I thought since I had nothing else to do, I thought I'd take his place, and surprisingly, I enjoyed it, even if it was my brother playing it, he always shouts and makes loud noises while playing it, we got every star-coins, whatever they're called, in world 1 and managed to unlock level 1 of world 9, we didn't complete it, but I'd love to give it another shot!

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At grans, it was PS2 week, and since my cousins were still to arrive.

So I decided to play a game of FIFA 12 career mode, when I first played when the game arrived, I didn't like it the framerate was very unreliable and the controls were very awkward (I'm playing on "Be a player" mode by the way), but playing it a second time, I started to really enjoy it, the dynamic camera angles you get when your near a goal I thought were a very nice touch, and I managed to score 2 goals, and it felt very rewarding... and then I got sent off, after "bumping", for lack of a better word, the score to 2-0. Then the opponent team scored not 1, but 4 goals against us! Talk about a bad move, eh? I had to watch the rest of the entire match, the first half wasn't even over yet, I couldn't skip, I could quit, but all progress would be lost and it was count as a retire, it was some of the most boring moments of my life. The score ended 3-4, we lost, and I got the blame, the newspaper said it was my fault and that I was sorry for the loss, bullsh*t!

Then my brother wanted a shot at career mode, but as a manager, so, since I had plenty of memory card space, I let him, and he was playing for about half an hour, despite claiming he hated it,
I told him "I thought you hated this game.",
and he replied "Well, I suppose it's alright when you get used to the controls.",
which was exactly what my friend said, well, assumed, and he was right according to what my brother said.

When my brother started playing, my cousins arrived, and we were talking about how there's still PS2 games being made and making jokes like
"(Cobra!) has probably made a spike in the sales charts for the PS2 version!",
I played along, saying stuff like "Breaking news! Someone bought the PS2 version of FIFA 12!", we had quite a laugh.

I was also mentioning what I wanted to get for Christmas, spent with my EMA money (I know, I'm buying my own presents, sad isn't it? Well, I'm not buy all of them, just most of them.) as I have £300, if saved up, to spend, and I mentioned that I got a 3DO with a few games for just £50! Not bad considering they usually go for £120 with no games, and I told them that I found an Amiga CD32 for just £40, although it had no controller and a EU plug, I can buy both easily for a decent price.

So if you want a CD32, there are 6 available, so get yourself one, just leave one for me, please?

Then, after my brother was done playing FIFA 12, we popped in Timesplitters 2 and played some co-op multiplayer, we only finished 1 level when the cousin I was playing with had to leave.

My other cousin was still there so we decided to play some Timesplitters 1, since he never played it before and was curious as to what it was like, it was kind of boring, I was aware that all of the goals were, get this, then go back, and that it was repetitive, this especially showed in co-op multiplayer, I got bored of it after just 2 levels.

We then had a game of WWE All Stars, just to show him how bad it was, and the game was so bad, it was awesome! Surprisingly, we had a great laugh out of it, because of all of the over the top moves. He said that "It's like they're on the moon!" because of this, and I mentioned that the bad sound effects and lack of music (Yeah, there's no music in the PS2 version.) kind of helped that effect.

So as it turns out, WWE All Stars is like the PS2's Monster Truck Madness 64, it's so horrible, that it's awesome!

Here's the complete list of games we played:

In the order we played them:
• FIFA 12
• Timesplitters 2
• Timesplitters
• WWE All Stars

On the way back, my cousin was dropping me off my house, due to our car not being there yet, and on the way, we were actually talking about this blog, and he mentioned that he liked the logo at the top and I mentioned that it was outdated, as my collection grew quite a bit since, I got a Jaguar+CD, a Game Boy Color, an N-Gage,
and he added; "...with a 3DO on the way!",
and then I added afterwards; "... and a CD32!",
I was surprised at the fact that it even remotely interested him that I was getting a 3DO, of course in a good way, my only guess it was because I was at one point hosting a competition for a game about what console to add to it, and he entered with the 3DO, I cancelled it due to lack of entries later on, so technically, he was the winner, although the game was cancelled.

That was what I was up to this week, next week is Xbox week, a very underrated console in my opinion, in fact I'm probably the only person in the world to prefer it over the Xbox 360. Hopefully, it will be as fun as this week was.

Cobra!