Retro Diary #73 – M… m…. m… mixtape…

On Wednesday, I played Tony Hawk’s Underground with my brother on the PS2, and we played Horse. I guess you could call this a Horse of the Week, technically, but we never called it that, and the word is pronounceable, but screw it, I’ll put it under that anyway, because chances are, we’ll never see […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/2svsKb8

Retro Diary – Xbox Week Part 1.5

Continuation from last week’s blog. I played through my brother’s Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 story, the one he was creating using entirely goals made from the Create-A-Goal feature in the game… for something that was created out of the blue in 2 days using something that basically made things like character development or actual story events impossible, it’s […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/2rbL9Yr

Retro Diary – Xbox (and Classic PC) week!

After my brothers were done with the PS2, they looked up the attic for more console Tony Hawk games, and found Underground 2 on the Original Xbox, so I set up that console for them in the sitting room. My brother has been playing Underground 2 for about a week now, completing the story mode […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/2qHk0wn

Retro Diary – 02/07/16

It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these, eh? (2 years, in fact!) Well, I’ve decided to bring this series back, but this time, I’m going to do them whenever I like, and on days where anything of interest happened in terms of retro gaming in my life, such as today! I […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/29hi2dg

I got a PS4!

That’s right, I got a PS4 today! I was planning on getting one of these for a while, more a less ever since I’ve heard that WWE 2k15 is coming to PS4 and Xbox One, but not the PC. Yesterday, my mum asked me if I wanted to go to GAME and get my PS4, […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/ZDe9Yq

Retro Pick-Ups – Not PSP this time!

I’ve got a few deals in the past week that I’ve been forgetting to post here, so here’s a round-up of what I got this week. Clockwise starting from bottom left, I got Tony Hawk’s Project 8 for the Xbox, because why not? I was wanting to see what the Xbox version of the game […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/1iKv2Ih

Retro Pick-Ups – 25/02/13

Right, after this post, I have an announcement thing coming up, so stay tuned, assuming you tuned in in the first place! Yet again, I was at CEX yesterday, and I found some games I’ve been looking out for, at decent prices, which made me happy, let’s get right to it… I got Mortal Kombat: […] ...To receive more of these posts, you should follow my new blog, over at wordpress, the link is: http://ift.tt/1efrb2e

Retro Diary - 9/9/2012 - Happy Birthday (NA) Dreamcast!

Monday 3rd September 2012

I've ordered a Wonderswan game off eBay late last night, after realising I had some money, it's called Digimon Tamers Battle Spirit v1.5, and it's for the Wonderswan Color. Just thought I'd tell you.

My first day back in college, and I bumped into one of my old high school friends on the train, he says he goes to the college I go to now, which is awesome. We were talking about a few things, mostly games, and My Little Pony, because he recently became a brownie, not that I have a problem with that, he can like whatever he wants.
He mentioned to me how it's weird that sometimes our opinion changes drastically about a certain thing, one time you might hate something, but later on, you might love it, and he was right, that's the case with me and games like Mirrors Edge and Grand Theft Auto IV, I hated them when they came out, but once I actually played them, I fell in love!

I came across another friend of mine, it's been years since we saw each-other, first thing he said to me was that he got a Dreamcast, good on him! I see he's still as into games as I am, that's good to know. We were talking about Dreamcast games for a good while, then we talked about the Max Payne games, funnily enough, the original game was planned for the Dreamcast, but that was cancelled.

I finally have a Wonderswan!
It has arrived today, and wow! it's tiny, it's smaller than I expected even after seeing one of it's games! Here's a size comparison between it, and a Game Boy Color:

Also, a size comparison between the console, and a box for one of it's games:


Of course, being that it came from Japan, the text/writing on the parcel was in Japanese, however, it was just a sheet of paper stuck on the cardboard, so I took it off, and there was another one, took that off, and there was another one, took that off, and they were all off, but then the last sheet of paper turned out to be two stuck together! Did they really need 4 sheets!? Since I have a thing for , I guess you could say, Exotic parcels/packages, I decided to hang them on my wall!

I've had a go on Klonoa: Moonlight Museum on it, everyone seems to think this game is mediocre and only for collectors, I partially agree with the latter, as it rarely pops up on eBay, and when it does, it goes for over £30, which is ridiculous for any Handheld game. However, once you get past the first world, which is dull and boring-ish, I'll admit, it really gets interesting in my opinion, you get new monsters and block that you'll recognise from the other Klonoa games, and makes the game a little more interesting and fun!

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Tuesday 4th September 2012

Anyway, last week at that shop, I saw a copy of RC Revenge, boxed with manual for only £2 because the case was cracked, but I didn't get it because I ordered it from Amazon. That copy didn't arrive, and I got a refund for it, so I decided to visit the shop again if I get the chance, and get it if it's still there, it was!
I also found 007 The World is Not Enough for the PS1 there, it looks completely different from the N64 version, so I wanted to get it, because I love the 007 games, and wanted to get something new, well, new to me. It was £5, so I thought why not, at that price, it must be in pristine condition, the disc, I mean, they take out the discs when displaying them to avoid theft.

I also saw Viruta Tennis 2, I got the first game from there last week, loved it, so I thought why not get this one, it was also £5, the same as it is on Amazon, not too bad.

After that, I went to CEX, I found Resident Evil 4 for both Gamecube and PC, the PC version being £3 and the Gamecube version was £12, I also saw Theme Hospital for about £2.50, I was going to get them, but the line that particular day was massive, and I was killing enough time as it was, so I thought forget it, I would probably get them all cheaper on Amazon anyway, if not, I'll get them the next time I'm there, which I guess will be Thursday, when I go back to college, I'm off tomorrow!!!

When I got back home, I got 2 parcel today! I got Max Payne for PC and 007 Agent Under Fire for the Xbox!

I played a few matches of Goldeneye Source with my cousin, Steven, it was almost as fun as the original! There was funny moment we had, in a match where the weapons were set to explosives, I threw a bunch of remote mines in a certain spot, and Steven fell right into the trap, I detonated them just as he was running over them, I found that hilarious, truest me, it's funnier than I'm making it sound...

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Friday 7th September 2012

Max Payne 2 Arrived Today, I haven't installed or even opened it yet, I'm waiting until I complete the first game.

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Saturday 8th September 2012

Sleeping Dogs, Inversion and 007 Everything or Nothing Arrived today!

Sleeping Dogs is fantastic, I'm very addicted to it!

Inversion, however, isn't quite up to that level, it seems it's another shoddy PC port, you have no option to turn off Motion Blur or Depth of Field, why don't games give you the option any more!? No one likes these effects, sure, some don't mind, but there's a difference between that and actually liking them. All they do, is blur out the game and slow it down, they're not good for anything! I know no one's going to listen to me but, developers, get some common sense, and don't use these effects! This is one of only 3 PC games Namco have ever released, and they all have this problem! I love Namco, but they're not cut out for PC games!

I expected Everything or Nothing to be just like Nightfire on consoles, only improved further, but nope, they've ditched that engine, and gone third person, why? It never works, only Blood Stone years later got it right. It plays just like 007 From Russia With Love, which was okay in multiplayer, but was kind of rubbish in single-player, trust EA to screw franchises up, eh? Luckily Activision got their hands on the 007 licence and got things right again!

As you probably imagined, I was playing Sleeping Dogs all day.

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Sunday 9th September 2012

It's the 9th of the 9th, the Dreamcast's birthday! Well, the North American Dreamcast anyhow... but it was the perfect excuse to bring along and play the Dreamcast!

Well, that was the plan, but my brother brought his PS3 as well, and we, or rather they, were mostly playing that.

When Steven came, he gave me back my copy of 007 Blood Stone for the PC... just thought I'd mention that.

Me and Giancarlo were playing Virtua Tennis and Virtua Tennis 2, and a game of Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, that's it.

Then for the rest of the time there, they were just playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band on the PS3.

That sums up today in a nut shell, next week, I'm not sure what we'll do.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be playing some Sleeping Dogs...

Retro Pick-ups: Virtua Tennis 2 [DC], RC Revenge [PS1] and 007 The World Is Not Enough [PS1]

On the way home from College, I popped into both G-Force and CEX.

When I was at G-Force, I saw a couple of Japanese tourists, or at least I think they're Japanese, I can tell they weren't Chinese, I doubt they'd be in game stores, so they were either Korean or Japanese, either way, it's the first time I've seen Asian tourists here in Scotland. I could tell they were tourists, because they were speaking a foreign language to each other.
Apparently, we get Japanese tourists in Scotland all the time, but it's first time I've seen any, why would they come here anyway, I could understand going to the Highlands, I imagine it's nice there, I want to go there myself, but why Glasgow?

Anyway, last week at that shop, I saw a copy of RC Revenge, boxed with manual for only £2 because the case was cracked, but I didn't get it because I ordered it from Amazon. That copy didn't arrive, and I got a refund for it, so I decided to visit the shop again if I get the chance, and get it if it's still there, it was!
I also found 007 The World is Not Enough for the PS1 there, it looks completely different from the N64 version, so I wanted to get it, because I love the 007 games, and wanted to get something new, well, new to me. It was £5, so I thought why not, at that price, it must be in pristine condition, the disc, I mean, they take out the discs when displaying them to avoid theft.

I also saw Viruta Tennis 2, I got the first game from there last week, loved it, so I thought why not get this one, it was also £5, the same as it is on Amazon, not too bad.

All the discs look in fine condition, I've already tried Virtua Tennis 2, and it works just fine. I've yet to try the others, though.


After that, I went to CEX, I found Resident Evil 4 for both Gamecube and PC, the PC version being £3 and the Gamecube version was £12, I also saw Theme Hospital for about £2.50, I was going to get them, but the line that particular day was massive, and I was killing enough time as it was, so I thought forget it, I would probably get them all cheaper on Amazon anyway, if not, I'll get them the next time I'm there, which I guess will be Thursday, when I go back to college, I'm off tomorrow!!!

When I got back home, I got 2 parcel today! I got Max Payne for PC and 007 Agent Under Fire for the Xbox!

Right, I'll be off, I have so many games to play, but so little time...

Retro Diary - 12/8/12 - My birthday week

Monday 6th August 2012

I saw the Dark Knight Rises today, and it was brilliant, it's my favourite film this year, and seeing how brilliant all the other films I've seen that came out this year, it's saying a lot!

I've downloaded the Batman Arkham Asylum Demo today, but at first, it didn't work, but I manually installed a patch for it, and it worked just fine, and I loved the demo, I am without a doubt getting the full game as soon as I can, preferably the Game of The Year Edition!

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Tuesday 7th August 2012

I've finished Stranglehold today, and what an epic game it was! As I keep telling you...

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Wednesday 8th August 2012

I went to a Basketball summer training camp with my friend, Jamie, or "Midfield Maestro", as he likes to call himself. I'm mentioning this because he's staying with me for 2 nights after that, when we got home, the first thing we did was play FIFA 12 on the PC, the second thing we did... was play more FIFA 12! Then we played PES 2012 on PC. Then FIFA. Then Fronte Del Basket 2, Then FIFA 12, then NBA 2k12, which he somehow beat me at, his big ego never shuts up about it, then FIFA 12, then we watched some videos, and finally, some FIFA 12! Finally, we watched some Fawlty Towers.

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Thursday 9th August 2012

Both me and Jamie watched some Spongebob Squarepants, just thought I'd tell you that.

We played FIFA 12 all morning, then one of my old friends came up, it's been years since I've seen him, and he hasn't changed one bit! For this purposes of the blog, and since I don't have permission to use his real name, I'm going to call him "Rydo".

The three of us played FIFA 12 and PES 2012 on PC for most of the day, then my cousins came along, and we played a bunch of games, I forgot the order we played them and we played some of them at the same time, a couple played one, while the rest played another, here's what we played:

• Metropolis Street Racer [DC]
  
• Mashed: Fully Loaded [Xbox]
  
• The Sims 3 [PC]
  
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 [GC]
  
• FIFA 12 [PS2 & PC]
  
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 [PS2 & PC]
  
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater [N-Gage]
  

I got a lot of Birthday money today! As well as that, my cousin, Giancarlo, gave me a couple of games he got from CEX, I got The Broken Sword Trilogy on PC and From Russia with Love for PS2.

My mum got my birthday cake, she showed it to me, at first, I expected, since I was 18, it would be about some rubbish about beer/alcohol, even though I'll never drink, I hate the idea. However, it turned out it was a cake modelled into a PS1! Brilliant!

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Friday 10th August 2012

It's my birthday!!!!!!

My mum said she would give me my "Main" present early, it was a 160GB Ipod Classic! I always wanted one of them! What has it got to do with this blog? Who cares!

I got an Atari Flashback 3, what that is, click here.

I got a whole bunch of games and Sims 3 expansion packs, which are:

• TimeShift [PC]
• Grand Theft Auto IV [PC/Games for Windows]
• Dead Rising 2 [PC/Games for Windows]
• Strong Bad's Cool game for Attractive People [PC]
• Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures [PC]
• Sims 3 World Adventures [PC]
• Sims 3 Late Night [PC]
• Sims 3 Generations [PC]

I've been playing them pretty much all day.

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Sunday 12th August 2012

Instead of going to grans this week, since she was at England, along with my cousin, Giancarlo and his family, to watch the closing Olympic ceremony, my cousins came to our house for a barbecue, a perfect opportunity to play some games with Steven, and anyone else who might want to play games.

We played some Atari 2600/Flashback 3 games first, Starting with Combat, then Sprint Master, and finally Maze Craze.

Then we played WWE All Stars for the PS2, we played a few games.

Then we played a 10 minute game of Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64, then unfortunately Steven had to go, he wasn't there for long...

Before he left, I gave him a lend of both Stanglehold and Blood Stone 007, since they were DRM-Free (Well, DRM in the anti-used game sense.) and I completed them, he said he had always wanted to play Blood Stone, but was waiting for a Steam sale (All digital gamers are the same!), so I gave him a retail copy to borrow!

Next week we'll be back at grans, instead of doing PS2 week, I'm brining a mystery console, I haven't decided on what it is yet, so as of now, even I don't know what it is!

Retro Diary - 3/6/12 - "This-game's-diff-rant!"

Thursday 31st May 2012

My brother, presumably out of boredom, challenged me to a game of FIFA 12 on the PS3, since I was bored as well, I accepted.

Before I continue, I like to set my sliders to make the game fast paced and arcade like. In translation, shot and pass error to 0, speeds of both and acceleration to 100, and goalkeeper ability to 20.

It turns out, my brother did a similar thing with his game, so I would fit right in!

Surprisingly, in the first match, I was kicking his ar*e, I think I won 6-2! A fluke you say, maybe, he got one back, with 3-1 to him.

However, in our next match... He still won, but it was close, VERY close, I mean the he-scores-I-respond kind of close, the score was 6-6 in full time and the match went into extra time where he scored once more, and I failed to respond, to match ended, as you might have guessed, 7-6 to my brother.

Then we moved to FIFA UEFA EURO 2012 on the PC. Why? because we could! For all the matches, I went as Scotland and he went Netherlands, for some reason...

For some very odd reason, at that time, my eyes were watering, and my eyesight went really blurry, I could barely see the screen, I couldn't just wipe my eyes or close them, because one eyelid hurt when I did, which only caused them to go worse, it's probably just hey fever...

This put me at a major disadvantage, but despite this, I won the first 2 matches, then we won a third, which made us equal, with 3 wins each, so we decided to play a final match, however...

A problem arose, because in order to play multiplayer on the PC, I needed to get another Xbox 360 controller (I have a wireless receiver, oh, I'm so spoilt!), so I used my younger brothers, as he was away at the time, however, I forgot at the time that his Xbox 360 had a problem with recognising controllers, but he came back, he was raging, and it took me an hour to fix the problem he was having.

After all that, we went back to playing FIFA 12 on the PS3 to play that "final" match, we went as an El Classico, I believe I won 10-5! So he asked for a rematch, this time, I went as Celtic, he went as Real Madrid again, and I beat him 5-1!

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Friday 1st June 2012

This morning, my mum brought some old Vinyl record from my grans! They were originally my dad's. My mum said I could keep them! The reason for this is because I've had a recent fascination with Vinyl records, and was soon planning on getting a record player. (An ION one, to be exact, so I could put the song onto my PC, like I do with CDs!) My mum must've been aware of this and gave me the records.

Throughout the day, I was bored out of my skull, so I browsed through my games to see what I haven't beaten, and I found the Timesplitters 1 and 2, and realised I haven't completed them, but I completed Future Perfect multiple times, "That's not right!" I thought to myself, "Time to (split, and) sort that out!".

So for a few hours, I played through both games, it was a lot of fun, I got more the series' awesome story, and it's not that difficult, so why the heck did I not complete them earlier!?

Anyway, I successfully completed both games, and now I feel whole again!

Also, today, a game I got off eBay a few days ago arrived, chances are, you haven't heard of it, it's an E.T. point and click adventure game, simply called "E.T. The Adventure game", it's a PC point and click game by Ubisoft back in 2002, back then, I loved it, and and having recently gotten into point and click games, thanks to TellTale games, I thought I had to own this again, so I looked it up on eBay, and only one English copy popped up, there were other copied, but they were foreign, so I bought it before anyone else could.

I got it, and already completed it, the game is surprisingly short... I was a bit disappointed with the game, it was a great as I remember it to be, simply put, it was way behind it's time, it was short, and in some parts quite frustrating. However, I like it for it's nostalgic value.

Out of boredom, I decided to play Angry Birds Space, and I actually beat the game, well, I beat all of the "available" levels anyway.

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Saturday 2nd June 2012

I was bored, so I decided to browse through the free games on Origin, and came across a game called Need for Speed World, and it didn't say demo, or anything like that after the name, so they must be offering the game for free.

I thought "nah, it's probably a crappy 2D flash-like game, either that or they say it's free, but you have to pay to progress in it" but since it was free, I thought I'd try it anyway.

After downloading and installing it, and I played, and to my surprise, neither of the things were the case the game was 3D, it was pretty detailed as well, the graphics were very good, I never saw anything that asked for my money, you can buy in game currency with real money, but you can earn it by doing races, and after setting it up, I played the actual game, and surprisingly, it was a lot of fun! So I've been playing that all day...

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Sunday 3rd June 2012

Well, that was the most boring party in my entire life!

I expected me, Steven and Giancarlo, would do nothing but play awesome multiplayer games all night, like the old days.

I played exactly one game, and only 2 levels, me and Giancarlo just played 2 levels in Co-Op.

After that, I was in my room for a few hours doing absolutely nothing except for writing this.

After that, Steven came in, and he seemed strangely enthusiastic about everything, I thought it might have been alcohol influenced, but upon secretly testing him by engaging him in a conversation, and getting him to enter a cheat code in Goldeneye, he seemed sober, well, sober enough.

So the first game we played was Mashed: Fully Loaded for the Xbox, we kept playing until at least one of us won, and that surprisingly took ages.

Then we played Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction, we played a couple of annihilator matches and a couple of sumo matches.

Then we played Medal of Honour: Rising Sun, we completed the first level, and that was it, and... oh yeah, we did our trademark "Medal Of Honour Dance", where we look up, keep spinning while constantly toggling between crouch and stand!

Then we played Goldeneye 007 for the N64, we played a gun match with turbo and paintball cheats on, it was frantic! Then we played a quick "You only live twice" game before Steven had to go.

Overall, I guess it was fun, but not nearly the party I hoped for, but I suppose it wasn't my party, so my cousin couldn't spend their whole time with me, I guess that's fair enough.

Next week, it will be Wii week, where (hopefully) Giancarlo will bring the week. It's time to dig up Wario Ware Smooth Moves!

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 - 6/5/12 - "The REAL Xbox!"

Dead Diary,

On Friday, I got the new FIFA 12 Euro 2012 DLC... Through the Post! Yep, I got a download code in a case, this is actually official, I would've though since EA made Origin, their own digital store, they'd put it there, and only there, knowing them, but surprisingly, they made it also available in physical, no disc, (even though, strangely enough, they left the CD holder, like I said strange, but I'm not complaining...), just a code, which can never be used again, but hey, you can actually hold it, look at the back of the case in excitement, and leave it on your shelf and be proud to have it in your collection, looking at it in admiration, and that, you can't do with digital downloads!

---

It was Xbox weeks at our grans this Sunday, and no, I don't mean the Xbox 360, I mean the real Xbox, the original and best!

We started off the week by Playing 007 Nightfire, one of the games that made Xbox week, Xbox week. We had fun as always, but this week, there wasn't really anything worth of note. Except for the fact my 8-year old brother played despite being way too young, he also played the next game...

Then we played Timesplitters: Future Perfect, again, we had fun, but nothing of note happened except for... erm... Oh yeah! That's right! I actually won a match!!!

Then we played Mashed, we gave one on our Uncle, as it was recently his birthday, a shot of the game, and after played a few matches, he seem to have got the hang of it, and actually won a match, and then he mentioned that he thinks he's got addicted to the game, I don't blame him, it's Mashed!

Finally, we played Raw 2, we played a quick match, Steven kept punching me, and you can't reverse in this game! Luckily, I finally got a chance to run off, so I did, and got out of the ring, then Steven grabbed one of the steel steps, then I grabbed the other, and we kept going at each other, until eventually he pinned me for the 3...

We were about to play a Tony Hawk game to get our horse of the week, but then we had to go...

The games we played:

• 007 Nightfire
• Timesplitters: Future Perfect
• Mashed: Drive to Survive
• Raw 2: Ruthless Aggression

Overall, it was a fun week, but it could've been more so.

We haven't decided what to do next week, either we extend Xbox week once more to play more games, or just move on the Gamecube week, find out next week...

Retro Diary - 4/3/12 - "Oh no, I got the letter 2!"

Dear Diary,

On Thursday, I was woken up an hour early for college by accident, usually, since I had that much extra time, I would usually doze off, but I wasn't that tired, so I decided to play some Crazy Taxi 2, and I completed Crazy Pyramid, which is meant to be the sequel to Crazy Box from the original.

---

On Friday, my friend, Jamie, came over to my house to play FIFA on my new beast of a PC, he even brought his Xbox 360 controller, since I got my receiver, and the was okay, but it wasn't as fun as I hoped to be, I don't remember the match details, but I'm sure it involved both of us being Barcelona and him thrashing me by quite a margin.

Then we gave PES 2012 a try, and it was surprisingly fun, a lot of fun, it was quite frantic, it was very fast paced, and it was more realistic in a sense that if you shot from midfield, in FIFA, they'd be no chance of getting in, but there's a chance in PES, it also had better commentary, menus and a far better atmosphere, don't get me wrong, FIFA 12 is still a fun game, but PES is far better in my opinion.

In the first match, Jamie accidentally went as Real Madrid (he was a Barcelona supporter), and I went Barcelona, so it was an El Classico, in the end, we drew 2-2, and it went to extra time, where I think I won 4-3, we played a few matches afterwards, wher4e he ended up winning by quite a bit.

Then we played a game of NBA 2K12, we only played one match, which I won.

Then we played PES 2012 again, I probably lost a few more matches, then Jamie and my brother, Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla had a game of FIFA 12 on the PC, and then on the PS3, both games Jamie won, but it was close, at least compared to his usual results when playing me.

Then we tried out PES 2012 on the PS2, it was a good game least time I played it, before I got it on PC, but playing it now, it seems kind of crappy, it's still a good game, it's nostalgic because the gameplay is exactly the same as the old PES games on the PS2, but with an updated roster, me and Jamie had a game at first, then Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla to take over me for a good few matches while I was busy doing stuff on the PC, can't remember what, though, probably working on my game.

After that, he tried out the PC version, and to my surprise, because he's pretty much a FIFA fanboy, he described the PC version as "Retarded but fun" and even mentioned that he might consider getting it for the PS3, I told him it wasn't so bad...

When we playing all of the above, he kept getting penalties and yellow/red cards the moment he got the ball off of Jamie, because of this, we gave him new nicknames, including; "The Walking Penalty", Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla, "The Walking Red Card", Riccardo "Referee's Consequences" Cafolla and "The Red Card Magnet".

Then me and Jamie had another game of NBA 2K12, and I somehow lost, Basketball is meant to be my sport, the sport I follow! I guess you can't win everything... or my case anything...

Then we had another game of FIFA 12, which, big surprise, I lost. After that, I felt tired, so I just went to bed, watching Monsters Inc. before sleeping, my friend ended sleeping a quarter of the way through, though.

The Next Morning, on Sunday 3rd March, we had a game of PES 2012 on PC, and I lost, again. I'm awful at these games...

Then Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla played a 2 games with Jamie, which Jamie won 8-1 apparently, but then he came back the next match with a 4-3 win. So they played one more match as a decider, and Jamie won 3-1. In all matches, it was Manchester City and Manchester United played by Jamie and Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla respectively.

After that, Jamie was taken home.

In short, here's what we played, in the order we played them:

• FIFA 12 [PC]
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 [PC/Games for Windows]
• NBA 2K12 [PC]
• FIFA 12 [PS3]
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 [PS2]

We had a great time that night, well, at least I did.

---

On Sunday, it was Xbox 360 week and Steven, my cousin's birthday weekend, or should I say his "Un-Birthday". "Finally!", my cousins would say, "New games!".

While I was waiting until we went there I decided to start a new game of Pokémon Red and played that a little bit before we went, didn;t get far though, but I'll play it again.

Me, Steven and my other cousin, Giancarlo, started off by playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and I was actually doing alright in it, my death-kill ratio didn't appear to be as big as usual, I even went second on both matches we played, the game's still not great though in my opinion.

Then me and Steven played Tony Hawk's Underground 2, because we didn't have much time, and we needed our horse of the week, the game ran seriously slow on the Xbox 360, but it was playable enough, this week, the "horse" was: bb2235ego!

We actually played two matches, when we playing them, when one of us got a number, it said "(User) got the letter 2!", Oh no!

The first match I won, 8-1 to me! I felt kind of sad about that, though, being it was his "Un-Birthday" and all, I hope he would've got a win, so he challenged me to another game, but I warned him, if I won, that would one more in my score, he said he would be okay with that.

...and what do you know, he actually won! 8-2 to me still, but at least it's a little less one-sided, just a little, though. I told him to start practising on Tony Hawk's Pro skater 3, because I'd love a challenge, I don't want this whole horse of the week thing to be one sided, so hopefully he'll take my advice and practice on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, as he has it as well.

After that, we were going to play Robot Wars Extreme Destruction on the Xbox, which worked fine before on the Xbox 360, but it wasn't compatible, odd, why wouldn't Microsoft remove compatibility from their console, it seems kind of stupid, doesn't it? They're probably trying to copy Nintendo, hoping to copy their success, if that's the case, Microsoft clearly don't know what consumers like or hate.

So we decided to play Raw 2 on the Xbox instead, and we had a great time laughing at the game as always, me and Steven played the first 2 matches, then Giancarlo joined in for the next 2, then we had to leave.

Steven gave me a couple of his old PS1 demo discs me and him were talking about last week (I mentioned it on last weeks entry), I've only tried McDonald's Disc 4, and it brought back so many memories!

In short, here are the games we played, in the order we played them:

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 [Xbox 360]
• Tony Hawk's Underground 2 [Xbox]
• WWE Raw 2: Ruthless Aggression [Xbox]

Next week is PS3 week, Riccardo "Red Card" Cafolla would be happy to hear that...

Article by: Cobra!

Article, title and Horse of the Week Help by: Steven

Retro Diary - 26/2/12 - Xbox Fortnight Part 2

Dear Diary,

As usual, it was a boring week, not much had happened.

---

On Thursday, I got FIFA 12 for the PC! Once I popped the game in, one word sprung to mind.. lazy! I won't explain how... I'll show how:

What's wrong with this picture? Here's a clue: I took this screenshot by pressing the print screen key on my keyboard.

That's right, they didn't even bother changing the icons for the PC version, it took me hours to figure out the controls! I'm not kidding, I can't make a joke to save my life!

I'm getting a USB receiver so I can actually use an Xbox 360 controller, you win this time EA...

---

At our gran's today, it was Xbox fortnight part 2, if you didn't read last week's entry, we extended Xbox week to this week due to the fact that last week, we only got to play one game: 007 Nightfire.

This week, we were pretending it was 2005, although my cousins were constantly flipping out their smart phones, which broke the "illusion".

We were going to start off this week with Mashed: Fully Loaded... but it turned out I forgot to take the disc out of my Xbox, which was at home, so unfortunately, we couldn't play it.

We started off this week's Xbox week with Shrek Super Slam, we had a game, and, well, we weren't exactly having the time of our lives.

Then we played... 007 Nightfire... At first, Steven played a couple of single player levels, then me and Gianni joined in to have a couple of arena multiplayer levels, this time, we were experimenting with different weapon sets, I say experimented, we just set it to random, so we got a different one every time, so we had a few matches of that.

After that, we had a few matches of Timesplitters: Future Perfect, and for the first time probably ever, I actually got a kill in it, happy days! I still lost, but I finally achieved something!

Next, me and Steven played Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, unfortunately, there was no Horse mode, which sucked, so we just goofed about in normal multiplayer, as he had no idea and I forgot what the controls are.

---

Next, we played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, where then we played Horse, on the Foundry level, and the horse of the week HLKKjjiggY!

Steven started off, and started off strong, he scored 133,000 point combo, which I couldn't beat, so I was the first to get a H.

He continued going strong for a little while, but then seemed to grow weaker as the match went on, it was nevertheless close, alright, not as close as out Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX match we had a couple of weeks before, but it will still great.

For a while, neither of us could landed any combos or set any scores, this went for about 10 minutes, then Steven went "forget this" and just did a kickflip, I responded with a double kickflip I think, then he responded with a Cannonball "over the pipe" "Foundry Gap", which then I responded with double kickflip "over the pipe".

In the end, I ended up getting the big 100,000 point combos, and he was the one bailing trying.

I ended up winning, 7-1 to me, seriously, it's getting a bit one sided, come on, Steven, step up your game! Right now, you're just a HLKKjjiggY!

---

After that, we had to leave.

Here's a short list of the games we played:

• Shrek Super Slam
• 007 Nightfire
• Timesplitters Future Perfect
• Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

---

After we returned home, me and Steven were talking about a few old games, while we were at gran's that we found a few old PS1 games and a few of them caught my eye, he had a few demo discs and Gran Turismo, he also has a demo disc for Rainbow Six 3 for the PS2, and that triggered a memory of him going on my computer too look up Rainbow Six 2, he said he remembered having one Rainbow Six game at one point, I assumed it was Rainbow Six 2, but as the conversation went one, more details came back and the pieces were put together, and it turned out it was Rainbow Six one he had, it was an interesting conversation in my opinion, and after, we talked a little about good old Dial-Up internet!

I've put the conversation together in an image, and with permission from Steven, I am going to show youse it, with a few blurred out details, like our real/full names, so here you go:

and No, "Cobra" really isn't part of my name, it's just a nickname I put there unfortunately Facebook doesn't allow speech marks in names.

Next week it's Xbox 360 week, I bet my cousin are like "Finally! new games!", not me, I don't like the 360, but hey, I can't have everything I want, can I?

Cobra!

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!

---

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!

---

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.

---

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]

---

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]

---

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]

---

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!

---

Article By: Cobra!
Recall help provided by: Steven

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!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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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.

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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!