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 Pick-ups: Sega Master System II with Sonic Built-in, boxed, practically new!

You'll never believe what's happened, my uncle was telling me he still had Master System II in his house somewhere, and said he would dig it up and bring it next time he comes over to my grans if I wanted, naturally, I said that would be cool.

So the day he brought it in, it turns out to be a Sega Master System II, with Sonic Built-in, boxed, practically new! I say practically, I mean it had been used a bit back in the day, but the box was mint, and it had all of the sealing it originally had, one of the controllers hadn't even been opened!

I've been hearing that the Master System II model with Sonic built in was very rare (If my uncle's reading, don't feel gutted, they only seam to go for £20-£30 on eBay, not much of a loss.), so to see one boxed and in almost new condition left me and awe, I got to try it on my Gran's TV.

So after what felt like half an hour of tuning it into the right channel, we finally got a picture! So I played a bit of Sonic 2, then my little brother wanted a shot, so I gave him a shot.

After he got a game over, I decided to try out After Burner, and I was a little disappointed because the game ran pretty slow, it was still pretty fun, though.

Then I decided to try out the built-in Sonic game, and it was quite fun as well.

After I played these games, I had to go, and my uncle said I could have it, I couldn't be more chuffed if I tried!

Here are some pictures, for some really strange reason, Blogspot are displaying some of them sideways even though they were taken normally, and were at the normal side on my computer:
















I promised myself never to go as far as to get 8-bit consoles, but since it was a Sega console, I pretty much grew up with them, and it was free, I couldn't resist!

Also, it turns out my cousin, Steven, actually had a Master System back in the day, and he's only a year older than I am. I remember him telling me this years ago, but I thought it was bought a decade or so after it was discontinued, but it turns out, he had it back in the day, so, for all I know, I could've played it, but my memory at the time didn't develop, I was around 2 at the time, (Surprised? I started playing the Mega Drive when I was 3! I remember THAT.) so if that were the case, I'm glad I considered getting a Master System, because it was part of my early life.

I would be playing it, but it's a bit late for that, I'll play it tomorrow.

Thanks for the Master System! I can guarantee you that it will be given a great home where it will be loved and played constantly!

I- sorry, "we" have beaten Sonic the Hedgehog 2!

Finally, the moment has come, one I have been looking forward to since as far as I can remember, a childhood hindrance has been gone away, a lifelong task has been finished, I- sorry we have completed Sonic the Hedgehog 2!

It was almost 2:00 in the morning, my sister, Francesca, was playing all the stages before Living Fortress, saving up a bunch of lives, then I pretty much took over, by the time we reached the Death Egg Zone, We had 38 lives, and 3 continues, totalling to 46 attempts to beat the last boss.

The Metal Sonic boss was a bit annoying, it took me a while to get the pattern down, once I defeated him, this was it, my heart and pulse were racing, they were at the speed of Sonic's legs, I was very shaky with the controller, this was it, this was the end, we were going to beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2 once and for all...

...I died, instead of taking to that boss, I went back to the beginning, so I had to defeat that Metal Sonic again, and by that point it was just a waste of time.

I consumed 31 lives at this stage, I got the patterns of both bosses, my hands wee shaking so much I kept held of the controller, then the image we wanted to see, the final boss destroyed, all of those mini explosions all over him, the farting sound from the Mega Drive, we had done it! We completed Sonic the Hedgehog 2!

This is a moment I will perhaps remember for decades! If I forget, this article will remind me!

Retro Diary - 22/1/12 - "Come here square fists!"

Dear Diary, I totally forgot to write notes for this, so everything written here beyond Monday will be totally out of recall.

On Monday my sister came over to play my Mega Drive, big surprise, eh? However, she, or rather we, I was playing a bit as well, almost completed it, we reached Death Egg Zone, by that point, I was shaking in excitement, my heart rate was going three times it's normal speed, I'd be sweating if I were the type to sweat, this was it, one the first games I've ever played, the game that always got me p*ssed off, the game that I- as a child- played for hours upon hours on end, but never got far, it was time to finally finish off a childhood game, a game that always won, to get past a very large obstacle, to jump over a very high hurdle, I- sorry we, were going to beat Sonic 2 once and for all!... I suck at build-ups...

...and we died, lost all of our lives and continues, bummer...

---

On Wednesday, I was staying over at a friends house to watch the El Classico, while we were waiting for it to start, we had a few games of FIFA 12 on Xbox 360 and a couple of match of Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 for the same console.

I pretty much lost all of the matches we had of both games, I have no choice but to blame the Xbox 360 controller, I'm usually good at both games on PS2, usually...

After the El Classico, which I enjoyed by the way, we watched The Emperor's New Grove on VHS, then we went to bed.

---

On Saturday, I got a new TV! Well, not exactly new, my brother had it before, but only since Christmas, so it's still relatively new, and I came across a problem, with the PS1, the the TV takes about a minute to find out what type of picture it uses, so by the time it shows a picture, it's well into the intro or the Press Start screen, it's not a big problem, since it gives off a great picture when it finally shows, but I'd love to get it fixed.

Other than that, I love it! It gives off a great picture to anything connected and I got a HDMI cable for my blu-ray player, and it gives off a great picture, it even does 1080p... but it's only 14-inch, so it doesn't make a massive difference.

---

On Sunday, it was Nintendo 64 week at grans, I played a fair bit of Turok before my cousin, Steven finished his lunch and then we played a bit of Goldeneye, then we played a bit of Perfect Dark, and to finish off, we played Mario Kart 64. Nothing much happened.

While we were playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, we made up playful insults related to the graphics, for example: "Come here square fists!", "Take that Pyramid hands!" and "You can run forever cuboid legs!".
Games we played:

• Turok
• 007 Goldeneye
• Perfect Dark
• Mario Kart 64

Yeah, nothing much happened from recall. Next week, we'll be Dreamcast week, Chu Chu Rocket!

---

Article By: Cobra!

Title quote provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 15/1/12 - "BEEEEEAAASSSSTTTTTT... Robots!"

Dear Diary, sorry I'm late with posting this week, you'll find out why later on.

On Tuesday, My sister came to my house to play my Mega Drive again, she was playing the one I found in grans the week before, like I said, it works better than my other Mega Drive, because it doesn't need the power cord to be plugged in at a certain angle in order to play it.

You guys wont believe this, but she didn't even know how to spin dash in the game! I can understand if she's totally new to the game, but she played it when it came out all those years ago with our older cousins, so I would've though sometime then she would've learned, but apparently not. Oh well, she knows now.

She got to Oil Ocean Act 2 before she got a game over. She had 6 lives and 3 continues and managed to lose them all at that zone. *tuts*

She decided to play through it all again, she's dedicated I'll give her that.

She reached Metropolis Zone Act 2 this time.

Then she decided to play through it all again!

She reached Oil Ocean Act 2, the exact same spot - the boss - before her 3rd game over.

Later on in the day, she came back for a 4th try, this time she reached Green Hill Zone Act 2 before deciding to stop playing.

She later returned though for a 5th play though, well technically 4th, but whatever.

She reached a record of 15 lives! She reached Mystic Cave Zone Act 1 before she had to leave for the final time.

I think I can safely say that after all of that, the Mega Drive found in the closet/cupboard is in full working condition!

---

On Wednesday, me and my cousin, Steven, had another Robot Wars session on Garry Mod.

After a few battles, we decided to try and build new robots, but neither of us had an idea that worked, so we gave up. I swear Steven's idea of connecting an office chair to a sentry gun with a 100ft pole was going somewhere...

---

On Thursday, my sister returned to play some more Mega Drive... while I was at college! She said she reached Living Fortress zone when I was away.

When I was there, she reached Oil Ocean zone Act 1.

Her goal it seamed from that point was to get as many lives as possible.

On her second attempt, or at least the 2nd I've seen, she reached Aquatic zone Act 1 with 15 lives before she had to leave.

---

On Friday, College ended early, but I didn't have my mobile phone, so I couldn't tell my mum that so she couldn't pick me up, so since I had a couple of hours to kill, I went over to my friends house for a few hours.

We played a could of El Classico on FIFA 12, if you don't know what "El Classico" is, it's the Spanish old firm, Barcelona vs. Real Madrid.

Unfortunately, my friend had taken all of Real Madrid's good players and put them on Barcelona, so I didn't stand a chance.

So I went Bayern Munich (Spelling) and he went Milan, and you won't believe this, but I actually scored not 1, but 2 goals against him! He did equalise in the second half and scored a 3rd goal, but I got him back with a 3rd goal from my team, then he scored again, then the matched ended, it was surprisingly close!

We had a rematch, and this time, he scored a goal against me earlier on, and then... no one scored since, and the match ended 1-0.

This guy has been collecting FIFA games for years, so he's most likely an expert at them by now, I'm just a new comer, and I surprisingly came close on both of our balanced matches!

We then watched Aladdin on VHS, it's my first time watching it believe it or not, and I really enjoyed it!

Afterwards, we decided to have another game of FIFA 12 again, but then I had to go.

---

On Saturday, my Sam & Max DVD boxset finally arrived, after 2 months of waiting! I watched it all at once, it was worth the wait! Brilliant show!

Steven came up to my house, we played a few games in my room, we first tried out Hi-Octane, and it was kind of fun, but it was drag, because the game's circuits have too many laps, seriously, some even go up to 12 laps! They;re not short either, they're pretty long! So it kind of drags on after a while, but for a game that only took 8 weeks to build, it's pretty fun!

We might've played wipE'out 3: Special Edition, but neither of us are sure about that.

Then we played WWF War Zone for the Nintendo 64, like ECW Hardcore Revolution, which we played on the Dreamcast and which is also made by Akklaim, the game is so bad, it's awesome! So we had a couple of matches of that.

We were going to hook up our laptops, he brought his over, to play Garrys Mod on multiplayer using LAN, but we didn't have time, he had to go.

In summary, here are the games we played:

• Hi-Octane [PS1]
• wipE'out 3: Special Edition [PS1]*
• WWF Warzone [N64]

* = We think.

---

On Sunday it was PS1 week, my cousin was playing a few games of Vib Ribbon, we were about to pop in Tekken to play it, but it wouldn't load that or any other games since, my PS1 just died on me... and that was why I never posted my Retro Dairy on Sunday

Luckily though, I guess, me and Steven brought our laptops to keep us occupied, we wanted to try our Robot Arena 2 multiplayer, if know what that is, it's a Robot Combat game released only in America, however, alot of people in the UK own it due to the popularity of Robot Wars, in fact I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if most of the copies the game sold are in the UK now!

Anyway, we found out that although you need the disc to boot it up, you can take it out after it's loaded, and it would still function perfectly, so we ran the game on both of our laptops, connected each others laptops using a cable to play LAN multiplayer and surprisingly, it worked! So we had a few games, then we left.

In between games, we chatted in the built-in chat system in the robot selection screen, and we were quoting videos from KSIOlajideBT's videos, but adapting them to Robot Combat, the most notable of these was parodying his "Beast" videos, where he talks about good but unknown football players in FIFA: "Shut up and welcome to BEAST! Where we talk about BEEEEEAAASSSSTTTTTT... Robots!"

On closer inspection, and recall, it turns out that I made a mistake, you see, I have 2 PSones, and I was bringing the other one every other week because the one I brought broke, the whole time it was broken, so all of my grieving and being a little mad and stressed all went to vein, well, at least there's not much to be sad about.

I cleaned the lens anyway, just to see if I can bring it back to life, popped in Tekken 3, and it actually kind of worked again, I say kind of, it loaded the intro and menus just fine, but couldn't load the actual game. At least I'm making progress, eh?

In summary, here are the games we played:

• Vib Ribbon [PS1]
• Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy [PC]

So, next week is N64 week, the return of Slapper action in 2012!

---

Article By: Cobra!

Title quote 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]

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

---

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!

Retro Pick-Ups: Another Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

During my time at grans, my gran found something in the closet, I went to the dining room, where she was, to see what it was, and it turns out it was a Mega Drive!

I was asked if I wanted it, and of course, I accepted, I now own 2 Mega Drives!

I went home to try it out, and it worked perfectly, in fact, it worked better than my other Mega Drive, it doesn't have the problem where you have to position the power cable in a certain way in order to work, like my other Mega Drive does.

It's a bit dusty and there's some dirt here and there, but I'll fix that.

Here are photos I've taken of it:






So yeah, I'll be using that for now on, but if anyone wants me old Mega Drive, I'll happily give it to them, but I can't give them any controllers or games, as I only have 1 controller, and I want to keep all of my game, but don't have any doublers.

Garrys Mod [PC - Steam] - Robot Combat event

Me and my cousin, Steven, were making our own robots after the discovery of the wheels tool, we downloaded a couple of arena maps for the event, we had a brilliant time!

What we did for our robots was get an item, usually a bath, a crate or the pod, attach wheels to it, and optionally a pole with a Saw wield to it or a lance or spear.

Steven recorded the event with fraps, and I took a bunch of behind-the-scenes screenshots of the event.

I made a robot called "Steel Venom", which a Pod with a BMW wheel attached to each side, and with a pole wield on to it and a saw blade attached to it.

Steven built a robot which is a bath with wheels, and Gman on it doing a pose on it, he called it "Gman's Mean Machine!"

Steven had this to say about the robot:

I'd like to thank Gman for his participation for the event! I was amazed at how long he could hold his briefcase in the air for so long without a break!

The footage recorded will be edited and aired as a series called "Robostorm: The G-wars!", which will be a short spin-off to fill the gap towards the release of the Next Generation series.

Here are screenshots of the event:

Gman has begun legal action after he was almost cut in half by a saw blade, he has quit from participating again, so events from now on will use replica ragdolls of Gman for the robot.

It is unknown when the series will be aired, but it should be in a weeks time.

2 versions of the show will be made, one for this blog, which will actually contain vocal commentary by yours truely, and one for Youtube without. This way, you don't have to hear my boring voice, unless you'd really want to.

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!