"Retro"Arrivals - Rayman Origins [PC]

It's been a while since I've done one of these, that's mainly because I've got nothing worth making an article of for a while.

Even though this isn't the slightest bit retro, in fact it hasn't even come out yet over here! I thought I'd talk about it anyway.

For those thinking "This game's been out since last year!", that's true, but not for the PC version! I pre-ordered it a month ago so I would get the day it came out or even before, luckily, it was the latter, the PC version of Rayman Origins is officially being released tomorrow, 30th March 2011, however, since I pre-ordered it, it arrived a day early!

Here are some photos of it:




I haven't even opened the game up yet, as you can see, it's still in it's seal, and I'm very eager to open it up and play it, so if you'll excuse me...

Retro Diary - 25/3/12 - "You've landed on the challenge squa- Oh, it froze..."

Dear Diary,

I've had a rather quiet week this week, apart from the obvious, nothing has really happened.

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On Sunday, it was 3DO week, however, I ran across a few problems, on the main TV, despite it working before has all of a sudden stopped showing it in colour, it was in black and white, so I had to get another TV to get it showing properly.

The second problem I cam across was that a few games all of a sudden stopped working properly, at least in some parts, if you select certain cars in Need for Speed, the game wouldn't load, and in Twisted, some of the mini games crashed the game. I have no idea why these problems were occurring, the discs weren't any more scratched than before, and I've never really been "abusing" my 3DO, despite how frustrated I was at it for not showing properly on the main TV, maybe my 3DO is suffering from CD-rot...

Luckily, I got need for speed working properly again, it turned out the disc was just a little dirty, I cleaned it, and it worked a charm once again. Twisted, however, didn't, the mini games that crashed the game before still done so, but less often, I checked the disc, and there were a few scratched, but not enough nor were they deep enough to cause reading errors, so that was strange, every other game works perfectly, and Twisted worked perfect before, strange, isn't it?

So I can only conclude that it was the CD with the problem, even though it didn't make sense, it was the strongest lead I had, so I'm getting myself an official copy (the one I had was a burnt copy) so we can play it properly, if it still doesn't work, then I will really worry...

Anyway, the week started off with my little brother playing Need for Speed, unfortunately, the problem I was having before ruined it.

Then me and my cousin, Steven, played Twisted, then we encountered that error...

So we tried Corpse Killer to see if it worked, and it did, no problems, we had a laugh playing it because it was so bad, as usual.

Then me, Steven, my other cousin; Giancarlo and my brother; Riccardo all played a 4-player game of Twisted, hoping that the errors have been fixed, and we all went quite far before the game crashed, the mini games that were supposed to crash it, worked a few times during the game, unfortunately, my bad luck caught up to me, and crashed the game.

All in all, apart from the errors, we had an alright time. I swear, if these problems are going to reoccur every week, I'm going to stop the whole week thing.

---

Throughout the week, my two little brothers have been watching my Sam & Max cartoon series DVDs.

The surprising thing is: I never persuaded them to do so, they decided to try the show out, out of their own free will, and they love it, so much so that I'm always hear them talk about it and they always recite lines and moments from it, and they even downloaded trials of the games on Xbox Live, and sometimes ask me to play the full version on the PC, as I have all of the game.

I just thought I'd mention it here, as it's interesting, and more importantly, proves that the show, despite many people bring surprised it got a PG rating and that was aired on Fox Kids, it's still a perfectly good show for kids to watch. That alone in my opinion makes this show one of my favourites, it has all the humour that people my age would love, but kids can also watch it and find parts funny as well.

---

Next week is Saturn week, I would hope that I wouldn't have any problems, but then if I do, I let my guard down, and my luck would ruin everything, it's done that many times before.

Retro Diary - 18/3/12

Dear Diary,

Hardly Anything Happened this week, apart from of course Sunday, but even then, we hardly did anything.

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On Sunday, it was Mega Drive week, unfortunately, I brought along a bad display cable, to the picture quality was awful, just barely playable, though. It was so bad, it put off my cousin, Giancarlo from playing it, and he loves the Mega Drive.

Since it was Mega Drive week, I thought we'd pretend that it was the old years when we played it, 1998, alright, the Mega Drive was about dead by then, but that was when we had the Mega Drive.

The first thing we, or rather I played was Aladdin, and while playing it, I rediscovered an old cheat I used to use all the time to skip levels, just in case there's anyone reading this playing through the game wanting to complete it without cheating, I won't tell you the cheat code.

Then my brother played Sonic 1, then Monaco GP, both of which were on a 6 in 1 cart by Sega themselves, I also played Streets of Rage for a while, I got the furthest I've ever gotten in the game my whole life! Too bad I lost count how many stages I completed.

Then my other cousin, Steven, played Sonic 1 himself, he claimed he completed the game on Xbox Live Arcade version and was a master at the game. Problem for him was, this isn't the Xbox Live remake, this was the original, no save feature, harder difficulty, and a proper controller, which he's probably not used to. He didn't get very far, I don't even think he passed Green Hill Zone!

He then played Revenge of Shinobi, which was also on the 6-in-1 cartridge, he reached the first boss, further than I ever have, but then again, he activated the unlimited shurikens cheat.

Then he played Sonic 2, he had the same claims with this as with the first game, completed Xbox Live Version. He got a little farther on that than Sonic 1, but not by much, he only got Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 I think.

After that, the Mega Drive was just there collecting dust, so I thought I'd just pack it up and leave, as by that time, my family got the booze out, as it was my sister's birthday, I left before anyone got drunk, I hate it when people do that.

---

It was disappointing this week, hopefully, next week will be better, where we'll be playing the 3DO!

Retro Diary - 11/3/12 - Xbox 360-I mean PS3 week.

Dear Diary,

I had a quiet week this week, not much happened even on Sunday.

---

On Friday, as I mentioned then, I got 3 Sonic Albums from G-Force, all 3 New & Sealed for £32, and then I looked them up online, and they were about £40-£70 each used! Wow, I got one heck of a bargain!

If you want more details about this, Click Here.

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On Sunday, it was PS3 week... or at least it was meant to be, however, my brother, Riccardo and his infinite wisdom forgot the AV cables, and my younger brother played his Xbox 360 on the TV instead.

My cousin, Giancarlo showed me what he recently purchased stuff from Fopp, if you don't what that is, it's a UK multimedia store owned by HMV, I think. One of the stuff he purchased was actually a Vinyl record album, he said he was thinking of getting a record player, then we were talking about them for a while, most notably the sound of the pin touching the record and the sound it makes throughout the song, I thought I was the only one to love that sound, but I was wrong!

I'm also thinking of getting a record player, particularly one of ION's players, they have made a VCR that I have, and it's great, you can record VHSes to your computer and even record whatever is plugged into the AV ports at the front of it, meaning I can properly record game footage! I'm hoping their record players will have similar features, plus, they're the only company I think that still makes new ones, so there you go.

We didn't do much else that's related to what this diary's about, except perhaps we were playing Robot Wars with RC cars my brother got his birthday.

Next week would've been Wii Week, but we all decided to skip and start again, next week will be going back to the blast processing days!

Retro(ish) Pick-Ups: 3 Sonic the Hedgehog CD soundtracks.

On my way home from College today, I had a bit of spare money to spend and I had considered to go to that G-Force store, I had second thoughts at first, thinking I would be wasting too much time, then I finally decided; F*ck it! It's the weekend, I have 4 days off after this!

As I entered the store, I noticed they moved the CD soundtracks shelves to nearer the front and I instantly spotted a bunch of Sonic OST CDs there, and since I recently got back into Sonic the Hedgehog thanks to the awesome Sonic Generations, I instantly checked out what they had.

The albums were £10 each, which may seem like a lot, but these were Japan imports, if you're lucky enough to find one online, they'll probably be even more, and let's not forget shipping costs! So in my eyes, they weren't a bad price, so I decided to get a few, as I had quite a lot of money in my account.

I got Sonic the Hedgehog Vocal Traxx: Several Wills, True Blue: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog and Multi Dimensional: Sonic Adventure 2 Official Sound Track.

I was also going to get NBA Showtime on the Dreamcast, as they had it on the shelves, I've been wanting to get this game for a while, it was a sequel I guess you could say of NBA Jam on the PS1, N64 and Dreamcast, considering it was from that era, it just had to be awesome! Unfortunately, they didn't have any copies left, that sucks.

They went away for a little bit, and they got new & sealed copies of the soundtracks, I wasn't expecting that, it was well worth the money now!

I looked the soundtracks up online, and they got for about £40-£70 each used, and I got all 3 new for £32, bargain of the century!!!

As I'm typing this article, I'm ripping the CDs to my PC while listening to the ones that have already been ripped, it's great, every Sonic Music I liked, at least when it came to vocal songs, are all on these CDs, not each, obviously, but I can now in sense legally listen to these songs, because I bought an official Soundtrack that had the songs on it.

You want photos? Tough! Just kidding, here you go:


So yeah, a great pick-up in my opinion, the only soundtrack to I want to get left is True Colors: The best of Sonic the Hedgehog part 2. I hope Ge-Force will have that soon...

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