Retro Diary - 10th November 2013

I'm not being very consistent with this retro blog, am I? Well, the reason I haven't posted anything for the past few weeks, is because I don't have anything to post! That is not the case this week! I have some big news... sort of, to report!

Monday 4th November 2013
I was at CEX today after college, and I had found a great deal, I found 2 games for sale, Ace Lightning (Remember the show?) and Mall Tycoon, both for PC, and guess how much, in total, it costed me to buy both games... No, go on, guess... 45p! Ace Lightning costed 15p and Mall Tycoon was 30p! I thought that was a bargain! That was until...

I had installed both games, and I can see why they were both so cheap... Ace lightning was absolutely atrocious! I feel like I had been ripped off, that 15p could've bought me... erm... they have me there...

How bad is it? How does this sound? No mouse support, Tank style controls coupled with a Mario 64-esque camera, respawning enemies, space to jump, ctrl to shoot, and alt to swing your weapon... You have to do the spock hand to play this game, and it really puts a strain on my fingers after a while, and on top of all that, the game is boring to play... To give them credit, they captured the atmosphere of the show quite well, it feels like an Ace Lightning game. Another thing of note, they never got Ace Lightning's original voice actor for the game, instead, they got who sounds like Tom Clarke Hill, the voice of Cortez from Timesplttiers, the game's credits didn't mention the voice actors, and IMDB and Wikipedia have nothing on it either, so I'm not 100% sure, but I swear, it sounds so much like like him!

Mall Tycoon isn't a classic either, the controls are loose and clunky, and adding walls to is an absolute nightmare! For 30p, though, I can't complain, I got a bit of fun out of it once I got used to it... I tried a trial of Mall Tycoon 3 after playing it, and it's so much better, It'll be hard to go back to the original, so I uninstalled it...

Thursday 7th November 2013
I was at CEX again, and I saw all of the Smackdown Vs. Raw games as well as Smackdown: Shut your Mouth and Wrestlemania 21, all for £1 each, so I decided to nab all the games I didn't have, sadly, Smackdown vs. Raw (original) and Wrestlemania 21 don't work, everything else works perfect, though. Does anyone know if I have to go through buy or sell, or can I go through either to take what I bought back?

Friday 8th November 2013
I got a new console off of eBay, it came with 9 games (Including 2 copes of one game, the game I wanted this system for!), and 3 controllers, I thought I got a great deal on it.

I was never fussed about this console before, but then I saw someone put for sale on what's called "Facebay", which is a Facebook group where people from a certain city (they have groups for each city, I believe), sell stuff, for others in that city to buy and pick up at a meeting point, and vice versa, you can buy someone and go to a meet up point.

Anyway, someone was selling this console there, for a good price, it came with 4 games, and 2 controllers, so I was trying to make a deal with him, but he declined everything I offered, saying he'd get more on eBay and that he'd be "missing out", I got so exited to be getting this console as well, so I decided 'Screw it! I'm getting one off of eBay!' ...so I did.

What console am I talking about? I'm not telling you, I'll reveal it once it arrives... I bet youse are tempted to know what is it, aren't youse? No? Well, screw youse, I'm not telling youse either way!

Sunday, 10th November 2013
I had brought the Dreamcast to Grans this week, we didn't play much, though, I played a bit of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 with my brother, then I played a wee bit of Shenmue 2, I didn't get much further in the story, though.

Then I played a game of Chu Chu Rocket with my cousin: Steven.

Then my cousin: Giancarlo, came in, and we played some Ready 2 Rumble Boxing (Rumble Bumble!), and we had a blast playing it, then me and my (other) brother had a few matches. The graphics for that game still amaze me to this day, it looks like any regular PS2 or Gamecube game from the mid 2000s, and runs at 60fps, and this was in 1999, I can definitely imagine, somebody being blown away by the Dreamcast version of this game! I know I would've, it amazes me now!

The I had a wee game of NBA Showtime... that is all.

That's all we got up to this weel, maybe next week, I can bring that mystery console to grans, who knows?

Until then, BYE!