Retro Diary - 29/30/12 - "That's happened to me before in real life"

Dear Diary,

On Saturday, I tried something, I tried to get my PS2 online so I could try NBA 2k12 online (No one plays the PC version, either that or the 2K servers are awful.), by - In geeky terms - created a network bridge between the PS2 and the router using my laptop, basically, I'm using my laptop's connection to go online with the PS2. It surprisingly worked when I tested it, but when I tried going online, I had an "Authentication error", after looking it up, it's basically Sony's DNAS not working properly.

On Sunday, it was PS2 week. I played Airblade before my cousins came, I didn't get any further though, it's too hard.

Then me and Steven played Motorstorm: Artic Edge, he got lucky, twice, he was first and I was last in both races...

Then we played a couple of levels of TimSplitters 2 Co-Op, we spent most of the time playing the mini anaconda game on the Terminal Uplink!

Then me, Steven and Giancarlo played the best game ever, WWE All Stars! We had a great laugh! When we were playing it Giancarlo kept saying for a joke that the over the top moves happened to him in real life.

Then me and Giancarlo played a few games of Virua Fighter 4 Evolution,, we had 4 battles I think, I won 3, and he won the last one.

Finally, me and Steven had a quick game of Shawn Palmer's Pro Snowboarder to get our horse of the week, this week it was EPQSC, and he won! He never got a letter, maybe I'm not on top form, I'm having a bad run! It's still 10-5 to me.

After that we had to leave, next week is Xbox week, a rare week when I'm not the one bringing a console!

The games we played:

In the order we played them:
• Airblade
• Motorstorm: Artic Edge
• TimeSplitters 2
• WWE All Stars
• Viruta Fighter 4 Evolution
• Shawn Palmer's Pro Snowboarder

Article By: Cobra!

Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 22/4/12 - "Sta-I mean 'Precioustones'!"

Dear Diary,

This week was for the most part all about the Dreamcast!

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Throughout the week, I've been playing through my collection of games, basically testing it to make sure we have no problems this week, and it's been fun, discovering games that I had, but haven't played much of, such as UEFA Dream Soccer, I only played about a minute of that before, now I play it pretty much everyday, I really enjoy it!

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On Saturday, I got my copy of Angry Birds Space on PC that I pre-ordered a month or so ago, however, I had a bit of trouble running it, the activation key didn't work, however, after hours of finding no solution, as I was the only person on green god's earth that had the problem, I resorted to reinstalling it to fix the problem, funnily enough, it did the trick!

The game's great, the best in the series by far in my opinion! The other games were to me just mild entertainment, this one is pure addiction!

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On Sunday, it was Dreamcast week, and for the first time in ages, I remembered everything this week, and we never had any problems, well, except for the fact that the Dreamcast had too many awesome games! We played so many (and we didn't play them all!) that for the most part I forgot what we played and what order!

Me and my brothers started off the week by playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, we just played round in Free-Skate.

Then I played a bit of Shenmue II, I haven't played it in ages, so I spent most of the time trying to remember what I was supposed to do, and I think I got further in the game, just a bit, as in, the now-I-know-what-to-do kind of bit.

My cousins, Steven and Giancarlo came in, then we played Le Mans 24 Hours, and I was surprised the game maintained it's superb graphics in 3 to 4-player split-screen while still running smooth, I have to say, I'm impressed!

Then we played Quake III Arena, we accidentally made it so that the game was never ending, we only noticed this ten minutes in, I guess time flies, because we, or least I was having a blast!

Then we played some ChuChu Rocket, because you can't Dreamcast week without a game or two if ChuChu Rocket! It was fun as always.

Then we played Sonic Shuffle, The game was pretty much the exact same as Mario party, except replace Coins with rings and Stars with "Precoustones.", the game we played was (thankfully) quicker than the usual Mario Party games, it was fun too, but not as much fun unfortunately...

Then we played NBA Showtime, and I was a little disappointed, because it wasn't as fun as I hoped, my cousins weren't too exited about it either...

Then we played Metropolis Street Racer, in 60hz widescreen mode! Nothing can top that, well, except for 1080p HD, but if you have all the right stuff, the Dreamcast can do that as well!

Then we played Sega Rally 2, we played a couple of games.

Then we played Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, which was, as always, fun as heck to play!

Then we played Mortal Kombat Gold, it was fun, but not as much as usual, I guess NBA Showtime and Sonic Shuffle really made the party die down, because no one except for me seemed as exited as before.

Finally we played Sonic Adventure 2, me and Giancarlo played a race of the go-kart mini game, then me and Steven managed to squeeze in a quick game on the Sonic/Shadow action stages before we had to go.

In short, here's what we played:

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
• Shenmue II
• Quake III Arena
• ChuChu Rocket
• Sonic Shuffle
• NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC
• Metropolis Street Racer
• Sega Rally Championship 2
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
• Mortal Kombat Gold
• Sonic Adventure 2

So we, or at least I had a fun week this week, I wish we could make it a 2-week "week" to play all the games we had to miss out, but we can't.

Next week is PS2 week, I probably won't enjoy it as much as Dreamcast week, but it should still be fun, I mean, in it's massive library spanning 12 years of games, there's gotta be some fun to be had, right?

Cobra!

"Retro" Arrivals - Angry Birds Space [PC]

I got a new game today, have you guessed what it is yet?

I pre-ordered this game a while ago, the price has dropped since, which is a bummer, but Amazon refunded the amount discounted, which is awesome!

I'm quite a fan of the Angry Birds games, although I hate smart phones and the ipod touch, I was relived to see you didn't need them to play Angry Birds, because they've released all of the games on PC, in CD form no less!

So anyway, here are some shots of the box I've made:




Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be plying this...

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

Dear Diary,

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

---

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

I hope they get around to fixing these problems soon.

So we were messing about in that for a while.

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then they had to leave.

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

Article By: Cobra!

Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro Diary - 8/4/12 - "No Problem..."

Dear Diary,

I have to say, I actually expected this week, at least when it comes to gaming or anything this blog does, would be extremely quiet, but surprisingly, it's kind of been the complete opposite!

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From Wednesday to Friday, I've been to England to see my uncles and aunties that live there, and while I was there, I got Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Assassins Creed 2 on the PC, the latter of which was surprisingly the cheapest, surprising because it's a much bigger game than the Angry Birds games as you might have guessed, Assassins Creed 2 was only £5, the Angry Birds games were £7 each. That's me got all the Angry Birds collection on the PC, apart from the upcoming Space, but I'll be pre-ordering it soon.

Assassins Creed 2 was what surprised me the most, I already had Angry Birds Rio before I got the first 2, so I expected the same awesome gameplay, which it delivered, but with AC2, I didn't know what to expect, I've spent years dissing the series without trying it, and now I've contradicted myself by getting it, I wasn't disappointed in the slightest, it's a fantastic game, very addicting! However, I can't help but think it's just a medieval Grand Theft Auto...

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On Saturday, I went with my cousins to Aberfoyle, and I brought my N-gage with me, but I play it on the way there or there, so I thought it was a waste bringing it, but on the way back, my cousin - Steven - Agreed to play a game of horse on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, on the N-Gage version of the game, you can play horse with the one N-gage, just take turns, passing it back and forth, which is convenient, because I only have one N-gage and I know no one with one.

Horse of the Week - Part 1:

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In this game, instead of "horse", it was JGJMMTJTPJ! I won it, making the current standings 9-2 to me!

---

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On Sunday, it was PS1 week, but this time, unlike every other week where I would ask my cousins if they wanted to play the games, I decided to wait until they either approach it, or they ask if I want to play a game with them, it was to test if they actually do want to play my games, or if they just say yes just to make me happy.

Unfortunately, my other cousin, Giancarlo, couldn't be there, he was in France, I forgot to ask why...

After lunch, Steven approached the PS1, and that kind of put me in a good mood, I thought he would ignore the whole time!

We first played Formula 1 Arcade, we had a couple of games of that.

Horse of the Week - Part 2:

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We then played Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX, we had a game of horse, instead of horse, it was KKVUFZZA!

...and I lost, in fact I was annihilated, Steven didn't even get a letter! The standings after that were 9-3

After that defeat, I challenged him to a horse game on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, in this game , instead of "horse", it was KKKKCDTDDT!

This time around, it was a little more to my liking, despite my handicap (He's not as good as me.), I was winning by quite a bit, he only had a couple of letters to go.

However, my luck went back to normal: rotten. I had constant little mistakes, like the height dropped was a little too high, or going down a rail backwards, which in this game for some reason mirrors the controls, giving it a higher chance of bailing, and even at one point I bailed for no reason at all! Eventually, he lost, through luck. I suppose he still won, and it kind of balances the standing a bit to be less one-sided: the current standings, speaking of, are 9-4.

After that, I thought I'd gamble a little more, because I refuse to lose! I challenged him to a horse game on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, in this game, instead of "horse", it was SCTUVNFNFN!

During the game, we found out that the Let's do this!!! 'curse' was no longer effective, however, we discovered a new one, just when one of Steven's plays started, he said No Problem..., and almost immediately after saying that, he bailed before doing even one trick, exactly how the original curse was discovered...

...and finally, I got a win! At long last! The standings are now 10-4 to me!

Then me and my brother - Riccardo - wanted a game, I ending up winning without getting a letter, but it was his first game, he has much to learn...

Overall, this week, we both got 2 wins each, since it was a tie, the win from my match against my brother now counts, so I win, Steven's the horse of the week!

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Then we played a good few races of Firebugs, while talking about various things, Firebugs is one of those games you can casually play while talking to the person you're playing against, so we were talking about a couple of things, including Capcom's incident where they found some Street Fighter X Tekken DLC, which was meant to be released 6 months later, on the disc!

Then we played Carmageddon, we played a few games of that, this game's almost the opposite of Firebugs, the games are quite intense!

Then we, or rather Steven played some Vib Ribbon, we were having a laugh while playing this game! It's hard to explain what the game's about, so I'm not going to bother.

Then we played wipEout 3: Special Edition, Steven kept getting his ship destroyed before completing a lap somehow.

Finally, we played Klonoa Beach Volleyball, we surprisingly enjoyed ourselves, despite it being a volleyball game, a sport neither of us are exactly into...

The list of games we played: (a.k.a. tl;dr)

In the order we played them
• Formula One Arcade
• Mat Hoffman's pro BMX
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
• Firebugs
• Carmageddon
• wipEout 3: Special Edition
• Klonoa Beach Volleyball

So I surprisingly had a fun week this week, next week is the week of the console that started it all, the Nintendo 64! Fun is guaranteed! A problem-free week isn't...

Article By: Cobra!
Recall help provided by: Steven

Rant: Video Game Companies war against used game sales - My opinion

These days all I hear is about games companies attempting to combat used games, and I'm getting sick and tired of it, I, as well as many are totally against this, so I decided to make a rant on it, just to get it off my chest.

What's wrong with people buying used games? I mean, you don't see 20th Century fox throwing a fit over people buying used DVDs, or WMG making a big deal out of people buying used CDs, do you?

So why is it such a big problem for games, what makes the games industry so important, the industry's even bigger then the movie industry now, which means generally, you would make more money out of games than movies, so you'd think games companies would be the last companies to be complaining about used game sales, wouldn't you?

Once companies finally combat used games, the industry is just going to fall apart, game stores would end up closing, the idea of lending a game to a friend would be gone, and if you get these consoles and eventually feel nostalgic about them and want to play them again, touch luck, ya can't!

Also, this would mean people would need a constant internet connection to play the game, what about those who don't have an internet connection, and parents who are concerned about their children going online, and don't give them access? they're customers too you know, a 3rd of the world still lacks an internet connection, so that would estimate companies losing a 3rd of their sales.

Take the music industry for example, CDs still take up about 60% of music sales, and I bet a majority of those people did so because they lack an internet connection.

Also, there's that problem with broadband cutting off on you, and just going slow, it happens to us a lot, what if that happened when you were playing a game? Would it cut off, I imagine.

Going into more detail with buying used games years after, they're several problems that totally eliminate any possibilities of playing a game years later for nostalgia without modifying or hacking the console, one thing is that the game would no longer be in production, so they can't play the full game, and plus, the internet service would be down, meaning even if they managed to obtain a new copy, they can't play it.

Speaking of hacking and modifying consoles, people are already planning on doing either or both when the new consoles come out, from an company's point of view, they would end up wasting money on overcoming their problems, when that happens, people would overcome that and so on and so forth and ending up wasting more money than you would probably make by eliminating used game sales anyway.

Have youse noticed that the two companies that are trying to eliminate used games the most, aren't even games companies, Sony and Microsoft, and yet the only actual games company on the hardware market; Nintendo, aren't fussed by it all? or haven't said anything on the matter? At least nothing against it? I'm just saying... that raises a few more points I want to make about different matters, but I don't want to trail off the subject, so, maybe for another rant?

If you ask me, to get more people to buy used games, I think the idea is rather than punishing those who buy it used, reward those who buy it new, rather than convincing them to avoid getting a used copy, convince them to buy a new one. For example, give them exclusive content, or create a premium account for your game's online service, and give new copy buyers free trials, or even better, give them it free period, that would convince me to buy a new copy!

That way it's a win-win situation, people can still lend copies to their friends, people can still play them in retrospect, yet if their friends want to get it and want the full thing, they'll get a new copy, and if they get a used copy, they'll get the premium account.

Not only that, but it would help maintain your reputation, or even raise it, making it all more profitable in the long run, think about that guys... forget it, it's not like they'll ever read this anyway!

Going into more detail on something else I mentioned earlier, if used games are no more, then game stores would be as well, as most stores get their profits out of used games. Most of youse who read this blog will probably know that I prefer to do thing digitally as little as possible, meaning, I'd rather get a physical copy from a real store, with physical money. So as you might have guessed, I'm not happy about this, usually, I would by from Amazon, but only because it's cheaper, but whenever I'm out, if there's one nearby, I'd go into a game store and browse around and maybe buy something, I love doing that, instead of knowing exactly what Amazon has, I'd love browsing through game stores and seeing what they have, that feeling will soon go and we'll have to stick with boring old Amazon!

Also, again, what about those who don't have the internet, they're customers too, and once game stores close, how will they get their games? Answer, they can't, so again, a big chunk of potential customers have been lost, so game sales will go down, eventually maybe even entirely ruin the game industry.

Alright, maybe that wasn't my most angry point end with, but that's my rant done, and I actually feel a lot better now that's it's off my chest, I hope someone's learnt a thing or two, making my research for this rant worth it.

Bottom line: I couldn't be more against it if I tried, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it, it's happening, and for that, I send my condolences to used media, you've served me well, you were always there when I didn't have money for a new copy, and provided people like me the benefit of retro gaming, awesome games, arguable for the most part better than new games, but for far cheaper. I will miss going into a store and buying an old game used, I will have to cherish those memories, as I soon will never be able to create any more...

I have a few more things I need to get off my chest related to gaming, but you'll have to wait another time, or if you're lucky, it won't come at all...

Retro Diary - 2/3/12 - "Game over Yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"

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

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On Thursday, as I mentioned then, I got Rayman Origins for PC a day before it was supposed to come out, and it's great, the game's good fun!

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It was Sega Saturn Week this week on Sunday,

Surprisingly, this week at our gran's house was mostly problem-free, I say almost, I mean we had a couple of minor problems here and there.

Me and my cousin - Steven - Started off by Playing Sega Worldwide Soccer 98, in world wide soccer 98, when I first played my brother, he accidentally scored a couple of goals just by running in with the ball so we made an in joke by calling that 'pulling a worldwide soccer' even though that was most likely just a one off, but it turns out, it's a common occurrence and is very easy to do, to get past any player, even if it's the goal keeper, just press the print button (L) as you approach him, and in order to shot, you have to hold A for a few seconds, by the time you're about to score, the goal's open, you you just run in with it, like I said, this is a very common occurrence.

Anyway, I beat Steven 3-0, we went as Italy and Germany respectively.

Then we popped in Sega Rally Championship, and we played 3 races, one in each map (They're are 3 maps by the way, spoilt for choice!), and we noticed that when the race is finished the winner's text is red, and the loser's is green, is the game trying to tell us that winning is bad and losing is good? It doesn't exactly help that the Game Over screen is so cheerful!

Then we played Daytona USA, and while we were playing that we were discussing the topic of companies re-releasing their old games onto Xbox Live, PSN and Steam, and how it was depleting the value of the old console by making their exclusives, no longer exclusives, it turns out, Steven agrees with me on that, he says he doesn't like it when companies do that, and that he'd only buy re-released game if it one he really like e.g. Metal Gear Solid HD collection, and that's kind of the same with me, I might consider getting Shenmue 1 & 2 if it comes out on Steam, but that doesn't change my opinion on the matter one bit.

Finally, we played a few races of Sega Touring Car Championship, then we packed up and left.

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After grans, when we were at home, we played a few "Robot Wars" matches on Gmod, since it was late, we only had a couple of matches, but it was fun as always.

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Next week in Playstation week, I hope next week will be problem free, but knowing my luck, that won't be the case...

"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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!

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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

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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" Pick-Ups - New PC!

I know this isn't retro, in fact, if anything, it's the complete opposite, but since I see it as a big thing and am very exited about it, I'm posting it here anyway.

After my laptop was become out of reach of the newest game minimal requirements, I saved up to get a new laptop, but since all the laptops, even the ones worth £1000 were even weaker than the one I had!

I was looking for a laptop/computer that's in the range of £1000m - £1500, because I wanted a powerhouse of a computer, so I saved up.

Once I had enough, I was looking around for computers, and an Asus computer caught my eye, for those who are geeky, like me, the specs for it are: 3.4Ghz Quad Core processor, 12Gb ram, 3Gb graphics card and a 2Tb hard drive. Holy sh*t, it was a BEAST of a computer, and at only just over £1000 I couldn't resist getting it, it was more than capable of running the latest games at their highest settings, so I bought it out of PC World/Currys, as well as a huge monitor and an awesome gaming mouse, I was going to buy a keyboard to match it, but the store didn't have any more in stock, so I'm hoping to order it online.

So I went back home, and before I opened them up and set it up, which was hard, took all of my willpower to do so, I took out my camera and took pictures of them before they were opened, and then after I set it up, I took pictures of it once set up.

So here are the photos, hate to brag or make anyone jealous, I really do, but prepare to drool at the sight of such as beast:






So yeah, I'm very pleased with my purchase, although I haven't tried playing any games yet, because I'm writing this article, so after this, I'll finally be playing some Driver San Francisco, so see youse in a few weeks...

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

Dear Diary,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cobra!

Retro Diary - 12/2/12 - "Let's NOT do this!"

Dear Diary,

Not much has happened this week, apart from the obvious.

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This kind kind of off topic to my usual stuff, as it's not only about a newer platform, but about something I'm making rather than playing.

I've officially started production on my upcoming project, I'm getting someone (someone I've known for a couple of years, I trust him.) to do the 3D models for the game, while I model the environments for the game, once he's done, and he says they shouldn't take too long to make, I'll start development on the actual game.

I'm going to try my best to make this a great game, although I'm trying not to go overkill, because this will be my first proper game, released on Steam and Xbox Live as well, I want to give off a good first impression.

I will be making a weekly development blog, but not on here, I'll be doing it on the Gamerstorm website, when it's back up, until it does, you should check out the blog, all updates are posted on that as well, be sure to check the now and again.

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On Saturday, me and my sister decided to watch Spiderman and Spiderman 2.1, which is an extended version of Spiderman 2, as you might've guessed.

We never finished the second film, we're going to finish it off another time...

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It was Gamecube week at gran's this week, the Gamecube is probably the only console all of us (me and my cousin, Giancarlo and Steven) have and have games, controllers, etc. for, so every Gamecube week, we have a vast amount of games to choose from!

We- or rather I first played a few games on the Game Boy Player, Super Mario Deluxe and WWF Betrayal, not much worth of note happened in either game.

Then we played F-Zero GX, originally, it was just going to be me and Giancarlo playing it, but Steven joined in the last minute, we played had a few races, all of which I came last in...

Then we popped in Mario Kart: Double Dash and again had a couple of races, both of which to my recollection where I came second, the second race I was about to win, but got distracted literally at the finish line, and Steven I think managed to overtake me and won.

Then we played the game that wouldn't make Gamecube week, Gamecube Week without playing, and that game is Mario party 6, we wanted to just make it 5 turns, as our last game, which was 20 turns, lasted about 2 hours! However, the minimum you can have was 10 turns, so we went with that, we played a 4-player game; Me, Giancarlo, Steven, and my 8-year old brother. It lasted a long, long time, but not as long as it usually does, thankfully. I ended up last again, I see a trend coming on here...

Giancarlo had to leave soon after, so it was just me and Steven, so naturally, we popped in a Tony Hawk related game, and that game this week was Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX 2, the word was paab77ag8g!

We had a game before this one, but the game glitched out, and I had to hard reset it, not even the reset button worked! Thankfully, my it didn't ruin my Gamecube!

In our proper match, it was surprisingly close, in the end, I got 9 letters, and he got all 10, so he lost. Steven is the horse of the week, a paab77ag8g! It's 6-1 to me!

We left after that epic match!

Next week is Xbox week, hopefully, we'll play the last of the obscure non-Tony-Hawk type of Tony-Hawk games; Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer! As I have it on Xbox, of course, not without having a game or two of 007: Nightfire first...

Article By: Cobra!
Recollection help and title quote by: Steven

Retro Diary - 5/2/12 - "You will feel the wrath... of Messi!"

Dear Diary,

It's been a fairly quiet week this week, not much has happened.

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On Sunday, at our gran's, it was PS2 week.

We first played FIFA 12, me, my cousin, Giancarlo, were playing a match, I was FC Barcelona, he was some obscure Russian team, just because he could, I beat him 3-0.

Then, we had a rematch, and my brother joined in, and for the first time actually making use of my PS2 multitap, me and Giancarlo were in Barcelona, and he was playing the obscure Russian team, and we beat him, to me recall, 5-2, I could be totally wrong, though.

Then me and Giancarlo played a couple of matches of WWE All Stars, because he hadn't played the game before, and he needed to see how bad this game is! Like the first time me and my other cousin, Steven played it, we had a great time laughing at the game.

After that, Giancarlo had to leave, but at the same time, Steven arrived, we played a couple of games of WWE All Stars, like always, we had fun.

Then we played Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder, and I discovered there was a snowboarder in the game, that was a total dead ringer for Leo Messi, a football player who plays for Barcelona, I'm serious, except for the fact his hair was brown, he looked exactly like Messi!

So Steven went Shaun Palmer, and I went as Messi! We played our favourite game; Horse! This week, the horse name was "GLSSXJRG"! I won that game, so it's 5-1 to me!

That's all I did gaming related this week, next week, we'll be bringing the Gamecube.

Cobra!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the list of the games we played:

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

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

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

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

Here's the list of the games we played:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the list of the games we played:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In short, here're the games we played:

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

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

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

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Article By: Cobra!
Recall help provided by: Steven

Retro 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!