The last PS2 game..again

A while ago I reported that the last game for the PS2 went on sale, FIFA 14.

Now, I have to do it again. The last games for the PS2 and PSP have been released, and its another football game, PES 2014.

Not the best ending for a console, but goes to show that even after 13 years after the PS2 was released, (and 8 for the PSP), that there is still a demand for games on both systems.

Are the possible gems for the futute collectors? Who knows.

What is: Retron 5

Hyperkin's new system, Retron 5, is due to hit the stores in December, but what actually is it?

A five slot games console, able to play games from 9 classic systems. (NES, SNES, Genesis, Famicom, Game Boy Advance, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, Game Boy Color and Game Boy)

The system also has a save functionality, something that will really be beneficial for some games, as well as letting you have quick 10 minute blasts without having to start from the same place everytime.

Also, a massive benefit is that these are going to be reigon unlocked, allowing to play American, European and  Japanese games, boosting already a massive libray of games.

A games console that will tidy up your retro games space, just one set of wires needed.

Price pointed around £90 for the UK release, I
will most definatly be getting one of these. I will then display all my old consoles, and use the Retron 5 for gaming.

Console Review: At Games Mega Drive

Let me say these little Mega Drives are fantastic value, even without their party piece.

Loaded onto a rom in these are 20 classic Mega Drive games, From Golden Axe to Streets of Rage, and Alex Kidd to Altered Beast.

Coming with two wireless controllers aswell, allowing for instant multiplayer, this is a great deal. But the party piece I mentioned? You can play actual Mega Drive games on this. And Genesis. Yes, that slot is not just for show, that will actually take games and let you play them.

Build wise, it feels solid enough, but nothing to write home about. The controllers are ok and feel substancial size wise, but there really is no weight to them. However, on the front of the console, there are two controller ports, so if you prefer orginal controllers you can use these here too.

It runs off emulation, but so far I have not seen any problems. I'm sure not all games will work on this, Virtua Racer comes to mind. But out of the huge amount of games available, theres still plenty of variety.

But the biggest bonus? These will easily hook up to your new TV. So you can have a Mega Drive downstairs in the living room, its wireless and can play most games.

Total win.

GTA: Online - A few days in

Just a few thoughts that I have had whilst playing GTA: Online.

Apart from all the server issues that plagued the beginning, I am really enjoying the online aspect of the game, and really I don't feel that I have scratched even the surface. 10 hours in, and I have not played many missions, less than 10. This is due to me just going on rampages around the map, and trying to work out where things are, like how to get the fighter jet.

I really like the social interactions. I was snooping around Fort Zacundo, when out of nowhere a helicopter appeared, and landed next to me. So I go in, and we flew to the fort, where we both tried to get a jet. That failed, and we spawned next to each other, and went to get another helicopter. We tried this a few times, and I was great. We made our own mission within the universe, and spent an hour trying to accomplish it.

I cannot wait to get into this with some people from my friends list, because this will be a real blast, and I don't know where it will go. Hopefully I will look in to the missions soon, but as long as there are people to shoot at and stores to rob, I am not to bothered about these.

With time to come, I can see this getting better and better, and when the servers are sorted out properly, this could be the game millions are playing for years to come.

Latest N64 additions

Got this little lot from eBay today... for the total of £17!

Not a bad haul, as RetroCollect (www.retrocollect.com) lists some of these as uncommon. As you can see, some of these are the last games to come to the system, admittedly sports games, but still for £17 posted I will not be complaining!

That brings the N64 collection to 31 now.

Outrun 2006 - PS2

This is my all time favourite racing game, ever.
The music, the visuals, the speed it all moves at. The best bit? Your driving a Ferrari at top speed through America with your (virtual) girlfriend by your side.
I can get lost in this game for hours. The basic premise is that this is a time attack game, you strive to drive faster and shave those seconds off your time. With multiple routes, and different missions you have to complete, this will keep you coming back for more.
As usual the musical score is beautiful, Sega really pulled all the stops out to match the old school tunes here. Even better, remix versions of the old tunes are to be unlocked aswell.
This is my perfect game. You should play this game.

FIFA 14... On the PlayStation 2

Allegedly the last game to be released on the PS2, FIFA 14 see's it release in the UK.

Available at amazon for around £19, who exactly is going to buy this? From looking around the internet, it only has updated rosters and kits, not not a massive jump in gameplay.

I don't see many people buying this, and coupled with its limited run, I can see this becoming a real rarity in years to come.

And that is the reason why I am going to get a few copies for myself.

A new James Pond game!?

That's right. We now have a chance to relive those childhood memories all over again with a new game.
Currently on Kickstarter, funding for the new James Pond game looks like it going well. Get over there and show your support!

My retro game collection

As it stands now, I have 110 retro games in my collection.

What do I consider retro? Anything before (and including) the Ps2. In the picture there are some DS games and pc games, but I don't count them in the number. Heres some stats for the collection from Retrocollect.com, a cool website that allows you to easily track the games that you have:

PS2 1.2% complete
PS1 1.8% complete
N64 7.9% complete
Mega Drive 2.8% complete
Dreamcast 3.2% complete
Gameboy 1.3% complete
NES 0.8% complete

For a complete list of games I have, follow this link:

My Game Collection (will direct you to Retrocollect.com)

I have a way to go, but I don't really want to specialize at the moment, I'm having way to much fun playing games!

Megaman 2

The iconic title screen

I have only just found the Megaman franchise.  Sure I knew about the games over the years, but never really played them.

I was looking on the 3ds store, and bought Megaman 2 on a whim. And boy, am I glad that I did.

I'm not going to go in depth on the game mechanics or anything here, because that has been documented many, many times around the internet, I just want to have a quick talk on the impact that this game has had on me, now.

So first things, this is a hard game. But it makes you learn, and you get better quickley. And when you think that you have a part mastered, something else comes along and the difficulty goes up.

One thing this game has tought me is how easy new games are. They hold your hand and walk you through levels and help you out. This does nothing of the sort, and even goes as far as trying to make you give up. Although I have to say, if you do die in the game, its YOUR fault. You simply were not good enough. Get better.

I think this mentality needs to come back into modern games (but that is a whole other discussion)

Get these games to play now. I think they will be even better that you remembered, and if you have never played a Megaman game, you are going to be in for a treat. No games I have played in the last 10 years even come close to the challenge that this series gives gamers.

I love this game. And I have Megaman 10 to do, and the original Megman 4 for the NES in the post winging its way to me. I'm going to busy the next few weeks I can tell.

Another Absence

After another long period away from this blog, I am going to try and return to it, with a slight change of subject matter.

I have decided to write about games in general, be they board, computer, lcd, what you do on the bus when you are bored and anything else.

I hope to have some more content up soon.

Game Review: Space Alert

This is one of the best games that I have ever played. And the one game that I get to play very little.

Hugely successful, the first run of this game sold out very fast, and it took what seemed an absolute age to get a reprint. I finally got my hands on a copy at the 2012 Midlands Game Expo, and boy was I excited to get it home.

The game revolves around you and the other players being dumped in a spaceship to babysit it whilst it goes out on a expedition mission. You move your un-named characters around the ship, refuelling the core, manning the guns and other things. Games last around half hour a game. The thing that sets this game apart from anything else is the way it works.

First, its a CD game. You play a CD, and each track throws different events at you. Its a cold, monotonos track, and perfectly captures the essence of deep space exploration.

Second, you have to program your characters. You get a hand of cards to begin with, and these all have different actions on them. You get a short amount of time to discuss what you need to do, and each player plays his cards. Heres the catch.. after a period of time elapses, you cannot change the order of these cards, you have to move onto another section and start again.

Thirdly, the game is quite random. Enemies and events are in decks of cards, so you never know whats goind to come next, even if you have heard the CD tracks a few times.

Photo from www.spieletest.at

You play the first round to decide what you are going to do and program your cards, then play the track again and act out how well you managed the situation. This is where friendships are broken.

So the CD tells you that a enemy has appeared, so you start to manouver around the ship to fire the guns and reload the guns. and charge the shields. The clock is ticking, and you have limited choices, and sweat begins to run. You think you are all locked in place correctly, and the round ends. Time to play this out and see if you all die a horrible death.

You reload the gun before someone fires it, but thats all wrong. You wanted to do that afterwards. You actually shoot the guns at the wrong time and miss. The person who is supposed to be recharging the shields moves the wrong way... this mission is a failure.

Yes, this game thrives on arguments. But when you get that one game where you do it all right, the elation, the high fives and hugs that happen because you survive are second to none. Grown men will cry.

And thats why we dont play this game very often. It is one of the most stressful board games ever made. Ever. But thats where the charm is, and why you need to have this game. I have not even gone into the fantastic pieces you play with, or the rule books (yes two) which are written in such a great story telling manner, these are all icing on the cake.

One of the best games ever.

 

New Addition!

I have just added an new addition to this blog, the Mentioned in Blog Store!

Games and items mentioned in this blog will go into that store, giving you a easy way to go straight to Amazon and buy what you have seen!

I hope to get some more game reviews up in the coming weeks.

Rockband over...

After 275 weeks of dlc, Harmonix have announced the last tune to be release for the Rockband franchise.

The song is American Pie by Don McLean.

They say the are working on other projects, which need more time invested in them.

So the end of one of the giants is upon us, with only Rocksmith now being the only music game being updated. However, there should be some life left in Rockband due the sheer size of the library that they have.

The Swarm

We need some brave people to go on this terrifying mission....

http://www.look-at-this-now.co.uk/lkymf

Follow the link for more details.

Talisman: The deadly magic wand

Talisman is a great game, we can all agree on that one, but there is one problem with it, and that is the magic wand.

We had a guy in our group that always went for it, and would kill you to get at it. The problem with this was it was like giving him the Crown of Command in game. He would always have a full compliment of spells, and would burn through them to get the powerful spells.

Now I do see the point in the magic wand, and a lot of groups wont have players like that. The first time this happened was quite fun, but got old as EVERY game he would go for the wand. This led me to confiscating the card from the adventure deck. Some may say that was harsh, but the people who played with us agreed that it was the best course of action.

However, this card did lead to one of the greatest moments in this game I have ever played.

The wand had become the Crown of Command, and I was fed up of all the spells being thrown around. So I decided to take my Monk, and take the wand from him. I charged around the map, and finally landed on his square where I could challenge him to combat. Even with my unbuffed monk, (and I think a very lucky dice roll) I took the wand from his clutches, and fled. Straight to the alchemist.

Ill never forget the look on his face as the card was melted down, I got a gold for it, and it made its departure to the discard deck.

The bards sang about that day for a long time.

Board James

I have been watching AVGN for a good long time now, but only recently found out that he did some board game reviews as well. In the style of his video game reviews, they are very funny as usual.

Filled with bad language, and the usual smattering of comic violence James can muster. Check them out!

More funny pics

NGTZombies on YouTube

Just a quick shout out to a YouTuber I have been following for a while now.

Has videos with strategies, theories and insights into all things Zombie fps.

NGT Zombies Youtube page

(I am in no way endorsed to do this, I just love NGT Zombies)

Chrissy Oldskool!

An old school (oldskool?) friend sent let me put this on YouTube... Now he has some moves!

More funny pics

Rocksmith new DLC available now!

3 new songs available for Rocksmith in the store:

Get Love Song
Just Like Heaven
The End of the World

All by The Cure. Available now on PC, Xbox and PS3

Biting Elbows: Bad Motherf****r

Not safe for work, but man is this awesome! And I might have to check this band out some more.

There is a definite hint of Hitman in there..

Trains vs Zombies 2 Review

Yes, you heard that right. Trains vs Zombies. 2.

Available on Steam to download for £9.99, this standalone game is based on Train Simulator 2013 tech, and  puts you smack bang in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, armed with only your, ahem, train.

The storyline is entertaining enough, and the game gives enough of a challenge to be enjoyable. It might be frustrating for people who have never played train sim, but with the addition of simple controls, should not be to difficult to get to grips with.

As mentioned, this runs standalone, so you do not need to have Train Sim 2013 to play this, which also serves as a introduction into that game as well.

Graphically this game is very good. You will need a computer with some power under the hood however to run it on max settings, and I had to play around a little to get a good compromise between graphics and smoothness.

This does have some replay value in it, as you try to do things again to a degree of perfection. The downside is it only took me around 3 hours to complete, but that may be because I am a old hand at train sim and knew what I was doing from the outset.

A good little fun time waster.

Funny Gaming Meme's

Just a collection of the funny meme's that have made me chuckle this week.

Film review: Video Game High School

So was looking around Netflix for something interesting to watch when this caught my eye.

The story starts with our main character managing to kill one of the worlds top players on a online fps game, and he then gets invited to attend the Video Game High School, a place where people get trained in playing video games. The rest of the film revolves around making new friends, enemies, and overcoming hardships.

Originally broadcast a a web series on YouTube, made by Rocket Jump studios, it has now been put together into a 2 hour epic.

There are some big names appearing in this film, from Freddy W to Zachary Levi, and a lot of other faces that you will recognize from around the world of the internet.

Storywise, there is plenty to keep you entertained during the running time. But the thing that entertained me the most was the vision of technomogu that Rocket Jump studios have. Computers that you carry around with you, which connect to the closest screen when you want to play, to the pizza in a can from the vending machines, and even the school itself. It's apparent that a lot of money went into this movie, and was well spent aswell.

The action scenes in this film are incredible. These are shown when the characters are playing a game, mainly the fps game throughout. They really portray how a fps game would look if it was real life, with clever computer graphics and some great stunts. If there is ever a Call of Duty movie, I think that these guys should be the ones making it.



A great film, well worth the time to watch it. It will leave you wishing that the Video Game High School was actually real, and it was the school you went to.

Winning like a boss

This bloke is a legend. John Carpenter wins Who Wants to be a Millionaire like he owns the show.

(I will be getting back to boardgames soon, don't worry! Just a lot of things I need to get sorted in the mean time!)

Funny internet pics of the day

Just some of the funny internet pics that popped up on my Facebook throughout the day. They made me giggle, I hope they do the same for you.

I find the Blade/Twilight one the best.

Rocksmith progress

Heres a brief progress update on the songs that I am playing

Bring me to Life:  Now have this up to performance level

Surrender: Almost there with this one, just over 85k points, just a little push more with this one

Carry on my Wayward Son: Just cracked 75% on this song. Still a few parts that I am having trouble with, mainly the solos

All the small things: Got up to and completed master mode with this one. Easy song, great to rock out to though.

Where is my Mind: Again, almost unlocked master mode on this one, just need to nail the solo a little better and this is done

Thats my five favourite songs, soon I think I am going to have a good bash at Nightmare by Avenged, but that solo... I dunno.

Rocksmith Xbox 360 Review

I have had this game from the day it was released in the UK, and it was one of my most anticipated games ever. Made by Ubisoft, this is the next generation of guitar music games, and I think that the end of plastic overpriced guitar "games".

I am a avid rocker as people know, I have been playing guitar for 10 years now, spent some time in a band and as a guitar teacher. Over the past few years, I have not played as much as I would like, as life gets in the way it always seems. When Rocksmith was announced, I knew all that was going to change.

Think Rockband, but with a real, bona fide guitar, your own guitar. That is the one thing about this game that I think gives it appeal, you use the guitar you own, not a plastic fake guitar or one made specially for the game, but the one that you have practiced on, the one that you have gigged with... and thats a amazing thing to do.

The game looks ok, nothing terriably special about the visuals, but that does not matter as you will not be looking at the screen much, and all the vital info is there right away.

Songs are transcribed note for note, which means when you learn to play the song in the game, you learn it in real life. The game does up the difficulty as you go along, so a basic notation is presented first, and as you get better, the song gets harder until you are playing the full song.

The notes are presented in a Rockband esqe fasion, with notes coming down the screen. There is a graphic for each of the strings at the bottom, 6 different coloured lines, and you play the note when it reaches the string. The hardest thing for me was to learn that the fretboard underneath this moves, indicating where on the neck you need to be. This is disorientating at first, but soon becomes second nature.

There is multiplayer, but not across Xbox live. This means you need two cables and two guitars, but that should not be to hard to arrange, and brings multiplayer back to a social expericance.

A broad range of songs is on the disc, with something that should please everyone, aswell as some basic lessons on the different techniques that are employed. Extra songs can be downloaded from the store, and there are some quite difficult songs that you can get, Megadeths Symphony of Destruction and Eric Johnsons Cliffs of Dover are available, if you are so inclined, or just want a real challenge.

Overall this is a great game if you do play the guitar already, but also a great way to get into playing guitar if you don't. I would however recommend getting some professional guitar lessons aswell as this game, to stop you from gaining bad habits, and to teach you the proper position for you hands to go in.


It is a difficult game to begin with. Stick with it, and you will soon be rocking out to a wide range of songs, and hopefully this game will create a whole new wave of bedroom rockers that will go on to create some truly great music.

A must buy game.

Available now on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Dragons eh?

Found this doing the rounds on Facebook, and I think that its worth a share here. Tolkien knew what he was talking about.

Its from the Daenerys Targaryen Facebook page, well worth a look.

Life Hacks 2.0

Just a little thing that I have had knocking around on my hard drive for a while now, from the awesome webfail.net

Its amazing, but these things do actually work aswell..

Tigoda leather

A good friend of mine has been busily working away at hand crafted goodies for a while now, and helped me out when we started to make dice bags. Now he has set up a facebook page, with links to Etsy where you can purchase some of the great handmade items.

Go and take a look at some of the wonders that he has made right HERE, and drop him a like if your inclined to do so.

Zombie...cakes?

Having a COD: Zombies party? Walking Dead marathon? Zombie themed birhday party? Then these cakes are what you want!

These are just a selction of my favorite designs, taken from google. I will one day have a go to bake one myself!