Here there were tigers

Maps, whether they are level maps, item placement locations or the free A3 sheet you got when you bought the special edition of killbot 9, maps are everywhere in gaming.

I've been clearing out some old plastic boxes I've had lying about for years, they are where i put the art books, plastic figures and tat I get tucked inside the covers and boxes of the various special editions of games and software.

I have been slowly filling them up each time I buy one, the shops and retailers i sell games onto don't seem to care if the box has the full colour map of liberty city or the destroyed beauty book of art from inside gears of war, just as long as it has the tin box and the discs inside.





I still have the metal safety deposit box for GTA 4 long after the actual game was traded in gamestation (other game stores are available) .





The maps of champions online are still there, even though the 30 day subscription was never renewed, crack Downs islands are still blue tacked to the lid of one of the boxes even though i no longer leap its buildings in a single bound.





All these reminders of virtual, open and vibrant worlds i no longer live in or even visit, In fact some of them don't even exist any more, not that they ever did in a real sense, what I mean is that the servers they ran on and lived through are no longer active, they did not get the awe and power of a super nova to mark their passing, they were not sucker into a black hole and swallowed up by dark matter, they were simply switched off.

Phantasy star online is no longer online, Hellgate; London is now hellgate nowhere and tablo rasha is Mort.

How long before my World of warcraft Atlas is all that remains of Azeroth? when will oblivion's map of Tamrael and its free spetim coin be my only reminder of the 200 odd hours of play over the last 4 years?

I've searched over the web and located several sites dedicated to these maps of nowhere, so at least as long as they keep these archives up then at least some of these lost continents will be remembered.

Mapping the past

Maps, whether they are level maps, item placement locations or the free A3 sheet you got when you bought the special edition of killbot 9, maps are everywhere in gaming.

I've been clearing out some old plastic boxes I've had lying about for years, they are where i put the art books, plastic figures and tat I get with the special editions

Saturn shatern

After several months of good luck on eBay and other auction sites I've finally hit a brick wall.

The boxed US boxed SEGA Saturn i picked up last year (November) refuses to sell at even the low price of £25 with 4 games and 2 pads included!!

Having sold 3 in the last 12 months, all 3 boxed and in the same condition (good, slightly worn box corners) i thought this last one would sell, but it appears i was wrong.

I had good feed back from my other buyers and I'm a 100% seller with over 1000 consoles sold.

So whats the problem?

Will try it one more time, maybe adding need for speed to the games offered will tempt a buyer, hopefully one of the 20 or so watchers i get will actually bid this time.

Not loaded

Having just found a copy of loaded and a new Saturn (boxed, 4 other games) i decided to play through the first few levels if only to listen to the excellent sound track by Pop will eat itself.

I put in the disk and heard it spin up, start to load and.......nothing!!

I took the disk out and gave it a whiz on the disk cleaner, still nothing, thats odd i thought so i tried it on my other Saturn (also a pal system) and it booted fine.

Okay so it must be the console, i put in tunnel B1, this loaded fine, put in Independence day (i know, i know. this was a test not to actually play the pile of dross) and it played fine , as did all my games.....whats going on? why is loaded not loading on this one Saturn that pays all my other games? any suggestions?

Saturn games ahoy!

Just got back from a car boot sale on the roof of the NCP at Brighton Marina, the only free parking in Brighton!

Lots of game stuff but nothing matching my new "sega only" policy , was about to give up and go bowling (another reason to catch the number 7 bus out of town) when i saw a corner stall selling snes, nes and Saturn games, JOY!

Got a perfect copy of tunnel B1 by Ocean games for £4, and it even had the flyer for up and coming games from sega 1997, bonus!

Loaded it up and it is just as fast and slick as i remember (well as fast a a 3d saturn games is going to run) so am very happy with the purchase.

SFII champion edition, PC engine

Having just got a PC engine by NEC, i went about getting as many of the best releases i could find on ebay, some import sites and several connections i have who can lay their hands on some rare titles.

So far i have B.C. Kid and street fighter II, and ive spent some time comparing the them to the other versions.

I started with SFII , having owned this title on the snes and the mega drive i was surprised that the older PC engine still managed to keep up with both consoles, the sound is a bit muffled and the graphics are patchy in place, the actual game play is superbly fast.

There are a few extras as well, you get all the bonus stages including the barrel stage missing from the SNES version, and several other items such as an extra stone in the Chun-li level.

You also get to play as the four bosses that you don't get in the SNES or Mega Drive games, this adds allot to the game in 2 player vs mode.

But the only problem is that to play vs mode you need the 2 player adaptor and two six button pads, the pad is easy to find but the adaptors are like hens teeth, I've found some but have been unable to locate one fro less than £50, i may have to cough up the cash for one.

So in summing this is a great version of a classic game, its got features not included in the other consoles and this almost makes up for the sound standard and lack of graphical polish.

A new start takes AGES, it takes SEGA

After March and Aprils console cull I've changed a few things in my collection.

I always liked SEGA consoles and games. Sure, Nintendo had the NES and SNES, they had the N64 and the game cube, but somewhere they lost touch with the common man, they strayed away from hardcore3 and the people who put them where they were and have embraced the "casual gamer" or "game chaves" as i like to call them.

That group of people who think waving an 80's TV remote around in their front room to play an ugly game with all the finesse of PONG (yes I'm talking about WII sports) is a gaming evolution and look like prats while doing so.

Atari bit the dust after their last console the Jaguar, it was outdated (and i don't care how many times they told the gaming press, two 32 bit chips do not make a 64 bit console!) and under powered mess with bad styling and a very odd controller.

So in my view, Sega is the only one of the many retro console manufacturers who never really put a foot too badly wrong (yes the ps1 out sold the Saturn and the dreamcast was ditched as everyone had their heads so far up sony's arse to notice it over the PS2 (the fools!!!).

What I'm leading to to with this ramble is that for the time being i will be mostly collecting sega.

Ive just got a Saturn with 12 games, boxed and with a memory cart for £17!!! this led me to go through the boxes in my store room and find a boxed dreamcast and a Meagadrive with CD and 32X plus a load of games, and a master system one and two.

All i need now is a better game gear (mine is scratched to hell) and the rare than rocking horse manure Nomad and i will be on my way!

Caveat emptor

I,m not public school educated, i never took Latin classes or did any studies of dead languages, how ever even i know this one.

Caveat emptor, or "let the buyer beware".

I recently sold some old gaming items at a car boot in my local area, i wont say which one in case the man in question is reading.

I had an N64 with 12 games, a super gamboy adaptor and an old snes with 15 games including Mario cart and Mario world 2.

This man comes up to the stall and asks how much for the SNES, i say £5 for the great games and £3 for the others and £20 for the snes, 2x controllers and the gameboy thingy.

He then asked me if it worked and was it complete? Now i had no idea if it worked, it was in my spare room in a plastic box with the rest of my old stuff, i told him this and that i was selling it as seen, so he purchased the lot for £35 (the games alone were worth £50 if i sold em on eBay) he took the lot.

i sold the rest for a good price and started to pack up, that's when he cam back, the RF cable was not in the box and he wanted £10 back, well i told him to take a hike, i had told him it was all that was in the box and that if had not checked it was not my problem.

Now he stormed off using allot of blue language and hand signals, stick and stones, always check what your buying, I'm not a con man and had no idea the RF was not in there, u can by on on the next stall for £1, its the principle

Pointless ipod app number 23

3D gallery, it's a 3d art gallery that shows your pics and vids on the walls like works or art.

It serves no purpose other than to be an ungainly type of slide show, yet some how it has eaten about 3 hours of my time.

Ive adjusted the the size, dimension and angle of my pics, changed the rooms to show themes and certain artists and even added my own pictures and paintings as well.

the controls are touch screen and you are free to browes in full fp veiw.

its pointless, not online, but i love it!

avalible from app shop for 59p!

What have i done?!?

Having not played warcraft for 3 months i finally canceled my direct debit, this left 1 month of play time left on the account.
Rachel , being the careful money person she is decided to log in and use up the remain credit so it was not wasted.

Now this would have been fine if she was not so susceptible to to the human completest urge.
Having complete creating a new character she started playing at 9am when i left for work.

When i rang home at 12.30 she was still playing and had made it to lvl 8 with her new mage.

This too would be fine if it was not for the fact that i now cannot get on my computer as she is on warcraft all the time! it will wear off eventually just like animal crossing, the game that meant i lost my DS to er for, and Pokemon, the game i lost my SP to her for, it will just take time.

Note to self, never let her use the 360 or PS3 or you might not get those back either!!!