Jose Emroca Flores's Mario and princess.

A very cool take on two old favorates, from the I am 8 bit art show a few years back.

Errrrrooooorrrrrrr

It's a sad day in retro land , tragedy has struck :(

My Amiga 1200 has finally booted its last, after a long and painful illness it eventually kicked the bucket.

After a quick search on eBay i found another to take it' place in my collection but will not replace my first 16bit computer i ever owned.

If anyone knows a service that fixes Amiga's please let me know, it would be nice to have it back working and not in a pile with 6 other dead ones.

Giga wing for 99p!!!

Just picked up giga wing on the dreamcast for 99p in the cancer research shop in Brighton. I found this treasure under an old copy of DOA beach vollyball and a petshop boys CD.

Although this is not the best deal i ever got (that was a Sega nomad for £3 on shoreham carboot sale) it was a great deal.

Giga Wing takes place during a fictional war within a steampunk setting. The player controls one of four different futuristic aircraft and must destroy enemy aircraft, tanks, ships, and buildings using both guns and missiles mounted on the aircraft and a limited supply of bombs which damage or destroy all enemies on-screen when used. The game is based on the player(s) trying to destroy a medallion which possesses great power. Many of the bosses use the medallion as a weapon.

Portal to gaming bliss.

Portal to gaming bliss.

The orange box is the best value game pack i have seen in years, not only do you get halflife 2 and both eposodes as well you also get the latest update of the multiplayer fav team portal 2.

Now this would be enough content to make the £50 rrp well worth it and i would have been happy, but you also get new ip portal as well!!!!

Portal is Valve's professionally-developed spiritual successor to the freeware game Narbacular Drop, an origanal project by Digipen institute of technology; the original Narbacular Drop team are now all employed at Valve. Certain elements have been retained from Narbacular Drop, such as the system of identifying the two unique portal endpoints with the colors orange and blue. A key difference in the signature portal mechanic between the two games however is that Portal's "portal gun" cannot create a portal through an existing portal unlike in Narbacular Drop.

The game features only two characters: the player-controlled Chell (as revealed by the credits), and GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), a computer that monitors and directs the player. The only background information presented about Chell is given by GLaDOS; the credibility of these facts (such as Chell being adopted and having no friends) is dubious as GLaDOS is, by its own admission, a liar.

Story
Portal's plot, set in the Half-life universe, is revealed to the player via audio messages from GLaDOS and side rooms found in the later levels. The game begins with Chell waking up from a stasis bed and hearing instructions and warnings from GLaDOS about her upcoming test experience. This part of the game involves distinct "test chambers" that, in sequence, introduce players to the game's mechanics. GLaDOS's announcements serve not only to instruct Chell and help her progress through the game, but also to create atmosphere and develop the AI as a character. Throughout this portion of the game, Chell is promised cake as her reward for completing all the test chambers, If you look carfully at the screens in the abandoned labs near the games climax there is a recipe for care hidden the scrolling text.

Although each test chamber contains cameras and frosted observation windows, Chell never sees another person in the facility, and the only interactions Chell has are with GLaDOS. Over the course of the game, GLaDOS' motives are hinted to be more sinister than her helpful demeanor suggests. Although she is designed to appear helpful and encouraging, much of GLaDOS's speech suggests insincerity and callous disregard for the test subjects, such as leading Chell through "a live fire course designed for military androids" because the usual test chamber is being repaired. In another chamber, GLaDOS boasts about the fidelity and importance of the "Weighted Companion Cube", a waist-high crate with pink hearts on each face, for helping Chell to complete the chamber, but then declares that it "unfortunately must be euthanized" in an "emergency intelligence" incinerator before Chell can continue.

Evedence of less fortunate test subjects is littered around the levels for you to discover, for example a trap door jammed open with creates reveals a horde of water bottles and food an ode to the companion cube scrawled on one of the walls.

The whole game has a wicked sense of humour from start to finnish, from the promise of cake and counceling if you complete the course, to the saftey warning about the complex equipment that lapses into spannish at the most important bits.

Portal is an unexpected and very welcome extra that turns out to be the best part of a great compalation.

Box of games i got last week in Brighton

You get some great stuff at car boots!

hogan knows best

Hogan does not know best!!

The theme tune was unbearable, the plot unfathomable and the acting was just unmentionable.

Not only did you get the light gun shooter from hell, you also got the first pilot for a tv show that was never even aired in the uk.

Hogan plays an ex marine who some how has a waterised version of KIT from knightrider, together they solve crime in the carribean and fight a genetical created super human who has gone on the rampage.

And if the plot sounds bad, wait till you try the game!

Full motion video of what looks like an adventure playground where men dressed as cyborgs (well sort of, they have crashhelmets on and wear bin bags on thier legs) jump out and strike a pose so you can shoot them and make then disappear.

This really has to be seen to be believed.

Phillips got some, no one wanted one

Big box blues

When P.C. games were released in the early 90's they didn't have DVD cases or cd jewel cases, they came in large A4 boxs with great cover art that looked cool on your shelf.
now days you get a small DVD box thats generic and fits well with the your films and cds but is nowhere near as good looking, when you spent £30 on a game you felt like you got something more for your money.
luckily when you buy a special editon of an xbox 360 game you get the same type off are artwork (the art book in gears of war and the map and coin in oblivion) and free stuff.
as long as they they release these i will speand that little bit extra for then over the standard ones.

How not to use CD ROM.

When the CD rom media was first introduced to the gaming market many publishers wanted to be first to exploit the new medium, with its cheap production cost and unthought of data storage size.
the problem was not many had any idea how to uterlise it correctly so we ended up with the so called "interactive movie".
These distictly uninteractive bits of software used cd roms large storage space to play full motion video and cd quality sound which at the time look incredible, thee only problem was with hours of video and a better sound track and effects someone forgot about the most important bit, the actual game.

Above are the best (or worst) examples of how interactive movies would never change the world of gameing.

Night trap

A group of teen girls (ex soap stars and a bunch of unknowns play the girls in question) are on a road trip and somehow are invited to a large house, this house is owneed by a stange couple and thier daughter and two cousins.

(plot spoiler...if there was a plot)
The family is infact a group of vampires who want drain the scantily clad young girls of thier fluides, to make matters worse the house is also under siege by a group of mutant ninja vampires called the oggers. but dont worry, the whole house is rigged with traps to catch these intruders and this is where you come in.
you play a swat team tech expert who along with you team of swat team meat heads have hacked into the houses hidden camera and trap system, this allows you to skip between the cams in each room and watch the girls and family members ham thier was through 2 hours of bad dialog and a musical number (yes a musical number!).

Its the same every time except the only random bit, each time the family meets the change the code colour to activate the traps, this is done by spliceing in the colours name into the converstion wso badly it sounds like a disjointed british rail anouncement.
thers no fun to be had after the first two play throughs and lets face it, the only reason it sold was an MP tried to have it banned cos of the scene when a girl in a nightie is grabbed by the most unconvinceing vamps ever.

Space Ace,

Good god this is not a game! you watch 2 mins of FMV, you pressa button to move to the next one. if you press the wrong one or you press it too slow you get a death fmv and its game over.
and thats it, snaps a more challengeing and interactive game than this!

So the interactive movie was a dead end in gaming, you would think it would be long dead and gone wouldnt you? but no, just play 2005's farenhight and there it is stuck right after the third section, its blody space ace again! your chased round your work place by large head lice.
do you fight them with a cleverly implamented fight system? no you wait till the fmv finnishs and you press a button, if you press the wrong button you see a death fmv.

we dont need this kind of gamming back thanks so please let it rest in peace (preferebly in an unmarked garve somewhere in the eastern block).

All game shows should be played like this!

If celeb big brother was played with miniguns I would watch 24/7.
Imagine jade Goodey fragged by Leo Sayer to win a VCR and a Argos toaster!

Why not kill off a few C listers? there's hundreds of em in the world doing nothing but QVC and late night quiz shows, why not get them to entertain us with a run through of the Cyber tower show from flashback?

Please let me know which games would make a good way to dispose of the chuckle brothers?