Most liked posts in thread: What's new Pussycat too?

1 Computer Show....
1 Computer Museum....
1 Arcade Collection....
7 Retro Games stores....
and a pitstop in Darlington!

Yes folks, I've been on a cross border raid again visiting my beloved North Yorkshire coast and at the same time having my fill of some retro fun. A carboot full and 1100 miles later I reached home again and took some photo's of what was new to my collection.

Managed to get a good few games scored off my wishlist. These came froma mixture of CEX and some independent games stores. I was most chuffed with Food Fight on the 7800, a bargain at only £5.


A liittle change of pace next with a couple of handheld electronic games for a combined total of £6. The Computer Shed is an amazing collection of old mainframes and micros halfway between Scarborough and York. Spend a lovely couple of hours getting a guided tour from the owner. Fascinating place and well worth a visit.


Slim pickings for this pussycat at Blackpool Play Expo, but I did pick up a couple of Amiga magazines from the publishers stand.


My tin sign collection continues to grow with another 6 new offerings. I was very chuffed with the Atari on the Rocks one, hadn't seen that anywhere else before.


I was keeping within my budget until I received a PM from our very own Richie. He had a C16 for sale and I have been hankering after the little beastie for a while. Thanks mate!


As Richie was showing me some of his collection he had strategically placed this great condition Dragon 32 where my eyes were instantly drawn to the little Welsh wonder. A deal was struck and it found it's way heading North with me...


Finally, as I neared home one last diversion to Forgotten Worlds so I could pick up a few Commodore 16 games to play. At the same time a trio of Atari cassettes caught my attention for the Atari corner of my little retro cave. The very last icing on the cake was the Pacman shaped plug and play tv game. I had been keeping an eye open for one all through my trip and here it was just a few miles from home. Sorted!


That's all Folks

 

Nice work all round, fellas - that's great to see when two guys on here both get a result from the same deal - AND an outstanding, trip Al.
I don;t know where to begin and I'm fecked and heading oop them stairs to la la land in just a mo so I'll just make a brief couple of comments as per: loved the tin signs (my fave the Space Invader one), the bargain handheld games you picked up - £6 in total? My, what a bargain you Glaswegians drive - you put Yaarkshire folks to shame and that trio of Atari tapes take me reet back, Al - used to lurve playing Clumsy Colin Action Biker (but by god how hard was that game?) and also that Mastertronic fruit machine Vegas Jackpot title there was so bloody addictive - really good features for a pocket money priced game and finally... never played One Man and his Droid but now you have it on both Atari and C16 formats, you will have to do a game comparison review, Al.
Oh, I;ve another "and finally" - I thought you were obsessed and pined for trips to the EAST YORKSHIRE coast - what's all this north yorks business - I mean Scarboro just scrapes in but next you'll be doing trips to Redcar and bleedin Smoggyville aka Boro!! Only joshing, me ol muckah - it's always great to greet you in Yaarkshire, whichever point on the compass, and the God's Own County Yorkshire tourist board have agreed to stick you and your retro booty smiles for miles on their 2025 front cover, Al.
Alreet?! Some great acquisitions on yer travels, pal - makes it all worthwhile and scratch off another successful raid on the wee sassenachs, Jimmy.
Neet, guys...

 

I have around 35 games already as I used to use Sonia’s Wii as it was the early version with the GameCube connections . I always wanted a proper GameCube though, using a RGB SCART and my plasma TV set to 4:3 takes me back. The attract screen from Rogue Leader was amazing.Seeing it running in Curry’s I knew I had to get one back then.
I have a lot of the good ones like Zelda, Luigi’s Mansion, F-Zero GX, and some of the Resident Evil games.

 

I have about 20 real games for my Gamecube, I love the Mario's, Zelda's and Metroid series, anything from them I own.Even got an Action Replay for it so I could import Metroid Prime and Resident evil. Great little machine..Well done Richie..

 

The other buy is one that I had been waiting on getting released and is a big hitter from my wishlist. It's a new Bitmap Books publication all about football games, "A Tale of Two Halves"

Over 600 pages covering one of my favourite game genres from the very beginning. Features hundreds of games and some lovely artwork. Another really nice touch is that the bookmark ribbons are actually football boot laces!

Not had a chance to sit down and enjoy it properly yet but here is a couple of snapshots






I think this must be my favourite video game book yet

 

Beautiful, mate.
I used to play that Thorn EMI Soccer cart for hours back in the mid-80s on a Sat afternoon waiting for the scores to come in on the vidiprinter!
I will have to post what you kindly gave me gift/bookwise when we met-up in Brid - as ever, your generosity goes before you, Al. Many thanks, mate.
Awesome Atari greatness there - I lurve the FUTURISTIC SINCE FOREVER caption - sums up our Atari hobby, thoughts n feelings... entirely

 

Cheers Andy

I'm going to stick that very same EMI Soccer cart in the 800 at the weekend and play a couple of games on it

 

You won;t regret it and I can't wait to get stuck into this very very attractive looking tome, my good man:



MANY THANKS, FELLA!!

Christmas came early due to Santa Nysavant

 

Have you been reading this months Pixel Addict lol?

It still got 85% !!

 

It's a damn good read even though it looks like a pre-proof proof!

Aye, littered with typos and wotnot it still captures the times very well - thanks, Al - I'm v much enjoying it and should put some highlights on here from time to time.

 

Spent the last few days being sick with a viral infection and then trying to catch up with work I haven't had much playtime. Did manage out for a couple of hours on Sunday morning though and picked up five PSP titles from two local branches of CEX. All complete with manuals and games I had looked at before so not just random purchases.




After visiting CEX('s) I headed to the annual Glasgow Video Games Market for a quick look. I was in the market for a couple of tin signs or arcade banners but didn't see anything I liked. Howerever, did pick up a couple of other bargains instead.



Arcade Britannia and Retro Tea Breaks are books that I've been wanting to get for a while and I happened to notice these two mint editions languishing at the back of a stall. Got them for an absolute steal at £5 each. The 3D printed pacman and ghosts along with the Megadrive and Switch signs were from another stall. Very nicely produced and I'll probably order more from them - www.mnjdesign.co.uk if anyone is looking for similar.

The eagle-eyed may also spot Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Paul knows how much I've been after this for the Switch and with a little bit of bartering finally picked it up for £27. Had a quick play in handheld mode and it does see to live up to the hype in this instance.

That's all for now folks. Hopefully Atari 50th Expanded Steelbook for the Switch will arrive in the next week and then that is probably it until TheSpectrum and Atari 7800+ get released near the end of the month.

 

Been having a little game of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch tonight. The graphics and visual effects are brilliant, the colours just pop on the screen. Gameplay is nice and there are plenty of tracks although I feel like I have only scratched the surface so far. This might be one of those games where I end up going online and watching few videos to get some tips on playing it.

 

I watch my daughter play it, as you say it's a wonderful sight for the eyes, and it's got gameplay in masses. Some of the tracks are simply stunning..

 

One of the tracks had a great ripple effect like you were on a carpet moving up and down, then just as I went round a corner the sunrays shone down on the track. Looked awesome.

The Switch is a really nice machine when plugged into the telly, I've been surprised by how much I have enjoyed the games on it and the controls are very good.

 

Yes, it's a cracking little machine, a must see on a TV. Playing Zelda Tears of the Kingdom on a 42" TV is just brill to look at. Obviously it helps to like the Zelda games Yet to try it on the 65" TV.

You tend to find that games from Nintendo are given that extra polish, Super Mario wonder is just so much fun and looks great. Again, if you are not a platformer, then stuff like that will just look like wonderful tech demo's.

Trying to think of a Nintendo in house produced game that has been a failure, personally I can't think of one, some of the licensed to outside can be ropey as hell. Obviously, every console in house team go all out to impress the punters and show off their machine, but Nintendo and their seal of approval, really seems to mean something to them.

Mario Kart on the Snes was loved by everyone (not so much me, looked nice but on my tod playing it was boring) But look how things have moved on, and so much improved, yet the original is still a blast to play (or so I'm told)

 

Got Atari 50 Expanded for the Switch today. Plays very nicely and all the new content integrates well.

 

I was just looking at the Steam Atari 50th's DLC, two for 11.99..Probably would if I had the cash.

Will look at the Switch game

 

Had a few little retro pickups over the last couple of weeks but this weekend has seen one of the years big hitters arrive, The Spectrum.

So far I would say it's the best system that Retro Games have made. The machine itself feels very much just like an original Speccy but now it has an on/off button (as well as usb c power, four usb, hdmi).

The emulation is very well done, takes all sorts of spectrum game images, has a nice CRT filter and easily customisable joystick controls. I'm actually using the Amiga GamePad with it and it works so much better with Spectrum titles than it ever felt with Amiga games. Emulation covers, 48k, 12k, +2 and +2A machines as well as ULA graphics.

I've owned a couple of Spectrums previously but never really got into the system much but have been playing this quite a bit over the weekend. Favourites so far are Deathchase, Chuckie Egg and Arkanoid. Plan to spend more time discovering other titles that I used to be jealous of seeing released for every other system when I was an Atari 800XL owner back in the day

Final thoughts for the moment are that I much prefer the Spectrum to the Commodore 64 (sorry C64 fans) and I'm now considering if I should keep the Amstrad as that was mainly for Deathchase, Arkanoid and 180 Darts which all play just as good on The Spectrum.

 

It really really looks identical to the original and sounds like it plays games much easier than the original and other comparable systems, Al.
Many thanks for that spot on mini-review and if anyone was interested in an original 48K speccy I am about to list one in a travel case with a data recorder a few tapes... if your thang is dead flesh when pressing down your keyboard's keys!
Al, is the dead flesh emulated correctly too on The Spectrum?
Just asking for a Sinclair junkie friend

 

Andy, the flesh on The Spectrum is so dead it could get the lead role in a Zombie movie.

I would say for anyone wanting to get into the Spectrum again this is an ideal easy solution and saves you having to add a joystick and SD interface to an original. Plus you get the quality of life improvements like rewinding games (if you've just made a mistake,been killed, etc) and easy game save and loads.

 

FANtastic, Al.
Btw, just getting reports in from Bev darn larndarn way that she has had a mega experience tonight with her mam and sis watching the ABBA Voyage lasered "thang". I dropped em orf in Durham earlier (7am) and they spent all day on a coach heading down to the Big Smoke but it's been worth it, even in the wind and rain. Amazing what they can do with a network of Speccys, some Swedish laser-generated UDGs and an Abba MP3 CD off The Barras Market...

 

Everybody I know who has been to see Abba Voyage says it is amazing. Pity it's away down in London though. Glad Bev enjoyed it

 

An unboxing and play vid here, guys, if any of you fancy The Spectrum, like Al...

 

NO!

 

Some absolute magic items you now have lined-up there, Al - fuller reply later as we're heading oot the door again ere after y'days wedding, neighbours want us round to re-arrange our features - fair enough. Brilliant looking 7800+ unit there and so so much more going on you retro retail addict Do I want a Dragon and CPC? STOP PUTTING TEMPTATION MY WAY, YOU NAUGHTY FESTIVE FIEND Have you asked Rudolf, I mean Richie??!!!