What with all the showcases going on during the Summer Games Fest, I noticed one section of gaming that was sorely lacking a showcase of it's own...retrogaming! And with just as many new games coming out for old systems, and remasters / rereleases of old games, there is good reason for such a showcase to exist!
And so, why not just do it myself I thought! So here it is...the first, slightly crappy, 100% Unofficial Retro/Homebrew Showcase! Here you'll find as many recent retro or remade retro game announcements I could find in the hour or two I set myself for working on collecting them!
Happy New Year, Stuffers! Hope you've all had a good festive season! Now that I've munched my way through the chocolate and drunk all the wine, it seems a good time to get back to the blog and get writing again....
The first thing I need to do though is get through a few post showing off my random pick-ups and Christmas gifts and things that I've accumulated since the last pick-ups post! And there are a lot. A big lot......
So let's not waste any more time and get on with showing you guys the things wot I have got!
First up is this weird Super Mario comic I picked up in a charity shop for a pound!
It's a bit tonally weird, with some nasty guy who thinks all beggars should be shot and delights in killing Mario off in Gameboy Super Mario Land acting as a conduit for the evil baddie Tatanga (again from Super Mario Land) to travel to our dimension and take over the world.....
Luckily two kids manage to summon Mario to our world too, and they help defeat Tatanga and save our dimension! Then there's another story where the same weak-willed numpty from the first story again brings Tatanga back, and a little girl manages to get Mario's help again and once more put a stop to Tatanga's evil plans!
It's definitely all a bit odd, but is quite a cool thing to add to my collection! There's at least another 3 books in the series from Valiant too, so I might see if I can track them down at some point....
Next, I found this Droopy book for 50p.......
It tells of Droopy's unfortunate toothache and an odd ballooning adventure that results after he tries to get rid of the offending tooth....Clearly for tiny kids, I picked it up just because I don't really have many things involving Droopy, who is one of my favourite cartoon characters.....
Some video games now, and here's one for original Xbox and one for the 360! Both cost me about £2 each....
Batman Arkham Origins is the third of the Arkham series on 360, and looks to be a lot of fun, but I'm waiting until I get through Arkham City, the 2nd game, as I still have that to finish....
Blood Wake is a boat combat game and again seems like it'll be pretty groovy, but I have so many other games to finish, it's going straight into the backlog......
Playstation type stuff next, and these four were also charity shop finds for between £2 to 50p each...
Shadow The Hedghog is a game that I would like to like, as I think he's quite a good character and the cutscenes are nice, but the game itself is just far too annoying...I can't seem to get the hang of any of the 3D Sonic games, and constantly just run into things and die...In fact, I've never really been a huge an of any of the Sonic games for similar reasons! I mean they're alright, but I've always been more of a Mario fan! I do like Sonic Spinball and the Arcade Sonic though...Oh, and Mean Bean Machine!!
Project Eden is a game I keep buying, somehow selling and then buying back again.....think I must have had it about 3 or 4 times now! It's actually really good and has a nice character swapping mechanic that allows for a lot of variety in the way you approach puzzle and play through the game! Well worth a look....
Gungriffon Blaze also on PS2 is a big stompy Mech game where you stomp around in big Mechs, but seems to be a bit speedier and action packed than a lot of other stompy big Mech games! haven't played it much yet, but it seems decent and I needed a big stompy Mech game to add to my PS2 collection......
And finally, Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX for PS1 is a game I remember playing the demo of and loving when it was released. It's essentially the same as the Tony Hawks Pro Skater games, but with BMXs instead of skateboards...and it's a load of fun!
Back to comics again, and I picked up these two Commando comics in yet another charity shop purely for the reason that they involved spooks! 75p each!
More book finds, and these two Buster Books were a pound each....here's a few choice pages to read.....
And lastly for this first part of pick-ups, is a weird gnome/wizard/green man head that my brother noticed and I picked up from yet another charity shop for about 50p.....
It has really weird looking eyes and you can stick a candle in the back for even freakier night time shenanigans! Anyway it was so weird, I had to pick it up!
So there you are, the first of probably quite a few posts....I've barely scratched the surface! The next one should be up tomorrow sometime, so I'll see you then-ish! Later Stuffers! :)
Here's the rest of my pick-ups from the last month or so! First up is Game On! - The 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time, a book that acknowledges the fact that these are just some of the greatest video games of all time, thus making the title false right from the off! And there's only about 3 pre-16-Bit games mentioned....the focus being stuff released around the time of publication!
Still, what is there looks nice at least...and it's alright for a quick read through!
I never manage to get to Forbidden Planet in time to pick up the Free Comic Book Day stuff, and it's always long gone by the time I arrive...However, I can always rely on some of the comics showing up in charity shops for about £1 each later!
The ones I've managed to find from this year are what you see here...Wonder Woman, Avatar, Riverdale (basd on the new TV series, based on the Archie comics), Hilda/Garbage Night & the one I really wanted to pick up, Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Plants vs Zombies! I might post some of the stories from these at a much later date.....
A trio of original Xbox games next, two of which are sequels to Crash Bandicoot, who is back in the limelight due to his original trilogy getting a remaster! These games probably aren't quite as good as the first three, but are still pretty decent and fun platformer/arcade adventures!
Aliens vs Predator - Extinction is perhaps most famous for being the game that disappointed everybody by not being a First Person Shooter, but is gaining some love nowadays among Real Time Strategy fans. I've yet to play it, as it is probably another game that once I start playing I'll lose hours to!
I found this old movie-mag for £3 in the same shop as the Cheeky comics in the last post...Fantastic Films is an interesting read, with 2 articles about Superman - The Movie, which show that the development of that comic-book adaptation was almost as troubled as recent DC movies! It seems to be the opposite though, as producers wanted it to be more campy like 60s Batman, whereas Richard Donner, who was the 2nd director after the first had visa issues, wanted a more serious picture!
It also has some amazing 70s artwork, like the poster below that shows Superman, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon!
Then there's another interesting piece on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that covers the original movie, the remake..and the novel that both films were based on!
The Conquest Of Space is highlighted as probably being as important a Sci-Fi movie as the later 2001 - A Space Odyssey...
And there's also a few more articles, including an interview with actress Jean Rogers who played Dale Arden in the original 1930s Flash Gordon serial (see link in the poster comment above)...who shares some rare pictures from her own collection! All in all, a pretty grand read!
Moomins books just seem to be making themselves known to me these days...this is one I found sticking out from below another book in a charity shop, and after forking out £1.50 it came home with me to join the rest!
It's a properly crazy story about the time a comet threatened to destroy everything...which was the same story that featured in the Moomin movie a few years back, and that 'm almost reaching in my re-watch of the Fuzzy Felt-style Moomin TV series I became obsessed with in my youth!
Another trio of Xbox games, but this time for the 360...and two of which star everybody's favourite walking-tree voicer, Vin Diesel! I picked these up from my local CEX for a few quid each...
The Chronicles Of Riddick - Assault On Dark Athena is obviously based on the Riddick films, and also includes original Xbox FPS Riddick game, Escape From Butcher Bay, remastered for 360! Both games are cool, stealth-based shooters...well, I say shooters, but you spend a large amount of time snapping necks and knifing people..so...
The Wheelman is a surprisingly mad, over-the-top driving game, where Mr. Diesel uses the driving skills he picked up in Fast 'n Furious to drive backwards and fling himself over, out-of and in to all manner of vehicles whilst shooting bad guys in the face! A whole load of fun and probably a bit of an under-rated gem!
Inversion is another game that probably doesn't get the attention it deserves, being poo-pooed at the time of it's release as a shameless Gears Of War clone...That's a bit unfair, as it uses a pretty cool gravity/physics engine to shake things up a bit, and is actually has very decent gameplay! I've been having a great time with it so far, and may cover it in more depth some other time...
I also found another Fighting Fantasy Gamebook that I didn't already have in my collection, Sword Of The Samurai! So. come the next power-cut or long train journey and I'll be fighting Japanese demons, ninjas and the like...which is not much different from how I spend most of my time in videogames, but it'll be nice to do it whilst reading for a change!
My Super Mario toy collection is growing too, as I've picked up another few figures for £2 each in The Works....and an old McDonalds toy Yoshi that sticks his tongue out, which I found for 50p in a charity shop!
I think we'll end it there for now! I do have quite a few more video game pick-ups, but I'll save them for next time as I'm going to try and slow down a bit with those so I can actually play some of them! That's the plan anyway, but we all know how well I do with plans, so expect to see more pick-ups soonish, most likely including another 100 games or something...hehe...laters, stuffers!
