Addicted to Gaming

OK, crap title but I can't think of anything better to illustrate the fact that after six months of blog inactivity I am back! But I've not been idle over those last six months – they were largely consumed by me organising the highly successful Byte Back event, which took place in early March, attracted nearly 300 visitors and raised over £2300 for charity.

I won't drone on about how great it was because you can see and read all about that on the post-event review at the official site, but I will share just one photo that I think sums up just how cool the event was...

So, now I'm back and will start posting on here again, probably starting with a review of a week playing on my Vectrex.

Thanks to everyone that has visited the blog over the last few months – I've been averaging over 300 hits a month, which is pretty good considering I haven't done anything!

I recently bought a new PC, which came with 2 Gigabytes of RAM. 2 GIG!  The amount of memory and hard disk space on modern PCs is just ridiculous. At the same time I was setting up my new PC I was also playing games on my Commodore 64, so named because it had 64Kb of memory.

=> Read more!

Let's make a journey to the cave of obsessive-compulsive video game collectors and take a look at my Bubble Bobble collection!

Over the last few months I have been gradually trying to accumulate all manner of goodies related to the original Bubble Bobble, my favourite game of all time. Not only am I attempting to get hold of every release of the original game but also any spin-offs that feature the classic 'trap them in a bubble and pop it' gameplay (so no Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars or Puzzle Bobble!)

I've also picked up a few collectibles related to the series, as the following selection of images shows.

First, here's all of my stuff together...



And now for some close-ups of the more interesting items in the collection...

Read more!

Well it has been way too long since I updated this blog but I do have a good reason. Since mid-August I have been putting plans into place for a classic gaming event to be held next year. A venue has been found, a website designed and tickets are now on sale for Byte Back 2009!

For more info visit the official website at www.byte-back.info. I will make occasional updates on the progress of the event on this blog as the big weekend approaches, but more importantly I'll get back to actually playing some games and posting some new topics on here...

All that fun at Fusion has reaffirmed my desire to put on my own gaming event next year, so striking while the iron is hot I've created a survey to help me get an idea what people would like to see/do at such an event. If you live in the UK and would potentially be interested, please take the survey at the following URL:

http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=ILML_846580fc

Update 12/08 - The survey is now closed but you can read the results here:

http://www.byte-back.info/surveyresults.html

Thanks to the 70 people that took the time to respond. I'm not looking for a venue to host the event next year - more info when I have it!

Last weekend around 150 gaming fans converged on Leamington Rugby Club for Fusion 08, a two-day celebration of gaming old and new. I attended on Saturday with my good mates Rob and Rich and we provided a selection of machines for the masses to play on, including Rob's Bartop MAME cabinet, my Neo Geo AES and PC-Engine and all the kit required to play 10-player Saturn Bomberman.

It truly was a great day out and I met up with lots of friendly and like-minded people that show just how strong the retro community is. Personal highlights were my first ever go on Rock Band, where my vocal performance on the Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" earned me a 100% rating, and showing off some of my old Shoot Em Up Construction Kit games to Andrew Fisher (Retro Gamer contributor and C64 guru) who was quite impressed with some of my 18 year old work!

Here's some photos from the event...

Read more!

If you haven't already seen, Retro Gamer magazine's website has undergone a complete revamp last week. I spoke briefly to the mag's editor Darran Jones who has high hopes for the new site. The aim is to encourage visitors to join the site as 'retrobates' post profiles of their favourite games to help build up the ultimate resource for retro game fans.

I've already registered and posted over 20 game profiles, and I'm proud to say that my first offering Bubble Bobble was chosen last week as the site's Game of the Week.

You can see what other games I've cast my opinion on by viewing my profile page...

If you have an opinion on any classic games, what are you waiting for? Get yourself registered and join the retrobates!

OK, it’s only Tuesday but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to top this!  And I’m not talking about any daft XBOX 360 achievements; this is a bona fide hardcore gaming achievement...

Read more!

Over the last 12 months I have accumulated a monstrous collection of consoles and games, many of which I have barely played since I bought them. I recently decided to rectify that issue by spending a week with each of my gaming systems in chronological order of release, and of course I am going to tell you about my experiences!

So starting at the beginning, I spent a week playing games on the great granddaddy of video game consoles, the venerable Atari VCS 2600...

Read more!

For the latest entry in this series I’ve decided to cover the most recently-released console that I play imported games on - Sega’s final foray into the console hardware market, the fabulous Dreamcast...

Read more!