Retro Gamer magazine is awesome!

  Source: blog.retrogamer.net

Retro Gamer is quite simply one of the best gaming magazines I've read. For those who don't live in the UK, some of you might not know about it.

The magazine is all about the games from yesteryear. It offers an fantastic insight into some of gaming's greatest franchises, and also looks at the various game consoles that there was back in the 80's and 90's. They also have interviews with some of the legendary game developers, some of whom are still involved in the games industry today.

What I love about Retro Gamer is the amount of detail and information that they have in each issue. I think it's great finding out about gaming-related things that I never knew about.

There's also a reviews section featuring some of the current games and ports of older games. One of my favourite things in the magazine has got to be the Homebrew section. I find it quite incredible that there's people who continue to make games for old systems, such as the ZX Spectrum (or Speccy as they like to call it).

The magazine has just past their 100th issue, which is quite an achievement for such a niche magazine. Congrats to the people behind the magazine, they've done a great job on landing that milestone. Long may they continue to show people what gaming used to be like, all those years ago!

Is it really 'GAME' over for gaming retailers?

Source: game.co.uk

As you might have already heard or read, two of my favourite shops, Game and Gamestation, have been in a lot of financial trouble recently. A day before I typed this blog post, the company who runs both shops, The Game Group, have been put into administration.

This is a very sad time for me and all the gamers in the UK, and also the British games industry. I don't think anyone can imagine what it would be like without a specialist shop for games.

Here's a couple of reasons why Game and Gamestation got into the state they are in:

1. They got too big for their own good. They simply had too many stores across the UK.

2. Game (maybe) shouldn't have bought their former competitors, Gamestation, in 2007.

I think there could be another reason. It's the fact that more people are buying games online rather than going to the shops.

If Game and Gamestation both go, it only leaves HMV and the supermarkets. While HMV are focusing slightly less on games, they still have a nice selection on their shelves. On the other hand, the supermarkets don't have a great choice of games either. I don't know whether I could bare that or not.

My thoughts do go out to the employees of both Game and Gamestation, who have just been made redundant. It's a really awful thing to go through. At the time I typed this, 277 stores have been closed down, affecting 2,104 employees.

UPDATE: Since I posted this, I was very glad to hear that OpCapita, the company who bought Comet, saved Game and Gamestation for £1. Yes, I'm not joking. I know £1 might sound a bit rubbish, but at least it saved the two shops from disappearing off our high street. Well, that's one less thing for me and all the gamers in the UK to worry about. Thank goodness for that! Phew!

Why I love: F-Zero (SNES)

Source: obsoletegamer.com

This could be the first of a regular feature on my blog. Today, I'm going to tell you why I love the original F-Zero for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES for short).

F-Zero was released on November 21, 1990 in Japan, August 23, 1991 in North America, and June 4, 1992 in Europe. It was the game that set a standard by created the sub-genre of futuristic racing. If it wasn't for this game, we might not have Sony's equivalent of F-Zero, the Wipeout series.

This game was also one of the many SNES games that used the Mode 7 graphics, which gave F-Zero a pseudo-3D effect. This was pretty incredible for the SNES. I've no idea what the game would've looked like without Mode 7.

What I really love about F-Zero is how playable the game still is after all these years. I also love the fact that the speed is still amazing today aswell.

You can get the game today, via the Wii's Virtual Console service for 800 points. I downloaded it and never regretted doing so. I'm sure you won't regret it either.

Some of my favourite games on XBLIG

I know there's some awful stuff on the Xbox Live Indie Games (or XBLIG for short) service. Don't worry, there's definitely some great games on the service. Here is three of my favourites:

I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N 1T!!!1 (or I Made a Game with Zombies In It)
Developer: Ska Studios
Cost: 80 points
A simple but very enjoyable top-down arcade shooter with an awesome theme song. Admittedly, I even sing along to it sometimes.

Katana Land
Developer: Kablammo Games
Cost: 80 points
A neat little platformer where you play as a ninja, and you have to sneak on the enemies and take them out. It has nice 2D graphics.

Ocean Drive Challenge
Developer: need1D
Cost: 80 points
An arcade racing game, similar to Sega's Outrun series.

I know there's plenty more great XBLIG titles I could talk about, but that would take me forever. Why not try some of the ones I've mentioned in this blog post? Maybe you could also look and see what other games are available. I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy.

Who saved the games industry in the 80's? The NES did!

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Yes, wouldn't you believe it, it was just that one little white and grey box that saved a whole industry. I seriously can't imagine what gaming would've been like without it. It's all thanks to the great guys at Nintendo.

A lot of gaming's greatest franchises made their debut on the console: Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Castlevania, etc.

I don't think a lot of gamers in my generation actually appreciates the NES as much as I do. If it wasn't for the NES, we wouldn't have had consoles like the PlayStation and the Xbox.