Apart from establishing that the Amiga was far superior to the Atari ST, if you were still playing 8-bit computer games that the Amiga was the way to go and providing an albeit expensive alternative to the fledgling console market, what else have we learned about the Amiga during the merry month of April ?

Well the variety of titles were there. There were plenty of groundbreakers too – Another World, Flashback, Kick Off, Sensible Soccer and Populous to name but a few. The fact that all of these ended up on consoles goes to show the quality of the games and their enduring appeal which very much catered to all markets. The best thing though is that, unlike the PC at the time, the Amiga was very much at it’s best whether it was used for programming, educational uses or games. The PC simply couldn’t hold a candle at this time if you wanted to play games software.

Love At First Sight

So, with a last hoorah we wave farewell to the Amiga with much sadness in the heart, but look forward to May where the Sega Master System steps into the limelight…..

TEAM SUZUKI – It’s probably fair to say that fans of motorbikes were given a pretty shoddy treatment when it came to computer games. The one you’ll all think of is Road Rash, but that had beat em up elements and wasn’t a straight bike game. So Team Suzuki was a rather nice surprise when it rode into view. Using vector graphics, allowing you the choice of mouse or joystick control, the ability to change the view of your rider and the ever popular replay mode were all included and made for a very nice package indeed. The controls take a bit of mastering especially with the mouse, but everything else is done pretty well. By far and away the best bike game at the time, though connoisseurs of more arcadey fare like Hang On will probably do best steering clear.

ULTIMATE SOCCER MANAGER – Being a fan of Premier Manager, which incorporated the Kick Off game engine when going to play matches, and the statistic heavy fledgling Championship Manager series, this was a game I was very much looking forward to. The thing is though, once you get used to a certain style of game, unless one comes along and plays in a way that makes you feel comfortable you tend to feel quite coldly towards other games of that genre. USM is most definitely in that bracket and left me completely unhooked and longing for something else. Its just too laden down with statistics, so you feel the football side is just a small part of it. It does appear to have been done very well and if you fancy being a chairman of a football club it’s probably a good game to practice on. For me though, it’s just too in depth and too stop start. Ultimate Soccer Strategist would be a better title.

VIZ – You know when someone takes a great book and turns it into a fairly underwhelming TV series or movie ? Somehow something gets lost in translation and you end up with a pretty unsatisfactory experience that has you longing for the source material. Well Viz The Game falls firmly and squarely into that hole. There is no denying the original humour of the classic comics is there, as are all the characters. It’s just a series of sub games at the end of the day though and none of them are particularly well done. The main race section is good to start with but laden with unavoidable deaths, which frustrate, and the bonus games for the main characters just consist of joystick waggling. Quite frankly this sort of game was just not up to standard for 1991.

WINGS – Ah the feel of the wind rushing through your hair, the ability to go up-diddly-up and down-diddly-down at your own pleasure. If only those pesky Germans wouldn’t keep engaging you in dogfights and having you go on strafing runs or missions to shoot down barrage balloons. Yes it’s a World War One flying simulator, but from the software house Cinemaware you know you are in for a bit of quality. It’s not your standard shooter either, with a proper storyline and diary sequences which paint the picture of the sort of hell you have entered. The flying scenes are great with quality graphics and little detail touches dotted all around (like your pilot turning his head to show you where the Germans are and the bullet holes appearing in your plane as you get shot at). The strafing scenes are done from an isometric view, and are very well done, as you gun down enemy troops and supplies whilst avoiding shooting Red Cross vans. You can play all the way through too, picking a new name of your own choice for your pilot. At the end of each pilot’s lifespan – and believe me you may find you get through a few – you will be shown a war memorial with your pilot’s names on and their service records, which is very touching. Wings is an experience and by being an arcade style game rather than a simulator is one of the best flying games ever. It’s also one of the Amiga games you must play.

X-OUT – I am no fan of shoot-em ups but X-Out isn’t a bad game to play for a few hours. It conjures up images of R-Type with it’s look and game style which is no bad thing. You can increase your ship’s weaponry with add ons galore, giving you ample firepower to dispose of the alien hordes that come at you. There are some very impressive graphics on display, with an excellent game intro. It all looks superb and plays very nicely indeed. If it does have one flaw it’s that it does take a little getting into, but once you have had a few blasts you should be OK. One of the better shooters on the Amiga and a worthy addition to your collection.

YOGI BEAR & THE GREED MONSTER – I may be scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, but if you want a colourful, fun, quite large, occasionally difficult and pretty addictive game based on a licence you can do a lot worse than this title. It’s based on the largely forgotten Yogi’s Treasure Hunt TV series. You take Yogi through a number of levels and have to find the key to open a door to release his friends. Along the way you have to collect sweets, which you then use to throw at enemies. It’s very formulaic stuff at the end of the day and hardened gamers will probably breeze through this in no time. However, it’s definitely above average and if you like Yogi and his chums then this is for you as it is undeniably the closest thing you will get to a decent Yogi Bear game.

ZYNAPS – The classic 8-bit era shoot em up comes to the Amiga and my goodness me, did something go horribly wrong. Zynaps was a fun game back on the Spectrum and Amstrad but with the added power of the Amiga everything gets the haphazard treatment. Whilst it looks OK, the controls are far too stiff, which for a game of this genre is not good. How can you move quickly when everything is unresponsive ? The collision detection is ropier than the contents of a rope shop and before long you die another unfair and painful death which has you longing for something better. There was simply no excuse for something like this being churned out when, with a bit of thought, it could have been great. A real disappointment.

When I first got my Amiga it came with just 3 games, of which 2 were awesome Ocean Software releases (Batman The Movie and New Zealand Story). The other was F-18 Interceptor and was my first taste of a flight simulator. It was only enjoyable for it’s San Francisco surroundings and the fact you could roll the plane under the Golden Gate Bridge. Otherwise it was confined to the back of the drawer. The rest of the software was educational and most of it was a waste of time especially the word processor as it needed another 512K worth of memory in order to be able to save things. Thus my first few pages of my first draft of a new Pink Panther movie was never saved. I think considering how the Steve Martin remakes turned out, it was a crying shame mine was never saved and unleashed on the world.

The very package that got me started all those years ago......educational software not pictured

Anyhoooooooo no more crying over spilt milk, time for some more Amiga goodness…….

NEIGHBOURS – You often wonder who thinks up the ideas for games like this. Surely a game based on the incredibly popular (at the time) Aussie soap opera should have been role playing based with some typically bizarre storylines ? Oh no, not on this occasion. It was more apt and therefore more appealing to the kids to have the chance to put Charlene, Henry, Mike, Bronwyn and someone called Matt in a race against each other, using a variety of roller skates, go-karts and skateboards to get from start to finish. You have to avoid children with radio controlled cars, kangaroos, ostriches, Bouncer the dog, Mrs Mangel and Harold Bishop who infiltrate the course and make it harder for you to win. I wish I was making this shit up, but sadly I’m not. There is nothing redeemable at all about this game….well OK the theme tune is vaguely like the original but that’s it. One idea that should have stayed Down Under…….

OPERATION THUNDERBOLT – Operation Wolf had made arcade first person shooters fun again, except it was always going to be hard to replicate the mounted gun on the arcade cabinet in the comfort of your own home. Operation Thunderbolt suffers from the same thing, and this time you can have a mate with you to sympathise if you so wish because this can be a two player experience. The premise is still the same – shoot the bad guys and get to the end of the level, but now you can have a chum with you. It’s all good fun and the Amiga makes a good job of the arcade conversion meaning you feel very happy with the programming. You must make sure it’s played with a mouse though, as always with a joystick games like this are often too difficult and too frustrating. If you’re feeling in the mood to kick some terrorist butt, this is as good a game as any to take out your frustrations on.

PLAGUE, THE – When I first played this I was quite impressed by how it all looked and felt. It was easy enough to play and quite enjoyable. However time has not been kind to The Plague and back in the day I was still able to get through the game quite easily. This definitely has the feeling of a mid 1980’s arcade game with basic moves, basic weaponry, linear levels and an all too easy learning curve. The graphics look great, well drawn but lacking decent animation. The sound effects and music are pretty awful and sadly the whole thing is too damn easy to master. A few tweaks here and there and this could have been a bit good, as such it’s not even averagely average and as side scrolling adventure/shooting games go it’s all a bit bland and crappy. It simply cannot compare to games like the Shadow Of The Beast series it appears to be copying and falls far short on all counts.

QUATTRO SPORTS – The great thing about the Amiga from late 1989 onwards was the arrival of budget games, or older titles re-released at a much more acceptable price. However as with the 8-bit era, budget software usually meant an awful lot of dross floating about that required sifting through to discover the gems. Quattro Sports from Codemasters falls somewhere between the two. BMX Simulator is an OK reworking of their massive 8-bit seller which, despite having tarted up graphics, plays pretty well as you guide your biker round the course in a top down racing style. Advanced Ski Simulator is also not bad, though suffers from some pretty clunky controls and the odd insanely difficult moment. It is pretty solid if unspectacular (you can find a review of the C64 version on the Russian Roulette of Retro). The other two games aren’t much cop. Italia 90, despite having a nifty little training section which is good fun for a short while, is an incredibly awful football simulator with ridiculous game physics (goals from the halfway line are common an the AI of the goalkeepers is woeful), duff graphics and all the lastability of an ice lolly. Pro Tennis Simulator is not much better, using cartoon graphics and a squashed playing area to compensate for a lack of options, a limited selection of shots and a feeling that going out and playing tennis for real is a better option. It’s that last line that does it for me – why on earth would you ever feel the need to play tennis for real ?

RODLAND – Yet another cutesy looking, garishly coloured platform game with a bit of a difference. This time you are armed with a rod of power that, when used, paralyses and traps your enemies. You then have the power to lift them up, whack them a couple of times on the floor before they turn into fruit or collectable items. It’s all done on a single screen, so clear that as quickly as possible and move on to the next one. Fondly remembered by those who played it and largely forgotten now, Rodland does deserve to be mentioned alongside perennial favourites Rainbow Islands and Bubble Bobble because it is good, it is a lot of fun and you keep going back to it. It’s a little on the easy side but you’ll be enjoying yourself too much to notice. Some may find the cutesy look and sugar coated visuals too much – especially if you are a diabetic – but grab a mate and you can guarantee many hours of fun. One of the Top 20 Amiga games you have to play.

SHADOW WARRIORS – Ninja escapades ahoy as you don your ninja suit and go about slashing and hacking bad guys before reaching the end of level boss. Yes we have all seen, heard and played this a thousand times before. This game tries to be a little different, meaning you have a few more moves to hand than just the usual punches and kicks. For example you can swing on lampposts, do somersaults and pick up handy weapons. It doesn’t sound very original and to be honest it isn’t. It all looks very nice, with some very impressive bosses, but the whole thing is on the slow side and, quite frankly, there is nothing ground breaking or new here at all especially if you have already played Final Fight, Double Dragon et al.

I’ve always been asked what sort of games I prefer. Do I prefer First Person Shooters ? Well I like the original Goldeneye on the N64 and the early Medal Of Honour/Call Of Duty games, but not the modern versions. I love sports games, although playing anything pre Kick Off is now nothing more than a retro chore (with the exception of Emlyn Hughes’ Football). Puzzle games are OK, but give me Tetris and I’ll be happy. I love good arcade conversions and original games but I am not the world’s biggest fan of film and TV tie ins. So this next batch of Amiga games from my youth cover a lot of bases with the usual predictably mixed results…..

Which game genre do you prefer ? Strip poker games not included of course......

GRAND MONSTER SLAM – Loosely based on the ancient arcade game Penguin Wars, Grand Monster Slam tries to be a number of things, with the final result perhaps not quite satisfying enough for all, it remains a jolly good effort trying to be something else. Taking part in what is a cross between a medieval and fantasy world, the basis of the game is to work through a league. Each opponent you face has the same goal as you – kick all their furry creatures (called Beloms) at your opponent, to clear your line, as quickly as possible. Do that and you run at your opponent for victory. You can aim your Beloms at your opponent to knock him down, whilst kicking them into the crowd will result in extra Beloms being added to your remaining ones. Work your way through the league and take part in some weird mini games, one being kicking Beloms into the mouth of waiting monsters, each slightly higher up than the last one. It’s a brave attempt at being different and was good enough to be in the very first Amiga Power 100. However, the sometimes clunky controls and samey gameplay might mean boredom sets in before too long. A good effort and worth a little look.

HYDRA – The Amiga was home to some pretty worthless conversions in it’s time, and this one is no exception. It’s basically STUN Runner on water, or those of you who remember the game based on the James Bond film Live & Let Die, its kinda like that. I actually played this back in the arcade once and it didn’t exactly grab me as being a great game. The whole chasing criminals thing had become a bit dull by this point – this version was around 18 months after Chase HQ had appeared – and although putting it on water is a slightly different approach, a great game it does not make. In fact it gets real dull real quick. The whole thing moves so slowly that any sense of speed the game should create isn’t there and thus it becomes another woeful racing/driving/chase the crims game of very low quality. At least the water effect is nice……

INDY 500 – We touched on Days of Thunder in the previous posting. That was a bad example of what the Amiga could do when it came to vector based racing games. Indy 500 is considerably better, providing you had at least 1MB of memory and reduced the detail in the graphics to the bear minimum. Being a simulation rather than a straight racer there are lots of details such as car set up, testing, practice, qualifying and of course the actual Indianapolis 500, based on the field that entered the 1989 race. Yes, you only get one race to take part in so the lastability comes into question. There is no denying it looks great and was way ahead of anything else at the time, but it might prove a bit too techy for those who just like to plug in and race away.

JIMMY WHITE’S WHIRLWIND SNOOKER – You always wonder with certain sports whether you can replicate the actual fun and feeling of playing it on a computer as opposed to participating in the real thing. Snooker had up till then had a fairly chequered history, with snooker games being basic coloured balls on a green background. The legendary programmer Archer Maclean took the game of snooker and did something rather marvellous – he made it interesting. This is one of the best sports games ever, with so many touches of realism included – cueing angles, needing to chalk the cue, backspin, positional play and even the odd cheeky ball suddenly having a cartoon face and sticking it’ tongue out at you. Throw in some excellent graphics and the ability to view each shot from every angle possible and you have a really excellent piece of software. Even people who hate snooker will love this.

KICK OFF – OK so it’s not Kick Off 2, but it seems only fair to look at the original game which revolutionised how football would be transferred to computers in the future. The big pluses from Kick Off are the sheer speed of how things move and the fact the ball doesn’t stick to your feet all the time. This allows for fluid movement and the ability to change direction with ease. You also get a grid which shows you the whole pitch and where your team mates are, allowing you to build attacks and protect yourself from being caught on the counter attack. It’s not the best looking game, the computer AI is suspect and some of the referees are total bastards, reducing some games to 8 v 8 in a flash if you are a bit twitchy with the old tackling. Kick Off set the bar for future football games and the sequel is the best football game ever made. It’s hard to play anything made before this now. It effectively rendered any other football game of it’s time negligible.

LED STORM – Now here is an arcade game you probably won’t remember – even I can’t recall this one. What I can recall is playing this conversion by US Gold on one of the many compilations I had at the time, and looking back now it’s still a lot of fun. It is by no means perfect at all – the graphics are small, the playing area is minuscule and it’s all a bit monotonous. It’s saving grace is the fact it does hook you right away and the music is pretty awesome. It’s sort of like Spy Hunter mixed with any racing checkpoint game you have played before. It’s not outstanding, it’s nothing special but it is a bit of harmless fun from an obscure arcade machine where can easily while away a couple of hours.

MERV THE MERCILESS – This is cheating slightly as this game was given away free with Zero magazine on the coverdisk. It’s a Public Domain game – games created by programmers that were cheap and cheerful, as long as you don’t expect too much from them. Kinda like the forerunner of PSN exclusives and WiiWare games. Anyway, Merv is a top down collect em up, with the added peril of having to move around a screen which moves in a totally random fashion (very much like having the walls close in on you). Get trapped in a corner, the screen will move in on you and kill you. It has fairly crappy graphics so perhaps the best thing about it is the music and sound effects – you can activate the Neighbours TV theme tune by running over the Neighbours icon, whilst being squashed by the moving play area will result in a comedy sound effect and suitably comical music. It definitely follows the Three C’s very closely – Cheap, Cheerful and Crappy. The only reason it’s included here is because me and my mates found it hilarious back in the day, but it has certainly lost that appeal some 20 years later !

This is most definitely a trip down memory lane which I am going to relish. Looking back at some of the old Amiga games I used to play, it’s funny how many come back to surprise you and also some that shock you. I am hoping that the mix of games will at least give you an idea of the wealth of titles, the vast array of styles and a feel for what makes me love this machine so much.

Oooooooo the controversy.....

Just out of interest I have decided to exclude Kick Off 2 from this list, purely because I have banged on about it in the past and I’d like to save it for a footie retrospective once we get to the 2012 European Championships in the summer.

So away we go with our first batch of Amiga games…..

ALIEN BREED – With an overhead viewpoint, which was fairly common back then, and with the sort of title that would be a precursor to horror survival games, Alien Breed was a breakthrough for the software house Team 17. Heavily influenced by the Alien films, you had to battle your way through corridors collecting keys to open doors and escape the level. Your path is blocked constantly by hordes of alien monsters which you have to keep blasting to continue. It’s a real cross between the classic Gauntlet games and Alien the film, but it works. It is tense and dimly lit, the sound effects are creepy and the graphics, while on the small side, are well defined and animated. It’s a tough old game too and was successful enough to warrant a couple of sequels and more recently a couple of current gen makeovers. Make no mistake about it though, this is the definitive Alien Breed game.

BC KID – If you remember the PC Engine console which only ever got a proper full release in Japan but was wowing readers of C&VG and the like back in 1989, you would have seen a prehistoric-themed platform romp called PC Kid. A full 3 years later a version arrived on the Amiga which looked every inch a great conversion of the original game. It’s the usual platform fare with the unique idea that BC Kid goes round headbutting things, rather than the usual Mario idea of jumping on stuff. It’s pretty simplistic stuff and given the late release date (1993 was pretty late in the Amiga’s lifespan) it doesn’t make the best use of the Amiga’s technology. That said, there were many worse platformers around than this but you’d be better off hunting down the original PC Engine version.

CIRCUS GAMES – I’ve always been fascinated by curious games such as this. You get to try your hand at various circus acts such as tightrope walking, riding a horse standing up and flying through the air with the greatest of ease on the trapeze. I guess my nature is to find out just how much fun a computerised version of those things would be, seeing as I have absolutely no interest in doing them for real. Sadly, unless the thrill of endless disc swapping, broken controls, a high difficulty level and the raging feeling inside that you want to punch the next clown you see are how one should feel then don’t play this game. Sometimes it’s best to remain curious and not to know.

DAYS OF THUNDER – Oh joy, yet another film tie in designed to rob you of your cash whilst the game producers sit back and count their profits. Chances are, if you owned an Amiga you’d have a copy of this game because the damn thing was eventually bundled with the machine as part of the various freebie software packages. The only thing this has in common with the awful Tom Cruise film is the racing aspect – so no stolen encounters with Nicole Kidman whilst Maria McKee warbles in the background. The car driving aspect of the game sucks like never before, with everything moving at a rate of 1 frame per second. It’s just too slow to be enjoyable and before you know it it’ll be consigned to memory, never to be resurrected again. Pretty much like the film really. God this game sucks…..

E-MOTION – Right up there in the top 5 of games my Dad has played. That list may stand at perhaps 10 games in the whole history of time. This was a rather novel attempt to make a puzzle game of a different sort, whilst trying to throw a bit of Einstein in there. It’s basically a cross between snooker and the old game Thrust, where you have to link the coloured balls together to clear the screen. Make a mistake and the balls start multiplying. If you are really careless (like me) then you’ll end up with a screen full of balls, a lot of screen slowdown and no chance of completing the level because of the time limit. It is quite a fun game but you get the feeling it’s a bad trip someone had when they dropped a load of acid and then played Asteroids. It gets quite tough quite quickly and the time limits really are unfair. Still if you fancy a weird puzzler then you can do a lot worse than this.

FACE OFF – Ice hockey games really didn’t hit their stride until the EA NHL series on the Mega Drive so this early entry from Anco didn’t quite do the sport justice. You get the feeling, after the success of Kick Off, this was rushed out hoping to have the same winning formula. It’s all a bit rough around the edges, with some lazy programming. The controls aren’t the best and the visuals and sounds are of a very average nature. There are plenty of options but you really need a grasp of the rules, especially so if you play it with the fouls turned on. If that’s the case then you’ll spend alot more time hearing the disc drive load the “sin bin” scene over and over again. Is it a fair effort ? Not really, you are definitely better off with the EA console games than seeking this one out.

The Commodore Amiga – a phrase that brings tears of happiness to the eyes of myself. Oh how many happy hours were wiled away in front of my monitor playing on a computer system which had been purchased purely for educational purposes. Yeah right, as if that was going to happen. You know that’s gone out of the window when your Dad starts buying American Civil War games and wants you to come off so he can have a quick pop at E-Motion.

The sort of photo that weeps nostalgia - many happy hours were spent loading this up

If the Spectrum was the must have for the 8-bit era, then the Amiga was it’s 16-bit era alternative, at least until the rise of the consoles in the early 1990’s. PC’s were not yet fully functioning games machines and they cost a fortune. You could have gone for an Atari ST, but for some reason that machine never really stayed in the imagination of gamers once the power of the Amiga took over. I remember people at school having ST’s and I was the only one with an Amiga. Within 18 months that had changed and there was barely an ST owner out there.

The Amiga could boast having superior sound and fabulous looking visuals. It is one thing to hear speech on an 8-bit game for the first time, but great swathes of speech were found on the Amiga. Throw in support from all the major software players of the day – EA, Ocean, US Gold, Elite, Gremlin, Domark, Activision (OK maybe scrub that last one) – the computer went from strength to strength, despite it costing well over £100 more than the ST. It seemed people were quite happy to pay that bit extra back in the day.

On the left one of the best computers ever made, and on the right some vague pale imitation from Atari

That’s not to say the Amiga was perfect. Games used to come on anything up to 10 floppy discs, which meant you needed a second, external, floppy drive to cut down on disc swapping. Those infernal password protect systems, designed to cut down on piracy, had you scanning through the manuals or playing around with the included wagon wheels so you could get the correct code to actually get into the damn game. All very commendable but it didn’t stop games being swapped rapidly in playgrounds around the country. There was also a sense with some games that they looked great but played crap, substituting the audio and visual aspect for actual playability. It was also the case that the Amiga suffered from lazy porting of games from the ST, meaning some inferior conversions not making use of the extra technology available.

Oh and I forgot to mention that the basic model was 512K and as the Amiga grew more popular the need to have at least 1MB of memory got bigger, so much so you had to fork out an extra £30 to buy the memory needed. Oh yes, and it needed a TV modulator to play games on your TV set, otherwise you’d need to fork out a couple of hundred quid for a decent monitor. Yes, 16 bit games may have been the way to go but the move did require a hefty cash investment from gamers – as ever!

Advertising has absolutely no affect on me at all. Ever.

The Amiga seemed to go from strength to strength. While the Atari ST 520 was upgraded to 1040 to show off more powerful capabilities, Commodore decided to add to the Amiga range. You could have an Amiga 500 in 512K or 1MB version, the Amiga 500+ (a disaster as a lot of old software wouldn’t work on it), the Amiga 600 (slightly better, with more backward compatibility) and the Amiga 1200 (with designated software titles that you could only play on a 1200 and the capability to install a hard drive meaning you could store data on it, making it more like a PC).

It is an era I remember fondly, with the dross games far being outweighed by the glorious games that memories are made of. So during the course of this month I shall look back at a few games, some good, some not so good, and hope that you will revel in them as much as I do.

Let the Games begin…….

Don't worry there won't be any athletics involved, just good old fashioned joystick and mouse action

The weather in March was lovely. Now we have entered April the weather has turned for the worse. Hail, thunder and torrential rain coupled with colder than average temperatures can mean only one thing. Yes, it’s Car Boot season once again. Ah yes you can almost smell the hotdogs and burgers from the comfort of your own room. Never has there been more fun from being crammed into a tiny field at 7am on a Sunday morning than by going to a booty.

A perfect site for sore retro eyes - there be bargains to be had out there !

So here are a few tips to keep you on your guard during the next few months :

1. Always take a small bag or rucksack with you. I made this mistake many times believing that it was either too late in the season to get any bargains or there won’t be any booters around because it was holiday season. Never underestimate what might be there.
2. Park as close as you can to the car boot as is possible. Nothing hurts more than carrying round a boxed Nintendo Gamecube Donkey Konga set, as I experienced 3 years ago. You can’t always park close but if you do make a large purchase like that don’t man up and think that because you only have a few rows to go it won’t hurt. It does.
3. Get there early. I know some of these things start at stupid o’clock but even arriving an hour after the boot starts means you are likely to have missed something. These places are full of traders and specialists who will be there when Dawn cracks. If you want the best stuff, get there early.
4. Get in early. Almost the same as above. Don’t leave something to chance as in “I’ll come back later”. If it is something you want, buy it there and then. It won’t be there later.
5. Use your own judgement. If you think you are paying too much for something then say so. It’s always best to barter, after all that is what car booting is all about. In most cases the seller will have added a couple of quid to the asking price so if you knock them down they are still getting a good deal. I should take my own advice sometimes – I tend to consider the price and think if it’s fair I’ll pay it. If it’s too much I’ll walk away rather than haggle.
6. Watch out for traders. You’ll know who they are. These are the ones who have priced high and won’t move on it because then you will be eating into their profit margin. Occasionally you can get a good deal if you buy a few things but on most occasions if it is priced highly it is priced to sell and not to be knocked down.
7. Check the condition. This is particularly with disc based games. No one is going to shout at you if you want to look at the state of a disc. If they do, then they have something to hide. Always check the contents of the box too because you might not be getting what you think you are buying, but then again I have had the odd bonus find with an extra disc inside.
8. Be sensible. Nothing pisses people off more at a car boot than someone being aggressive when it comes to haggling on prices. It’ll get you short shrift and leaves a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth. Bite your tongue if someone is being a wanker and move on, don’t get involved and start anything. It will only end in tears. Some of these places are very well marshalled and some I have been to have police officers close at hand.

There are also a couple of tips if you fancy parting with any of your collection :

1. Be realistic with your pricing. Not everyone goes to a booty with £100 in their pocket so just consider this if you think marking up your dusty PS2 with a few FIFA and WWE games at £25 is going to attract many buyers. It won’t and you’ll end up taking it back home. If you want to make that sort of profit then shove it on eBay. Go to a booty, price sensibly so you make a few quid and enjoy it.
2. Beware the trader. We’ve touched on these guys before and they will become very persistent in wanting your stuff before it goes on sale. As soon as you arrive they’ll be hovering round your car, peeking inside and asking questions. You can either do two things – give in or sit inside and wait until they have gone. They’ll want your stuff and will pay only a fraction what you want for it, and you will guarantee walking around afterwards they’ll be selling it on their stall – at a much higher price than you sold it to them. Hold your ground and be strong.
3. Be kind. If someone is trying to rip you off – and this applies to selling as well – just a few kind words and send them on their way. The last thing you want to do is get into a scrap at a booty. If they try and knock down your prices, go with it and drop if you can. If you can’t, say so and be honest. If they get all aggressive about it, just be polite. Don’t let people bully you either – after all unless you are trading or selling for charity you have your own limits set and if they don’t agree with them that is their problem.
4. Do your research. It’s always best to try a few boot fairs as a buyer and see how busy they are. Do some internet searches as well and see if you can find popular sites. The last thing you should do is join a gaming forum and ask people where good ones are. Chances are most retro gamers won’t reveal where they go for fear of an influx of buyers. There is, most definitely, a difference between standing in a field and making a decent wad and standing in a field and making 12 sales all day, believe me I had the latter happen because I didn’t do my research. A good source of information is the local free paper as there always a few adverts about upcoming and long running events

So there you go. This is not a definitive list by any standards, nor should it be taken as gospel. This is simply me passing on my experiences to you. The best advice of all, buying or selling, is to simply go and have a good day and pick up some great bargains or make a few quid.

Now get out there and grab a bargain before they are all gone.....or I get there first

A quick look ahead to some of the fun things that are planned here for Retrosection in the next 12 months. Of course there will be other bits and pieces but the idea is to have a nice them for each month. Read on for more details….

12 months is a long time in video gaming...........

Each month this year I am going to have a theme each month. It will be devoted to a different console/computer and it’s games. These will as always take a random form of selection but will also allow me to include all my favourites and a few obscure ones as well :

NES JANUARY CLASSIC : Focussing on Nintendo’s grey box of magic, which whilst not my favourite machine of all time, was more or less responsible for kick-starting the video game craze again after the traumas of 1983

FEBRUARY FREE FOR ALL : Completely random games across the board and from all sorts of places and areas. This will be a lot of fun as I shall be going into unknown waters. Where possible I shall try and avoid any of the other machines making up the 11 other months of the year

MEGADRIVE MARCH MADNESS : One of my favourite consoles, the Mega Drive was one of the machines I was lucky enough to own first time around. Plenty of arcade and original classics and I shall really enjoy giving them a whirl

AMIGA APRIL APOCALYPSE : The first proper computer I ever owned and the machine all my mates had when we went to big school. It will at least give me the chance to dig Kick Off 2 out again – and maybe Sensible Soccer though that is a BIG maybe…..

MASTER SYSTEM MAY MAYHEM : I prefer the Master System over the NES for reasons I cannot actually explain. It will be interesting to see by the end of this if that is very much still the case

N64 JUNE JAMBOREE : My second favourite console of all time. From the moment I first played Goldeneye I was in love with the machine and for me it is the best console Nintendo have ever produced

DREAMCAST JULY JUBILEE : A very underrated console which suffered from release delays and a market which by that point had lost it’s trust in Sega following the launch disaster that was the Saturn. This though for me is probably my favourite Sega console of all

PS1 AUGUST ARMAGEDDON : Some of the games have aged terribly but you cannot deny that the PS1 was something of a phenomenon when it launched. It gave us a new player in the games market and a little grey wonder with some fabulous games

XBOX SEPTEMBER SMASH-UP : Like the Dreamcast, I have always felt the XBOX was underrated and under-appreciated. Yes it weighed a tonne and cost a bomb but it had massive potential. Give me this over the 360 any day

GAMECUBE OCTOBER O.M.G. : You can argue all you want but I class the Cube, XBOX and PS2 as retro simply because I do. The Cube suffered from a lack of decent launch titles and no DVD facility so gamers stayed away and picked up PS2s and XBOXs instead. Its a shame because as we shall find out there were some awesome titles for it

SUPER NINTENDO SUPER NOVEMBER : I had a lot of exposure to the SNES growing up so it does have a fond place in my heart. Most of those involved being pummelled on Street Fighter II but not all the memories were as bad as that

PS2 DECEMBER DEMOLITION : To finish with, arguably the greatest console of them all ? Well we shall see but with a massive back catalogue which is still being added to a trip through some PS2 awesomeness is most definitely called for.

Thanks Maz, it's good to be back....

I made a promise a few months ago to keep coming back and posting stuff on a regular basis. Shortly after that I decided to do a piece on Football Manager and that’s pretty much where I have been since. Yep I dug out FM 2055 and have spent a lot of my spare time playing that.

Therefore I am devoting some of my run time each day to sit down and play one game for each day in November. It could be any format or any genre (not football management as I have had enough of that for now) but that’s my aim. I’ll post my thoughts on here when I have played the game and let you know how I get on, and also anything else that springs to mind.

So RetroSection still lives, it’s just the Retrobear needs to sort himself out a bit better in the future…..

An every day occurence for Retrobear - the endless struggle against the simple things in life

Its quite often hard to pick a favourite computer or console, let alone a favourite game from my collection of retro goodies. Quite frankly I would think about hurting the feelings of the ones I neglected and the amount of hours (or in The Running Man on the C64’s case, minutes) we had together, getting to know one another and the sheer joy that we gave to one another during those few stolen moments. OK, that is sounding a bit sick so I shall move on.

So I thought I’d just pick some games at random A-Z and give you my memories of playing these and how they rate in my own views (remembering these are my views and do not represent any mass consensus) :

Arcade quality graphics and sound ? Hmmmmmmm.....

A – Altered Beast (MegaDrive) – You wondered what Sega were up to when they bundled this as the free game when you purchased the console. It’s hard to imagine being blown away by it at the time, because the game simply hasn’t aged well. Poor graphics, unidentifiable speech and repetitive gameplay made for a harsh gaming experience. Still it was quite groundbreaking to see such big sprites in a game, and a decent (using that word loosely as there was very little to compare it to at the time) arcade conversion being on a home console.

The best driving section to a multi platform title ever.

B – Batman The Movie (Amiga) – Before Ocean got sloppy and started churning out clone platform games to go with their movie licences, this was the mould from which that was born. Platform levels, a puzzle levels, an awesome driving section and fly through Gotham in the Batwing made this one of the best tie ins of all time. It’s hard to fault such a game and it is revered now as it was then.

Those are planes and clouds, just so you know.

C – Combat (Atari 2600) – Probably the first game I ever played on the 2600. 27 video games in 1 ! Wow how spoilt for choice we were, although inspection found a lot of the games were different just with more planes and the invisible tanks. That last one gave me and my sister a lot of fun. Basic, aurally painful (bit like my sister) but so addictive – that is what games on the 2600 were all about. If only games nowadays had half the playability and less concerns with how they look and sound.

2 things that made Britain great in the 1980's - Daley Thompson and the C64

D – Daley Thompson’s Decathlon (C64) – The original joystick wangler, where strong wrists and a sturdy table were the order of the day. So began a fascination for teenage boys thrashing their wrists back and forth to achieve the crowning glory – a gold medal. With the advent of joypads the art of joystick thrashing was confined to history, and button mashing soon took over. How we all miss a good wangle now and then.

Hold on to your hats - if they have hats in the future.

E – Extreme G (N64) – Sort of like Wipeout but not actually anywhere near as good as Wipeout. Vastly inferior to F-Zero which remains the best SNES/N64 future racer. Extreme G isn’t bad, it’s just not very exciting. Quick yes, thrilling no. All substance and not a lot else.

"And it's Schumacher !!"

F – Formula 1 (PS1) – Do you remember the first time you not only saw this game move, but also heard what it sounded like ? It was like watching proper F1 with Murray Walker yelling in your ears. The proper TV on-screen graphics were there too ! Wow this was one of the games that defined the PS1 as the leading console of that generation. Fun to play, fab to watch and an absolute joy. It’s hard to say if this has been equalled by an F1 game since. If you disagree do let me know, I’d love to know what you think.

Arcade action looked like this in the mid 1980's on the C64

G – Green Beret (C64) – Also known as Rush N Attack on the NES. Either way this was one I couldn’t get to grips with. The basic premise of going left to right, stabbing or shooting anything that came your way looks incredibly dated nowadays. However this shouldn’t discount this game from its place in history. After all, every single game of this style after it owes a great debt. There have been better variants (Contra) and poorer ones (Cobra).

Not to be confused with the Texas song of the same name

H – Halo (XBOX) – Every machine has a defining game and this was it for the XBOX. It needed something fresh and something exclusive to show Sony and Nintendo that it could be Bobby Big Bollocks when it wanted to be. The fact the series lives on with the 360 versions says a lot. For me ? Well it was running and gunning in 3D which is fun for a while but it didn’t grab me and shake me the same way, say, Doom did on the PC.

Is it a bird ? A Plane ? No, it's a mole. A what ??

I – Impossamole (C64) – Monty Mole was one of the 80’s games icons, starring in a string of hit titles that got more and more difficult and hair pulling as they went along. Gremlin had the great idea to resurrect Monty for the Amiga and Atari ST owners, as well as existing 8 bit fans. Sadly Impossamole proved to be Impossible for a lot of gamers – whereas previously, frustration had been an element of the game now it was just plain annoying. Marked the beginning of the end for insanely hard platformers.

As we Brits call it over here - American Rugby

J – John Madden Football (MegaDrive) – One of the longest, if not THE longest running franchises in gaming history. Back when it wasn’t known as just Madden ** this was about as simple as it came when it comes to American Football. Simple playbooks, a small collection of teams and requiring the player to know less about America’s Game and more about just playing the damn game. Incidentally, the Madden series has been running since 1986 in some form or another and has survived on all generations of consoles and formats.

Back of the net ! Kiss my face !

K – Kick Off 2 (Amiga) – I have written about this game enough in previous columns, so all I can say is it’s the best game I have got that starts with a K. And it’s also The. Best. Football. Game. Ever. For. Console. Or. Computer. K also stands for Kick Ass, which is exactly what it does.

Pushing the Master System to the limit

L – Lucky Dime Caper Ft. Donald Duck (Master System) – There were many platform games for the Master System, with Psycho Fox probably being the best. I haven’t got that one yet so I plumped for Mr Duck’s first 8 bit outing. Not that it’s particularly groundbreaking, but it looks brilliant and plays very well. Donald went on to star in Maui Mallard (which I enjoyed immensely). It should also be noted that while this was released on the Master System, MegaDrive owners got the equally quacktastic Quackshot at the same time.

Mickey Mouse, (Mickey Mouse), Mickey Mouse, (Mickey Mouse)...

M – Mickey Mania (SNES) – From Donald to Mickey in one fowl swoop (enough bird related gags). The appeal of this for me was playing as Mickey through the ages, from Steamboat Willie onwards. A very fun 3D level being chased by a moose follows shortly after and while there are some incredibley difficult bits to negotiate, you just get lost in the charm of the thing.

Realistic looking isn't it ?

N – NBA Jam (SNES) – Now this I just found silly. I simply can’t go along with a sports game that isn’t trying to simulate it correctly. It has it’s many fans and while it is fun to play. I am not a fan of basketball and this just went over my head. Ashamed to say I have this on both SNES and MegaDrive as well as NBA Jam Extreme on PS1. Well thats what happens when you find them at 50p each at the car boot.

I wasn't expecting miracles - but come on ! Look at it !

O – Outrun (C64) – Horrid conversion of the amazing arcade game that drew punters in big style and caused much parting with 10ps at a very quick rate. Of course the Commie was never going to be able to match the arcade original, but what you got was a washed out looking, incredibly slow, pile of poop that wasn’t anything like the original it was based on.

Showcasing the very best the N64 had to offer

P – Pilotwings 64 (N64) – Now here was a game that not only improved on the original looks-wise but kept the great gameplay too. It’s hard to believe Nintendo didn’t attempt to make a Gamecube version of this game, which truly would have been stunning. Complete tasks and levels to earn your marks and pass your courses. A simple enough premise yet highly fun and challenging at the same time.

Errrrr quite literally unremarkable

Q – Question of Sport (C64) – Back in the 80’s there appeared to be a fad for converting popular TV quiz shows and board games to the home computer. This game us, for example, the home computer version of Pictionary, the popular drawing game. Retailing on the Amiga and ST for a mere £24.99 and £19.99 respectively in 1989 – yet the game could be played with a pad of notepaper and a pencil. Alas, QoS was not a good representation of the quiz show and was anything but remarkable.

The kind of game that gives motorcyle gangs a bad name

R – Road Rash (MegaDrive) – Upon first playing this game I was fairly nonplussed. Take a motorcycle along a road and beat some people up along the way. After an hour or so this became rather fun and eventually became one of the games I played most on that system. I don’t think other versions have come close to capturing this original version since, making it a landmark title in video games history.

"Easy left, over jumps, maybe"

S – Sega Rally (Saturn) – Not as smooth as the Dreamcast version and certainly looking raggedy in it’s old age, but the feeling you got from playing it was exactly the same as the arcade. It was one of the showoff titles for the Saturn, which sadly failed to make any impact on the market at all. Shame as it did have some good games for it, and this along with the conversion of Daytona, are two games any Saturn collector must have.

This game had time and involved a crisis. How about that ?

T – Time Crisis (PS1) – Having not played this in the arcade I was sucked into buying the PS1 version because it came with the Namco G-CON45 controller that looked totally awesome. Because firstly you could use said light gun with the other great Namco hit of the day Point Blank and secondly, I lost lots of time (literally) playing this back in the day. Recently I tried it on my LCD TV (remember folks, old school light guns won’t work with an LCD screen) and had to use the joypad. I still got close to the end but missed the feeling of crouching behind a crate, gun in hand ready to blow away some bad dudes.

Either that's Sesame Street or it's a meeting of the British Parliament.

U – Unbelievably I have no games beginning with U. Oh if only for a copy of The Untouchables !

So you create a rock hard character with a tough look....and then you call him Jeffry

V – Virtua Fighter (Saturn) – Like Sega Rally, this hasn’t aged well but was very much a precursor to what we have now in fighting games. At the time they were all 2D, but this was the first to explore that further and gave inspiration to the likes of Tekken and DOA. Both those games ended up being far superior and Virtua Fighter fell away. For me it’s not my favourite genre at all as I can’t be bothered to remember all the button combos. Punch/Kick is good enough for me.

Watcha gunna do ? Well pick Shawn Michaels, keep repeating his finishing move and complete the game very quickly if memory serves me correct.

W – WWF Super Wrestlemania (MegaDrive) – Every games console I have has to have a wrestling game for it. It’s like a tradition really, harking back to Ocean’s WWF Wrestlemania on the Amiga. This was the vastly superior version compared to the SNES release as it had all the proper finishing moves in it. Playing it now though, well it sucks on all kinds of levels. The entrance music themes are still good though.

As usual with games like this I have no idea whats going on

X – X-Men Legends (PS2) – Thank god for the X-Men otherwise this would have been the second blank entry on this list. Actually this is a damn fine game which is very like Marvel Ultimate Alliance in its gameplay, although predates that by a few years. Which reminds me I really should play more of it.

Quite a nice loading screen. Errrmmm not a lot else to add really...

Y – Yes Prime Minister (C64) – Not sure what to make of this. It seems incredibly like the TV show which was a bit before my time and does require a bit more concentration than I am required to put in at times. Maybe one for fans of the show as the humour seems to have been lifted straight from it.

I think Zool is in there somewhere, but my eyes are stinging from all the colour...

Z – Zool (Amiga) – The Miggy’s answer to Sonic in many respects, offering a platformer in the same style with the same speed. Whilst it was popular enough to spawn a sequel and made it onto the MegaDrive and SNES, the quite frankly ludicrous product placement and endorsement of Chupa Chups lollies was too much for some.

Well I hope you enjoyed that. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime, perhaps. Just as long as one of us remembers to bring a game starting with U. Oh, and Y as well as I have only got the one listed here. And maybe a couple more starting with X too……

PS You will notice a lack of games from the NES, Gamecube, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, Game Gear, Dreamcast and just one from PS2. I have all these consoles, I just didn’t include games I had on them. Maybe next time but this was done at random and that is what was chosen.

In this week’s retro column, the Retro Bear goes on a rant about the fine line when deeming a game or games system to be truly retro, and shows he is quite happy playing new generation console games just as much as the old ones…

Originally Posted to GameFancier.com on October 26th 2010

Scouring the internet recently it amazes me just how much of a debate classifying retro games actually provokes. Try telling someone that the PS1 is retro and you are likely to get a volley of abuse in return. Surely a console 15 years in existence deserves to be tagged as retro ? After all it was released before the N64, yet that is deemed to be retro. I can’t really work out what the difference is and can only presume it’s because the PS1 is CD based as opposed to the trusty old cartridge.

Better than the N64 games ? Retro gamers say not

So does that rule out the Sega Saturn ? Apparently not. The same applies to the Dreamcast as well, but strangely enough not the PS2, XBOX or Gamecube. Presumably as you can still play these on the current generation of consoles (if you are lucky PS3 wise to have backwards compatibility), they are not retro enough to be classed as true retro. You can argue these points until you are blue in the face and still there are those who will not be moved from their opinion.

For the majority of retro gamers it has to have the feel of a classic game. That’s why so many “updates” are generally badly received. Yes, there have been exceptions but on the whole these games are disappointing. But why so ? Is it because they have been jazzed up too much ? Is it because they don’t feel like the original ? Or as in the case of Sonic Adventure (reviewed a while back on these very pages) the game itself wasn’t all that good in the first place.

This doesn’t mean that all new games are crap and the older stuff was much better. Games that were dogs back then are dogs now, and some of those games we remember with fondness when revisited actually turn out to be pretty dire too. Any platform game not allowing multiple directions when jumping, football games with the ball stuck to the foot and really bad 3D shooters are just some of the genres where we are grateful for how games are now. How would current gen gamers get along with the likes of Manic Miner, Emlyn Hughes’ Football and Operation Wolf now ?

Anyway, rant over.

The retro cupboard gets rather bare during the winter months

I thought this week I’d delve into just how frustrating it can be to be a retro collector. Now that the majority of the car boot season is over retro games are going to be pretty hard to find. So I am now limited to trawling through charity shops in search of that elusive bargain. I’ve also come to the conclusion it would be much better and less time consuming to concentrate on what I have got and actually play some of the games I already have.

Mrs Bear very sweetly purchased for my birthday a couple of weeks back an Amiga 1200 (thank you you know who you are Mrs Bear). Now given her track record with buying Amigas (the A500 she got from a car boot earlier this year doesn’t work properly) I must admit I was excited but also nervous. Would this actually read the discs this time or would it make that awful screeching noise which indicates that the actual floppy inside the disc is knackered.

Well it was a case of a mixed bag. Some worked fine, some didn’t. The addition of a separate floppy drive helped and I was able to fire up a few classics – Stunt Car Racer and Turrican amongst others. The rest though went from “disc error” to not working at all. It seems it needs a good clean and some TLC to get it back into life. It also doesn’t help that some of the

Geoff Crammond we salute you ! Stunt Car Racer on the Miggy and what a fine game it was - and still is.

games won’t work on the A1200 format anyway, so it’s going to be a real case of trial and error. I shall persevere anyway, as I always do. I am though slightly resigned to the fact that some of the games may never work no matter what I try. Being a collector and gamer there is nothing worse than throwing away broken pieces of software.

Finally on the current generation front I have been revisiting PES 2010 and Guitar Hero again for my sins. I have always preferred the PES games to FIFA although 2010 isn’t a patch on some of the earlier PS1 and later PS2 titles it still provides good entertainment. I have yet to play PES online but may well do in the future (if I can find anyone still playing that version). I have always loved Guitar Hero and Rock Band, having ploughed my way through GH 3, GH World Tour, Beatles Rock Band and Rock Band 1 on the PS3. I therefore decided to revisit GH Aerosmith, which is all good fun except it’s got Aerosmith in it. Well at least I got the guitar free with the game (thats how I look at it anyway)

Till the next time – keep on rockin’.