Tuesday 27 March 2012

NES-Bit issue 1 is now FREE to download

Yes, you've read that right.

Issue one of the NES-Bit magazine is now free to download in PDF format so now you have absolutely no excuse not to read it. I could go on about how great it is but then I could be accused of being biased so to see how great it is head to the link below and get your FREE copy.

http://www.nes-bit.com/?page_id=5045

Do it, do it now.

Monday 26 March 2012

The situation at Game, pt 4

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that there wasn't an update on Game yesterday, that's because up until yesterday everything was just rumours and today we were going to get official news, well sadly that news is not good.

This morning Game officially entered administration resulting in upcoming store closures resulting in potentially thousands of job losses.

There is still a slim chance that someone may step in and purchase the entire company but the more likely scenario may be numerous companies stepping in and stripping Game of its best assets. Either way the future is now looking very bleak for the future of Game.

UPDATE:

Well a lot has happened since my original post early this afternoon and all of it horrendous news.

Shortly after I hit publish on the post the first stores started to close and continued through out the day resulting in 277 closures and an astonishing 2,104 job losses, absolutely terrible news for the staff. Five of those stores were near me, three that I really was not surprised about but two of them were in towns where it will be a big blow to the area. One of the stores was not that far from me and was a store where I picked up a fair bit of stuff and was slowly getting to know the staff.

Along side the store closures and job losses both the Game and Gamestation websites shut down and Game also announced that they were pretty much suspending anything and everything to do with reward cards, gift cards, returns/exchanges, pre-orders and pre-owned meaning that effectively or you can do in a game store is buy a game,

All in all it's been a horrible day for Game staff and for the UK economy.

A full list of the store closures can be found here:
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/store-closures-begin-at-game-and-gamestation/093365

Sunday 25 March 2012

Mario towels

I have a couple of days off work so thought that in between the gaming I would do some sorting of all of the stuff that we have in the house, of which there is a lot off.

So when sorting through some black bags I found these:


I cannot remember how long I've had them but it's certainly been a few years, possibly even up to twenty years. I do remember using the beach towel when I went on holiday to the coast all those many years ago but beyond that I really cannot remember anything else. Maybe one day the memories will come flooding back but for now I can enjoy the ones that I can remember.

Saturday 24 March 2012

Replay Expo 2012

It was announced yesterday that this years Replay Expo will be undertaking some changes, changes which include the name, place and dates.

Whilst the new name hasn't yet been revealed it was announced that the Expo has been moved from it's Blackpool home of the past two years to Manchester and that instead of the usual November the Expo will now be held in October, 13th and 14th to be precise.

Though I was due to attend last years event, unfortunately I had to give it a miss at the last minute due to moving house. This year though I will definitely be there and if anyone who reads this blog is then come and say hello.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Gamestation purchases

The sun was shining today so I thought I would take a wander through the town to enjoy the rays and ended up popping into Gamestation on my walk and came out with the following:

Ghost Squad for the Wii - £1.98
Resident Evil 4 for the Wii - £3.91 (I had some points to use)
1000 Wii points - £4.99

Been after Ghost Squad for a while so really pleased with that. Also been after Resi for a while, both to play and also for the top 100 Nintendo list and finally the points so that I can get some games from the Virtual Console.

All in all a good wander in the sun.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

The situation at Game, pt 3

Normally I was waiting to write these posts on the Sunday evening but with things happening so quickly I'm also going to write this mid-week post.

Well, where to start.

Since my last post on Sunday there have rumours that Gamestation would be sacrificed to keep the Game stores open, supplier meetings happening and not happening, depending on what/where you read, offers on and off the table etc.

What has happened is that this morning Game requested to suspend trading of it's shares due to being 'unable to assess the business’s financial position, and is of the opinion that there is no equity value left in the Group.'

Shortly afterwards Game filed for administration which will either spell the beginning of the end of Game as we currently know it or the complete end of the company. Game essentially now have ten days to sort itself out. Either way, Game as it currently stands will most likely not be as it is now in a couple of weeks, especially if it's to be believed that the OpCapita deal is all but dead.

One small piece of good news for the staff is that they should be getting paid soon.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Capcom misspellings

The other day I was reading an article on Eurogamer about how Capcom were embarrassed about the fact that Resident Evil: Revelations had been released with it being spelt as Resident Evil: Revelaitons when it was also revealed that more spelling mistakes had occurred.

The recently released Asura's Wrath had on the box "near-impossible chanllenges" and even worse was the trailer for Steel Battalion that spelt Capcom "Capcpom".

Turns out that they can programme and develop games but not use spellchecker.

Monday 19 March 2012

Must stop going in Game

To be fair I did have to go into Game today as I needed to swap Disaster: Day of Crisis for a working copy as I couldn't get the first disc to work. Whilst standing at the counter I noticed that they had Guitar Hero on Tour for the DS, game and peripheral pack for just 98p.

Could not resist at that price.


It's in great condition including the stickers which are unused and plays like a charm. Even if it didn't have the stickers and instructions I couldn't really complain for jst 98p.

Sunday 18 March 2012

The situation at Game, pt 2

Well, it's been a week since I first wrote about the situation at Game and a lot has happened since then, pretty much none of it good news.

I wrote in the original post that the second part of the post would be an opinion on the situation and what Game could do to resolve it but with things again moving so quick I've decided to postpone that and just go through what has been happening in the past week.

It wasn't a great start to the week for Game when it was announced that Rothschild had been brought in to find a buyer for the troubled company, a troubled company where shares had fell to below 1p a share to 0.85p. Things only got worse on Tuesday when it was announced that not one, not two but three games would not be stocked by the company. Ninja Gaiden 3, Warriors Orochi 3 and most crucially Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City were the games not to be stocked.

Wednesday was another kick in the teeth when it was announced that Sega were going to be transferring the Game exclusive DLC for Yakuza: Dead Souls to other shops and Nintendo announced that Kid Icarus: Uprising would not be stocked. There was supposed to be some good news though with report that OpCapita (owners of Comet) had reportedly made an offer for the company.

There was controversy late in the week when MCV sent out the latest edition of their magazine with the front page consisting of the headline 'Gone, time runs out for the UK's super-specialist', reportedly resulting in a lot of hate mail towards MCV. At the same time store closure letters were sent out to customers announcing closing dates, though it must be noted that this was already in the works before the crisis hit. Also it was announced lenders of Game had rejected the offer from OpCapita, resulting in the company being pushed back towards administration.

Finally, it was reported just today that Game needs to find £180m within the next week to pay off creditors or face administration. According to the report the retailer needs to find £21 million in rent, £12 million in wages, £1o million in deferred VAT and £40 million to game suppliers.

All in all it's been an absolutely terrible week for the retailer and unless something happens really quickly in the next week to turn things around it really is not looking good for the company.

Ch ch ch changes

As seen as I've reached 100 posts I thought that I would give a small overhaul of the look of the blog, nothing major just a few touches here and there.

I thought I would brighten the place up by finally adding a banner at the top and maybe play around with the colour scheme a bit, make it not to be so dark. I'm also going to add some bits down the side, do a small about me section, add my Wii codes and the like and finally I'm going to add some new tabs and show off sections of my collection for people to have a nosey at.

So nothing major and it'll probably take a while as I'm always busy, but it should be worth it in the end to spruce the place up.

Saturday 17 March 2012

100th Post

As the title states, this very post is the 100th post of this blog.

It's taken some time and work but I'm pleased to have made this landmark and very pleased to have shared it with some great people and some great blogs. People that I've met, plan to meet and hope to meet and people that I would consider friends. Blogs that I read on a daily basis and comment on and just enjoy looking at.

I must give shout-outs to Reggie over at gamingrockson, Bryan thegaygamer, Simon at redparsley, Marc over at gameandwrite and a finally darkstalker90, all great blogs/sites that you can check out from the list at the right hand side of this page and people who have supported me and this blog for god knows how long.

A thanks must also go out to the new people that have joined along the way and to everyone who takes the time to read and comment. It's all you guys who make it worthwhile.

Thank you.

Thursday 15 March 2012

Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia coming to XBLA

Buy them, buy them now.

Seriously people, if you have XBLA and don't own either or any of these games then you really must buy them when they are released. They are two absolutely brilliant and classic games and really deserve to be played and from a personal point of view, if enough people buy Shenmue then maybe, just maybe, they will finally release a third game.

Buy them, buy them now.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

10th Anniversary of the X-Box

Today for Europe is the tenth anniversary of the original X-box being released, ten whole years, a whole decade has passed since Microsoft first entered the console market.

I never owned one myself as at the time I was taking a break from gaming due to starting to grow up and getting a job/GF etc but I would like to honour the achievement.

I do currently own a couple of X-Box games that I play on my 360 which are The Thing, Jade Empire and Panzer Dragoon Orta which I find enjoyable to play, The Thing being quite a good game I find.

So despite what you may think of Microsoft lets celebrate ten years of the X-Box and of Microsoft entering the console market.

Monday 12 March 2012

One more game from Game

This time it's one that I'm really pleased to have picked up and in such good condition. The game being...

Okamiden for £14.98

Very pleased with that one.

Sunday 11 March 2012

The situation at Game, pt 1

I've been planning to write about the situation occurring at Game for the past week odd but with the way things are going with the company I'd better write about it sooner rather than later.

I'm going to write about this over two posts due to two things. The first is the length of the post(s) and the second is that the first post will cover what is actually happening according to reports and the second post will be offering my opinion on the current situation.

So, where to start.

Well let's quickly go back to 2007 when Game bought Gamestation. The acquisition made Game the largest company selling video games, effectively meaning that they could price games at however much they wanted. This lead to 'gamers' using Gamestation and everyone else using Game for their gaming needs. Between 2007 and now on-line shopping really took off and Grainger Games moved from being a couple of shops up North to opening just under seventy stores. Add to this the economic crisis and Game not changing their pricing strategy things started to look bleak, which brings us to now.

At the beginning of February this year Game announced that they had hit financial difficulties and had lost their credit insurance and were being asked to pay for new stock with cash, something that may have not been possible due to poor Christmas sales. Shares immediately fell, which have never recovered.

Move to a few weeks later and the troubles really started with the news that Game would not be stocking Tekken 3DS and The Last Story. It was also announced on the plus side that Sony would heavily be promoting the upcoming PS Vita through Game, on the negative side, Game would not be stocking any Ubisoft games for the PS Vita. After this the announcements for what games would not be stocked in Game came thick and fast with no Mario Party 9 added to the Nintendo side and from EA, no Mass Effect 3. One of, if not the biggest release of the year would not be being sold at Game. On top of that EA also announced that no games after SSX would be stocked in Game. A massive blow to lose all games from a developer but to really kick them when they were down, Capcom came out and announced that Streetfighter vs Tekken and Asura's Wrath would also not be stocked, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin.

Come Wednesday March 7th and Game start the 'Spring clean' sale where pre-owned games are drastically reduced to as little as 48p in all Game and Gamestation stores resulting in massive volumes of stock being sold and stores being busier than ever. Could this be enough to save Game? Not if reports are to be believed. Just two days ago it was announced that Game had just two weeks to turn things around before entering administration, yet another huge blow to the company and another today when it was announced that the quarterly rent bill will be due in... two weeks.

With this news it's very unlikely that Game will survive and definitely not as the company that it is now. As of writing they have announced that they are looking for a buyer before the rent is due and with Gamestop allegedly sniffing around some stores may end up being sold but it's definitely not looking good for Game.

Saturday 10 March 2012

Yet more games from Game

So today I had to pop to a local village to collect a package from the Post Office and whilst there I popped into Gamestation which also has drastically reduced prices and whilst in there I picked up yet more stuff.

This time I bought:
Wii Play Motion+ with the Motion Plus Wii remote - £17.98
Little King's Story - £1.98
Guilty Gear Core - 98p
Trauma Center: Second Opinion - 98p
Alone in the Dark - £1.98
Prince of Persia - £1.98

I was really pleased with the top two as been after them for a while and the other four games I thought I would check out at that price and if no good I'll just trade them in.

Friday 9 March 2012

More games from Game

So today I popped to a different store of game and picked up some more stuff which were:

Wii Sports Resort with Motion Plus - £17.98
Wario: Master of Disguise - £4.98
Kororinpa - £1.98

I've been after the first two for a good while so was pleased with picking them up but the third game I have to admit I've not heard of so decided to take a shot with it and at just £1.98 I really cannot complain.

Thursday 8 March 2012

Haul from the Game sale

Well, it looks like it's the beginning of the end for game with the huge pre-owned sale that they started yesterday. I was planning to do a post about the situation at Game in the near future so I won't go into that here, what I will go into is the games that I picked up in the sale today.

I picked up five games today for less than a tenner which were Disaster: Day of Crisis, Trauma Center: New Blood and Cursed Mountain. All for the Wii and all £1.98 each. I also picked up WET (£2.98) and Prey (98p) for the 360.

So all in all, not a bad day for bargains. Shame it had to be at the possible expense of a company collapsing.

Monday 5 March 2012

Completed Games February 2012

Metroid Prime Hunters - DS

Just the one game completed in February and I have to say that unfortunately I was rather disappointed with it. I wasn't expecting a game of epic proportions like the Cube/Wii trilogy but I also wasn't expecting a slow and repetitive game.

Sadly Hunters isn't a game that I will be rushing to play again anytime soon.

Sunday 4 March 2012

The Last Story

The Last Story was released over a week ago but thanks to HMV online I didn't receive mine until the Tuesday after release. On the one hand I wasn't too fussed as I'm still playing other stuff but on the other hand people were receiving it a lot earlier, some receiving it before release, and I was getting a little envious as I'd pre-ordered the limited edition.


The limited edition version was only £3 dearer than the normal edition so I had to pay the little extra and what I received was the normal edition, a steel case, an art book and a seven track CD all wrapped inside a nice box. The art book and CD are also packaged inside a blue box.

Overall it's a nice set and I'm glad that I paid the extra, now I just need to find time to play the game.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Nintendisco

So last night I visited Gateshead Library for the visit of Nintendisco, a club night created an run by a couple of guys called Dave Fade and Nicky Biscuit, where they play music whilst the crowd play on some video games.

I'd heard of Nintendisco but had never had a chance to see them anywhere, so with them playing on the doorstep I really had no excuse not to go along and I'm glad that I did.

When I arrived it was busy but not much was happening, X-Men vs Streetfighter (Saturn) was on the big screen and Tatsunoko vs Capcom (Wii) was on the small screen but no-one was playing on either. One of the guys came round to sign people up for the X-Men/SF challenge, which I signed up for, and I had a good chat about some old games and he mentioned that they would be setting up Super Mario Kart on the smaller screen. Music to my ears.

SMK was set up and I went over for a go, won a few races on a winner stays on which was a good laugh and then got called up for the challenge where I won three matches in a row which resulted in winning a prize. The prize being a pull-back Luigi racer, which is actually really good fun when you have laminate flooring.

After that I spent my time playing SMK and having really good chats with new people who share a love for gaming and cosplay, which there was also a friendly competition for and had some interesting characters including Pikachu, Professor Layton and my personal favourite Captain N (who unfortunately didn't win).

All in all it was a really good night, good fun playing old games and meeting new people and if you get a chance and Nintendisco are playing in your area, you really should go along.

http://nintendisco.com

Thursday 1 March 2012

Retro Gamer Issue 100

I just want to say a big congratulations to everyone involved with Retro Gamer magazine for reaching the big 100.

In the modern age of the internet, Kindles, Ipads etc it takes a special something for a printed magazine to reach 100 issues and Retro Gamer is something special.

I received my subscriber copy today and despite only having a quick flick through there is a lot of stuff that I want to read which includes articles about the Spectrum, Sonic, Tetris, 100 classic gaming moments and a look at the US videogame industry crash of 1982-1984.

Alongside all of that the people at RG have reprinted issue one, all the way back from 2004, giving readers who missed out first time round the chance to read where it all started.

With the double header of issue 1 and 100 now would be the perfect time to start reading the Retro Gamer magazine.

Here is to another 100 issues.