Atarinvader

Looks like they've got a stack of quality games there. Gunstar Heroes, Comix Zone, Beyond Good & Evil and Crazy Taxi aren't going to set world alite this time round either. Looks like a promising service though.

Good news. I bought a N-Gage to keep me busy until the PSP came back in stock and I could play Lumines. Now I won't have to!

I just bought an N-Gage yesterday. Well, you gotta have a phone, right? So it may as well be the best one for games, which the N-Gage definetly is. *shrugs* Heathens...

I've just gotten past The Big-Claw-Tappy-Tap-Tap-Monster, and things are plain sailing now. That part, it would seem, was very tricky, but the rest of the game is a lot easier. I don't think it helped that I'd run out of amo (except three grenades) out at that part, eiether.

Now I've gotten in to SC: Chaos Theory a bit more I'm starting to enjoy it. The controls aren't as fiddly as they first seem, even though the frame rate isn't great. For it's size, and for the fact you have to carry a phone, the system is pretty neat. I don't have BT dongle, but I do have an MMC card reader, which should be much quicker for transfering larger files like movies. The phone itself is pretty feature packed, but lack of camera is a pain in the ass. Not that I'd ever use a camera. It's got a neat calender and contact feature and is iSync compatiable, which is awesome. Pretty impressed already.

*shrug* No dig, just how I, and a few other collectors I know, felt. You worked for them (I hope they paid you, I know few people got ripped) and got a lot from it. That's good shit. I'd love to see a quality UK-centric retro mag printed, and I'd love to work on it. GamesTM doesn't really cut the mustard. WoR is the nearest thing I can think of, but that's not exclusively 'retro'.

Took a load of gear down to my friendly Gamestation shop for trade-in with the intent to be walking out with either a PSP or some tastey new PC games, however what I did end up walking out with was an N-Gage QD (on account of the PSP and Half Life 2 being sold out). The system came with Splinter Cell, which is crap and I'll probably end up selling, but have purchased from eBay: Monkey Ball, 512MB MMC card and a DVD full of emulators, ROMs and movies etc. What else should I be doing / looking out for on the system? What emus are good? And are movies actually watchable on the system?

I've already posted a few pics of my gamesroom, I think. They're definetly on my blog. Anyhow, here are some more up-to-date ones. My PC, DVD and modern collection. Another of my PC (with my nice true flat Trinitron 19") My TV and consoles currently setup. Also, I have a really nice amp and DVD player which is brilliant for digital 5.1. Honestly, the sound quality is amazing (I'm a bit of an audiophile). The Games Closet, a little bit full. I tend to store my games in these types of boxes, this is part of my MD collection. Probably spot a few Jap shooters. My BIG box of DC, over half of all European releases are in this box, plus loads of NTSC (Jap / US) imports. Box of 2600 games. I gave up collecting Atari a few years back, so this box seems to be very dusty. Rez and Burnout 3 on my DLP video projector - not looking there best. My camera tends to make it seem a bit blurry. The screen itself is a roll down Harkness 6', which is one of the better domestic screens out there. The projector is a InFocus Lite Pro 620 (AFAIR).

It's the way a lot of people that have been in the UK scene felt, too. It really wasn't what we needed to represent our community. The way in which it was written wasn't very subjective, the pros pandered towards videogaming heathens, to the extent where it was patronizing to them as well as us. With no disrespect Mayhem, it seemed as if it had been written by a bunch of Forum Fanbois rather than actual journalists. The printing was poor, the CD was dire (although I'm sure handy for those on dial-up) and the page layout looked atrocious. Being about old videogames was it's only saving grace.

It's the only thing that I installed and ran before all this junk came on my computer. It must have been coming directly from the servers I was connecting to to play. It couldn't have come from anywhere but through CS. I've uninstalled it all now and have no problems.

Yeah, these vids have been knocking around for a while. Pretty damn awesome.

I'm glad it's gone, to be honest. It was awefully misinformed and, in the UK atleast, had brought in a lot of Johny-Come-Latelys who swanned around not giving two tosses about the games, but were mearly interested in their 'value' or 'rarity'. Absolutely hated the magazine, the way it was written and most everything else about it.

Plug in a controller with a offical VMU in place, if it doesn't beep on boot then you have some conclusion that the control ports aren't working. My suggestion is have a poke around, it may just be something loose, the DC's port were notoriuosly badly designed.

I would, EA, who have picked up the rights to HL2, have just confirmed it for Xbox.

Just installed Steam and Counter Strike for a little play, when I exit my sys tray looks like it's been shafted by a giant spyware infected robot that shoots pop-ups from its laser cannons and trojans from its steel jaws. Not too sure what that means, but... uh... there was, like, lots of spyware. Is this installed with Steam, or does it come from somewhere else?

When I used to play platform games as a kid I would always smash all the boxes on screen, needed or not, simply because I felt I had to. Even when I play games now I take too much time to do things like this and I found I wasn't enjoying the game any more. It wasn't until I watched my mate blast through Half-Life that I relised how much I'd actually been missing out on whilst exploring everything.

Is this game difficult or am I getting old, and past my gaming best?

I think - yes, I have shit my pants. I knew my continuos emails to Sega of Japan were making some impact, even though I received no replies. Perhaps this would have come sooner if I'd written in Japanese? I had lost all faith in post-DC gaming, but this has restored it - full strength. And we have Shadow of the Colossus (AKA Ico 2, Nico, Wanda & Colossus...) just round the corner. Woohoopeee. Sega, can we have Rez 2 and Sega Rally 3, too please?

You either had to phone and order it or get it with PSO Vers. 2. It actually, AFAIR, re-flashes the modem with a new dial-up number (of your choice) that could be used with PSO Vers. 2. It does also work with the brilliant DC mouse, which was good. None of the Dreamkeys used to work with phpBB, so you're lucky you can post here now Al's switched the forums.

I've got a couple of Saturns (PAL mk II and NTSC white Jap machine) and I've really never been that impressed with it. I'd go for the DC personally as it received a lot more quality first party releases. Anything really worth play on the Saturn, other than Sega Rally, will be Jap import and will probably cause you to remortage. But then again it's a very popular system among RPG and shooter aficionados. Not as accessible as the Dreamcast due to price, rarity and games, but the 'hardcore' system of choice next to the NeoGeo. Also has some quality 2D fighters, but subsequent cheaper and better version appeared on the - you guessed it - DC. Saturn: X-Men Vs. Street Fighter DC: Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Saturn: Radiant Silvergun DC: Ikarugua Saturn: Sega Rally DC: Sega Rally 2 Saturn: Virtua Fighter 1 & 2 DC: Virtua Fighter 3tb Saturn: Panzer Dragoon Saga DC: Shenmue Gotta take your choice, you're unlikely to love both.

The reason for this is (and always has been) because large retailers like EB are paid by the console companies for shelf space and advertising. Nintendo refuse to pay a premium and as such constantly get pushed to the back or corners of store. Similar happened throughout most of the DCs life - the older companies refuse to take on modern practice and as such lose out.

European PS2s are curious in that when displaying 60Hz mode the system switches from PAL-50 to NTSC-60, so not only will the scan frequency change but also so will the colour encoding (or color encoding for NTSC :-) ). So, you'll be okay with nearly all the games even if your TV isn't PAL-50 compatible. However, you will need a step-up converter which will bring your US standard of 110~120v to 220~240v. These are essentially just transformers (and don't alter the actual frequency of the mains supply) and as such can be found cheaply. Unless, of course, this is a PSTwo, which has an external PSU. In that case you can just replace the PSU with a US version one. Drop me an email / PM if you have any more questions.

If you like Treasure then you'll want to get Astro Boy: Omega Factor, which is very similar to Gunstar Heroes on the Genesis, although much tougher. I enjoyed it loads, and would recommend it to anyone. I personally like the Tony Hawks games, I think that they're probably the most technically impressive games on the hardware. There are also some good Bomberman ports (Tournament is a safe bet) and Street Fighter 3 Alpha, by the late great Crawfish, is a brilliant near-DC port, but not as good as SF2: Turbo Revival IMHO. Breathe of Fire I & II are pretty enjoyable for JRPG fans, Super Puzzle Fighter for puzzle fans and GTA Advance is worth picking up cheap. Also the GBC version of Metal Gear Solid is worth a play. Avoid the King of Fighters games, Jet Set (Grind) Radio and GTO.

Out of what's not been mentioned I'd only add Outrun 2, Halo 2 and Crimson Skies. GTA double pack if you're so inclined. Lego Star Wars is good and I've heard great things about Knights of The Old Republic, but I couldn't speak for the rest (probably lemons).

Is there another label underneath the main front one? It wasn't unusual for Atari to reuse cart cases that had been intended for other games.