Ashton-Under-Lyne Treasures

Cash Generator - 3 Staveleigh Mall, Ladysmith Shopping Centre, Ashton Under Lyne, OL6 7JL (No picture at present)

Guilty Gear X2 - £1.99 - Complete in immaculate condition.

Panzer Drragoon - £1.99 - Complete in immaculate condition.

House of the Dead III - £1.99 - Complete in immaculate condition.

Kung Fu Chaos - £1.99 - Complete in immaculate condition.

Resident Evil Survivor 2: Code Veronica - £1.99 - Complete in immaculate condition.

Scope - 17 Delamere Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. OL6 7LZ

3D Pool - £1 - General immaculate condition although crack on front of case under sticker.

Cash Convertors - 185-189 Stamford Street Central, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 7PY

Eye Toy Play, Sega Superstars & Silver Eye Toy - £2.49 - All in excellent condition, box is battered.

Silent Hill 2 - £2.49 - No manual, cardboard case has got damage, but discs in great condition.

Middleton Treasures

RSPCA Rochdale & District - 1 Middleton Gardens, Middleton, Greater Manchester. M24 1AJ

Various Sports Games - 50p each - All in excellent condition, only bought for the cases to replace damaged ones.

RSPCA Rochdale & District - 12 Old Hall Street, Middleton, Greater Manchester, M24 1AN

Star Wars from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker - 10p - It is in fair condition, some of the centre picture pages are loose, but all there.  Real bargain.

Harpurhey Treasures

Extra Care Charitable Trust - Unit 27, North City Shopping Centre, Lee Road, Harpurhey, Manchester. M9 4DH

December copy of Games TM - 49p - Excellent condition, nice little retro section in the back.

Cash Generator - Unit 4, North City Shopping Centre, Lee Road, Harpurhey, Manchester.

M9 4DH

Star Wars Bounty Hunter - £1.49 - Complete with manual, disc does have scratches but still playable.

Spyro: A new Beginning - £1.49 - Came with manual for Spyro: A Heroes Tail. I already have this game but forgot, I forgot to take my list with me, so one for my trades.

 TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - £1.49 - Complete with Manual, disc is scratched but still playable.

Wreckin Crew - 99p - Complete and in immaculate condition.

Tomb Raider III - 99p - Complete and in immaculate condition.

Quest 14h May 2011

My Quest took me to Harpurhey, Middleton, Royton, Oldham and Ashton Under Lyne. Approximate distance 22 miles round trip, cost £4.80 Any bus Daysaver.

Bog Blog - Super Street Fighter II Revival

I bought Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival for the GBA in October last year and am ashamed to say that I have only just got around to playing it!  I picked it up on EBay for a bargain 99p for the Cart only, no box or Instructions.

Wow, what a game.  This release is a beautiful rendition of the ordinal Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo from the 80’s.  The artwork of the fighters in the title screens are gorgeous, my favourite from all the Street Fighter releases, and I thought these would be taken through to the game but I was wrong.  The game itself is an amazing replication of the original game as I remember it.

I must admit, I am not the best Street Fighter gamer; I can only play Chun lI or E Honda, that’s mainly because of their cheapness. I have never been any good at following through special moves on Street Fighter (or any fighting game for that matter) but the cheapness of Chun Li’s Lightning Kick and Honda’s Hundred Hand Slap make it very easy for me.  In this version Honda is even cheaper as he can move whilst pulling off the Hundred Hand Slap, a feature that I miss from most other versions of Street Fighter.....  I have never really got the hang of any other characters; I guess I haven’t given them enough time.  In order to complete the game with all characters I tend to play through with Chun Li or Honda and then die in the last stage and swap for another character and struggle through the fights.

This is a perfect bog break game as you can make it last as long or short as you like.  Change the settings to easy and 1 round per fight and you can clear the stages quickly and vice versa.  I played on level 5 with Turbo 3 and one round per fight and cleared full stages in well less than 5 minutes.

Bog Blog – Gaming from the smallest room in the house.

Handheld consoles are the perfect way to pass away a little bit of time on the loo.  There is no better way to take advantage of the peace, great acoustics and perfect lighting (especially for those non back lit screens!) that the bathroom gives you.  Keep the magazines and newspapers to read when you are obliged to sit through some soap or reality show the other half forces you to watch.

In my bathroom at the moment I have my GBA, DS Lite and Tiger Game.com.  I do plan to have all the handhelds I have in there, along with the games, but I need to find a decent storage unit for them.  A trip to Ikea is needed I think.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies

It always worries when I see on the front of a game the names of other games the developers have made.  It makes me think that they have to say how amazing their previous games are so please forgive this crap.  I was thankful with this game it wasn't fully the case.

So, in Grabbed by the Ghoulies you take on the role of Cooper, a guy whos Girlfriend has been abducted outside Ghoulhaven Hall, it is Coopers (and of course your)  task to rescue her by fighting off all manner of monsters.

The game looks great, with fantastic detail in each level on both the characters and scenery and the cut scenes are nicely presented in a comic strip style.  The actual control dynamics are also very good with the left stick controlling the character, left and right shoulder buttons controlling the camera and right stick controlling the fighting actions.  It was unusual at first using a stick to control the fighting actions rather than a button, but it worked really effectively as it means you can attack in any direction without having to move the character, very handy when swarmed with skeletons!  Pushing the stick in any direction gives a normal attack, but pushing and holding gives a stronger attack or special attack with one of the special weapons. Various power ups and weapons are scattered all over the place, each of the latter with their own hit count.  Most weapons are very effective but you need to make sure you know what’s best for long or short range attacks as if you are trying to swing a wheelbarrow at an enemy very close up it will often end with them getting a hit in first.  Enemies have a range of hit points to finish them off, from one hit wanders to the more challenging Ghoulie, but to be honest all of them are pretty easy to overcome. Even though this means some enemies take longer to fight off, it doesn’t really make them any more difficult to defeat.

For me Grabbed by the Ghoulies feels far too linear as you don’t get to wander around; rather you are guided along by the story and from cut scene to cut scene.  I feel the game would work much better if it was completely free roaming and you could just explore and figure out the puzzles of where to go next and how to open doors etc.  The linear aspect to the game makes it rather boring and easy as you don’t have to use your brain at all, there is also no real challenge in the combat.  It also doesn’t help that there are so many cut scenes between each stage.  It can take a matter of a minute to finish a stage then you have to go through a cut scene that takes the same amount of time, before you get another short stage and cut scene.....and so on, it just makes the game drag too much and I just found my interest in the game waning.

Throughout the game I couldn’t help but think how much better it would have been if it had been produced as Luigi’s Mansion 2. The game play from Luigi’s mansion would have worked perfectly and as I played I could hear the voice of Luigi ringing out....Mario.....Mario...........

All in all though I did enjoy the game, it looks great and plays fairly well.  It is an easy game to play and would be fun for younger less experienced gamers.  I picked my copy up for 99p with £1.50 postage from EBay, it was in fair condition but unfortunately no manual. It’s worth a go, I don’t regret my purchase at all.

One little thing, there is a Cook called Ma Soupswill that you have to find ingredients for to help Amber.  However I found her voice, well the noises she made, stereotypically Jamaican; very similar to Jim Davidson’s not very PC Chalky character. I hate Jim Davidson......

The day I owned The Simpsons

My biggest gaming prowess was completing The Simpsons arcade game in Bridlington, Yorkshire.  This was, as many times before with other things, to my parents annoyance as they had to sit around and wait for me to finish.  It was an unusual arcade machine as it was only 10p a go rather than the usual 50p or £1, so I wasn’t bothered how many turns it took me.  I played as Marge, I have always preferred female characters, and throughout the game I was joined by other kids now and then, usually playing as Bart.

It was a big thing for me as I had never, and still haven’t really, played a game all the way through and won.  It was just a disappointment that I got no reward or prize for it, no little cup or even just a certificate to prove that I had beaten a game. 

I have never played on the game since and would love it on a console now so I can once more feel the power of the win!

The gaming addiction starts

So in September last year I started collecting retro and more recent video games and consoles.  

It all really stemmed from me reminiscing and the Philips CDi.  I started searching EBay for  Philips CDi as I really wanted one when I was a kid but didn’t get one.  I watched a number of them but didn’t really plump for one, I just kept doubting myself when going to bid.  I knew I also wanted a SNES and a Megadrive, but for some reason I was drawn to a Gamecube initially. I had never really noticed them before; I was too much into my Playstation, so when one came up for £4 I thought why not? 

This was the start of what is now a largish and pretty costly collection.

As well as many EBay purchases, games and consoles, I also discovered Cash Generator and later Cash Converter.  I had never been in one of these shops before so braved my local Cash Generator in Manchester City Centre.  I was astounded to find some amazing games (Gamecube, PS2, PS1 and later many other consoles) for between 99p and £2! Needless to say I bought many on that first eventful visit.

Initially I started to go to the car boot sale once or twice a month with lacklustre results. I would pick up bits and bobs but I needed more..... I looked back at the amazing results I had in Cash Generator and decided that I would visit a few more around Greater Manchester.  In order to maximise my hauls I also included Cash Converters, other pawn shops (not CEX it’s too expensive as a rule) and charity shops.  For about 8 weekends on the trot I would visit four or five towns around Greater Manchester and surrounding areas with a list of Charity shops and pawn shops I had researched off the internet.  I had some amazing finds and a few disappointments, but in all I had so  much fun bringing out my latent caveman hunter gatherer skills.  I still do my “quests” but not every week, it gets me out and about and mingling with the general public LOL.  Initially I thought I was the only one who did such a crazy thing, but I have since seen around the internet other collectors do, it’s a great way to get bargains.  You do have to be careful though as some of the pawn shops know the worth of games and systems and so charge as such, similar with the Charity shops.  But you do find some that have no idea and you get ridiculously cheap rare games.

WARNING!  If you are thinking about doing it in Manchester and surrounding towns then don’t, it’s my area and I am not afraid to mark my territory if needs be! ;-) LOL

Retro Gamer Magazine

Picked up my copy of Retro Gamer mag today, had a flick through it but not read anything yet. I have a rule that when I get a new magazine I can flick through it but can’t read anything, just look at pics and read headings,  in that first flick.  Im just OCD like that LOL.  Looking forward to reading the Street Fighter 2 article and the one on the C64.

I only started reading the magazine a few months ago after picking up a couple of old copies for £1.50 on EBay. I did know of it before this, but at £4.99 a pop I was always a bit reluctant to buy it.  Anyway, I decided that on every pay day I would treat myself and I have really enjoyed it, so much so that I have now subscribed.  Subscribing is a good deal at £5 for the first 3 issues and then £21 every 6 issues, can’t really grumble at that.