November Retro game purchases 2019

On the 1st of November I started my retro puchasing by going in to an indy games store and I grabbed a Metalic pink DS lite with a paw print on it and charger for £15 and I also grabbed Super RC Pro Am cart only for Gameboy for £3 which I dont think was to bad a start to the month

On the 8th I grabbed a few bits from a pawn store I visited I got LA Rush for Xbox complete for 50p,MechAssault 2 Lone wolf for Xbox complete for 50p, Commandos strike force for xbox complete for 50p, Doom 3 for Xbox complete for 50p, Black for xbox complete for 50p, Miami Vice for Xbox complete for 50p, The Chronicles of Riddick escape from butcher bay for xbox complete for 50p, OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast for psp missing manual for £2, Driven for Gamecube complete for £2 and Tetris 2 cart only for gameboy for £3

On the 11th I went to a diffrent pawn store and got Orphen: Scion of Sorcery for ps2 complete for 50p, Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets for ps1 complete for 50p, Destruction Derby for ps1, disc and manual in empty playstation case for 50p and NBA Courtside 2002 for gamecube complete for £1

 

On the 18th I once again found myself in a pawn store where I grabbed Burnout 3 for Xbox missing manual 50p, Prince of Persia warrior within for Xbox missing manual 50p, Mechassault for Xbox complete 50p and SSX on tour for Xbox complete 50p

As soon as I got home I  had a bash on Burnout 3 , shoved it in the Xbox 360 and played it using backwards compatability and all I can say is that I still blooming love this game just as much as I ever did.

On the 20th I grabbed a few charity shop bitswhich I was fairly happy with. I got Fifa street 2 for xbox complete for 50p, crash bandicoot the wrath of cortex (classics version) for xbox complete for £1, The sims 2 pets for psp complete for £1 and World Rally Championship for psp complete for £1

The last retro thing I grabebd was on the 27th when I visited an indy shop and grabbed a few bits, I got Ganbare Goemon (AKA mystic Ninja) Japanese cart only for Nintendo 64 for £3.50, Super Puyo Puyo Japanese complete SNES/Super Famicom game for £5.50,  Space Invaders Japanese Complete SNES/Super Famicom game for £7 andDonkey Kong Country Japanese cart only for SNES/Super Famicom for £3

So my total spend this month on retro gear was £56.50 which for me I would consider a sort of middle amount compared to how much and how little I have spent in the past. For me the highlight is simply all the great original Xbox stuff I grabbed for so little. Retro gaming is always seen as an expensive hobby but I think deals like this show that if you look around and dont jump at the first thing you see you can actually retro game on a budget.

My Retro Purchases June 2018

I started my months purchases on the 6th of June with Thunder Birds Japanese cart only for the SNES arriving in the post, it cost me £3, postage was free so I think this was a pretty good pick up. I also went in a semi local retro shop on the way home from work and grabbed Sonic 2 for game gear cart only for £1.

On the 8th I went to an Indy store and I grabbed Gauntlet 2 cart and manual for NES for £5 and Hook for NES for £5 , in my opinion anytime you can get a NES game for £5 and its not a sports title then you just kind of have to jump on it.

On the 10th on the way home from work I grabbed Asterix and the Great Rescue for megadrive cart only for £. I have to admit to having been a huge Asterix fan as a kid. 

Things were quiet on the retro purchasing front then until the 17th when I spent £1 on a complete copy of Grand Turismo 4 for the PS2 which also happend to have a memory card in the case and the disc for Project Silpheed the lost planet in the case tucked into the manual. Not bad for £1 at all really.

On the 21st I grabbed two loose NES carts, RoboCop for £6 and StarWars for £7.

On the 21st I went to a charity shop, a charity shop which usually wants £3.99 for any game you could possibly call retro whatever format its on and even if it is just an old ps2 copy of FIFA. Well surprisingly this time they had a sign up saying they had too much stock and any product with a red dot on it was only 25pence and so I got the following games all complete all for 25pence each Brave: The Search For Spirit Dancer for PS2, The Jungle book grove party for ps2, Singstar Anthems for ps2, Medal of honor European assault for xbox, Sensible soccor 2006 for xbox, James bond everything or nothing for xbox, Splinter Cell for Xbox, and Mashed for xbox

On the 22nd I once again found myself in a charity shop and I grabbed The Lost World: Jurassic Park complete for PS1 for £1.50.

My last purchase of the month happened on June the  26th when I went into a charity shop and  I grabbed Tony hawk's underground complete for Xbox for £1, Halo (classics edition) complete for Xbox for £1 and Project Gotham racing 2 (classics edition) complete for £1. I might have ignored them if it wasn't for the fact that they were in amazing condition with totally scratch free discs.

So in June I spent £38.50 on retro games which is actually a pretty low amount for me, as for star pick ups I would argue that it wasn't much of an eventful month and I don't think I really have a favorite purchase, so lets see what next month brings.

Microsofts Xbox One is now backwards backwards compatable kind of..... (Some Xbox games are now playable on the Xbox One)

Towards the end of 2015 Microsoft idea of Xbox engineering boss Mike Ybarra broached the subject of making original Xbox games playable on the Xbox One through backwards compatibility he said that the feature hadnt been ruled out, but that we shouldn't expect it to come anytime soon. Well I guess if he was right or not depends largly on your definition of soon as now towards the end of 2017 we now have original Xbox games on the Xbox one through backwards compatability.

Xbox One backwards compatibility works by emulating the Xbox 360 operating system and then running the games through this apparently, well after having tried one of the Xbox original games on the Xbox one it would appear that they are doing the exact same thing as when you go to play the game you see the original Xbox start up screen.

Currently there are only 7 original xbox games in my country at least which are on the list of those which are currently playable via the Xbox one, and there are basically two ways to play them. One is you simply buy them on the Xbox store and the other is if you have a copy of the disc you can put that in. If you put the original disc in though you dont actually play the game of the disk, the disk simply proves that you own it, you are then allowed to download it but can only play it while the disk is in the slot, still its great that they have made it work in this way because if you have the game your not forced to pay for it again and even if you dont have the disk you can look if its cheaper to source a copy before paying for it digitally.

So far the original xbox games are Black, Ninja Gaiden Black, Crimson Skies, Fusion Frenzy, Psychonauts,  Sid Meiers Pirates, and Grabbed By The Ghoulies. Now with the exception of  Fusion Frenzy I think they are all darn fine games some of the best from the machine. I would argue that now you can buy Rare Replay which features Grabbed by the Ghoulies and a whole other bunch of games its a bit of a redundant purchase but I guess if you have it laying around then its free and you cant complain about free. For those of us who collect old games though this is a great thing, it might not be a lot of games now but it will be great to see which games end up on the list. I have noticed while looking up Knights of the old Republic that game is also on the xbox store and you can buy it to play on your Xbox one, I have this game on disc but I havent gotten round to trying it yet.

I have tried Crimson Skies though and it worked a treat, I enjoyed playing it again and it ran perfectly, if every single game runs like this then it will be awesome. So I guess the last thing to say is what games would I like to see on the list next right? Well I am going to do that but I am going to stick to games which already appeared on the list of Xbox original games that you could play on the Xbox 360 as well I think these are the most likly ones we will see.

• Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
• Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II
• The Bard's Tale
• Blinx: The Time Sweeper
• Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space
• Blood Omen 2
• Brute Force
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds
• Burnout
• Burnout 2
• Burnout 3: Takedown
•  Conker: Live and Reloaded 
• Dead or Alive 3
• Dead or Alive Ultimate
• DOOM 3
• EA SPORTS Fight Night Round 3
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick
• Evil Dead: Regeneration
• Fable
• Fatal Frame
• Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly DIRECTOR'S CUT
• Future Tactics: The Uprising
• Genma Onimusha
• Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee
• Godzilla: Save The Earth
• GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
• Grand Theft Auto: 3
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Indigo Prophecy
• Jade Empire
• JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future
• Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis 

The truth is that I could go on and on listing games I would like to see on backwards compatability but the fact I have already made quiet a bit list very quickly shows that there is a good catalog of games for them to pick from. Part of the fun though will be to see what comes up as playable in the future and run to my retro game collection to see if I have a copy of it sat there.

Happy Birthday XBOX (UK Birthday)

15 years ago on this very day the 14th of March 2017, the original Xbox was released in the UK. Now I am not going to bullshit and claim that I was there cuing for the machine on its very day of release, the only machine I got near its release that generation was the gamecube (I didnt even preorder that or get it the day of release, I got it a few days latter), I did however love the machine once I got one.

So what was the first game I played on my Xbox when I got it, well it was Halo of course. Whatever you think of the Halo franchise the original was simply put a system seller. It was a very impressive game for its time and it marks a very good early console business decision by microsoft. Originally Halo Was set to be an apple Mac Exclusive. Now Mac owners dont always have that good a time when it comes to games, not that many end up being made to work on the system and even fewer have been made exclusivly for it but a title called Marathon was proberbly one of the biggest highlights game wise for Mac owners, this was made by Bungie, at one stage Steve Jobs announced that Bungies next game Halo would be a Mac Exclusive and it was looking darn impressive. Microsoft needed a good looking strong game for their Xbox launch lineup and so what did Microsofts Bill Gates do? Well he simply bought Bungie outright thus claiming Halo both the game and the intellectual property and had it rebuilt to be an Xbox exclusive. I doubt Microsofts gaming division would be where it is now without Halo but they didnt just buy an impressive game that people would feel they need, oh no they advertised the hell out of the machine. The original advertising campaign for the Xbox was pretty darn crazy, it went by the name 'Champagne' it was a TV add in which you saw a woman in an emergency room delivering a baby. The child shoots out of her like a cork from a champagne bottle (hence the name) and flies into the, traveling rapidly and ageing at an alarming rate. By the end of the advert the small child has become an old man and you get to witness himcrashing into an open grave, this then cuts to a black screen which shows the words ‘Life is short. Play more.’

The ad was a little shocking and was in fact banned after airing for three months due to complaints from viewers to the Independent Television Commission. I think though that by then it had done what it set out to do. People talked about the advert which then often transitioned into people talking about the console and about Halo which drove sales. The machine didnt turn out to be the greatest selling console of all time or anything in fact it basically got its ass handed to it by the PS2 but importantly it managed to go toe to toe with Nintendo selling a very simmilar number of units, which for a company new to the console market is very impressive, sure Sony might have been even more impressive with its first console the Playstation crushing both Sega and Nintendo but Microsoft had certainly built a firm foundation upon which they could and have built.


There are a million stories I could tell you about the Xbox, about all of its possible names, some great games which came to the system or about how brilliant a hacked one can be, seriously a lot of things that we take for granted now that a console can do home entertainment wise the original Xbox was doing years ago with a little gentle nudge from chippers and home coders, ultimatly though I just want to end this here by saying Happy Birthday Xbox.

A look at making the most of Xbox One backwards compatability

Since the release of Xbox One Backward Compatibility Xbox One uses have been able to play certain Xbox 360 titles on their Xbox Ones, with more titles being added regularly to the list of available games. Since the update which added backwards compatability all of the Xbox 360 games added to games with gold have been ones which are playable on the Xbox One. There are other games however ones which although compatable havent been offerd for free yet, however if you have already purchased them then you can download them on your Xbox One or you can pay the xbox live asking price or wait for a sale involving said title or you can get creative and make the most of backwards compatability with the least money possible.

Capcoms DarkVoid is £14.99 via Xbox Live, which well a lot of peope would proberbly say is not worth it after all it didnt receive the gretest reviews only scoring a metacritic score of 59, however I actually found it a pretty darn fun game, going so far as to complete it twice. I wont get in to a discusion of whether this old game is worth spending £14.99 on digitally because I want to point out the fact that you can buy a second hand physical copy of this game for so little that you have almost nothing to loose, in fact I picked up a complete copy from my local granger game today for £1 and its not like granger is your only option CEX apparently only charge 80pence for it, Game will deliver a second hand copy for £1.99. With disc-based games that are a part of the Back Compat game catalog, all you have to do is insert the disc and the console will begin downloading the game to your hard drive. After the game has finished downloading, you will still need to keep the game disc in the drive to play. Yeah its not as good as just having it digitally there but it is a very cheap usefull way of trying out the backwards compatability function and enjoying more games without spending much.

A full list of current compatable games can be found here https://majornelson.com/blog/xbox-one-backward-compatibility/ some of them are arcade only download titles but others are available on disc for very little not just Dark Void.Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 are cracking games which can also be grabbed from CEX, Game or Granger
for pretty much the same price. Gears of War 1, 2 and 3 as well as Mass Effect, border lands and Alan Wake can all be got for pretty much sub £5... At the very least its worth taking a look at the list and keeping your eyes open to take advantage of the awesomeness that is backwars compatability.

Desert Island Games.. Xbox (the original).

I am sure everyone is familiar with top 5 and top 10 lists, I can also bet that the majority of people have heard of the basic concept of having to pick 5 records or 5 books or something with which you could survive for a long time on a desert island or another isolated place so here is that but with games.

So what I am going to do is to pick a system every now and then and do a post on it desert island style. I might not pick the best games as I am not thinking about this from a purly critical point of view but more of a mental survival one.. Now I know most desert islands dont come with generators and power supplys so I want you to imagine that for the purpose of this we are talking about being stranded on a desert island with a lost style bunker with its own generator and food supply, yeah You can leave the bunker and scavange for extras or go for a walk but that power aint ever running out nor is the water or food so the real point of the games are to give you something to do to stop you loosing your mind.

I did think about starting with the oldest machine I had used and going from there but instead I thought it would be fun to throw the great wheel of randomisation and start in any old place and just push forward with no regard for sequence.

Ok so the Desert Island consolefor this post will be The Original XBOX.

If you were stuck on a desert island with 5 original xbox games and a machine to run them on what would you go for ? Well despite not being the leading console of its generation the original Xbox did have a heck of a lot going for it and a pretty darn solid libery of games in fact if you count games from all over the world including exclusives then nearly 1000 were released. So to round it down to 5 is not an easy task. I am also taking into account that I am not going to get online with it so I wont be saying oh I will take this so I can talk to people online while playing to fight the lonlyness.

Ok so my first choice for a game would be Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Now as I am sure most people know this game got absolute rave reviews, and is considerd an all time classic. Sure I have played it a heck of a lot I finished this and the sequel a long time ago but have found myself drifting back to both of them now and then. I would pick it is because with all of the different options there is quiet a bit of replay value, its also a decent length to start with anyways. Its basically a long RPG set in a universe I love and I know it would be good for multiple run throughs, I could try being the most evil character, I could try being  good one, I could baasically play it so many times that I saw the result of every single dialog option and choice, and lets face it in this situation this is a very good thing as if you have no way of getting more games then you want games that take a long time to finish and have a lot of reasons to keep replaying.

Star Wars Republic Commando. I love this game, its a first person shooter set in the starwars world with tactical squad control elements. You play as the boss of a 4man team of clone trooper Commando's. Theres shooting, order giving but its all brought to life by the witty bantter that goes on amongst the team. I cant think of a game which would be better for sort of fooling you that you were not alone. Yes it might be in the same universe as KOTOR which makes it seem like an odd choice but although its set in the same rough place it takes a very diffrent view of things to the point that they might as well be set in tottally diffrent places.

Project Gothem racing 2. Id need a good car game, and I think this was proberbly the best on the system. Yeah Forza was on there but I dont find the original Forza to be good enough, its a little rough around the edges and over demanding, where as PGR2 is just a pure pleasure. It has that arcadey one more go nature to it and if you look at perfecting your racing line and trying to always beat your own times then the milage you could milk out of this game could potentially be almost limitless. Yes I was tempted to go with Forza cause its tough and it takes a lot of effort to be good at it but I think ultimatly Gotham 2 takes just as much effort to be a pro at but its a lot easier to just get racing have some fun and keep slowly improving over, it just feels a lot more like fun than hardwork.

Phantasy Star Online Episodes I & II I know I already kind of have the rpg side of things nailed down with KOTR but I love this game, the fact it takes a crazy long time to see everything this game has to offer really helps, there is always a new gun or sword to find, pus to max your character out takes forever and then there are multiple classes. I know I couldnt go online which is one of the things this game was sold on but I still really enjoy it offline, it takes ages to max out a character and you are always finding some new weapon or armour around every corner

And for the 5th game

Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude—Uncut and Uncensored! Yeah its not the highest rated game and it is a touch silly but that's the point it makes me laugh and it would probably be pretty depressing stuck on a desert island in a lost style bunker on your own eating coconuts and playing on a games console. So this would be my silly game for when it all seemed liked to much. This game would most likly never find itself on a top ten games you must own on the Xbox thread or video and without looking I would assume it has the worst reviews of aanything on here but here I feel it fits, it makes me smile and that is why it creeps on to this list.

Have any issues with my list or find your own to be very diffrent then feel free to let me know in the coments :)

This Months retro Video Game purchases:November 2015

OK so it is that time of the month again, the time when one month is pretty much over and a new one is about to begin, so its is once again time look at the retro purchases I have made. The honest truth is this is going to be a very short list/post. One of the reasons I haven't really gotten much is that I have been trying to sort Christmas out, then there is the fact that with Black Friday and other related sales I have tended to focus on newer games just because that is where the savings have really been. In general I tend to find myself going through stages of extreme retro purchasing ignoring the modern gaming world and then periods where I reconnect with nowadays games, still back to the retro purchases.

On November the 3rd I got Evil twin cypriens chronicles for playstation 2 complete for £1.50 and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis for PC for £1.50. This is about the 4th time I own Jurassic Park Operation Genesis on PC now, its a good game but I obviously don't need it this many times its just one of those games that I know fetches a decent little amount so I keep my eyes peeled for it (it goes for anywhere from £15 to £35 for the PC Version on sites like ebay which is quiet a lot for an old PC game. These both came from a charity shop which I just tend to check whenever I am walking past it.

On Friday November the 6th I got The Incredable Hulk for Wii boxed but with no manual for £3 and Namco Museum remix for the wii complete for £4 from my local Granger Games. I have heard a lot of good things about hulk but its been like £15 every time ive ran in to a copy in the past, the lack of a manual is a touch annoying but oh well, I guess this is something I need to get used to seeing as nowdays your lucky to even get a scrap of paper with the basic controls written on it when it comes to modern games.

On Friday November the 13th I grabbed a copy of Mario Slam Basketball for the DS Complete for £8 from an indie shop.I have played it quiet a bit in the past and really wanted to own it and this is the cheapest Ive seen it for so was quite happy to make the plunge.

My last retro purchase was on Monday November the 16th I purchased Crimson skies high road to revenge complete for Xbox for 50pence and Zathura complete for xbox for 50pence.

As you can see this slim list was hardly worth a blog post. In the same period of time I have and this is of the top of my head purchased Fallout 4 for Xbox One for £35, Transformers Devastation for Xbox One for £19.99, Disney Infinity 3 with starwars figures for Wii U for £21.50, The walking Dead the escapists for £10, Shovel Knight for PS4 for £10, Freedom Wars for Vita for £10, Chibi Robo 3DS for £10 all new and then a bunch of second hand titles as well Batman Arkham knight for Xbox one for £12.75, Dragon Ball Xenoverse for Xbox one for £15.75, BloodBorne for PS4 for £15.75, Tearaway unfolded for £15. Most of this was due to black friday and lead up to black Friday sales at various different places.

So not a good month for Retro but a decent month for spending on gaming in general.

This Months Video Game purchases:September 2015

OK so it is that time of the month yet again, the time when one month is over and a new has begun so its is once again time look at the retro purchases I have made. At the end of last month I said that I was sure that this month would be a lot less exciting when it came to game purchases partially because of my fiancées birthday and the need to spend money treating her right. Well I am happy to report I took her out for a nice meal the day before her birthday and one on the date of her birthday, I tried to take her to rocky horror live but the cinema failed me on that one, I also brought her a Pandora charm, a Camera one because she loves her cameras and taking pictures, a tinker-belle mug and two stuffed Disney toys she wanted and I feel I got a passing grade there. Don't worry though I still found a bit of cash for a game or two.

I received a copy of Carl Ripken Jr Baseball for the Snes a loose pal region cart which cost me £3 including postage on the 3rd of the month then didn't get or even really look at anything else at all until the 11th. On the 11th I visited an indoor market and from a games trader I got myself a Super Nintendo Super Scope for the nice price of £5, yeah there not usually a fortune to buy but its the first time I have seen one in the flesh for a long time, I have seen them online but usually they've been lacking parts or the person has wanted a fortune in postage so it was just quiet nice to pick this up and take it home. I also picked up a Japanese NTSC Fatal Fury SNES cart for £2.50 and a Japanese Battle Dodgeball SNES cart for another £2.50 Battle Dodge ball has a bit of a language barrier but its fun, Basically your playing Dodgeball with a team of Japanese Manga/Anime robots including Grandizer, Star Avenger, Mazinger and such.

I didnt buy anything retro games wise then until the 17th. This is where I have to give a big shout out to the fiance. Basically I had taken her to town so that she could go do a short shift at work. The shift was infact only a few hours long so I decided that seeing as she was supposed to be coming back to mine to get ready for dinner out and a cinema date latter (the afformentioned Rocky Horror Live) that I would just walk around town, maybe get a coffee and a sandwich or check out a few game shops. This is when I found myself in game. My visits to game don't usually last that long, I look at sales and I look at PSP games they might have kicking around and then leave but on this day I looked down at the Wii games and I noticed that they had a copy of  Xenoblade Chronicles for £15 I dived down on it like a hawk, gave the box a quick once over and headed to the till to buy it. Once I had paid I took a good long look at it, the Box, cover, manual and disc were all pretty darn perfect so I have to say this is my buy of the month, as I have wanted it for a long time (It is now sitting proudly next to my copy of the Last Story, Pandora's tower and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn).

On the 19th I managed to further add to my list of Wii games I am really happy I own by grabbing Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for £5 from another store in town.

On the 22nd I got myself a nice little pile of games from a charity shop. I got Grand theft Auto Vice city,Grand Theft auto 3 and Age of Empires 2 for the playstation 2. Hunter The Reckoning, Return to castle Wolfienstien ,Mech Assault , Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy xbox and Sega GT2002 and Jet Set Radio Future on one disc with manual and case but no front cover all for xbox. All of them were £1 each, so £7 in total.

My other half spent £23 on getting me a lot of 4 SNES carts, Claymates, Asterix, Cool spot and Tiny Toon's Wild and Wacky sports.. Happy as I have been wanting Wacky Sports for a long time.She did this as she wanted to treat me for getting a new job. I know how much she spent because she wanted to get something I really wanted and not pay through the nose for it, she likes her games a lot but is far less knowledgeable about retro games and what's worth a lot or a little. What she is though is incredibly supportive of my hobbies.

It was a somewhat hectic month, I had my fiancées birthday to buy for and celebrate, had to attend court as a witness, had a job interview and then started a new job which always seems to mess up my finances and worry me a little as one lot of money stops and another doesn't seem to quiet start at the right time to cover it and obviously the more I am working the less I am routing through second hand shops and such. So I guess now going forward I get to see if my change in schedule leads to me spending more or less either way I leave this month happy that I managed to get myself Xenoblade and that my wonderful supportive Fiancee got me a snes cart I have been wanting for quiet some time.

My review of the Forza 6 Demo

So with Forza 6 out in a handful of days I decided to try the Forza 6 Demo, now I have to admit going in to it I had zero desire to buy the game, why you might ask? Well basically I am still playing and enjoying Forza 5 and Forza Horrizon 2 both feel and look awesome to me and I have got a lot of enjoyment out of them and feel they still both have a lot to give especially as I brought the Storm Island add on for Forza Horrizon 2 in a sale and haven't even touched it yet. So I decided I would play the demo, I would review and see if it made me want the game more or less. After all a demo is meant to sell a game so maybe it will alter my opinion on it, it may help me decide how long I would be willing to wait and the kind of price I would  be willing to pay for it and this might also help other people in a similar position to me.

One of the things I liked about the Forza 5 when I first started playing it was the fact it had the Top Gear guys in it, listening to them introduce aspects of the game really got me pumped to play it and to try different types of event. I was pretty sure that what with all the fuss of Clarkson being fired that they wouldn't be in this game, although I have to admit anyone could be connected to it as I haven't been really paying attention to any news relating to it. There was a lot of speeches in Forza 5 about the nature of speed and man's never ending quest to find the perfect machine it was sometimes in danger of feeling like it was trying to push some kind of artistic merit a little too hard but it always seemed to walk the line very well. So I start the Forza 6 demo up and I am met with a video there are two kids facing each other and one is throwing stones and stuff and a voice begins narrating and talking about why do we race while it sort of flicks back from the kids to cars and well it really drops the soap as this time it doesn't walk the line at all. I have no idea who is talking I just know that is sounds like pretentious bollox, if they couldn't get someone who despite some of his questionable qualities can talk in a way that is passionate without tipping over the line like Clarkson then they just shouldn't have bothered.

After finishing my first race what do I think? Well it controls well and the graphics are beautiful but I don't think its a massive leap forward, it looks a lot shinier and the light seems more realistic than in its predecessor, in some ways it feels like the Forza Horrizon 2 graphics and engine pushed in to the Forza 5 framework which seeing as they are both brilliant games is no bad thing. I think the on-screen HUD parts your spedo, map etc all look much cleaner and stick out better than in Forza 5 which is a nice if minor improvement, I would also say that the menu screens and such have a nicer look to them, it seems to feel a little windows 10 inspired and also reminds me of some of the screen shots I have seen for the Xbox One's next supposed overhaul, so maybe thats what they are going for a sort of overall matching theme that feels friendly and inviting. Its a nice step forward but its not like after playing this I am going to look back at the past entries I still own and go oh I don't think I can play these any more they look so primitive.

As a demo I really have to give credit to Microsoft for Forza 6, I have played some car game demo's in the past where you get about one lap in one car to decide if you like the game or not, but in this game you get to experiance full races in a few diffrent types of car. This means that you will leave this demo. I particularly enjoyed the showcase race it put me in. In this race I was driving an Indy car, now up to this moment I had thought that the game hadnt seemed any faster or more thrilling than Forza 5 but the way the Indy car racing was handled the sense of speed just seemed out of this world, it really thrilled me and to be honest made me even more glad I had traded F1 2015 in because in comparison that feels super pedestrian. My recomendation is to download this demo straight away and give it your all you wont regret it.

So am I now going to run out and buy the actual game straight away? No. I do like it but I want to see more of Forza 5 and Forza Horrizon 2, I will catch this when I see some special deal or cheap second hand version that I simply cant help but buy. I am tight though, I am sure many others will happily jump on this and if I got a winning lottery ticket or a spare little wedge of cash fell from somewhere then I think I would be joining them.

Why do we have only one real type of movie medium and yet a whole bunch of competing consoles?

The world of Video Games is very different to the world of films. Sure both of them contain lots and lots of different products for sale but the real difference is the platforms that these products are sold on.

In the world of films there was initially a fight between several types of media for dominance but eventually VHS became the dominant tape based medium for viewing films, then we progressed on to DVD's and now we are in the process of moving on to Blue Rays even if the transition seems to be a slow one. Sure there were some abandoned mediums along the way Beta Max, VCD's. Laser Discs, HD DVD's but it has mostly been a fight for dominance with the loser simply fading away a million films to watch but only one dominant medium on which to do it at anyone time, with maybe the last big medium just hanging around for those who cant afford the newest thing or are resistant to change.

Gaming has never been like this there has pretty much always been two or more competing platforms which have been at each others throats for there whole lifespan, usually with each of these being replaced by its successor with things carrying on much as they were before. Sure sometimes a competitor has bowed out and another has taken its place on the dance floor, Sega has gone 3rd party and stopped producing its own machines, and Microsoft has entered the market etcetera.

There have been attempts at approaching the idea of a single format for Video games with the most notable attempt being The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer or as it was better known the 3DO. The 3DO Company, founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins was created with the objective to create a next-generation, CD-based video game standard.

The idea was that people would be sold the license and specifications to manufacture there own version of the 3DO, so you would have a Panasonic 3DO, a Sony 3DO, a Samsung 3DO and etcetera. The 3DO company would make most of its profits via the royalty rate they would receive per game sold, apparently the royalty's paid were going to be much lower than those that you had to pay to sell a game on either Nintendo or Sega platforms.

Pretty much every electronics manufacturer was approached. However, Sony had already begun development on their own console, the PlayStation, and so they choose to peruse this angle rather than go down the 3DO route. With Manufacturers needing to make a profit on the machines where as Sega and Nintendo could happily sell there machines at a loss and recoup there expenses through game sales this led to the various types of 3DO being too expensive to adequately compete.

Will we ever have one platform? I really doubt it at least any-time remotely soon. For a start with have Nintendo who when you look at there last few consoles seem to like the idea of controlling there hardware. They like to shape it directly for the kind of experiences they want to offer, I also believe that both Microsoft and Sony prefer calling the shots on there hardware. The only way one platform works is if it is in every-bodies best interest and everyone agrees to it.

The closest thing we are likely to see to single platforms is the current system some companies have where by it is advantageous to try and have matching hardware. What do I mean by this? Well With Microsoft the creators of the Xbox brand also owning Windows which is on computers, as well as also now being on phones and tablets, they can provide strong incentives for you to try and keep to there brand. You can have a Windows laptop which will talk and share data with a windows phone both of which can talk to your Xbox One. The same can be seen with Apple Mac's talking to Apple phones, talking to Apple Tablets. Sony Has the PS4 which can interact with the Vita or beem itself to the Sony Vita TV or be controlled by your Sony Phone. 

At the moment there will be several companies trying there best to sell themselves to you but not just as the best game company but as the best overall lifestyle company capable of offering you home and portable gaming,both communication and work based devices. They would rather fight the war for each and every market sector by trying to show you a future whereby everything you own can come from them and can communicate for your ease and comfort and while this is happening the video game market will never settle on a standard. Personally I think this is a good thing as I like competition I think it is good for the consumer but I also find it neat when my laptop can talk/sync with my phone to my benefit.