July 2016 Retro Game Purchases

With this month I set myself the target of trying to spend less on games. to this point there is a period of around 7 daays when I didnt so much as look at a game, I kind of get the feeling that the whole idea sort of fell out of the window and Iproberbly spent just as much as I usually do but I guess I will have to wait until the end when I tally everything up, still I am not about to shout at myself when all of my bills were paid first and foremost and I dont drink or smoke or do much else with my spare cash.

So the month started with KAGEKI fists of steel for the megadrive (american) cart only arriving on the 1st of July, it cost me  £3 including postage which I jumped on as it was the cheapest I had ever seen this game being sold for. I thought this was pretty cool as it only came out in Japan and America and the price was nice and low. Yeah you might have realised that if it arrived on the 1st then I obviously orderd it before but I always go with the date a game arrives for these things mostly because I would feel stupid bragging I had something just to find it got lost in the post or there was some other issue.

Then on Friday the 8th of  July after work I went to a charity shop and spent £4 on the following 4 complete gamecube games Legends of wrestling, Xmen 2 Wolerines Revenge, Reign of Fire

and 007 Everything or nothing. I also spent £2 on two complete PSP games King Kong and Wipeout Pure.

 On Sunday the 10th of July I picked up Naruto Ultimate Ninja heroes complete for the PSP for £4

and Touch Detective 2 1/2 complete for DS (American) for £6 from a small independent game store. I was mostly intrested in Touch Detective 2 1/2 because of the fact its from Atlus and also because I had heard god things about it.

The next day I nipped in to a charity shop and got 4 PS2 games for £2 in total, Burnout 3, OO7 agent under fire, and harry potter quidditch world cup all boxed but missing manuals and then play it pinball complete.

On the 12th I found myself in another small indie shop and grabbed World Cup Italia 90 cart only for megadrive 50pence and Mega Games 1 cart only for megadrive 50pence. I just couldnt not grab loose carts for 50pence it was to inviting.

Admitidly so far pickings had been a little slim or at the very least uneventful but over the next few days I managed to grab a few things I had been chasing for awile waiting to see them at the right kind of price.

On the 13th of July I went to visit a retro shop I hadnt been to before to see if they had anything which I would want. At first I looked around and a fair bit of there stuff was eiher over priced or pretty much the going rate but then I spotted Dynamite Duke for the mega drive complete for £5, every time I have seen this before it has either been a little more than this and just a loose cart or closer to £15 so I imediatly dived on it.

On Friday the 15th of July I recieved a complete copy of  Decap Attack (American Version) For the megadrive for £10 complete including postage. I had wanted this game for a very long time, I had been eying up a copy in a local indy shop but it was not in very good condition and was also missing the manual and was £15 which I just didnt really want to pay for it at least not in that condition.

On Sunday the 17th of July I managed to snag a copy of Pokemon Conquest for DS complete £10 from a private seller. I feel very lucky to have got this as now with the whole Pokemon Go mania things seem to be shooting up in price and becoming more difficult to get your hands on.

Then on Monday the 18th of July I walked in to my local game after work and decided to look through the Wii and PSP games and I managed to find a copy of 3rd Birthday - Twisted Edition complete for the PSP for £5. I have wanted this game for a long time but every time I have seen it it has been a lot more than this so I have kind of waited. 

On Saturday July the 23rd a few bits and pieces I had orderd arrived these were

N Plus for PSP new still sealed for £2.50, Lumines Plus for the ps2 new and still sealed for £2
and BlazBlue Calamity Trigger Portable for the PSP new and still sealed for £3.50 (all prices include the postage). I also went in to an indy shop and got 4 copies of Top gear Rally cartridge only for £4 in total.. Once again I know that in the future I might sell off some spare N64's I have so this would be ideal to throw a cart in to show they work and even if I never end up doing that they were cheap enough not to worry too much

On Monday the 25th of July after work I walked in to a local indy store and convinced them to sell me XIII, Starwars Bounty Hunter, and Starwars Jedi Outcast all complete for Gamecube for £12 in total, cant really say what I spent on what as the guy I got them from basically even though he tends to have prices on things will give you a deal price if you just grab everything you want (obviously encouraging you to grab more stuff). I also popped in to a cash convertors pawn store and grabbed X-Men next dimension complete for xbox for 50pence

The last things I got this month were a complete copy of Test Drive 5 for the PS1 from a charity shop for 50pence and Vigilante 8 - 2nd Offense complete for PS1 for £2.

Ok so what am I most happy about getting, well to start at the end I was very happy to get Vigilante 8 2nd offense for £2 as I have often seen it sell for around £18 nowdays, but not only this its something I remember playing back in the day and that I am just happy to own. I am also over the moon to have got Pokemon Conquest and to have got Third Birthday. I am also very happy with Decap Attack but I think in all honesty the thing I am the most pleased I managed to get this month is a complete copy of Dynamite Duke, basically because I owned this game as a kid and have always wanted it back, its not exactly the same as I used to own a Japanese version and this is a Uk version but still I get to play a game I love again after a very long time so I am smiles all around.

So did I spend less or more, well by my calculations I spent £75 on retro games which is less than the £90 I spent the month before but its exactly the same as I spent the month before that so I guess really you could just call it a pretty typical spend for me. There is a bright lining though, part of why I wanted to minimise my spending was because well everyone only has a limited amount of space they can fill but I did get rid of approximatly 4 large black bags full of old clothing and about the same amount of bags worth in junk. I also recently donated a Megadrive and a Master System 2 to a friend who was just starting out in the world of Video Game collecting as I figured I could spare them both and it would be good to see someone getting some usage out of them instead of them sitting under my bed.

Why I think Anita Sarkeesian is bad for Feminism.

Ok so I admit that tackling this is a bit of a dangerous road, its also one travelled by many many people. Now I am going to be dealing with the concept of Feminism and being a white male lots of people are likly to read the first few lines and want me to go die somewere for having an oppinion about it when they think I shouldnt. I havent just come marching in to this area with no prior idea or reading though, despite the fact I am a blog writer I actually used to be at University studying polotics amongst other things, so I have read a great deal of books and papers on feminism and feminist ideas. In fact I would very heartily recomend a particular book called Herland and in fact the entire works of a lady called Charlotte Perkins Gilman. One thing I came to realise in my reading though is that there is not any one unified feminist set of beliefs or ideas, lots of diffrent people want lots of diffrent things and have diffrent ideas on how there ideal reforms or situation can be brought to life.

 Now just like there is the current in crowd of pop stars or movie stars political ideas also tend to gather certain faces and figure heads at times, be they book writers or speakers. So who is kind of the number one well known feminist of today? I shudder to ttype this but  Anita Sarkeesian is quite possibly the closest thing to a “face” that feminism has at this moment in time.

I became convinced that Anita Sarkeesian’s contribution to modern feminism was a negative influence when seeing her work on her Feminist Frequency videos, or to be precise on seeing how she tried to prove certain Video games were sexist with very faulty logic and by bending the truth to make it fit her needs.

The Feminist Frequency videos began with her making a Kickstarter  to fund there production it met its funding goals on June 16, 2012, and appeared to suggest a completion date for the videos of December 2012 (this deadline was not met) Her Kickstarter goal of $6,000 was vastly exceeded her getting a sum of nearly $160,000 in the end. So the money litterally had rained in and everyone was treated to a glimpse of her sitting with a pile of games which would make most people very envious. It wasnt long after this that signs of her dishonesty began to surface. The first little nugget was a video of Anita just a few years before her Kickstarter a video of her saying that she was not nor had she ever been a fan of video games. Now this might not sound like anything major but in her attempts to gain funding she had frequently told people that she was a life long gamer, some people basically choose to fund her believing that what they were going to get was a criticism of video games from a legitimate gamer. Gamers are more than used to seeing people judge and attack video games from the outside, we have idiots like Jack Tompson filling lawsuits and attacking something they dont really understand making false claims and allegations in order to try and push there own agenda, thtat is not something that needed funding.  A lot of people thought they were going to get a well balanced thought out look at games and the ways in which they are sexiest, they thought a game lover was going to take a look at the potential ugly side of gaming and come up with some meaningful points for debate. So really the kickstarter backers got duped.

This is not where the duping people ended though, she got more money than she aid she needed , she claimed she needed the cash to get the games to play them and to record the footage from them and yet one of the first things people began to notice was that she was stealing her footage from other videos. Now I can sort of see why someone might be tempted to steal footage when all they really want to do is talk about a game in general and use the footage as a kind of window dressing but when you have basically begged people for money saying you need it to record the footage this is a pretty low move. I haave made a fair few Video game reviews for youtube in my time and I have to admit they were done with much lower production values than Feminist Frequency but I recorded all of my own footage and did my own editing and resisted the easy path of stealing anyone elses work, so this kind of lying to get funds and/or to make your own time easier does annoy me a great deal.
 So when you realise she got far more funding than asked for and yet still didnt either meet her deadlines or record her own actual footage one might fairly question where, exactly, the six-figure sum ended up, was it used for something other than the project? Now I realise that you have to spend time making videos even my own low quality Videos typically took an entire day from wasking up till going to sleep in order to finish them, so I will accept that maybe she decided to treat it like a job and pay herself a wage so to speak but she stole the footage and as I will latter mention she didnt really fully check her facts/staments so I dont think they took anywere as long as they shoudl, put simply I dont think she did a very good job.

Plenty of people have made youtube videos of there own to show that claims she makes about certain games are untrue. She claimed that in Hitman you are encouraged to kill women, when not only do you loose points for killing them but if you listen to them while your hiding they tell such a story filled with woah that youd have to be derranged to not feel sorry for them. She talked about how you could kill female dancers/strippers in Just Cause 3, yes you can but if you do then you will get attacked and most likly die, there are also male dancers/strippers and if you attack them exactly the same thing happens. In the above cases you can argue that she either outright lied or that she knew the full facts but decided to hold back on certain parts of the truth to make the bit she presented fit the conclusion she already had before starting. This is not how a good piece of research works. Research works by comming up with a hypothesis which is basically an educated guess at what the outcome of an experiment/study will be and then using the evidence you uncover to either prove or disprove this hypothesis, in other words you set out to find the truth not to prove that you were right all along.

The thing is some people will not have been exposed to any form of feminism before and when they see someone like Anita descried as a feminist and then notice her use deceit they could potentially be led to believe that this is a feminist tactic. When someone is met with something new Pschology says that what you do is you make a prototype in your mind, a sort of list/explanation for what something is like, this kind of prototyping leads to steriotypes and once this kind of framework is in place you look for information which will help you  prove it and the more proof you get the harder it becomes to change your outlook from that point on. So if you look at Anita's claims and decide that they are filled with bullshit and she becomes your blueprint for what a feminist is, then you could go on to believe that all feminists are full of bullshit.

Feminism is a large term which covers lots of people who think and feel in lots of diffrent ways, so please do not take Anita as the prime example of what all Feminists are like, I have known many diffrent Feminisits in my time, I have met them at various university functions, debated with them in classes and lectures and some of them have been the most honest level headed women I have ever met, some have been willing to take the time to explain there thoughts there ideals and there own take on what Feminism is at length and I thank them for it. If your a white gaming male and you get sick of hearing certain Feminists go on and on about white privalage and how you get everything while your working your arse off on a zero hours contract struggling for every bit of cash you can get your hands onthen  just remember that the way you hate them judging you and lumping you in the same boat as an entire massive group of people with very diffrent lifestyles, oppinions and economic positions other more rational feminists most likly would hate to be considerd as being the same as these ladies.

Some people proberbly think I am very late to the party to be brining up Anita now but her and Zoe Quinn are currrently talking to the UN trying to get something put into place in regards to cyber harasment. If you are already familliar with all of this then you have proberbly seen Anita claim to have been the victim of some threats along with a lot of criticsm some deserved due to her obvious twisting of the truth some not so justified. Now I do not deny that she recieved death threats as well for a start I know they are quiet common, I have recieved them online myself and worse than that when I used to work in a bar I recieved at least 3 death threats a week face to face but you kind of know that a good 99.99% of them are absolute rubbish. Still are the people sending her death threats, insults and threatening rape ecetera wrong to do so? Of course they are wrong they are wrong on so many levels, one they are wrong because thats just not the way anyone should act, no one should threaten the safty of someone else just because they dont agree with what they have to say. Another reason that people are wrong to threaten though is because well if they disagree with her even if they really strongly disagree with her then acting like an idiot is not going to do them any favours in fact all it does is give her victim status strengthening her position while also giving them the status of a thug and making whatever they believe appear to be of no worth whatsoever. The threats also gave Anita a reason to disable comments on her videos there by silencing anyone who wanted to post up a well thought out and reasoned response. The problem is the anti harrasment stuff Zoe Quinn and Anita are pushing for is not just stuff to try and stop people from threatening them its much more than that its stuff to try and make it so that disagreeing with them and putting forward your ideas full stop can be seen as bullying. Zoe Quinn even went so far as to argue that if a Woman accuses a man of something she should automatically be believed and that it should then be up to him to clear his own name not up to her to prove that her claim is true. Now stop and think about this they are not just pushing for some protection here they are pushing to make it so that if a man is accused of harming a woman in anyway then the law will take it as guilty until proven innocent a scary reversal of what most places currently have.

Evolution of the world usually happens due to new ideas, because of debate because of ideas being played with, with people pushing for and against things until the bad bits fall away and the good bits are strengthend, if you get rid of the ability to question someones ideas to tackle them and suggestion where they are in error or where they need to be looked at again from a fresh angle then what do you do to the world around you? Didnt Feminism itself start out from people looking at the systems and ideas already in place and questioning them, pushing back against them? What would have happend if no one was allowed to do this in the first place and the ideas that were already there were deemed perfect and undebatable?

Megadrive Box art, my love of the Japanese art and an example

I have to be honest and admit that when I was younger and I had a Megadrive a lot of my games were Japanese, the main reason for this was that although when newly imported Japanese games were very expensive older titles which had since been released in the UK tended to be ridiculously cheap in comparison to there UK equivalents, so far example rather than spending £15 on a British second hand copy of Eswat I would instead buy a second hand Japanese copy for £5. I dont have many Japanese Megadrive games now though despite actually having a Japanese Megadrive. You see I lent 40 games to a friend of the family and well he sold them for drug money, this really sucked as I was like 15 or something at the time and I really deeply trusted the person because his parents were best friends with my parents, in hindsight lending someone so many games was dumb but well sometimes when your young your overly trusting and well a little stupid.

Despite proberbly only having like 4 boxed Japanese games in my collection now days I still love the artwork for the games, I think a good 7 out of 10 times it tottally trumps the European and American artwork. I could show eamples and talk about this in depth but it has been done before really well by various sites and by another bloger who I think did a really good job of it.

Here is a link to DS90's posts on box art http://ds90gamer.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Box%20Art, I recomend you have a look at it.

I guess I am going to be sort of stealing his idea a little bit here because I want to show you the covers for Eswat on the megadrive

First here is the Japanese Box art.

Ok so I really like this art I really like the main picture and I also like the bold title. I do have one slight issue with it however and that is that I am not very keen on the guys face, if his face was less visable or heck even if there was a darkend visor in front of it I would enjoy this piece of art even more.

This is the American box art

So what do I like about the American cover? Not much really, I see how making the image the central thing on the box is possibly a goood move but I just find the image itself to not really work for me personally. I dont like the look of the guys face, I dont really find his robot side very cool either also the fact there is a bunch of lines in the background of the picture and then theres your usual lines on the case makes it all so well for want of a real word liney.

That leaves the European box 

This is basically the same as the US one but with the Genesis logo swapped for the megadrive and the usual sort of European stuff thrown on.

Ok so here goes something a little Diffrent here is my own personal custom cover 

Ok so I am not going to claim that its perfect or that I spent a great deal of time on it or that there is anything here that wasnt ripped, alterd and repositioned from the above covers. So what did I do. Well I took the Japanese main art and the title in the red box and then I added all of the typical European text and symbals to the game. I made the Japanese art a little darker and went out of my way to darken the face area of the main character. I am not about to claim that this is the greatest cover art ever but I do actually think it beats the official European case and that with a little bit more work it wouldnt be half bad. I would be very intrested in hearing what people think about my cover and my coments on the above covers.

  

The Mini Nes and the AT megadrive

So if your into Video games and either Nintendo or retro games in general then I am pretty sure that you have heard that Nintendo are brining out a new version of The Nintendo Entertainment System. Well what do you need to know well for a start its called the NES Classic Mini and its an official product, it comes with 30 games on it but no way of adding any more games and no way to play the original NES cartridges. It has a HDMI port so it can plug straight into a modern TV and be played instantly with no need to mess around tuning it in like you would have had to do with the original NES. It costs £50 andis coming our in November, for your cash you get the machine a HDMI cable and one joypad, now its important to note that this pad has a modern connection ( It is the same as the port in the bottom of a Wii mote) so you wont be able to use any Original NES pads you have laying around on it, nor will you be able to take your new NES mini pad and use it on a classic NES. Apparently though if you have a Wii classic controller this can be used as a second pad, so you could save yourself from having to invest in a second pad if you already own one of those.

Ok so here is a list of the games you get on the NES mini.

• Balloon Fight
• Bubble Bobble
• Castlevania
• Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
• Donkey Kong
• Donkey Kong Jr.
• Double Dragon II: The Revenge
• Dr. Mario
• Excitebike
• Final Fantasy
• Galaga
• Ghosts 'n Goblins
• Gradius
• Ice Climbers
• Kid Icarus
• Kirby's Adventure
• Mega Man 2
• Metroid
• Mario Bros.
• Ninja Gaiden
• Pac-Man
• Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
• Star Tropics
• Super C
• Super Mario Bros.
• Super Mario Bros. 2
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Tecmo Bowl
• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

I cant really fault them for the games they hae picked after all you have all 3 of the Super Mario Bros games, both Zelda games, Metroid, Punch Out, Excitebike and various other Nintendo games but then you also get awesome games from other publishers such as Final Fantay, Mega Man 2 and Super C. I find it a bit rubbish that you get 2 out of the original castlevania trilogy but in general it is very hard to fault the choice of games.

Am I going to buy one though? Well not at £50 I am not. Why? Well I already own a NES and about 80 cartridges, sure I own punch out, the 3 mario games, megaman 2 and one of the Zelda's but there are a lot of good titles on there that I dont own and it would cost me more to buy cartridges of them than it would to buy this machine but still I would rather invest my money in some actual Retro gear. I know a lot of people are attracted to the official stamp and the hi build quality but if you just want to play these games there are much cheaper ways as well there are plenty of NES clone machines or heck if you want to plug something small up to a TV and play you could get a raspbery PI and ram if full of games and find a halfway decent pad for less than this machine costs, before someone screams at me fo rbeing illegal I think id legally be well within my rights to download Roms for the 80 NES games I own and to play them, plus you could get a PI to be a megadrive and SNES and all mannor of other things all of which I have decent sized collections of games for.

On a final note I know that some places have been trying to say its going to be a SEGA vs Nintendo christmas again with a new AT games Megadrive coming out well its not really for many reasons. The AT games megadrives have both advantages and disadvantages over the NES Mini, for one the AT games machine have awful pads, they are basically the most 3rd party trashy type pads you can imagine, thats largly solved if you have some megadrive pads laying about. it doesnt look or feel like the best machine out but its biggest issue is that even though it often comes with more games than a NES mini   usuallly 40 (80 according to the boxes but 40 are real and 40 are usless rubbish new flash type games which dont deserve counting) and even though it can run actual real original game carts from all countries it sometimes doesnt run them quiet right. Sometimes this is a bit of jerkyness here and there but most of the time its the sound which seems to really suffer. At the end of the day we dont know how well the NES mini will run but I seem to think it will be as close to perfection as possible with Nintendo treatign it as a full on official product and the fact that well the NES was a less powerful sort of less complex system in the first place (also there have been a million clone consoles which from what I have seen have run the games absolutly perfectly so it cant be that hard to get right). I think the simple truth is a lot of people miss the old SEGA VS Nintendo days and kind of wanted to see some kind of christmas return to this so tried to make out that this was the case.

If you want a NES mini then buy one but go into it knowing all you can. If you want an AT games megadrive well know the faults and if you can deal with them. Then  well keep your eyes open and dont neciserily get the latest one, as far as I can tell from playing on them theyve never really changed all thats changed is the games on them and the box art really.. I own an AT games megadrive which I got for £15, for that amount it was a decent thing to mess around with for awile and to try my various carts on, get a real Megadrive pad though.... if you own a PS3 or 360 though I would just advise you get the Megadrive Games collection disc with like 40 games on it, it runs a heck of a lot better, playing that felt like playing a real Megadrive.

Plan 9 the remake Review... a good remake?

Ok so its been awile since I have said or done anything horror related, this gap between horror related posts has not been intentional in the slightest. I like to try and mix my content so this blog keeps a nice mix of Video Game, Horror, Wrestling and my general thoughts on the world around me AKA rants. The problem is that I need something to work with and I need the drive to do it. A lot of horror films I have tried to watch lattly just havent had enough of an impact on me for me to feel like writing about them.

The film I am going to be talking about now is PLAN 9. For those of you who dont know PLAN 9 is basically a remake of the old Ed Wood film PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Ok so I feel I need to expand on this a little Edward Davis Wood, Jr AKA Ed Wood was an American filmmaker, actor, writer, producer, and director mostly known for making a number of incrredably low-budget films in the science fiction, comedy, and horror genres. He might have lacked funds, sometimes he might have even lacked halfway decent ideas but the guy threw his all in to everything he did in a way some people have found inspiring. Tim Burton made a wonderful fim which was a biopic of Wood's life, titled Ed Wood (1994), starring Johnny Depp this obviously helped draw fresh attention to his work.
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE basically became Ed Woods most well known film recieving a cult following in 1980 helped by the fact it became known as "the worst film ever made" it was seen as being a film so bad that you just simply had to watch it and then you had to tell your friends about it and make sure that they watched it as well. I actually want people to watch both the original and this remake so I wont go to deep in spoiler teritory or outline who lives and who dies, this is going to be as spoiler free as possible.

I first heard that there would be a remake of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE on the cinnermasacre website, basically James Rolf AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd annoucned that he would be acting in it as a police officer, now having always been a big fan of all of his work I knew that I would watch it even if just to see his bit. My first question about the remake was who would want to remake a film which was considerd bad in the first place? Well I actually think its an excellent idea, if you try to remake a good film then you have a lot to live up to, people will remember the original and will expect you to beat it, what is worse is that lots of diffrent people will have diffrent ideas of how you should do this. The simple question being do you make a shot for shot remake or do you just try and get the essence of the original and use it to make something new and diffrent? The truth is which ever way you go someone is proberbly going to have an issue with your decision. Well what do we have here? Well the ideas from the original have been lifted from the 1950s and put into a modern setting with a big dollap of swearing and violence thrown in, in short its a film based on a 1950's idea made now but in a kind of 1980's fashion.. Ok so the story in short is that when a meteor hits Earth, it sends a radioactive shockwave across the area, those who have died in the last month are reanimated as zombies. So basically the general plot follows the original storyline and they have included various characters in the film who resemble some of the iconic ones from the original. There is a very obvious Vampira look-alike and a Bela Lugosi look-alike. It kind of tries to do it own thing while also partially being a parody, it doesnt really feel like the original though what it feels like is another Night of the Living Dead inspired Zombie flick one made in the 80's and the truth is I was totally fine with that.

I think the film has some awesome gore, the effects are not always the best but for the budget they are decent and they dont ruin the film for me at least. I think there is some great music in the movie some of it being very 80's horror inspired and reminding me of the kind of stuff used in Demons, there are some great action sequences and some awesome dialog but I will also admit that there are a few moments that are pretty cringe worthy some acting which is less than par but then this is also true of some much higher budgeted films. So is PLAN 9 the best film ever? No, but if you like 80's films and you like Zombie movies then give it a shot as it is in my oppinon a pretty darn good little indie film, it doesnt have the biggest budget out there but it certainly has a lot of heart and thats something Ed Wood himself would appreciate. I really enjoyed it and I would happily give it a strong 7 out of 10.

WWE to face lawsuit about the long-term neurological damage of 50 of its former employees

 
The WWE faces a very serious lawsuit this week. More than 50 ex-wrestlers say in a Connecticut lawsuit that World Wrestling Entertainment Inc aka the WWE. is responsible for their long-term neurological damage and failed to care for their injuries. Now when you stop and think about this the result of this case could have very far reaching effects on the world of wrestling and the future of it in general. If the WWE is found to be responsible for these injuries and therefore liable for any medical bills and compensation then this could be a pretty high bill to pay, it would also set a president not only meaning other names not on this list could step forward and make claims but also meaning that current stars may have a very strong base to stand on if they wish to make simmilar claims in the future.

 Now you might think that the list of those claiming would be filled with discruntled never made it guys but that is not the case the list actually contains hall of famers and main eventers including  WWE legends like Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Road Warrior Animal and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff. This raises an intresting side question though will this case cause anger and resentment in the WWE head office that leads to other ''legends'' not getting there Hall of Fame day. Now I know that everyone has a diffrent idea of what a legend is in the world of Wrestling but I personally find it a hard pill to swallow that the team of Ax and Smash Demolition despite holding the record for the longest tag title reign have never made it in to the hall of fame a joke, and wonder will there involvment in this case make it less likly that they will ever be included? Also with some of the younger names it can be argued that it makes the liklyhood of any future return seem doubtful.

As for the WWE and there stance on this well the company denies the allegations and draws attention to the fact that the attorney for the ex-wrestlers previously has made ''false claims'' against the company and filed lawsuits that ended up being dismissed.

What do I think about it all? Well if your job involves you being repeatidly hit in the head for any reason be it on purpose or by accident then your employer should definetly be responsible for the result of these blows. I used to be a bar manager and I was actually hit around the head with a crowbar repeatidly during an incident which led to me developing PTSD and well time will tell if I have any more effects in my latter life, but from this perspective I can certainly find it easy to relate to and side with the ex employes involved in this legal case. Below is a list of all of the Wrestlers/Talent named in the lawsuit.

JOSEPH M. LAURINAITIS, a.k.a Road Warrior Animal, JIMMY “SUPERFLY” SNUKA, by and through his guardian, Carole Snuka, PAUL ORDNDORFF, a.k.a. Mr. Wonderful, SALAVADOR GUERRERO IV, a.k.a. Chavo Guerrero, Jr., CHAVO GUERRERO, SR., a.k.a. Chavo Classic, BRYAN EMMETT CLARK, JR., a.k.a. Adam Bomb, |ANTHONY NORRIS, a.k.a. Ahmed Johnson, JAMES HARRIS, a.k.a. Kamala,  DAVE HEBNER, EARL HEBNER,  CHRIS PALLIES, a.k.a. King Kong Bundy,  KEN PATERA, TERRY MICHAEL BRUNK, a.k.a. Sabu, BARRY DARSOW, a.k.a. Smash of Demolition, | BILL EADIE a.k.a. Ax of Demolotion, | JOHN NORD, a.k.a. The Bezerker,  JONATHAN HUGGER a.k.a. Johnny The Bull,  JAMES BRUNZELL, a.k.a. Jumpin’ Jim, SUSAN GREEN, a.k.a. Sue Green,  ANGELO MOSCA, a.k.a. King Kong Mosca,  JAMES MANLEY, a.k.a. Jim Powers, MICHAEL “MIKE” ENOS, BRUCE “BUTCH” REED, a.k.a. The Natural,  CARLENE B. MOORE-BEGNAUD, a.k.a. Jazz,  SYLVAIN GRENIER,  OMAR MIJARES a.k.a. Omar Atlas,  DON LEO HEATON, a.k.a. Don Leo Jonathan, TROY MARTIN, a.k.a. Shane Douglas,  MARC COPANI, a.k.a. Muhammad Hassan,  MARK CANTERBURY, a.k.a. Henry Godwin,  VICTORIA OTIS, a.k.a. Princess Victoria,  JUDY HARDEE a.k.a. Judy Martin, MARK JINDRAK,  BERNARD KNIGHTON as Personal Representative of the Brian Knighton, a.k.a.  Axl Rotten, Estate,  MARTY JANNETTY, and  JON HEIDENREICH,

WWE The brand split GM'S and the draft.

 So the WWE is currently going through some changes with the reintroduction of the brand split making Raw and Smackdown two properly seperate entities again, two programmes witth two diffrent rostas of talent competing against each other.

We have known this was happening for awile, first we found out that the Raw Commissioner wouldd be Stephanie McMahon and the SmackDown Live Commisoner would be Shane McMahon, then we were told that they would have to both pick a general manager responsible for the day to day runnning of each of there respective shows. Now I have to give some kudos to the WWE they have done a very good job of keeping the audience guesssing, of making every single little bit of this process something for people to debate something to keep there fanbase discussing things talking about what they think will happen, what they hope will happen. I was in this situation myself I was paractially jumping up and down when I heard that Shane would be Smackdown Live Commisoner and I couldnt help but hope that the General Managers of both shows would be people who made me just as excited I rememberd people who had been General Manager in the past and I started compiling mental lists thinking oh wouldnt it be cool if one of them turned out to be Kurt Angle or Paul Hayman and then the actual GM's were announced.

So Raw has ended up with Mick Foley as General Manager, and SmackDown Live has ended up with Daniel Bryan as there General Manager.  How did I feel about this? Well I was over the moon to find out that Mick Foley would be a GM, I adore the guy he is just one of those personalities inside the wrestling world that I jusst cant get enough of, I have to admit I partly wish he was the SmackDown GM as I well I just kind of have a SmackDown bias, every time the shows have been properly seperated with there own rosta's of talent I have ended up finding myself very much Team SmackDown but I can understand why they would put him on Raw. You see the thing is I dont think the WWE is dumb, they know that most people tend to prefer Shane over his siter after all the man has put his health and well-being on the line countless times for the fans, there has been locker room story after locker room story about how Shane is the one who all of the wreestlers respect, how he is the one McMahon that pretty much no one has an issue with so a lot of people will have a natural bias to side with him and if you want to run two good inderpendant shows then you have to stack the cards evenly, if you give everything good to one show then everyone will just follow that and ignore the other and this would not be a good thing in the long term.

So who did Shane get as his GM on SmackDown Live? He got Daniel Bryan. Now the thing is I am not a massive fan of his but I have to tip my hat and note that when he was announced the crowd went wild, the guy is a fan favourate, people were sad that his wrestling career was ended early and are generally happy to see him back in a diffrent capacity, I think this is a good thing the WWE have noticed peoples love for the guy and for once instead of being pig headed and doing whatever they want to do have actually done what Vince claims should be done and that is ''whats best for business''.

 OK so what about who got who in terms of wrestlers well as SmackDown Live is going to be a 2 hour show and Raw will be a 3 hour show basically it went like this in every round of drafts Smackdown would be able to pick  wrestlers where as Raw would get 3 given the fact that with the extra hour of programming Raw would need more to fill it with. below I will give each round of the draft complete with a little of what I think about it here and there.

Round No. 1
1. Seth Rollins - Raw
2. WWE Champion Dean Ambrose - SmackDown Live
3. WWE Women's Champion Charlotte - Raw
4. AJ Styles - SmackDown Live
5. Finn Bálor - Raw from NXT


 Well to be honest the only guy here who I really like personally is Dean Ambrose and with my SmackDown bias I am very happy to hear that this is the programme he will be on. As for what is best for business well with Raw getting Rollins and Smackdown getting Amrbose things are nice and equal, I dont like them the same but I see them as having a simmilar percieved value and fan base. Also intresting to note that Raw has taken the Womens champion, is Raw going to be our main source for female wrestling in the WWE?


Round No. 2
6. Roman Reigns - Raw
7. John Cena - SmackDown Live
8. Brock Lesnar - Raw
9. Randy Orton - SmackDown Live
10. WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day - Raw

Again Raw takes belts by taking the WWE Tag Team champs leaving me to wonder if Raw will have more or the majority of tag team matches. As for individual wrestlers again I feel with Raw tking Reigns and Lesnar and Smackdown grabbing Cena and Orton things are being kept very even.

Round No. 3
11. Sami Zayn - Raw
12. Bray Wyatt - SmackDown Live
13. Sasha Banks - Raw
14. Becky Lynch - SmackDown Live
15. Chris Jericho - Raw

Round No. 4
16. United States Champion Rusev (with Lana) - Raw
17. Intercontinental Champion The Miz (with Maryse) - SmackDown Live
18. Kevin Owens - Raw
19. Baron Corbin - SmackDown Live
20. Enzo & Cass - Raw

Round No. 5
21. Gallows and Anderson - Raw
22. American Alpha - SmakDown Live from NXT
23. Big Show - Raw
24. Dolph Ziggler - SmackDown Live
25. Nia Jax - Raw from NXT

Round No. 6
26. Neville - Raw
27. Natalya - SmackDown Live
28. Cesaro - Raw
29. Alberto Del Rio - SmackDown Live
30. Sheamus - Raw

Round No. 7 (announced during WWE Draft Center Live on WWE Network)
31. Golden Truth - Raw
32. The Usos - SmackDown Live
33. Titus O'Neil - Raw
34. Demon Kane - SmackDown Live
35. Paige - Raw

Round No. 8 (announced during WWE Draft Center Live on WWE Network)
36. Darren Young (with Bob Backlund) - Raw
37. Kalisto - SmackDown Live
38. Sin Cara - Raw
39. Naomi - SmackDown Live
40. Jack Swagger - Raw
41. The Ascension - SmackDown Live

Round No. 9 (announced during WWE Draft Center Live on WWE Network)
42. The Dudley Boyz - Raw
43. Zack Ryder - SmackDown Live
44. Summer Rae - Raw
45. Apollo Crews - SmackDown Live
46. Mark Henry - Raw
47. Alexa Bliss (from NXT)

Round No. 10 Picks (announced during WWE Draft Center Live on WWE Network)
48. Braun Strowman - Raw
49. Breezango - SmackDown Live
50. Bo Dallas - Raw
51. Eva Marie - SmackDown Live
52. Shining Stars - Raw
53. The Vaudevillains - SmackDown Live

Round No. 11 (announced during WWE Draft Center Live on WWE Network)
54. Alicia Fox - Raw
55. Erick Rowan - SmackDown Live
56. Dana Brooke - Raw
57. Mojo Rawley - SmackDown Live from NXT
58. Curtis Axel - Raw
59. Carmella - SmackDown Live from NXT


Everything feels quiet nicly split with neither brand having all of the good talent so I have to say that it is a case of so far so good but only time will tell with only 59 names mentioned so far and the WWE trying to court new and returning stars it is obvious that there will be names added to both shows as time goes on. I guess now its just a case of waiting to see how this all pans out.

Pokemon GO a very brief bit about it..

Ok so Pokemon Go recently launched in the UK, it hasnt been the smoothest of launches though with the serves seeming to have gone down several times for rather long periods and the program being a bit of a crash fest. It has had a very strong effect on Nintendo's share price though, so love it or hate it if your a fan of Nintendo you can at the very least thank it for that.

What do I think of it? Well first I dont actually have it myself, I have only played it with a friend on her phone so I wont be reviewing it in the sense of giving it a final score or going overly official here but these are just some of my breif views on my experiance with it. Well the stability issues both in terms of servers and it just plain crashing bother me but these are things that can be ironed out in time. I have had the opportunity to go on several lengthy walks  kind of following the game letting it largly dictate the direction we walk in as we approach gyms and pokestops and generally look for diffent Pokemon. Is it the best game in the world? To answer this briefly no it is not in my oppion. Is it fun though Yes. If your a real pokemaniac who has been a fan for them for a long time you will notice certain crazy things like Pokemon possesing moves they really shouldnt but this is something that although I hope more attention is paid to in the future really should just be ignored for the sake of enjoying what is there.

The game is not the best representation of Pokemon and it does not feature everything the handheld titles do but then thats not the way I would personally tell people to look at this game. Dont treat it like an RPG treat it like its part Game, Part fitness tool and part social tool. Meet up with people go for a coffee and then go on a nice walk and see what you can find, basically exerciseing without feeling like you are because your wrapped up in the world of the game. Find Pokemon in the wild and make your friends pose with them on there head, use it as a tool to get your children out in the outside world being both in the fresh air but also using what is a rather intresting bit of technology to spark there imaginations.

Some people are going to knock it because of the fact that everyone seems to be into it right now and there is this massive hype about it, a hype which maybe is not fully deserved but then people have certainly gone nuts about far worse far less inovative things. If someone walks off a cliff or into traffic because they are playing Pokemon Go then it is not the games fault, so when you see all of this Pokemon Go caused this or that news stories honestly stop and think about it and treat it with a grain of salt, plenty of people have fell over because theyve been looking at there phones instead of where they are going before, its not the games fault its a common sense issue. I would infact strongly argue that I believe the game is good for peoples healh for many reasons, one the fact its encouraging people to get out and about, to exercise and to socialise. People will argue that it has caused this or that argument but then remember how many dicks actually exist in the world and the fact that there are some people so full of agro that they can start an argument with themselves in a mirror over how burnt there toast is.

I think that Pokemon Go however has absolutly massive potential. So far it only features Pokemon from the orginal 150 but the games lifespan could be greatly increased through them slowly adding more and more pokemon until we reach the dizzy heights that are vailable in the most recent handheld titles, then there are things to add like trading, player vs player anywere battles, not only type advantages but enviromental advantages. As well as being a stand alone game on its own there is a lot of potential to make it somehow connect to the future Nintendo Handheld games, maybe by serving as a gateway to those games for the newer more casual player by allowing there progress in Go to give them certain benefits if they pick up the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Moon on 3DS. At the end of the day at the very least it shows Nintendo are not in any danger of becoming stuck in there ways and running out of new and inovative ideas, they are not affraid to look for companies to partner up with or ways to promote there name and there IP. A healthy Nintendo stock price can only be good for the Video Game Market in general

Happy 33RD Birthday Family Computer

 

 

It is kind of an important anniversery today in the world of gaming after all 33 years ago on July the 15th 1983 Nintendo launched there Family Computer better known by its shortend name the Famicom. You might known it better by the name it launched with latter in North America and then even latter in europe under the Nintendo Entertainment system aka the NES. Despite its advanced age Nintendo of Japan actually offerd support including both technical advice and repairs for the machine up until the year 2007. It was released for ¥14,800 launched alongside its launch games were Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye ports of 3 of Nintendos previouly successful arcade titles.
The Famicom didnt just borrow its launch line up from previous Nintendo arcade games it also borrowed something else from a past success it borowed the D pad from Nintendo's game and watch handheld series. Believe it or not apparently Nintendo was originally going to go the route of joysticks they had apparently taken a few American ones apart and contemplated it but then decided children might stand on them and that they would be less long lasting. Its funny to think about this considering the fact that the D-pad basically went on to become one of the standard must have for all console joypads, one we still have on pads to this day.
So what can I say other than Happy Birthday Little fellow :)

Brock Lesner UFC 200 win and his part time staus in WWE.

There is actually a lot I could talk about within the world of wrestling to the point that its hard to know where to start but here goes. to this end I plan on my next few posts being wrestling related and I will start with this one,  I will start by talking about Brock Lesner. Now love him or hate him anyone can see that the guy certainly does recieve a mixed response. Some dislike the fact that he is basically a part time worker and yet still gets to hold belts and be treated as a high value commodity while others like the fact that he is a genuine bad ass fighting machine who competes in the UFC. Well Brock had a UFC fight against Mark Hunt at UFC 200 recently.  A fight which I found pretty darn impressive to watch, a fight he won by a unaminious decision. There was however before the fight a lot of questions floating in the air what would happen if Brock lost being one of them. You see the beauty of wrestling is that with it being predetermined you can make whoever you want look like a legitmate fighter with UFC being real though there was no control over the effect a loss or win would have on the beasts image. You would think that this would cause the WWE to not want him to compete well the WWE chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon had commented on the fact Brock would be fighting at UFC 200 by claiming that the WWE were “not supporting the fight necessarily”,  when this was brought to the beasts attention he laughed adding that “I don’t care what she says.” when asked if a loss would effect his WWE drawing power his response was  “I really don’t give a shit.”. With Brock apparently earning around 2.5 Million for his UFC fight it looks like the WWE kind of need him more than he needs them.

Brock was asked if the win meant that we would be seeing him fight again in the UFC again and he gave the response “One day at a time.”. Usually Brock is a man of very few words but this didnt stop him from delivering a passionate plea to America to stop the violence which has been happening lattly and to all try to come togther “America! Shout out to all the men and women who protect this country, from one white boy to all nationalities, we need to stand together people!”

Speaking after the fight, UFC President Dana White seemed pretty supportive of Brock commenting that “People don’t realise that for a guy who’s only fought a few times in this sport then goes away for as long as he has, with his age (38) and everything to come back and do what he did again tonight is pretty impressive,” adding that Brock is “ a freak of nature.”

So I guess what has come out of this more than anything is the fact that Brock is going to do what Brock wants to do and if you like that or not its kind of the way its going to be. Sure you can hope that WWE or UFC throw him to the curb but the truth is the guy is a darn good draw and makes both companies a lot of money. This win in UFC 200 will make them want him to fight again and will also make him look even more like a legitmate threat inside the WWE. Add to this the fact the WWE is about to bring back the brand split and will need all the legitimate stars they can get there hands on and the fact theres proberbly going to be even more gold to go around and I think Brock is deffinetly there to stay, part time at least.

Video Game addiction, what is it and how to deal with it if its in your life.

Well Today I am going to talk about video game addiction. Which might seem a bit of a strange choice of topic bearing in mind your reading it on a blog which has a heavy slant towards gaming especially when its something thats usually only talked about in shock horror headlines. I want to talk about it in an adult way and look at it from my point of view.

OK so I think it is pretty obvious that I am a huge video game fan, I love them, I play them, I collect them, I am on several forums,  in the past I have made YouTube game related films, I keep this blog and at one point I nearly ended up with a job as a games journalist. Now as far as arguments go this means I am both intrested in the subject but also some might argue that I am biased, after all I am pro gaming right? Actually my thoughts are far more complicated than that.

I guess the first thing to ask is what a gamer is. Now the obvious answer is someone who plays games, then youd go down the road of what counts as a game, which in itself could be a debate with some considering things like browser games and iphone style swiping mini games to either be or not be games. I just want to cut through al of that and say that in my oppinion and for the purpose of this piece of writing anything where you watch something while inputing commands is a Video Game, so arcade games, first person shooters, graphic novels, iphone games ecetera all count. Yes you might go well those full motion Video SEGA Mega CD things where you just occasionally press a button and if you dont do it at the exact right second there not real games, or those browser thingies where you get friends to send you magic potatoes arnt real games I would hasten to add that just because you dont find them enjoyable does not make them not a game, if something wasnt a game if it wasnt enjoyable then Ride to Hell Retrebution would not be sold in game shops. Even if it is shit or you feel it is shit its still a Video Game, its maybe just not a good one (in your oppinion).

Ok well I suppose whats needed now is a definition of addiction, so lets keep it nice and simple At its most basic addiction can be described as a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as play video games). Now lets get this straight a desire to do something does not mean you are addicted its when you cant control this desire when you let it overcome you to the point you make poor choices in pursuit of your desires or allow yourself or others to suffer to chase your desires. 

 Now if someone plays video games a lot then it might be easy to assume that they are adicted but stop and think about it. Lots of people spend a great deal of time doing lots of diffrent things and it is often taken as being normal, for example some people will watch episode after episode of a TV show on netflicks often being really obsorbed in them and not wanting to stop, or someone will sit and read for hours on end on there own, yet you dont really hear of people being considerd book adicts or TV addicts. The typical old fashioned view of gamers was the one that they were all sad fat spotty males sat in the dark playing games alone, now yes some gamers might be sat playing video games alone and maybe they prefer this to social interaction this wouldnt automatically make them either an addict or a bad person. Some people are simply more introverted and would rather spend time on their own engaging in a solitery pass time rather than choose to be around other people, it is there life and there choice to make. Often people will argue that a life spent playing games is a life wasted but how is it any more or less wasted than a life sitting in pubs drinking, or watching rich people kicking a ball around or sitting in a libary reading. It is up to each man and woman to decide what is and is not a waste of there time. I can admit I have played a game for like three days before only taking breaks to eat sleep and well answer calls of nature, this is not a regular thing though and when I have done it I have either happend to have those days off work or I have booked them off, I have made sure all my bills are paid and my responsabilities are taken care of and then I have made the choice to use my time in this way.

Another point to make is that games are not neciserily such a solo passtime anymore, in fact they havent been for a long time, first there was co-operative and competitive play where you would all gather around the same console in the same house andd now with all of the various online services that exist you can reach out and play with almost anyone from anywhere around the world without any of you having to leave your own houses. There could be a whole argument made here about how real or not real online friends are but that would be a big enough debate in its own right that it would pull me off topic, lets just say gaming is arguable just as social as many other hobbies which are not frowned upon anywhere as much as gaming is. Am I saying that there is no succh thing as Video Game Addiction of course not, I am saying dont jump the boat and assume that because someone enjoys playing games they are addicted or that the hobby is toxic, however do remember that to much of anything can be a bad thing.

I am not going to give any magic formula thats based on numbers and say its wrong to play this often or for this long or that your life should be divided into time spent doing this that and the other as well diffrent individuals will have diffrent demands upon there time depending on a wide depth of factors such as what job they have and how much of there time it takes up, if they have children or a significant other etcetera. To but it bluntly its not how long or how much they game that is the thing you need to worry about it is any negative effects that there choice to game as much as they came and when they game leads to. For exmple I would be worried if someone was missing work, neglecting responsabilities, ignoring there loved ones or simply not doing the things they need to do to maintain there life such as buying food, paying bills.

Obviously if your a gamer and your wondering if you are playing to much then well you know if your going to work or attending college or not, you know if your paying your bills or ignoring them, you will know if you have spent money on games that you should have spent on food, but some of the other things are a little harder to know. You will know if you feel your neglecting someone in your life but you wont know how they feel about it, like most personal problems between two people or a group of people you can only work out the truth through positive communictation. If you are generally worried that you are neglecting a partner or family member or simply want to make sure that they are OK then the only way to find out is to ask. If your working, your taking care of your day to day business and your able to ask your loved ones if they feel neglected and take whatever answer they give you onboard and if necisery then make changes to make them feel valued and wanted then you can breathe a little easier knowing that either there is no problem or if there is it is obviously one that can be put to bed with just a little work.

How do you tell if a partner or family member is an addict? Well obviously you will know if they are going to work, if they are taking care of themselves and there responsibilities, but when it comes to are they neglecting you well there are a few questions you need to stop and ask yourself. Have you told them you feel neglected? If not then start by delicatly telling them this, if your sat there reading a book and they are playing a game then maybe they just presume you are both doing something you enjoy, you wouldnt believe the amount of time that has been wasted with two people sitting there with both of them doing something while similtaniously waiting for the other person to finish what they are doing. Also you might want to stop and ask yourself a few questions such as have they always gamed this much if not is there a reason they are suddenly playing more have they just got a new game they have wanted for a long time or are they more stressed than usual? Some people find that gaming really helps them get certain forms of stress out of there system.

 Now some people might think that as I have mentioned new games that I must frequently go crazy over new games and ignore everyone around me. Well a game I had waited like 15months for, that I had been reading about and had orderd and paid for a whole month before its release came out just before I was due to spend the weekend with my girlfriend so what did I do? I played it on the train on my way to hers and then put it away. The simple truth is that I think all relationships need to have a little give and take, and as my mother used to say you get more with sugar than with shouting.
If something new has just come out and he is really gripped to it because he has wanted it for ages then delicatly tell him your glad he enjoys it but need some time and fuss before you go nuts and start an intervention. Sure if your partner is just always playing games (or doing any other pass time) all of the time then go more of the intervention look I miss your attention but I am allso seriously worried about you route.

In conclusion you can love and play games a lot without being addicted, its not how much you play thats the issue its wether you can keep your hobbies in check and not let them rule your life and the road to sorting out most problems is communication.

A bit about a few retro consoles and what they mean to me

Retro gaming the very concept means different things to different people, it's all about nostalgia and what your nostalgic for, what the computer or console and its games mean to you, what you associate with them.

I can take just about any machine and give you a story about it, about what it means to me, who I was at that time, what my hopes and dreams where, the friends I was playing the games with, the music I was listening to. The first two machines I remember having were the 48k spectrum and the old wooden Atari 2600, this was at a very early stage in my life when my dreams didn't extend much further than to be like my older brothers. The first game I remember playing on the spectrum would have been a Mister Men educational software tape, I think I was about 3 my mum would be playing Beatles tunes in the background and id just be tapping away not really sure of what I was doing. Soon however I would be growing and as I did I would be playing tank and all manner of simplistic games on the Atari with the whining loading scream of the spectrum in the background, the spectrum games were usually better but the Atari had the instant use appeal to it. In fact I felt rather spoiled as a kid because I had both, when I would visit my friends houses they would have 1 of either an Amstrad, a Spectrum or a Commodore 64 and we would have to play board games or play with transformers while the games loaded. This makes me associate these machines with long load times but also with board games and friends, so no matter how crudy the graphics may be there is still a warmth to be had from seeing them, playing them or even reading about them.

The Master System and the NES I never owned when they were current I always played them at other peoples houses and typically they didn't seem to be owned by kids my age. My first experience of the Master system was a much older cousin had one, it was an original Master system and I cant even remember the games he had , the Master System 2 though I have memories of seeing them a lot id be with one of my older brothers and he would be at a girlfriend house and that's what her or her brother would own and basically id end up playing the Master System and they would disappear obviously now I know they were at least kissing if not screwing but back then I was so absorbed by the likes of chase HQ that I simply didn't give a toss where they were, so I guess the Master system 2 reminds me of sitting in strange houses shunting criminals off the road while loud music usually of a heavy metal persuasion hides noises not suitable for young ears.

I seldom saw a NES, I remember playing them a few times at houses but it certainly wasn't a regular deal, I remember buying one for about £20 with a bunch of games once the Super Nintendo was out and I already owned one, I was so in awe of it yet everyone thought I was crazy for buying ''that old piece of junk'' it was the first time I really got a machine after its time, sure I got new things and I had old things laying around left over from when they were new but this was the first time I had made what you could call a retro purchase. I don't associate music or friends with the NES I associate total silence apart from the game, I took to the NES like some kind of art appreciator I wanted to hear every beep to see every pixel to study and admire them. It was the first time I really though of games as being beautiful in there own right. It was here in this moment that I became more than just a games player but a game collector and when I really began to appreciate them.