Back to Playstation One

Recently I have shunned my other consoles (even my beloved Dreamcast!) for the delights of the original Playstation. It was like suddenly out of nowhere I had the urge to play games like Die Hard Trilogy, Driver and even the mega hard (well it was for me) In Cold Blood. Its quite strange because its not as if ive been hankering over re~playing these games or seen them at a car boot and picked them up. This urge to revisit the Playstation (which is a great little machine of course) has come out of nowhere.


My very modest PSX collection: it may not be big but theres gems here

Anyway im glad it did because ive been having a ball! Im quite the hoarder when it comes to games so it was only Driver and Grand Theft Auto that I had to track down and buy again. (Only a £1 each too. Have I just been lucky or are Playstation games cheaper than chips these days?) Man I hadn't played these for a while but all the old magic came flooding back as soon as the discs booted up!
Didn't have to get familiar with the controls or anything.
Its the Resident Evil games and Driver that have taken up most of my time, especially the latter. The time limits in Driver don't seem as unforgiving this time around either, im really having a blast with it again.
I have Silent Hill planned once I get the gasoline out of my blood and who knows where after that?
Playstation 3's little brother (or that should be OLDER brother) has given me a breath of fresh gaming air after being bogged down with current gen these past few months. Im even loving the first Tony Hawk's skateboarding game with its limited moves and stunts. There's plenty of life still in this grey dog I tell ya!

United Kingdom Apple Core

Back in 1986 emerged a young British thrash band who brought some cool music and a dose of FUN to the scene. Their name was Acid Reign and they were a bloody great band! They were picked up by British thrash metal label Under One Flag in '88 and released the Moshkinstein EP, which is when I discovered them. The EP cover (shown below) stood out from the rest in that crowded Musiquarium record shop in Swansea and as soon as I got home and played it, I was hooked.
The awesome 'Goddess', the punchy 'Suspended Sentence' and the truly awesome 'Motherly Love', their song to Norman Bates. Brilliant stuff!

Mosh!

They got to support bands like Flotsam and Jetsam, Death Angel, Nuclear Assault and Exodus, touring on Exodus' "Fabulous Disaster Tour".
Sadly they weren't around for long and after releasing just two full length albums, (1989s 'The Fear' and 'Obnoxious' in 1990) they went their seperate ways.
But it was fun while it lasted. Fantastic music to skate to as well! Moshkinstein!

Kung Fu Fighting

Righto, first my apologies for the silence on this little corner of the internet, sometimes 'real' life has a habit of interfering with blogs and my aim of filling it with metal and retro gaming goodness.
So without further ado some more goodness will I write. (Im having a Yoda moment.) I have been playing a lot of Kung-Fu Master in the last few days and as soon as I saw the opening scene the memories came rushing back. I had it originally on the Spectrum and while not being best port of the game, I played it until the cassette wore out. *Games On Cassette Shocker*
Kung Fu Master is a beat 'em up game where you take control of Keiji Thomas (Welsh mother?) as he fights his way through a Chinese temple to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia who has been captured by Mr X. There are five side scrolling floors in all, chock full of dastardly enemies for Mr Thomas to chop suey.
Floor one of the temple contains Grippers, Dwarves and Knife Throwers, wile following levels introduce Tom Toms, poisonous moths, fire-breathing dragons, snakes and not forgetting those 'confetti' balls.
At the end of each level Thomas must face a boss who has different skills and deal him his ass on a plate before going up those wooden stairs. If you've ever seen Bruce Lee's Game of Death (and who hasn't?) then you'll be on familiar ground.


Thomas inspects the enemies foot

Now some are of the opinion that Kung Fu Master gets pretty boring real fast, and I concede that playing it for any longer than say half hour it probably would get rather tedious, but for a quick ten minute blast of arcade fun I cannot fault it. Sure your karate kid only has a few moves but personally I think it adds to the feeling of 'being' a Bruce Lee, king-of-all type fighter. Some guy walks up to Thomas and WHACK! One high kick and its nighty night for the hapless goon, and making you feel as hard as the proverbial nail. Heck in some ports of the game you can even perform a flying kick and literally knock the enemies heads off! Thats power.
Another *thumbs up* for me must go to the music too. I think its catchy as hell and I find myself humming it long after ive played (in fact im doing it now!) It seems to 'go' with the kung fu drama thats unfolding on screen, or perhaps im thinking too much *Grin*
Sadly I don't think many youngsters of today would be very impressed with Kung Fu Master, and you can't blame them when they have the likes of Soul Calibur and Tekken to numb their finger pads to, but its a shame because this title can be a joy in short blasts.

The Boxing Calculator

Apologies for the abscence blame the snow, everyone else is Laughs Out Loud.
Bit of a blast from the past this one ~ the Casio BG-15 Electronic Calculator Clock & Boxing Game! I remember being the talk of my class after finding one of these babies in WHSmith. (And a lot of nagging to Mum of course!) Before long half the school had one, and a few paid more attention to these things than the old BBC computers we had set up in the Maths classroom.


A nifty little calc

I was going to see if I could pick one up on one of the auctions sites but so far the lowest price ive seen was £80 and I cant justify spending so much on a calculator at this time of year, especially when most should be tightening their belts (including me.) I'll stick it on top of my car boot hunting list, who knows I might get lucky?

In Car Dreamcast

Nevermind the radio, heres the Sega Dreamcast!

Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE the Dreamcast console. Like the Speccy before it, it fed my gaming addiction but there was 'something' more about it. Ive never been able to put my finger on it, it was just an amazing console to me. (And I know im not alone.)
So imagine my delight when I stumbled across the photo above. I'll admit its more than likely fake because the Dreamcast wasn't designed to be played upright but still, it looks GOOD and now my car will always feel like its missing a wheel.
*Sigh*

God Listens To Slayer!

Yes He does but enough on the Big Guys holy playlist, this is about mine. When I heard Slayer's classic Reign In Blood album in 1986 when it was released it was Love at first spin (it was all vinyl in them days.) I couldn't believe it, I had discovered a band that instantly took over the place in my heart held until then by Metallica.
Slayer (or F**king Slayer! as we fans belovedly know them as) are in one word ~ Awesome. Capital A Awesome. I am a big fan of many, many bands but none will ever replace Slayer. Not even Maiden or AC/DC.
After getting hooked on Reign In Blood I immediately went out and bought Haunting The Chapel, Show No Mercy, Hell Awaits and Live Undead and the rest is history. In school no desk was safe from the bands pentagram logo and my bedroom walls bounced from the speakers and covered in posters of my new found Love.

Can draw this in my sleep

I pretty much love everything they do (including the much panned punk covers album Undisputed Attitude) and its not just the incredible music either. Its the package entire; attitude, image, artwork designs, tattoos, general kick assery. Whenever I simply write the word SLAYER I have to write it in their now famous style.
I saw them in Cardiff (with Slipknot, Mastodon and Hatebreed) in 2005 and they were on top formas usual. How Kerry King can headbang while shredding his guitar the way he does never ceases to amaze me. The man is a full on legend and I don't use that word lightly.
New album, World Painted Blood is another addition to a fine catalogue of material and shows the guys are not easing up in their old age. (And no, they are REALLY old but you get my drift.)

Commando

Delved back into 1985 tonight and booted up Capcom's run and gunner, Commando. It was a favourite of mine back in the eighties and its certainly not too bad on the eyes today. Its not the longest of games, but thats by the by, arcade games weren't built like that in days of old (they were purely a 10p fix) and it was the one-more-go factor which kept players coming back.
Commando, along with a lot of titles back in the day, had neat little touches which always fleshed the game out that bit more. In this game (for me) it was the way the soldier puffed on a cigarette after succesfully completing a level. He stood there all defiant with his foot on a raised mound like he was saying, 'bring on the next army.'


Chaaargge!!

The next thing that grabbed me by the 80's quiff was the Hi-Scores. Or more precisely the way you in inputted your initials ~ crosshairs would appear over the alphabet and the gamer would shoot the relevant letters onto the scoreboard. (Which also included heart symbols!) Believe me, when you're a fourteen year old computer games geek it was little touches like that which wedged themselves deep into the brainbox. Or maybe it was just me?
Gameplay was pretty straightfoward and after a helicopter dropped your commando (Super Joe) at the start of the game, you would have to charge UP the screen, facing waves of enemy, which were on foot, jeep or motorcycle. It was the first veryical scrolling game id played and was easily the inspiration for other titles like Ikari Warriors and Gun.Smoke.
Super Joe was armed with a machine gun and limited grenades (more supplies could be picked up) and as well as plugging the enemy, you were also able to free hostages being marched up the screen between two bad guys. After reaching the top a gate would open, spilling enemies out, including an officer of rank (bonus points), which had to be dealt with before the levels end and that well deserved ciggie break.
Commando was one of those early games that truly had that one-more-go factor and could be very addictive. I dropped a ton of coinage into this in the arcades and am able to lose a swift hour even in this day of Modern Warfares and Medal Of Honours.
Lock and load Joe.