GRcade Retro Gaming Chat

[Jazzem]

Ah man Gynoug's great, not one I played back in the day but was impressed with while Mega Drive collecting a years back. Speaking of great game music:

[jawafour]

The Kickstarter is live for the Zzap! 64 annual 2019 .

I was really hoping that they'd produce this after the Spectrum edition arive last year. Zzap! is my all-time favourite gaming mag .

[jawafour]

So...anyone play Zool? ...

I've still got my Amiga version, Jazzem. It came with a Chupa-Chups lolly in the box .

...I had it on the Acorn Archimedes of all things. It was an event whenever I could get the game working, I didn't understand how the anti-piracy wheel worked...

An Archimedes? Wow, I've never actually used one of them! I recall seeing it in the window of - I think! - Rumbelows (the ancient electronics store). The Amiga version had the security wheel too; the black-type on black background made it immune to photo-copying but it was a pain to read .

[Jazzem]

So...anyone play Zool? ...

I've still got my Amiga version, Jazzem. It came with a Chupa-Chups lolly in the box .

...I had it on the Acorn Archimedes of all things. It was an event whenever I could get the game working, I didn't understand how the anti-piracy wheel worked...

An Archimedes? Wow, I've never actually used one of them! I recall seeing it in the window of - I think! - Rumbelows (the ancient electronics store). The Amiga version had the security wheel too; the black-type on black background made it immune to photo-copying but it was a pain to read .

Bahaha amazing on bundled chupa chups, god I hope there aren't any sealed copies out there with that still in there D:

My dad was a deputy head teacher at my primary school which had lots of Archimedes computers, so he brought a spare one home. Like the prior Acorn micros, I think it mainly found its use in schools. It's where I first played Lemmings, Pac-Man in any form (Pac-Mania), Sim City and a few other gems so I've got a soft spot for it

Ha on the security wheel, is pretty fun how creative they got with trying to circumvent piracy back then. To limited success; most of our Archimedes games were copies

[kerr9000]

Long time since I've seen an acorn.. I love how many computers there were back then ,most seemed to have commodore 64s or spectrums but I remember a friend having an amstrad, my cousin having a dragon and my older brother having a BBC, and it was so neat getting to see all these varied micros.

[OrangeRKN]

Talking of Zool... anyone ever read the books?

I only ever played the game briefly a few years ago on PC, but the books I got as a kid from a second hand bookshop and I absolutely loved them B)

[Green Gecko]

My year 5 class had an Acorn, we used to play some rip off of Bomberman and one of those sticker pasting painting apps on it. And there was also some sort of awful text/picture adventure.

Speaking of ancient PC games, other than Duke Nukem 3D that I copied to hard disk and ran via DOS so I could listen to Dire Strait's Money for Nothin (Pentium 1 Win 95), and Lemmings that I think came free with a PC magazine on a floppy disk (Win 3.1), I used to play all sorts of random games that came as free CDs or just floppy disks that showed up somehow including, Secret of Monkey Island (already a retro experience at the time - I hardly played it), "A10 Cuba", and something called Armageddon, where you played as a tank made up of about 5 polygons. I honestly can't even remember all the random stuff I loaded for maybe 20 minutes before realising it was awful.

I also had PC copies of Ecco the Dolphine and Comix Zone, tbh I still wish I had them as Comix Zone is quite expensive on PC and the Ecco soundtrack is better. Maybe they are in the attic somewhere, so I can image them and play my legit copy on my XP machine under Win 95 compatibility mode - it'll probably work. Probably.

I also remember playing Ecco with a joystick for some reason.

[jawafour]

Bahaha amazing on bundled chupa chups, god I hope there aren't any sealed copies out there with that still in there D: ...

You know, I'm not sure if I left the lolly in the game box or not... I'll need to visit my loft to investigate ...

...(Acorn computers in schools)...

The first computer games that I played were on the Acorn BBC B at school; I believe the initial ones were Yellow River Kingdom and Killer Gorilla (a superb Donkey Kong clone). I went on to learn BASIC coding on the machine... it was great!

[Jazzem]

I also had PC copies of Ecco the Dolphine and Comix Zone, tbh I still wish I had them as Comix Zone is quite expensive on PC and the Ecco soundtrack is better. Maybe they are in the attic somewhere, so I can image them and play my legit copy on my XP machine under Win 95 compatibility mode - it'll probably work. Probably.

I also remember playing Ecco with a joystick for some reason.

Ooh, didn't know PC version of Comix Zone was sought after, assumed those Sega PC games were all dead cheap due to multiple reprints. Nice on the PC version of Ecco using the Mega CD soundtrack, they've only ever rereleased the Mega Drive version alas. Though it is a Sonic CD situation in that while I prefer one soundtrack the alternative is no slouch.

Bahaha amazing on bundled chupa chups, god I hope there aren't any sealed copies out there with that still in there D: ...

You know, I'm not sure if I left the lolly in the game box or not... I'll need to visit my loft to investigate ...

Ha! Approach with trepidation...

...(Acorn computers in schools)...

The first computer games that I played were on the Acorn BBC B at school; I believe the initial ones were Yellow River Kingdom and Killer Gorilla (a superb Donkey Kong clone). I went on to learn BASIC coding on the machine... it was great!

Ooh funnily enough we had a game that was a Donkey Kong clone on the Archimedes, can't for the life of me remember what it was called...played that years before I did the original come DK64 in 1999!

That's ace on the BASIC

[jawafour]

...That's ace on the BASIC

10 REM JAZZEM tag
15 DIM lttrs (6)
20 FOR l = 1 TO 6
30 READ lttrs(l)
40 NEXT l
50 FOR l = 1 to 6
60 PRINT ASC((lttrs,l));
70 Print"-";
80 NEXT l
90 END
100 DATA 74,65,122,122,69,77

> RUN
J-A-Z-Z-E-M

I'm not sure that I've got the printing reference in the second loop sequence correct .

[jawafour]

...The Kickstarter is live for the Zzap! 64 annual 2019 ...

...The 2nd stretch goal has been reached. Everyone will now get a ZZap! 64 calendar with a Oli Frey Zzap covers used each month.

The next stretch goal is a Sizzler enamel badge if we hit £50K.

Oh, man, the Oli Frey calendar is gonna be great. I hope the badge goal is hit, too .

[Jazzem]

...That's ace on the BASIC

10 REM JAZZEM tag
15 DIM lttrs (6)
20 FOR l = 1 TO 6
30 READ lttrs(l)
40 NEXT l
50 FOR l = 1 to 6
60 PRINT ASC((lttrs,l));
70 Print"-";
80 NEXT l
90 END
100 DATA 74,65,122,122,69,77

> RUN
J-A-Z-Z-E-M

I'm not sure that I've got the printing reference in the second loop sequence correct .

You legend

[Green Gecko]

But I can do that in less code with python.

Code: Select all

print("J-A-Z-Z-E-M")

Things have come a long way.

[Hypes]

BugHunter was the gooseberry fool

[Victor Mildew]

Was in cex yesterday ( ) and the woman next to me at the counter had a bag with an n64 in and it was filled with games. She pulled out goldneye, diddy Kong racing, Mario kart 64, controllers. I walked away at this point but I was cringing at the thought of how hard she was about to be ripped off.

[jawafour]

BugHunter was the gooseberry fool

You were an Archimedes player too, Hypes? I don't know the game but I looked it up... it looks like a cool platform puzzler.

[Green Gecko]

Was in cex yesterday ( ) and the woman next to me at the counter had a bag with an n64 in and it was filled with games. She pulled out goldneye, diddy Kong racing, Mario kart 64, controllers. I walked away at this point but I was cringing at the thought of how hard she was about to be ripped off.

that reminds me of situations in game and Woolworth's etc with parents buying awful games and feeling compelled to help but really can't because of social norms etc etc or clerks selling awful games or ones where the age rating is obviously totally inappropriate.

I probably would have stopped her and told them to put it on Facebook marketplace for free with valuations but she was probably desperate, unfortunately these things are still bashing around in low income households and places like cex and cash converters etc can be a lifeline for those people while also ripping them off.

[Corazon de Leon]

On the subject of CEX - my local one has a copy of Separation Anxiety on the SNES for £110. Was tempted to buy it.

[kerr9000]

Have you played Seperation Anxiety, its not a great game. I loved Maximum carnage and seperation was a poor sequel yes it had two player but everything else was a lot worse.

[Corazon de Leon]

Yes, I have played it, it's not amazing but I loved it as a kid. I still want it.