GRcade

I've noticed a real renewed interest in the Spectrum and Commodore over the last few months.

People are mad.

I love the spectrum it was a great little machine, but its certainly a lot easier to go back to old console gaming, the equipment needs less maintance.

Squinty wrote:I've noticed a real renewed interest in the Spectrum and Commodore over the last few months.

People are mad.

They are mad.

Though I can understand it. It was a uniquely British scene and between the Spectrum, Amstrad and C64 there was a lot of history that you just don't hear about from the US based games media and their obsession with "THE CRASH". If you were to believe them, after ET there were NO GAMES ANYWHERE until Nintendo arrived with the NES to save us all.

Mostly I just have fond memories of that time and the weird and wonderful systems we had back then.

I always loved the little line from Robert Florence on Charlie Brooker's GamesWipe years ago where he said British retro gaming was all about innocence, a scene held up by hobbyists who made whenever they wanted even if it was weird or plagiarised.

Yeah thats the thing about the micro computers people took chances and made random games that they just wanted to make, it wasnt all as directly money led as a lot of other platforms.

I just spent £20 on loose pal SNES carts of Super Mario World and Super Mario All starts and boxed complete copies of Ballz and Thunderblade for the Megadrive.

I am delighted that there is a resurgence in chat about the computer scene of the 80s and 90s. I am fond of the console systems of that era but it does feel like the gaming media often overlook the computers; there was a vast range of systems and games and, as a few folk have highlighted, a massive variety in titles, too!

I'd like to dig out and setup my C64 and Amiga but space is a challenge. Maybe I'll look at shifting a few things around in the coming months.

kerr9000 wrote:...loose pal SNES carts of Super Mario World and Super Mario All Stars...

Without googling, IIRC there are two versions of the All Stars cart; one that includes the SNES versions of the NES Mario games and another that has those titles and the SNES Super Mario World game. I got the latter version from the old Beatties shop. Beatties were primarily a models / trains chain but they become a great place for games in the 1990s.

jawafour wrote:there are two versions of the All Stars cart; one that includes the SNES versions of the NES Mario games and another that has those titles and the SNES Super Mario World game. I got the latter version from the old Beatties shop. Beatties were primarily a models / trains chain but they become a great place for games in the 1990s.

Yeah I have seen the cart with both World and All Stars on one cart before, I have never got it though just the normal one with the NES marios on. There used to be a Beatties in Nottingham where I used to go and look at the models and stuff I remember them getting SNES Games and it being a pretty darn good place to look, it was round the corner from an Odean Cinema I miss both of them.

kerr9000 wrote:...There used to be a Beatties in Nottingham where I used to go and look at the models and stuff I remember them getting SNES Games and it being a pretty darn good place to look...

Yeah, Beatties was ace, kerr. I bought my launch day PlayStation from their London Liverpool Street branch! I'm not familiar with the Nottingham area but I know that a YouTube gaming collector, TheGebs24, has filmed some of her visits to retro gaming shops there. Including this one:

Yeah thats kind of funny the copy of Faxanadu or however its spelt on the NES that she points out I nearly purchased and then decided not to. It is funny seeing someone looking at and showing the same stuf I look at. Before I shut down my Instergram I used to photo some of the expensive stuff like the stuff shes pointing out in CEX and put up posts going wowsers look at this and how much this is.

It seems that there are many more retro gaming stores in the midlands area than there are in the south. I'm in the south London suburbs area and there are very few places selling games; let alone retro games. I think that shop rental rates are just too high for gaming stores (even though the shopping areas themselves can often be dumps ).

jawafour wrote:It seems that there are many more retro gaming stores in the midlands area than there are in the south. I'm in the south London suburbs area and there are very few places selling games; let alone retro games. I think that shop rental rates are just too high for gaming stores (even though the shopping areas themselves can often be dumps ).

There was one in Streatham but it closed and was an estate agents last time i looked before moving away.

In f Nottingham as far as retro Games go there are 2 cex's that have retro stuff, and a pawn store that has retro bits, oh and a tiny tiny indy shop thats run by a guy who opens it when he feels like it lol

Cheeky Devlin wrote:

Squinty wrote:I've noticed a real renewed interest in the Spectrum and Commodore over the last few months.

People are mad.

They are mad.

Though I can understand it. It was a uniquely British scene and between the Spectrum, Amstrad and C64 there was a lot of history that you just don't hear about from the US based games media and their obsession with "THE CRASH". If you were to believe them, after ET there were NO GAMES ANYWHERE until Nintendo arrived with the NES to save us all.

Mostly I just have fond memories of that time and the weird and wonderful systems we had back then.

We had a spectrum when I was younger. I can't imagine what some of those games play like now.

First system that I ever heard digitised speech on as well. Dizzy's Fast Food being an example of it.

I got my Amstrad out to repair it a while back and loaded magicland dizzy. Fuuuuuu they're so damn tough

Pixel perfect positioning required along with timing by having to press up and right to diagonal jump, then the twat rolls off and dies anyway.

It was a huge nostalgia rush though

Had a retro gaming night with a mate and we played through all of gunstar heroes. Bar a little slowdown in two player that game is timeless. So good.

You lot playing the micros on tapes/floppy disk or are you using hard drives/flash memory?
I know people like to do the latter now.

Ok so Today I got a boxed N64 Transer pack, and loose carts for World Cup 98, NFL Quarterback club 98 and Rugrats treasure hunt for the N64 for £8, the part I was happiest with was getting the boxed transfer pack.

Yesterday I finally reached level 6 in Thunderforce IV albeit on easy with 4 lives, I was so excited I actually took pictures I'll post soon. The level 5 boss is an absolute bastard, needless to say level 6 wasn't much better, very short level though.