Wednesday, November 30, 2005
The second two retro games compilation cartridges for GBA arrived yesterday... finally!So, fave games turn out to be pretty much the ones I expected. Galaxians, Scramble, and Gyruss... but with the surprise addition of Galaga. I never played that one in the arcades, but am enjoying it loads now.
Disapointments? Pole Position is pretty sad when played with a pad instead of a wheel. None are truly terrible though, which is nice.
I almost have a pocket collection of everything I played in the arcades back in the 80s now, with just a few exceptions. Sooner or later I'll pick up Paperboy, Marble Madness, Space Invaders and Street Fighter II.
Sadly, 2 games I wont be able to get are among my very faves... Atari Star Wars, and I Robot. Ah well.
Labels: games
Steve 6:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, November 21, 2005
Eek!In college today I took part in a group presentation. OMG!
Scared? I've never spoken in front of a group before, like... ever, so to say I was nervous is the understatement of the century.
I was losing the plot a little at the start of my piece, forgot what I was trying to say, voice broke up, and I just wanted to run away screaming.
I just about managed to hold it together though, and about a third of the way through my piece, I pulled myself together and became a little more coherent.
Overall, our group did very well because we were ad-libbing, and not just reading pre-prepared stuff, but by god, I dont wanna do that again in a hurry.
Labels: college
Steve 2:37 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 20, 2005
This afternoon/evening we went back to Sheffield to see the turning on of the christmas lights.We got rather sidetracked, wandering round and exploring the city centre area, so by the time we got back to where the lights were, they were already on.
No biggie.
I got a couple of great photos though.
Here's one of them.
Steve 6:42 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, November 19, 2005
This is 2 photos I took last week in Sheffield, put together in Photoshop.
The join isn't too hard to find if you look for it, (though no, it isn't down the edge of that building in the foreground... there's some odd perspective stuff going on here) but I love the end result.
Labels: photos
Steve 6:54 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, November 18, 2005
I'm absolutely sick to death of my IT lesson in college. So sick of it, I just walked out.After missing the 2nd 2 weeks of the course when I had bad eyes, I got dumped into the bottom group in the class and have been pretty much ignored ever since.
So today I show up, and the computers wont recognise my login and password, and a message has been left saying the tutor will be late.
Well I'm fucked if I'm gonna sit there twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to show up, just so I can log on.
I may yet fail this whole course, coz unless something gets done about this IT course, I'm simply not gonna go to it... and less than 80% attendance in any lesson means failing the whole lot.
I have a personal tutorial next tuesday where I get to talk about the course in general with my tutor, so I plan to kick up a stink.
Steve 9:20 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Funny how the format a game is played on can affect how enjoyable it is.Now I've had the mame emulator on my computers for years, and copies of all my favourite 70s and 80s retro arcade games, and have always enjoyed them.
However, I've never been one to spend a lot of time playing them. 15 mins on each one was about the max.
So, this weekend I *bought* some retro games compilations from Amazon for my Game Boy Advance SP, the games being Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout and Tempest by Atari, and After Burner, Outrun, Super Hang On and Space Harrier by Sega....
And do you know what?
I enjoyed them *much* more on the handheld format than I ever did on my pc, though not as much as playing them in the arcades (you can't beat the rush of playing a game that costs you per go, especially when you're low on change).
Also, it should be noted that the sprite scaling on the Sega games was vastly superior to any I've seen on any other conversion or emulation.
Out of the entire collection, there are only 2 duff games, and that's not really the fault of the games themselves, so much as them not being suited to handheld controllers. Missile Command is next to useless without a trackball, and Afterburner... I dunno what was up with that, I just couldn't point my plane at the targets.
2 more compilations are currently winging their way to me, including Galaxians, and one of my all time faves, the brutally difficult Defender. Expect even more to be ordered in the near future too.
I dunno what it is, but handheld retro gaming really pushes my buttons.
Labels: games
Steve 1:25 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Gaps between posts continue to be extended.Truth is, it's not just my blog that's being neglected, but the whole of what was my 'internet life'. That's what having a life in 'real life' does to you.
So, what've I been doing?
Games, college, day trips, more games.
Doom 3 on PC is a damned fine romp, it has to be said. Brainless, but great fun, and awesome graphics.
Mario Kart on GBA SP is even better than it was on SNES, though Andrea and I disagree on whether it's better than Mario Kart 64. I think it is. She has a GBA SP too, so we play it linked up, head to head.
College.... been on half term holiday. We Went to Skegness last thursday, which turned out to be a really nice day. Not too many people, great weather, huge looooooooooooong beach.
Labels: games
Steve 11:24 AM [+] (0) comments
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