Retro Games Blog

Gadget Reviews

We love gadgets here at Retro Games and if it's cool retro gadgets you are after, we recommend Gadget Reviews.  Featuring the best of top gadget websites like Firebox.com or Iwantoneofthose.com, the site gives you reviews of what is hot and not in the world of gadgets, with cool videos to really show you what you are getting.  So, whether it is home gadgets, remote control gadgets or even some discount codes you are looking for in order to find the perfect gift for someone, we are happy to recommed gadget reviews as a leading website to check out.

Computer Games rental service goes online

With so many quality computer games to choose from these days, the cost can really add up.  I like to muck around with rental services these days which for the price of one game can usually give you 3 or 4 months membership to play, complete and return as many games as you like.  Hire Call of Duty 4 for a month and then retrun it when you fancy a bash at FIFA 08, pretty cool really.

We recommend this rent computer games site which reviews all the reantal sites and has the best deals around.

Wii turns to Mario and Sonic for some retro flavour

Kiddies favourite, the Nintendo Wii is utilising two of retro gaming's biggest intellectual properties, Sonic and Mario in their game featuring the world's most famous plumber and bluest hedgehog.  This has resulted in Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, set in the environments which will be unveiled to us all at the Olympic Games in Beijing next year.  Of course, by setting the game at a sporting event, the makers are also harking back to old skool classic such as Track and Field and Daley Thompson's Decathlon.  The events are numerous and varied, from Javelin to Table Tennis.  Hours of family based fun are pretty much guaranteed here and you can get hold of it at Game for £39.99

Battle of the retro machines

It's US focussed but a nice article none the less, taking the age old battle of the retro consoles.  Starting with the age-old Sega versus Nintendo debate.  Enjoy and read it here

Favourite covers

Feeling nostalgic this morning (which is lucky) and was thinking about some of my favourite covers.  Certainly one that bring me out in gooseybumps is Daley Thompson's Decathlon.  This was a cracking game as well and one which we will look at in more detail later on but the cover was one of those which got over the excitement of competing and winning in a competition.  And it had the olympic rings on, wonder if they would get away with that these days without paying a million?!

Spy Hunter parody

I'm a real fan of Adult Swim, the cult US series of programmes responsible for shows such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Harvey Birdman.  But one of their best shows is Robot Chicken, a series utilising animation with action man type figures.  Last night I caught this beauty and was delighted to find it on youtube and share it with you.  They take the Commodore 64 classic game Spy Hunter and turn it into a news report, great stuff...(needs sound)

Sega Dreamcast Guitar

I was a big fan of the Dreamcast during its short tenure as a games console.  And I still feel a bit angry with Sega for messing the whole thing up.  An advertising campaign centred around online game play that was nowhere near ready in a 56k bit modem world as well as millions squandered on a sponsorship of Arsenal when they should have been buying up retail space and courting the retailers.  But still, I never imagined it would come back as a guitar, but someone has spent a week in their garage and modded it, check it out...click the image to supersize....

Is a retro games blog an impossible mission?

I hope not - I feel privileged to have been born in the 1970s and so gone through the various stages of computer games that only someone of my generation could go through.  From the earliest incarnations of Pong, to the puzzlement of ET on the Atari, onwards to Defender on the Atari 400, then the wonder of the Commodore 64.  I unashamedly fall into the Commodore side in the old Commodore vs Spectrum debate, but that's only because that is what I unwrapped one Christmas.

Although the cartridge game International Football was possibly the most played on that system (mostly because it was two-player and like most kids, I had to 'share' the system with an older brother) it iwas the game Impossible Mission that really grasped my imagination.  An underground lair, a megalomaniac professor, I was truly world leader pretend.  And the speech, wow, the sound of digitised speech when you loaded that gameup, will stay with me forever.  So please join in my first toast to a truly splendid game, watch the clip, the player kindly obliges by falling down a gap as well......superb....

Welcome to the Retro Games Blog

A warm welcome to the retro games blog, a brand new blog about old computer games.  From the Atari to the Vic-20, we'll be unashamedly nostalgic about 32 minute load times, flickering load screens and games that simply reset when you completed them.  This blog will develop as it goes along, so bear with us, thanks.