Memories of gaming shows at Earls Court, London

 

A favourite venue of mine for many years for all kinds of different shows and concerts was London’s Earls Court but in particular I always used to enjoy going there for gaming shows such as Eurogamer Expo and, going back a bit further, the Personal Computer World Show.  There was just such a great atmosphere around gaming events at this venue, from the anticipation building on the journey from Embankment on the District Line tube to there always being something cool to see on the forecourt outside - I remember for one show there was a full size tank parked up promoting a game - I forget which one!    

At the last Eurogamer Expo I went to there the streaming games service OnLive was launching and they were giving away the boxes required to use it.  I queued up for 45 minutes but it was absolutely worth it as I came away with a free OnLive box and shortly after returning home I was up and running!

The building itself had so much character and lent itself perfectly to hosting gaming shows especially with the upper balcony level too giving extra exhibiting space.  Another unique feature of the building was the covered underground walkway from one of the platforms at the tube station which brought you out right in the entrance foyer of the building!

I used to genuinely love going to events at Earls Court but gaming shows were always my favourite and it’s an absolute crying shame that the building has now been demolished and I’ll no longer be able to enjoy it’s special atmosphere.

Quarth (GameBoy) Review - a real gem!

As mentioned in previous post about the Portable Power Podcast, I’ve found it most useful so far for discovering titles I’d never heard of before and one of those is a real gem - Quarth.

Best described as Tetris meets Space Invaders, shapes descend from the top of the screen and the object of the game is to use your ship at the bottom of the screen to fire squares to fill the gaps in the shapes and make a perfect square or rectangle, once the gap is filled the shape will disappear.  The level is over once all gaps are filled or the shapes hit the bottom of the screen.

Graphically the game looks great, is really addictive to play and is one of the best and most innovative GameBoy titles I’ve played in a long time - highly recommended! TRJ RATING : 4.5/5

There’s a new GameBoy YouTube channel and it’s brilliant!

There’s a new GameBoy YouTube channel and it’s really rather excellent! It’s called The Portable Power Podcast https://youtube.com/@PortablePowerPodcast and the mission of it’s creator is to play every GameBoy game released in chronological order and upload a new video (a mini review) each weekday of a different title.

At the time of writing the channel is up to episode 48, the videos are between 5 and 8 minutes in length, well presented, informative and entertaining.  Some of the well known titles featured so far include Super Mario Land, Tetris and Space Invaders.

I’ve found the channel most useful for discovering titles I never knew about or had heard of, so far I’ve found three such excellent games - Quarth (to be reviewed shortly), Flipull and Pipe Dream.

The eventual plan of the guy who runs the channel is to launch a book containing all the reviews of the titles funded through Kickstarter and if it’s half as good as the YouTube channel it should be well worth waiting for!

An absolute must watch channel for anyone who’s a fan of the original GameBoy.

The best gaming magazine ever (in my opinion) is now available to enjoy again!

 

Firstly apologies for the lack of posts so far this year, a busy life has got in the way! I hope to start regular posts again and plan on expanding the blog to cover mobile games too so watch this space!

When I was at school my undoubted favourite gaming magazine was the SNES magazine ‘Super Play’ and the brilliant news is that thanks to the Retro Gaming Mags website all 17 issues are now available to read and download as PDF files!

This was, and still is a brilliant magazine for any fans of the SNES, the Will Overton designed front covers were always stunning and each issue was packed with quality reviews and content.

I’ve already downloaded all issues and plan to enjoy them all over again!

If you’re interested in checking it out they’re available at https://retrogamingmags.com/super-play-all-issues

FYI the same site also has loads of Sega magazines available including the legendary Mean Machines Sega, and another favourite magazine of mine, the Official Sega Saturn Magazine.

UPDATE 4/3 : Unfortunately the above site has now closed down so the link no longer works sadly, glad I managed to download all the issues while they were available!

Odin Pro Review - an emulation powerhouse!

 

Well it’s finally in my hands - the Odin Pro, I’ve been excited for this device for a long time as I’d heard great things about the build quality and it’s performance, so does it live up to expectations? Let’s find out……

Build Quality and Ergonomics

The build quality of the Odin Pro is excellent, the whole machine feels really premium and high-end, from the touchscreen to the analogue sticks, face buttons to the shoulder buttons, everything is really responsive.  It is a very ergonomic and comfortable device to hold too thanks to two raised grips on the back of the machine so no complaints from this section!  I also really like the optional blue light around the analogue sticks and side panels, this can be turned off in the Android settings.

Screen

Another high point of the Odin Pro is the screen which is the sharpest, brightest and most colourful I’ve seen on any retro emulation handheld, the ATV Launcher I use (pictured above) and the games really do pop off the screen, very impressive indeed.

Performance

Now we come to the big, important section. how does it perform?  The answer is exceptionally well! The machine has three performance modes - Standard, Performance and High which can be changed quickly and easily via the notifications menu, High Performance mode is definitely recommended for anything above PS1 such as PS2, Dreamcast, Saturn, N64 and PSP although for PS1 and below you should be fine with Standard.  It’s reported that it plays around 50% of PS2 games well and around 75% of Gamecube games well and to date I’ve had zero issues with Dreamcast, Saturn, N64 or PSP, they all run perfectly although with some PSP games a little bit of tinkering is required regarding frameskip for example on the two God of War titles.  The surprise packet for me so far has been the performance of the AetherSX2 PS2 emulator which has surpassed my expectations! The best results are achieved by adding some underclocking in the Settings.  There’s only been one title so far I’ve added which I’ve not been able to play and everything else plays extremely well including titles such as Time Crisis 2 & 3, Gran Turismo 3 & 4 and God of War II, I seriously was not expecting this level of performance on PS2 and just proves what an absolute powerhouse of a machine this is! I did have an issue until yesterday getting the left analogue stick to work with some PS2 titles but thanks to advice from Reddit and Discord I’ve now fixed this.  

Gamecube plays great via the DolphinMMJR emulator although some overlocking is required in the Settings for best results on some titles, a high point for me on this emulator was being able to play F-Zero GX for the first time at full speed and with perfect audio!  I didn’t manage such impressive results though with Wii on the same emulator, most games were quite stuttery, slow or difficult to play due to the Wii’s controls although I did manage to get perfect performance and playability out of Mario Kart Wii (by far the best performing Wii game), Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom All-Stars.  I wasn’t expecting great things from Wii anyway so the fact that any Wii games are playable is a bonus!  

Dreamcast and Saturn titles perform perfectly straight away with no tinkering required and 720p resolution is possible, and these games have never looked better thanks to the Odin’s amazing screen!  

And lastly PSP, the Odin definitely gives the best performance I’ve yet seen playing pretty much every title perfectly right up to 3x resolution with little or no frameskip required in the Settings, although, as previously mentioned the two God of War titles do work best with a frameskip of 1 and 1 or 2x resolution but again, both games perform better on here than I’ve ever seen on any other device.  

As you’d expect any machine below and including PS1 performs flawlessly right out of the box in Standard performance mode with no tweaking required.

Overall the performance and power of this machine is incredible and unrivalled by any other retro emulation handheld in my collection, I am so impressed!

Final Verdict

This is without a doubt the jewel in the crown of my collection, it’s extremely comfortable to use, looks great with responsive controls and exceptional performance, it really is a quite incredible device!  TRJ RATING : 5/5

Best Season 1 Playdate games

 

Well 12 weeks have passed since I got my little Panic Playdate handheld (already reviewed on this blog), and I now have all 24 of the included games released in Season 1 and I’m pleased to report that there are far more excellent games than bad so thought I’d mention some of my personal favourites :

o360

This is a variant of the classic title Breakout and makes good use of the crank handle to control the bat which, unlike the original, moves in a circular fashion, a great and inventive take on a classic.

Snak

Another variant of a classic title, this time it’s Snake, in this title you must guide the snake around collecting apples, a simple game but great for passing away a few minutes.

Spellcorked!

In this game you gather ingredients to concoct spells in order to complete orders and ship them out, it also requires you to tilt the machine slightly in order to pour the blended potion into the bottles which is pretty neat.

Inventory Hero

Fast reflexes are the order of the day in this title, you must decide which items to keep and which to drop as your character moves along in order to defeat the enemies, a great looking and enjoyable game.

Hyper Meteor

The Playdate take on Asteroids, the difference here is you must ram your ship into the black parts of the asteroids in order to destroy them, a lot harder than it sounds and great fun!

OMaze

Use the crank to guide a ball through a series of circles to the exit, it start off easy but soon becomes a challenge as more controls and features are added.

Flipper Lifter

Good use of the crank is again made in this title which sees you moving penguins up and down a lift between floors, yes it is as bizarre as it sounds but it’s so much fun!

Pick Pack Pup

Match the symbols to pack orders and ship them out, the challenge here is matches don’t immediately disappear

Whitewater Wipeout

Very reminiscent of the surfing section of California Games use the crank to perform awesome surfing tricks, it takes a bit of practice and to begin with you’ll wipeout loads of times but with a few plays some stunning tricks are possible.

Crankin’s Time Travel Adventures

Crankin is running late for his date and you must use the crank to get him there as quickly as possible but the crank is also used to rewind in order to dodge flying obstacles.

Zipper

A game in which you must maneavoure your character past the enemies, it sounds easy but a large part of the game is predicting the path the enemies will take and working out where to move accordingly.

So those are my personal favourites, although there are many more top titles for the little device, here’s hoping for a Season 2…….

TRJ Newsdesk : awesome bonus content is coming for the Evercade EXP!

Some of you may have heard of or own, as I do, the Evercade retrogaming handheld, an excellent device which harks back to the days of collecting games on cartridge and proper full colour game manuals with each one. For those who aren’t aware of it, cartridges are available for the device each providing various retro games from different developers including Atari and Namco.

Well now in November comes the Evercade EXP, a new and improved version of the handheld offering a better screen, controls and a ‘Tate’ mode allowing supported games to be played vertically.  I’ve pre-ordered one so a review will be appearing when I’ve received it and given it a good test.

It had been known for sometime that Evercade were going to offer bonus content and yesterday (Fri 2nd Sep) they finally unveiled what it was - 18 classic Capcom games built-in! I’m super excited about this as for me Capcom have made some of the best titles in gaming history, the full list is below : 

1942 (Arcade)

1943 (Arcade)

1944 : The Loop Master (Arcade)

Bionic Commando (Arcade)

Captain Commando (Arcade)

Commando (Arcade)

Final Fight (Arcade)

Forgotten Worlds (Arcade)

Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Arcade)

Legendary Wings (Arcade)

MERCS (Arcade)

Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting (Arcade)

Strider (Arcade)

Vulgus (Arcade)

Mega Man (8-bit)

Mega Man 2 (8-bit)

Mega Man X (16-bit)

Breath of Fire (16-bit)

Personally I’m really pleased to see 1944 : The Loop Master and Legendary Wings included as these are two of my favourite arcade shoot-em-ups ever and will be playable as originally intended thanks the EXP’s vertical ‘Tate’ mode.

This should be a very impressive device which I’m very much looking forward to getting my hands on in November, it will also work with all existing Evercade cartridges which is great as I own a few already!