Games

Retro Computer Games Festival Mini – Tournament Special – 18th June 2011 Review

As I mentioned in my preview, this Tournament Special features games! which you play! and record your score! and then you win! if you’re the winner. The Idea is you need to have a high score in each game in order to be the overall winner, although you may not have the highest score you could still win as it’s based on the percentage of the highest score obtained by those in the Tournament, but you don’t need to know that to have fun and that’s exactly what I did, as you can see from the “Live updated from the show” super website: http://www.retrocomputergamesfestival.com/live/ I placed 15th out of 20, so I didn’t win but one Martin Deem (rogueio) did win with an overall percentage of 422.53% out of 500%

An Inviting Sign

An Inviting Sign

And now that’ve spoiled the results of the show, because I know that’s what you came here for, on we go to the beginning of the show. Myself and Simon Hadlington (RenegadeSi) (4th out of 20) and Pete Sutcliffe (Sutty) (19th out of 20) arrived at the pub around 1pm and since we were early we were roped into helping setup, we put up some posters and moved some boxes around as Matt Brown rubbed his hands with glee and cackled away in the corner or maybe that was me, as I sat writing the names of the games on the top of the score sheets, which reminds me speaking of games, the games, of course no Tournament would be complete without some games to compete on, the selection was as follows:

  • Hyper Sports – Commodore 64 – Unfortuantly the C64 passed away leaving behind it’s glorious Hyper Sports custom controller widow.
  • Crazy Taxi – Sony PlayStation 2 – All one of the dreamcast fans died a little when they saw Crazy Taxi running on the PS2 but they were resurrected when they saw Chu Chu Rocket in the back room.
  • DepthCharge – MAME – Played on Matt Brown’s beloved yet to be finished Arcade Cabinet.
  • Centipede – Atari 2600 – A classic arcade conversion played on a wonderful 6 switch Woody.
  • After Burner – Sega Saturn – From my experience, you fly through the air and then randomly explode and crash, I wasn’t very good at this game.
  • Tempest – Sinclair ZX81 – Apparently one of the best Arcade to Sinclair conversions, you wouldn’t recognise it as Tempest unless somebody told you but it was very playable and so I did play it.
  • There was also a bonus game Sub Hunter on the Amstrad CPC 464 from the guys at Psytronik.
The Back Room

The Back Room

It all started rather quietly which is when I should have been putting down scores but instead I thought I’d have some lunch and a couple of drinks and then I’d leave it until the final hour of playtime before recording a score for each game. There was an interesting environment, with retro folk and the locals, some of them must be used to it by now what with the limited space out the back you have to take over the main pub and that we did.

The Piano Game Stand Thingie

The Piano Game Stand Thingie

Myself, Jason Butwell (Jaseybee) and Chris Magee (UncleBis) were pleased to see Mashed on the Xbox but it wasn’t the Fully Loaded version and it only had about 5 levels unlocked, it was still fun to beat and humiliate Jason but I would have liked more variety. Matt Brown was kind enough to remind everyone to get their skates on and submit a score before he took away the score sheets and so I rushed around playing each game once and putting down the first score I got.  Considering I did this for Crazy Taxi I’m surprised I came 5th but out of all of the games this was probably the one I’ve played the most, just not on the day.

The Award Ceremony (Sponsored by Kick Energy Drink)

The Award Ceremony (Sponsored by Kick Energy Drink)

The Runners up and the Winners were announced with many wonderful prizes given out with the distinct theme of Kick Energy merchandise, but there was some goodies to be had like T-shirts and Video Game strategy guides, what did you expect from a free event. And Love it or Hate it, as the evening drew to a close the distinct wailing and clatering of plastic instruments could be heard as a certain rhythm action game declining in popularity known as Rock Band is setup on one side of the pub, but thankfully you could still play other games while this was going on.

Rock Band in Full Swing

Rock Band in Full Swing

More Rock Band

More Rock Band

Even More Rock Band

Even More Rock Band

And eventually last orders was called, then time at the bar and despite being told that they couldn’t play any more the Rock Band players demanded a final song to see them off this was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody after the song finished a strange quiet fell over the pub, folks began to pack up their kit and say their goodbyes and with that an excellent one day event came to an end, I think Matt Brown put on an excellent show, he definitely stuck to the Retro side of things, aside from the Xbox 360 for Rock Band the newest machines they had there were the PS2 and the Dreamcast, and with a good mix of computers, consoles and handhelds made this event one to remember.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.