We are all Brand Loyalists, Like it or Not.

I saw a Youtube video the other day, which talked extensively about the concept of fanboy-ism amongst gamers. This got me thinking, because as a reviewer of all games that are considered retro, I am compelled to put across a totally unbiased and equal view on the subject matter. But, do I really do this? Am I being fair, objective and open-minded? For general articles I think I have this down to a tee, no worries there, but in social conversation and discussion, I'm not so sure. I have come to conclusion that, no matter what kind of gamer you are, no matter what era you hail from or what generation you belong too, we all have our favourite consoles but more potently, concealed within the depths of our id, I suspect we have an unexplained draw to a specified manufacturer at any given period. And there is little we can do about this.

Casting aside my usual thought-processes of fair play, I can admit what brands I'm drawn too. In my childhood, Amstrad was the manufacturer that imprisoned my young gaming mind. I would defend the CPC with all the over-inflated facts or blatant untruths I could. The three way argument of the Commodore, Amstrad and of course the Spectrum fans would be the start of many schoolyard scraps. Normally, the Speccy guys would be overrun by the brags of graphical power the other two had, so it became a straight fight between C64 and 464. Our young minds not able to fully grasp the concept of 'Gameplay'. Ironically, if the Speccy guy had played this card, a win may have been very possible. Anyway, needless to say I was Alan Sugar's metaphorical bitch during this time, and even when I had the chance delve into the delights of the Amiga or Megadrive, all I craved for was Amstrad's latest machine. Yes, that was the ill-fated GX4000.... (Yes, I know now!)

Machinehead! A few generations of my favourite manufacturers...

After Amstrad abandoned the computer market, and the 16-bit era taking a foothold, I found myself strangely drawn to Nintendo. I believe this was a combination of liking the newest console available at the time, and the illogical hatred I had developed for SEGA; the Megadrive unceremoniously killing the GX4000 was a bitter pill to swallow. I now know the Megadrive was, and is a great machine, but I could not accept this at the time. So, I became a Nintendo-head. After getting the SNES, I backtracked to the Gameboy and NES, and again found myself fighting their corner whenever the situation arose. I am still an avid Nintendo fan, but due to the peer pressure and the cost of the N64 at the time, I fell in love with Sony and their Playstation. As I have grown older, learning to see the merits of the systems I forgo'd, I still find myself getting riled at people slagging off Amstrad, Nintendo or, to a lesser extent, Sony, and will still defend there failings to the letter. It's ridiculous I know, but this is the silly emotional attachment that I believe all gamers have with their chosen brand. Speccy fans behave in this manner, as do Amiga ilk and so on. In current times, it's been a plain straight battle between Sony and Microsoft, PS v Xbox, the latter being another brand I cannot get along with. Maybe it's because Microsoft's history are littered with problems for the consumer, their apparent greed doesn't help either, and this plays on my mind. I mean, why did they ruin a perfectly good OS (Win95) by saying Vista was the dog's ballbags? It was more dog shit then dogs balls, and now it seems they are doing it again. Windows 7... Good enough. Windows 8? Ugh! 

The difference now is that I can appreciate and respect that people have views of their own, correct ones at that, because I am exactly the same with my brands. But, take one moment to look at your personal gaming history, and I'll bet you will find yourself siding with a certain console or manufacturer. It maybe to do with the games, the looks, the technical prowess, who knows. But a die-hard Amiga fan will never accept an Atari-ST, an Xbox man will always curse a Playstation even thought they can still give an approving nod to the merits of each system. In short, we are all fanboys. It's the way of the world, and a brighter, more entertaining and diverse place for it. My next console? A WiiU, obviously. 

The Pixel Empire 

Retro and racing have been the subject of choice recently on The Pixel Empire. Not only did we finish off our retro month with a Amstrad/Speccy showdown, with classic Manic Miner and the awesome Batman getting full coverage, but we have a long exciting starting grid of racing titles lined up. Ferrari's get some tough love in Crazy Cars 2 and Ferrari Grand Prix challenge, and Shane dishes the dirt in Xbox title DiRT: Showdown. Stay tuned to our Facebook page and Twitter profile for the upcoming reviews on V-Rally, Penny Racers, Lotus Turbo Challenge and Street Racer.

Right that's me all talked out for now, will have another blog up when I can be bothered to rant about something again. Maybe something more mundane, like how can a cup of tea be made so differently by family members. Or something...

Sayonara...Bug' Out!

Z - Zero Graders! My Top 10 Worst Video Games Ever

So here we are, the very last blog of the A to Z challenge. I must admit, it's been tough to keep up, but I have done it! The Novabug-Blog will be taking a little rest now while I catch up on all my other writing projects. In a way, I'm glad it's over but it has been a blast. All days of April a brand new post, and this is the very last one, Z. Zed-UK or Zee-US is for Zero Graders. The ultra-poor, the cream of crap, the games that should never have been even given the light of day. This is my list of the worst games I have ever played, the top 10 biggest zilchers! Wince at the enormity of rubbish-ness on display.

Unspeakable things were happening to this Puma.

#10 Wild Streets - Of the 25 titles released on the GX4000, this is by far and away the worst. Not because is has the worst graphics, that goes to Tin Tin on the Moon. It doesn't have the worst sound either despite it being piss-poor in the main. No, the reason why this is so bad is because it's soooo easy, and had the gameplaying prowess of a piece of rotten carrot in the middle of a pool of vomit. 10 flick screens of blocky bad guys, shot a boss and run back to the start. That's it. Literally it! Over in seconds and a complete insult to the machine which produced 3 of the finest 8-bit games in the form of Pang, Batman and Robocop 2. Terrible.

#9 Super Soccer - One of the launch titles of the Super Nintendo, this was the bad apple of the bunch. This is a football game which attempts to give the player a new perspective when playing the beautiful game, but this novelty fails badly. Slow and unrealistic, it just too cumbersome to play with any gusto, players dawdle, ball flight is dumb and the goalkeepers are impossible to control. This football game should've been given the red card.

#8  Ultraman: Towards the Future - Taking a Japanese TV cult figure, and plonk him in a underdeveloped poorly programmed pile of beat 'em up tosh. Ultraman is laughable at the best of times, but the rubbish that is this game stops the laughing and starts the crying, especially if you actually bought it with real money. Slow, crude, repetitive, uninteresting, zero scope. The only bright points are that the visuals are not completely terrible and the sound is present to try and keep Ultra-Binbags on life support. It's still an awfully unplayable game though. Avoid.

#7 Four Soccer Simulators - Billed as 4 football games in one, this is a rare Codemaster's title that was lacking basic fun and basically pulling the wool over the eyes of any potential purchaser. In 3 of the games consisting of 11-a-side, indoor and street football, there is barely a change in dynamic aside from the playing field. The gameplay is exactly the same; slow and sh*t. The scaling is hilarious and you cannot tell the difference between any of the players. As for the forth game, soccer skills, that is pointless and, erm, without any goal. So to speak. A boring, drab and uninspiring title. 

#6  Pacman (Atari 2600)  - I could just say here "Google Pacman Atari 2600" and all the reasons for this being a slap in the yellow face of Pacman himself would become clear. A rushed out port with hundreds of copies made, it hardly even looks like the arcade classic with some of the worst graphics seen on the old wooden legend. The SFX would also make you want to hack your ears off with a rusty cheese-wire  Funny thing is, this is one of the best selling games on the platform, feeding off the fame of our yellow pill muncher. Don't let that fool you, it's actually physically painful to play this game.

Buzz looked very different before battling with the Evil Zurgh

#5 Pit-Fighter - Early nineties beat 'em up which was one of the first to use the digitized images of actors as the sprites, this had a lot of hype surrounding it due to this groundbreaking graphical display. However, to say it was a let down is a massive understatement. The images were blurry and weakly animated, the background distracting, but the real issue was the limited moves and truly dreadful collision detection. There really isn't any strategy or skill required; just mash the control pad as fast as possible. Some people look back fondly at this, but I don't. It's pony.

#4 Superman 64 - Featured on the T blog, this is a contender for the most terrible 3D roaming platform games, there is absolutely nothing super about this. In almost every department this game is seriously knackered. Responses are about a quick as a snail stuck in tar, daft as a brush plot even by Superman standards, the sound is jerky with repeated effects, and it's nigh on impossible to get the blue boy scout to pick anything up, or throw it where you want. It's all just random as hell. But the main reason why this is so bad, it's that it is full to the brim of glitches. Every wall, room and static item is dodgy, the enemies are dodgy, the whole thing is just a big glitchy mess wearing blue tights. The worst game on the N64 by a mile. A joke of a game, Jor-El would be ashamed...

#3 Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game - Another game lifted from the T list, this see-through attempt at rinsing the Street Fighter fans of their cash is shocking. Take the groundbreaking beat 'em up turned into a terrible live action movie that just sucks ball-bags, and then, turn this back into a video game! Insanity! I just don't know what they were thinking of apart from fooling the fans. Suffice to say, this plays and looks like a hacked version of the aforementioned Pit-Fighter and the other rather rubbish brawler Rise of the Robots rolled into one big pile of excrement. With the collision detection of the Titanic's birds-nest sailor and the jerky sprite movement, I won't waste any more words about this, just play ANY proper Street Fighter game, they are all better than this insult to the franchise.

#2 ET: The Extra Terrestrial - Reading that chilling title, any gamer worth their salt will instantly nod and say. 'Yep, that's sh*t!' One of the earliest movie game tie-in's, again taken from the T post, this seemed to set the formula for all future bad movie games, and generally bad games as a whole. Rushed out so quickly to keep with the release of the film that it's devoid of any actual gameplay; it's one of the worst games on the Atari 2600, by a long way. Even worse than the also rushed terrible port of Pacman as you have already read about. The SFX is minimal to say the least, the visuals are as basic as the 2600 could have done, yes, worst than Pacman, but principally there just doesn't seem to be any goal or reason to the game. Playing it will result in you loosing the will to live, a shocking game. In fact, calling it a game at all is an over statement. Confusing, eye-bleeding twaddle.

Shaq humiliated the opposition by randomly plate spinning.

#1 Shaq Fu - One of the first rules about beat 'em up's is that you have to have a good, tight control set up. The makers of this blatant cash-in piece of garbage didn't know this, and so the result is the most randomly controlled game ever. No command actually seems to work right, or at all, reducing the gameplay to button mashing free-for-all. Chuck into this rancid mix a cockamamie nonsensical plot, obvious exploit-ism of the basketball fans, jerky and stuttering animation and wild inconsistent physics and you soon realise this really is the worst game ever created even with it's non-offensive appearances. Even a website exists with the sole aim in destroying all copies of this trash for the good of the human race. So, the Super NES, the system with a largest and best range of games also has in it's library the worst game on the planet. I dare anyone to disagree.

Ding Dong! That's all folks! The A to Z blog challenge is complete for The Novabug-Blog. I hope I have entertained and informed you with my personal gaming bits and bobs. These were my top 10's, I know you will have your own and that's the best thing about video games; they can provoke different reactions in us as as we see the bad, the good and the ugly in varying amounts. For me, it basically comes down to this: For favourite game ever is Secret of Mana, my most hated game is Shaq Fu and my favourite console is the Super Nintendo. Oh, and I will forever defend the Amstrad GX4000. So there.

Finally, I would like to say a big, big, BIG thanks to all those who have read and hopefully enjoyed my blogs over the past month, to all those who have commented and to all the help I have received in writing this past months 26 blog posts. (26!)  Big shout out's to of course my guest writers from The Pixel Empire; Tom, Shane and Alan, and of course to Arlee Bird (http://tossingitout.blogspot.co.uk/) for creating this challenge. It's been emotional.

The Novabug-Blog will now resume normal operations....Bug...'Out!

A - Arcade Attack! My Top 10 Arcade Games (Coin-Op's)

Right, first up in my A to Z of video game top 10's are the devilish machines that got me into gaming in the first place. Arcade cabinets: AKA Coin-Op's.  For some, the dwellings of said contraptions were a haven of adventure and escapism, endeavoring to reach for the stars and be acclaimed by your peers. For others, a soulless room of money stealing traitorous boxes that break your heart and taunt you with an irresistible continue countdown screen. Personally, I loved the arcade era. I was glad and willing, but maybe not able, to part with my school lunch money just so I could see Death Adder's blood spurt, or attempt the famous 'Handcuffs Glitch' in Street Fighter 2. As you can imagine, I played many of these games back in the day, so here is my top 10 of personal champions  These may not be the titles you expect, it is not a list of the so-called 'Best' games, just the ones that got me to part with the most amount of money, or kept me coming back again and again. And again.

But Mum, the invaders eat my sprouts... honest!

#10 Space Invaders - The original arcade sensation. The colour screen table top version we had when my folks ran a Pub (Yes, pubs had arcade machines!). I have many fond memories of this, but strangely not the first arcade I played. Remember, shoot the last git of an invader before he is in your sights!

#9 Datona USA - Early teens, local cinema and we were there, racing frantically in the four player simulator version until dark. It was the first racer I played that felt real, with the vibrations, gear stick, visual damage, pedals and steering wheel. Great and so new for the time.

Times were hard for Donkey's 
Dragon wife before Shrek

#8 Black Tiger - I remember getting embroiled in a freak game of one upmanship with a fellow school pupil; he was just awesome at this fantasy platformer, so I just had to try and better him. Ultimately, I failed but the game stuck with me. Shame most of the home conversions were pants, the ones missing from the games' protagonist I presume.

#7 Kung Fu Master - Ah yes, the very first arcade game I played as a wee boy. I was hooked by this, even though it took me months to work out how to beat the level four boss, but I loved it. I remember searching high and low for the CPC version, which was pretty good as it happens. It even inspired me in later life to learn martial arts. Novabug - 2nd Degree Blackbelt. (I thank you!)

#6 Jailbreak - One single sound effect is the reason why this low-grade police shoot 'em up makes the list. In fairground arcade stalls up and down the country, Jailbreak was always there, the grating echos of a hostage boy's scream calling out to you in the demo rum. You had to save him, the little shit!

#5 Golden Axe - Everybody I knew at the time loved this, SEGA's fantasy slasher normally accompanied with the usual argument of who the best character was; the dwarf or the barbarian. In truth, the amazon was excellent because she had the best magic, but no pre-pubescent boy would admit to this in the pressured testosterone atmosphere of the arcade. It was also a bit of a watershed moment with the spectacularly grim death of the games antagonist.

#4 Chase HQ - Few games make you want to be a policeman, but this hit the mark with aplomb. Chase the criminal at crazy speeds in a Porsche, and run him off the road! What is there not it like? It was fast too, very fast. And if you failed? A women called Nancy on the radio mocked you openly! Shocking.

#3 Time Crisis - If early light gun FPS's had a James Bond style hero, then Richard Miller was it. The Namco G-Con45 was such a brilliant gun controller, bulk and presence and made you feel menacing. Many pound coins were spent on the continue screen with this one. A polygon frenzy of Blam Blams!

#2 Street Fighter 2 - Well, it had to be in this list didn't it? Most best-game charts have it, so this list will be no exception. One of the biggest and most popular games ever, I did not miss the boat during it's arcade heyday. This game made me late for school numerous times, miss the bus home, get into real fights... you name it. It should be at the top of the list you think, but....

#1 Point Blank - On the outside, you may think I am insane for choosing this. A light gun gallery shooter, with cartoon slapstick graphics and with two hosts that look like they are on day release from the Sesame Street asylum. Point Blank and it's sequel scoffed up more of my beer money in my student days then any other machine. While my buds were crying into there empty wallets at the foot of a fruit machine, I was smiling and dancing with joy at completing Point Blank yet again, with a crowd of admiring peers standing around me. It gave be so much fun and pleasure, it is my all time number one arcade game.

Well there you have it. Feel free to add your opinions and your suggestions for your top coin-ops. Double Dragon, Final Fight and Hippodrome were all close to making the list as these were also great games for me. Hope you enjoyed my arcade adventure, next up.... my top ten Beat' em Up's! Funnily enough, some of these classics may be included...

Finally, A big thanks to Arlee Bird for starting this challenge, a great idea and hopefully helpful to all that have accepted. Find him at http://tossingitout.blogspot.co.uk/


Bug...'Out!