ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2019
Entry 16th June 2019: Not a retro gamer
Not a retro gamer
I am not a retro gamer. Shocker !! True, I am not a retro gamer.
Just as my most used computer is not a retro computer. And I have
a Windows10 beast here just waiting for next year when the support
runs out on Win7. So what is the point, well, whilst I do not play
on a regular basis retro games, I have a fascination of the platforms
and the developers of the day. For me the history of my life needs
to be something I can dip into and enjoy first hand. I am not one
for memories. Instead I like to see first hand all that has gone
before. That is why I have always maintained an extensive diary.
And with the website / groups I have generally recorded my activities.
But, today is today. I have never been confused about that. And
today like any other day I am logged for hours in my favourite MMO
and levelling characters through gear and XP. I was very busy in
BfA in WoW earlier this year levelling a whole new realm to cap,
which is 120 these days. That's 120 levels and I did them all
playing with others in dungeons. Currently I am levelling a Mystic
in Tera from 65 to 70 which is a massive challenge given that the
XP needed to get from Level 67 to 68 is .....24,378,336,346 so we
are talking in the billions.
My life gaming has always been about pushing the boundaries. So
when I started playing RISK seriously with a group of guys we
started to dabble in games from the Games Workshop that had very
limited dice throws. We searched for games that had very little
RNG. The games were expensive but with the late nights and weekends
like poker buddies trapped in a room for hours till we dropped,
the games were well worth the expenditure.
When the computers came out the games were really never going to
compete with the more serious board games, but they took a turn
in a direction that the board games could not compete with. Enter
Space Invaders. Long before the home computing market took off
video games in pubs and clubs were very popular. So much so that
they were already built into the tables of the pubs back in the
seventies. We even played interactive darts games on a screen in
a pub as early as 1975. But Space Invaders was king. Truth was
that arcade games were knocking spots off anything you could play
at home so the games were kinda seen as inferior. By the late
seventies the arcade style Space Invaders were just mesmerising
what with the way the ships now flew in all directions and fully
animated to give a more real feel.
Times changed somewhat when games like TTL came out and even River
Raid. The Atari games benefited from the arcade family and so some
games ported very well. But still the arcade games as found at the
end of the pier were still king and if you wanted to have a seriously
good gaming experience then you better bag up with loads of silver
and head to the arcade.
I got real tired with the games on the Spectrum by the mid eighties
and I really couldn't see them dragging much more interest out of me.
So computers took a serious turn and I went all grown up for a while.
Not sure I even bothered with the games during the mid to late eighties.
My sisters and dad were very keen on the Amiga and my dad was crazy
bonkers playing Mean 18. He managed to corrupt his disk and finished
up importing a copy from the States. But even he was moving over to
the PC by the end of the eighties.
Enter the games consoles and cartridges and the like. Seemed to be
the only way to go though I resisted the temptation. I guess by the
time the A1200 finally landed here I was about ready to pick up the
gaming. But always what was current and not living in the past. My
interest in games was pretty restrictive as I was prepared only to
give limited time to the games. They had to be capable of being
saved for the most part and allow me to pick up where I left off.
So Settlers, Ishar, Dreamweb, Star Trek, Valhalla plus Sensible
World of Soccer. I was playing Civilisation on the Amiga in 1996
when the PC arrived and it was the first game I got hooked on, on
the PC. Well that and Duke Nukem.
Sadly the PC just couldn't handle the newer games so I moved to the
PlayStation and found Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider. Way too much
gaming... way too much. And for years I was plugged into the PS1,
PS2, PS3, Dreamcast, Cube, XBOX... never ending. I have never
skateboarded but skateboarding was a real joy with Tony Hawkes.
I was in my element.
However things changed again when I got hooked on Guildwars on the
laptop and then the biggy ... World of Warcraft. That lead to Rift
and SWToR and Star Trek Online and Guildwars II and Archeage and
Tera. But all the time playing Warcraft. The PlayStation should be
upgraded but I sense I just can't give it enough time. I am besotted
by Yorha 2B but I sense she may have to wait. Maybe for the PS5.
AND SO ... what is the point. Point is I am not a retro gamer. When
the magazine Retro Gamer came out it did so at a time when there was
so little being published for the older platforms it was the only
mag that seemed to be available that filled that void when it came
to my addiction. You see the timeline from my Philips tape recorder
and my scribbles into a notebook as I watched all the Apollo missions
and the landing on the moon in 1969 to this very blog have to have
real tangible records. I still have my newspaper cuttings of the
moon landing. I still have my tape recorder with all my home made
productions. I have to be able to track back through my life and
be able to reflect quite accurately on what I did on what day and
for why. I have journals of my cycling adventures when I first
travelled into the unknown on my pedal cycle. So retro is the past,
and that is obvious, but to give it meaning you have to keep moving
forward. Otherwise there will be no retro from today.
You only get one life and it is filled with things you do. If its
not worth recording then that is an awful waste of life.
And so Retro Gamer was a great way of remembering and referencing
all that had gone before. Only insomuch that there was so little
else being published. I would buy two copies, one which I kept
sealed and never opened and one which I thumbed to death. I sense
that the mag kinda died in 2016. I had stopped buying it around that
time. Sad really.
Just like to say one last thing before I put this blog to bed. It is
regarding the current state of the world. I guess the EB bags I show
here sum it all up really. From a games store that was vibrant,
colourful, informative, interesting and so so much more. To a closed
store. Defunct platforms. Cancelled magazines. Empty shelves. And
just so little variety and fun things to have and to hold. I am
blaming nobody and in truth the world that we have is the world we
deserve. I am so pleased and truly privileged to have grown up in a
world that was filled with so many exciting and wonderful new 'stuff'.
From the first calculator, to colour TV, to cassettes drives and CDs,
to computers and games consoles. And not forgetting all those truly
wonderful shops, stores, magazines and electronic gadget specialists.
All a distant memory. The world today seems to have sunk into a social
networking spin where mobile phones have become peoples homes. That is
the world of today.
Fortunately I have a clear trackway that leads back through my life
that I can ride back into and enjoy all that it was. But the cycle
only ends when the lights finally go out and the computer is closed
down for the last time. And so today's adventures are tomorrows retro
and trust me ... nothing dates faster than today's predictions about
the tomorrow. So live the dream of today but never forget the richness
of it all. Never live in the past... just take time to go back and
visit a while.
In the words of Genesis ... Me I'm just a lawnmower. You can tell me
by the way I walk. Or something like that.
..... so what was I doing digging through those old Retro Gamers mags.
Well I was checking on my Jupiter Ace making sure it hadn't gone yellow.
Cue the music ... Just a drop of Jupiter
I am scuzz.. just a nobody that likes Ghostbusting. The light is
green and the trap is clean. Stored away for eternity.
Not a retro gamer
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