I was going to start and say I had a really hectic weekend but that might actually be a lie looking over what I actually did….

Spent Saturday going around shops that were too expensive but fun all the same, literally hours wandering round, surprisingly relaxing but the sun was absolutely roasting! Then went to a big manor house and walked around the gardens. Again relaxing but roasting, was nice to do something out and about for once.

Big week presents for myself this week. Have ordered a copy of the board-game Talisman , a copy of Ghostbusters on the 360 from the States, the Reaper expansion for Talisman and some other little bits and bobs. Lucky I like opening packages or it might be depressing.

Also for the first time in 10 years or so started reading a book! Dot Robot written by Jason Bradbury (of Channel 5′s The Gadget Show) and currently really enjoying it, from the first couple of pages I think it has been written to connect with the geek in me and it’s doing a very good job! Hopefully have some better impressions once I get further through the book.

Blood Bowl pre-orders started on Friday, while I find the £39.99 price a little high for a Digital download I will most likely end up buying it, but I will hear a small cry come from my wallet as I do.

Really now there isn’t much more to be said…

Within the next few weeks we will see the official release of a game I have actually been waiting YEARS for. Blood Bowl is finally getting its release ,albeit digitally, and will be unleashed upon the world.

I guess by seeing this for a non-fan you must be thinking “what’s the big thing?”. Blood Bowl is arguable the BEST ever game created by gamesworkshop, it has thousands and thousands of die hard fans and is a game that I personally spent hours and hours playing with my friends and brothers when I was younger. To be honest I only really ever stopped playing it because people were moving away and I struggled to find other people who were interested in similar things.

No-longer as this new game consists of on-line leagues and tournaments and the ability to create and grow your team from the lowly stretches of the world up to the towering heights of the worlds greatest teams.

The game consists of the following races :

• Humans
• Orcs
• Dwarves
• Lizardmen
• Skaven
• Goblins
• Chaos
• Wood Elves

Obviously i’m dissapointed with the lack of Halflings but with for more teams confirmed for after release, Dark elves and Undead to name two, then as long as the game picks up and performs as well as it deserves too then I don’t see this being an issue.

I probably shouldn’t mention it but I will, I was in the Multiplayer beta at the begining of the year and the game was everything I had hoped for plus more. A perfect rendition of the board game and the ability to play on-line with the friends I used to play the game with at the weekend, Pure bliss.

I hope to be one of the first in-line for when the game is released digitally in the next few weeks and I plan to completely play the hell out of it until someone mentions my beard is growing too long!

Take a journey to a mystical land where Arch Mages battle for supremacy of magical new worlds – battle to become the LORDS OF CHAOS

You would have thought in 1990 this would have been a pretty big statement for a video game to make.  The UK still hadn’t seen much of the 16 bit consoles and the Amiga was still king. If a household had any kind of games device it would probably be an Amiga, Atari-ST, Commodore 64, Spectrum or Amstrad.

The whole market was very similar, you would still get the movie licenced games, which arguably were of higher quality than the more recent attempts, and the games based on popular TV shows. So in-between the copies of Postman Pat and Dangermouse there would more often than not be games that break the trend and walk a different path.

One such title was Lords of Chaos, with a look very similar to the X-com games and a massive potential it put you in the boots of a custom created wizard who was bidding to become the next ruler of the realm. The single player experience took your wizard through a series of scenarios in which you generally had to last for X number of turns and leave via a randomly placed portal once the time comes.

The blurb on the back of the box reads :

Produced by the designers of Laser Squad, Mythos Games have packed excitement and strategy into a game bursting with features : 1- 4 players can battle against each other or highly intelligent computer opponents, make potions, cast up to 45 different spells, collect treasure and fight mythical creatures in this multi-level adventure

Now in 1990 I was the tender age of 8 when my brother bought a copy of LoC for £9.99 probably from WH-Smiths, and it was quite possibly the first entry in what would become a strong love for turn-based Strategy RPGs that would still be with me at this day. The ideas behind the game are ones that I don’t even think have been recreated in any modern game and if it HAS I would LOVE to know about it.

Once loaded the game treats you with the wizard creation screen, you couldn’t simply select a pre-made wizard, you had to create from scratch a wizard who could not only survive a fight with a dragon, but also create enough minions and damage to take out another enemy.

The game was genius, instantly a hit in my household we would often spend a Sunday creating our characters, or loading our single player characters up for a bit of extra strength. The beauty of the game was in the ability to save your single player wizard and load it into the game with all XP acquired so that you can bring those few extra spells and have the ability to risk a dragon spell on the off chance you will run into a Dragon Herb on your travels.

The manual includes a token in the back for you to send off to get the first expansion pack that unfortunately I don’t think ever came out, at least not on the C64. It touted two new scenarios “Island of Iris” and “Tombs of the Undead”.

LoC is a very solid title, pretty good AI and lots of interesting monsters to conjure and spells to cast, and is only probably let down by the lack of scenarios on the single player as with hundreds of different ways to build your character there is always a different way to play and the random layout of the map each time gave the game that level of unpredictablity.

While Laser Squad has been rehashed and rebuilt in many different forms under the X-com name, LoC hasn’t received the same treatment. Possibly due to the geek stigma of the fantasy genre during the period but it is certainly a title I would love to see come back on something like Xbox Live or the DS with some kind of play by e-mail structure that would work exceedingly well in a game like this.

If anyone has any information on a remake or similar games then please leave a comment and let me know!

P.S – I found a copy of StarPaws in the box as well! what a game.

I can safely say that I am pretty happy with the way the site is looking currently, it’s still slightly unwieldly but it will come when I have a clearer head and a bit more vision.

The reason for the title is as follows, I plan to begin to go through my ludicrous back catalogue of games and document review and possibly even play again some of the old games I have. Everything from Armalyte on the C64 up to Fallout 3 on the 360 I hope to take photos and write a section about each game and fill it with lots of lovely juicey information.

Hopefully I will start this off tomorrow so I can sleep on what game I want to start with, I have a good idea of what I am going to start with and I assure you it’s going to be a cracker! I might dust off the old machine as well but due to time and, probably , hardware constraints I will emulate the game.

Until tomorrow!

First day in and I must say i’m pretty impressed with WordPress, plenty of customisation options and one hell of a lot of things to do!

Bed calls but I just noticed something, this weeks release schedule on the 360 lists Gunstar Heroes! Why didn’t anyone tell me it was coming out on Live?

Ahh well, I probably won’t buy it, but the thought is there.

Still ……

Thats mighty tempting….