Retro Gamer No. 227

DARRAN JONES Getting all my friends together for 16-player matches in my front room. It wasn’t Mel’s favourite moment, mind. Expertise: Juggling a gorgeous wife, two beautiful daughters and an award-winning magazine Currently playing: Magic: The Gathering Arena Favourite game of all time: Strider ANDY SALTER I remember Steve Jobs announcing it at Macworld 99. Expertise: Modding games, no ‘vanilla’ versions for me, thanks! Currently playing: M&B2: Bannerlord… Modded of course Favourite game of all time: Rome: Total War ADAM BARNES Has to be when you step out into the snow level and hop aboard a Ghost… the pacing of the game just completely shifts! Expertise: Being pretentious about coffee Currently playing: Halo: Combat Evolved Favourite game of all time: Baldur’s Gate TIM EMPEY Reading the main feature made me download The Master Chief Collection. I very nearly finished Combat Evolved before the mag went to…

This magazine would most likely be a very different one without the 2001 debut of Master Chief. Before Halo: Combat Evolved arrived, Melanie and I were expecting our first child, so I sold off nearly all my games and began to embrace fatherhood. Emily arrived and all was going well with my new life – until I spied a row of Xboxes in Southampton’s Virgin megastore. The sheer power of Microsoft’s console awakened something inside of me that had laid dormant for a couple of years and I knew I had to own one. I picked up several games but it was Halo: Combat Evolved that left the biggest impression on me – as I hadn’t experienced anything quite like it. It’s a real pleasure then to be able to revisit this 20-year-old…

It’s been a tremendously challenging few months for the majority of the entertainment and events industry, and for the retro show organisers Replay Events it’s been no different. Forced to cancel most of its plans during the pandemic, the company finally returned last month to what it does best – putting on a professional gaming show for eager retro punters. Housed once more within the cavernous Norcalympia Conference Centre at the Norbreck Hotel, Blackpool, this was an event that added little new compared to its previous incarnations – but on this occasion, that didn’t matter. With the wealth of arcade cabinets, games consoles and pinball machines on show, there was plenty for the event-starved guests to play and enjoy. “Last year was pretty awful,” Replay’s Andy Brown tells us. “Thankfully we…

I’ve been trying to think of a time before computer games entered my life. I’m 48 and a third, and it seems like they’ve always been there. There were key moments when they seemed to be more present, if that makes any sense – dad bringing home a Dragon 32 or us all traipsing to Rumbelows in Maidenhead to buy a BBC – but I think they must have been a part of me forever. Let me try and make sense of these foggy memories and try and put them in order. The first thing I can dimly recall is the Binatone TV Master Mk 8. It lived in a battered cardboard box, and we kept it either under the sofa or in the airing cupboard. (I’m aware that not only…

“Haven’t we moved beyond the idea that games are just for kids?” I turned 50 not so long ago, which more or less coincided with the news that I’m going to become a grandfather early next year. Coupled to that, pretty much the day I slammed into that half-century mark, I developed arthritis in my hands. As signifiers that I’m no longer young go… it’s a perfect storm. I myself am now firmly, and forever more shall be, retro. It has been quite the ride. The proverbial rollercoaster. Highs and lows. Wisdom acquired and innocence lost. Nevertheless, I don’t feel my interests have changed enormously over the past 50 years. I still like Star Wars. I still like theme parks. I still play videogames, even if I somehow don’t seem to have…

If you like coin-ops and craft beer as much as we do, you should definitely visit a Four Quarters arcade and bar. Owned by five equal partners – Joe Dowling, Marc Jones, Francois Kitching, Tom Humphrey and Simon Dennison – they opened their first venue in Peckham in 2014 and now run three locations across London, with more planned both in and outside the capital. What motivated you to start Four Quarters? Marc Jones: All five of us have slightly different reasons but we all share a love for retro and a connection from our childhoods with arcades. For me visiting an arcade was the best bit of any holiday growing up and I still have vivid memories of the various arcades in Westward Ho!. When I started to hear of arcade…