Friday 4 May 2012

Pinball Wizard

I was just trawling the interweb during my lunch hour and came across an article about how a guy has made his money buying and selling pinball machines. He had a little YouTube clip of the pinball machines and brought back the love for a good pinball simulator. Pinball has always fascinated me and I have always wanted a full size machine in my garage but due to the costs of these things I have never got round to getting one. The next best thing to a real machine has been video game pinball but I haven’t played these for years. Many people will argue the best pinball simulator but I the one that gave me the most joy is a classic. Pinball Dreams was the first in a series of simulators for the Amiga (followed by Fantasies and Illusions) and showcased the systems processing power. This was still a 2d table but the physics of the ball was lovely and smooth considering when it was released. I loved the co-op mode on this game which gave me and my friend hours of entertainment. What co-op mode I hear you all shout!! Well technically there wasn’t a specific co-op mode but we made our own up by controlling one flipper each. I was in charge of the right and him the left, whoever mucks up get a dig in the arm. The artwork on every table was really nice and the difficulty was just right. True some tables were harder than others but this just added to the game and the playability of the title. I still haven’t got my own table but I play the next best thing retro pinball simulators.



Tuesday 1 May 2012

Twisted Tuesday - Tattoo

A couple of my work colleagues were talking about tattoos the other day and how they have seemed to become more and more popular. Now I totally get tattoos although I don't have one or will ever think of having one as a prefer the au natural look and maybe I am now in the minority of not having a tattoo. I know a lot of people get tattoos for different reasons and what people do to their own body is down to themselves but sometimes you have to say "what are people thinking?". So I did a bit of digging on the internet to see how many people have retro gaming tattoos and suprisingly there is a lot. Like with all tattoos, done tastefully they can look quite cool, but there are always extremes. I don't get people who have tattoos on their knuckles or spider webs on their eyelids but again each to their own. These video game tattoos below are from the stupid to the stupider and just show how many people out there are twisted.