Well we've just played our first gig of 2013! The three of us braved the snow and headed to Derby where we played the Victoria Inn alongside Sam Forrest (Nine Black Alps) and Charm of Achilles. Even our manager Matt came out for this one, it was an excellent night involving a few too many beers and some great music. Next stop is going to be the legendary Dublin Castle in Camden on the 31st Jan 2013.
Following on from Dave’s top 5 non-retro games of 2012, here’s my personal top 5 retro games of 2012! This isn’t based on anything more than the number of hours I’ve racked up playing them, so don’t go thinking that this is based on anything like critical acclaim or technological breakthroughs.
5. Space Quest (PC)
I spent many happy hours playing through Sierra and LucasArts adventure games when I was a kid and since then I’ve periodically utilised my time off to re-complete some of the classic titles. This year it was Space Quest 1 to 4 that made it onto my “retro laptop” and I completed all four over Christmas. It was mainly due to the Guys From Andromeda getting back together and promising a brand new space adventure that made me want to take control of hapless janitor Roger Wilco once again and save the universe from the wrath of Sludge Vohaul. If you’ve never played Space Quest, start with the originals, the VGA remakes are no where near as good!
4. Indy 500 (Atari 2600)
Played this for the first time ever at Play Expo 2012 and I now defy anyone to have a two player game after a couple of beers and not completely fall in love with this game. Utilizing the Atari driving paddles this really is a racing game that’s been stripped down to the very basics with no complications, no turbo boosters, no gears, no fancy 3D graphics just 100% zen like gameplay. I actually went on eBay as soon as I got home from the Expo and purchased myself an original Atari 2600 just for this.
We decided to mark the end of 2012 with a couple of Top 5's for our most played video games of the year with myself covering the modern day stuff and then Aidy's gonna be jumping in with his top 5 retro picks. So, here's my top five "new" games of 2012!
5. Super Hexagon
I played an extraordinary amount of Super Hexagon this year. Turns out a game where you move a little triangle in a circle proved to be one of the my most challenging experiences of last year. Chipzel's soundtrack is also totally amazing.
4. Lone Survivor
I'm a massive fan of horror games but it seems that the creators of creepy games like Resident Evil have ditched atmosphere in favour of pumping round after round of ammo into men with wings. Thanks heavens then for one man from Cambridge with a computer, who managed to create an even more unsettling experience than the 600 odd people who worked on the latest Resident Evil game.
3. Far Cry 3
I felt I had to force myself to finish Far Cry 2. Some cool systems wrapped in some tedious gameplay made for a lacking experience. Its sequel ramped things up to be bigger and crazier! They also hammered out a lot of the issues. Plus you couldn't punch a shark in the last game.
Well that's it folks the new year's officially here and we're happy to announce that we've already got some cool stuff lined up including our first gig of 2013 at the Victoria Inn, Derby, 19th Jan. We're looking forward to this one as it's a venue and town that we haven't yet played and we're fortunate enough to be playing alongside Sam Forrest (Nine Black Alps). We've supported Sam a couple of times last year and we're all massive fans.
At the end of the month we'll be heading into Camden to play at the Dublin Castle, 31st Jan. This is a first for Paul, who's had it on his list of places to play for a while. If you didn't know; Paul's a big Madness fan and the Dublin Casle is one of their early haunts. They had a residency there and it was even the location for the My Girl music video.
There's a brand new retro gaming event coming in the summer and on the weekend of the 18th May we've got ourselves a little stand there! So if you wind up going then come and say hello, we'll be there for the whole weekend pedalling our merch and playing video games. It's in Wolverhampton and it's called Revival. More details here: http://www.turnarcades.com/2012/11/06/revival-a-new-retro-event/
Oh and we've also got a couple more singles planned off the album. If you're on the mailing list you'll have already seen a cheeky preview for God's Front Porch.
If you're on our mailing list then you'll be able to preview our new music video on Christmas Day. We're planning to release God's Front Porch as a single in the new year and the music video's already complete. It was created by Jose Cubero at Ridertoons, the talented guy that did our psycodelic Animal music video.
This one's set in space and features a few recognisable geek heroes, if you're not already on the mailing list you can sign up using that little box on the right hand side. Yeah, that one over there just above out Upcoming gigs list ;-)
Anyway, have a great Christmas and we'll speak to you in the not too distant future!
