The great shame of it is how that company started and traded before the original owner departed the business.
No messing. They were the best fucking computer games shop in the country. Whenever I was around Oxford Street, Iād always make the pilgramage to their Rathbone Road store, which was instrumental in setting the gaming agenda for this country.
CEX used to be what theyād call a grey importer. The term is obsolete now because consoles used to get global releases. If you wanted to play Super Mario World in 1990, they were the place to go.
A couple of retro affairs I am playing at the moment.
New International Track & Field
Nintendo DS. No hyperbole, the best game in the entire series. Handled by UK port specialist Sumo Digital.
Button bashing is out in favour of stylus swishing. There look to be tons of events. Iāve already unlocked 12 of them, and it looks like there are another 24 left to get.
Time Crisis 2
Playstation 2, on my fat TV, with a light-gun. Itās on rails, but itās ace. I am starting to prefer this series over Virtua Cop.
This is a nice car game. It prides itself on a top physics model. I was quite surprised that the engine still worked after this demonstration of physics in action
The Playstation 2 is 21 years old. Actually bought a fat PS2 this week, with the official Sony Network Adapter (difficult to get and theyāre not making any new ones) and a hard drive chock full of games.
Unfortunately the previous owner did not have super taste in games, so Iāve binned the lot and am building a ābest ofā machine.
Well, the best that can be stored on a 150Gb hard-drive anyway. Lightgun and local multi-player games feature quite heavily. Hereās whatās on it so far.
Gradius V
Sega Ages 2500 - Decathlete
ESPN International Track N Field
ESPN International Winter Sports
SSX Tricky
Gunbari Collection (all Point Blanks, plus Time Crisis)
Space Channel 5
Time Crisis II
The games still look really good on a CRT and play nice too. I think thereās something magic we lost when we went to flat screens, and itās not just the light guns.
So Iāve been playing things in a special category. Games I really shouldnāt be able to play.
First off, I discovered a load of Japanese games that have had unofficial English patches. The previously inaccessible now accessible.
The other thing Iām into are SA-1 romhacks on the SNES. Basically, when the SNES was first released, people didnāt know how to program for it and some games had embarrassing levels of slow-down.
Gradius III in particular feels like a brand new game Iāve never played before.
