More Milestones Fall at Red Parsley!

Times have been hard here at Red Parsley for many moons now. Long gone are the days when I could rustle up 4 or 5 posts a week, getting thousands of visitors a day in the process. A lack of time and dibilitating bouts of depression and/or laziness have conspired to greatly reduce the number of posts here. I believe I've mentioned all this before though, and as Pop always says - never backward, always forwards. So wearily I continue to trudge forth in a perpetually despondent haze.

Apparently going unnnoticed during this mournful period were two landmarks here at Red Parsley of the type I would previously have planned for and marked with grand celebratory posts of appropriate jolliness. These two landmarks were: posting my 500th full game review, and achieving 1,000,000 pageviews.

A Decidedly Ungamey Year

As I may have mentioned before, I am in the unfortunate position of only having one real life friend who's into videogames, and sadly he doesn't live particularly close to me these days either. Much of our communication, therefore, is by phone or internet. Around last Christmas, he sent a text asking me what the best five games I'd played for the first time in the previous calendar year were. This was, I believe, with a view to exchanging recommendations to be played in the coming year, but after giving it some thought, I realised I had barely even played five games for the first time that year, never mind enough to be able to select the best ones!

This realisation was slightly alarming, worrying even, but at the same time not too surprising. Nonetheless, I immediately decided this year would be different - I would make sure to play many games this time around. These need not be modern games, you understand - anything qualifies as long as I haven't played it at all previously. As part of this regimen, I would make sure to play the five games my good friend Luke had recommended. Here's a look at his choices, none of which I have played, but by the year's end... I will have - I swear it by the old gods and the new.

SteamWorld Dig (2013)

Rather embarrassingly, this is one I have already had in my Good Old Games collection for lord knows how long. I did play and review the game from which it seems to take its inspiration - Spelunker - many moons ago with an OCD-related intention to move onto this fancy reimagining in due course but, well, you know, I kind of forgot about I guess! I don't know why though, it looks like just the sort of game I would enjoy immensely. I can spend hours collecting and exploring in an atmospheric platformy environment and I haven't found a game of that type that has really hooked me in a good while now. Hopefully, thanks to Luke's timely reminder, I will now belatedly have another one to get stuck into.

Happy New Year!

Well, another year has been and gone remarkably quickly, as they so often seem to these days, and if I have any regular visitors left, I'm sure you/they will have noticed that it has been an annoyingly-unproductive one here at Red Parsley. In fact, it has been the least productive year since I've been blogging. Yes, even counting my very first year waaay back in 2010! Wow, I guess that makes this my tenth year...

The arrival of a new year is a time for reflection though, and I have been giving the continuation of this very page a lot of thought since I last had to buy a calendar. To that end, as I've touched on before here in fact, I very much doubt I'll ever return to the 'glory days' where I averaged almost two posts every three days - it's rare if I even post twice in one week these days - and I have accepted this year that RP will never be what I had originally hoped. I simply don't have the time.

Merry New Year!

Oh hey, what's going down y'all? Just a quick message to wish everyone a Happy New Year! :) The past year has again been a challenging one in RKS Land and as a result there has been an all-time low in the number of new posts here. This is mainly due to my job - I've been with my current employer for just over a year now, and I'm very grateful to have the job, but it does take up a sizeable percentage of my non-sleeping time, and that's before you consider all the overtime I've been doing - time that may well have otherwise been spent on Red Parsley-related tomfoolery.

1,000th Post!

I've been writing and posting here at Red Parsley for a long time now - about seven years in fact. A lot more has happened in this seven years than most of the seven years that preceded them, mainly on account of being married which has been my 'relationship status' for eight years now. My wife struggles to tolerate my interest in gaming, even when it doesn't involve the expense of buying all the latest consoles and games, most of which I have very limited interest in. It was, however, rather ironically my wife who suggested I start this blog.

I can't even remember why now - it can't have been because I bored her with game talk or hogged the TV playing all my old classics - it's very unlikely I would've gotten away with that! Oh well, whatever made her suggest it, I did indeed start this very blog all the way back in 2010. I doubt she expected it to last very long; I'm not sure I did either to be honest - I've got a history of getting really into something only to lose interest just as quickly - but here I am still going all this time later.

Merry Christmas!

Okay, I'm a bit late this year - I think I usually am actually - but this is just a quick post to wish all my readers, whether occasional or regular, a very Merry Christmas! If you celebrate it, that is, obviously. It's been a challenging year here in RKS Land, and one that has regrettably seen the fewest posts at RP since I started the page back in 2010. I was hoping to at least hit the 100 mark but I have recently started (another) new job which has resulted in quite a bit less free time than before.

Nonetheless, I have a huge backlog of game and film reviews in mind so there will be plenty of new posts here over the coming months - once I get around to writing them of course! So please, continue to drop by and leave comments and feedback, either here or on the various social media platforms I spam my new posts. In the meantime, I hope you have all had a wonderful festive period and year in general. May the next prove as good or perhaps even better. Happy Holidays one and all! :)

 

San Francisco's Gaming Gem - Part 3

Okay, just a quickie (giggity) for this somewhat belated third and final part of my look at the wonderful Musée Mécanique in San Francisco. I've already written about the museum generally and also taken a closer look at some of the games I played, so to wrap things up, here is a selection of some of the photos I took while there. It certainly doesn't show everything they have, and it looks like they've already made some additions since my visit, but it still gives you a good idea of the wonders housed within. If you get the chance, you really need to check this place out...

San Francisco's Gaming Gem - Part 2

Oops, it's now been almost exactly a year since I went to California which means I am long overdue with this post (no surprise there I guess!). Anyway, having already revealed the wonders of Musée Mécanique generally, I thought I'd also take a quick look at the five games I spent the most time playing there (besides skee ball of course, which is the greatest thing ever). Here they are:

Sprint 2 (1976)

I've long been a fan of the splendid Super Sprint so it was a real thrill to find this, the original Sprint (the '2' denotes a two-player version) lurking amongst the more modern machines. Naturally I gave it a go and quickly found it... rather tough going. As you can see, the cars are teeny things but steering them around the circuits isn't too tough. The black and white graphics are tidy and the controls are smooth enough. What makes it tough is its mandatory 4-speed transmission. It's not always easy to constantly shift up and down in any normal racing game but it's even tougher here with ultra-concentration needed to get around within sight of the other cars. I guess I'd get used to it after a while but... jeez, I made a mess of it on this occasion (my ranking was 'granny' - boo hoo)! It was still wonderful to even have the chance to play it at all though - there can't be too many of these machines left at all, never mind ones working this flawlessly, and it does still play really well considering how old it is.

Real Life Getting In The Way Again...

Oh, hello there, how's stuff n junk? :) As some of you have seemingly noticed, Red Parsley has been somewhat bereft of new posts lately. There are several reasons for this - the loss of my job, a couple of personal problems, and an ongoing health issue have naturally meant my now-abundant spare time has been taken up dealing with those matters, and I've also recently been on another holiday with my lovely wife.

As I'm sure won't be a surprise to those who know me, the latest trip was once again to Brazil where we took in Brasilia (for the 5th time), Rio de Janeiro (for the 2nd time), and Buzios (for the 1st time). The latter is a small, jagged peninsula located within Rio de Janeiro state about 2-3 hours from the city after which it was named. Here we had rented a villa/cottage-type thing along with some of the wife's family and a couple of her friends and, while offering a wonderful distraction from life's... complications, what with the swimming pool and barbecue and game room and glorious beaches just a few minutes away, I still found I couldn't truly relax. Other matters were weighing on my mind I suppose, and sadly this feeling of disconcertment continued upon our return home and endures right up to the present day, to my not inconsiderable anguish.

Merry Christmas!

Oops, I'm very nearly too late this year (by UK time at least) but just a quick post to wish all my readers, whether occasional or regular, a very Merry Christmas! That's if you celebrate it of course. If you don't, I hope you're having a great time anyway, regardless of what you're doing! The festive season here in RKS Land has been spent in pretty much the same way as usual - gifts and fattening food, lunch with family, lazy evening with new film (review coming soon!), etc. I even received a couple of games from my generous ancestors. Look out for posts featuring those... at some point. Until then, wishing Happy Holidays to all of you. Have fun :)

San Francisco's Gaming Gem - Part 1

Oh, hello there, how's stuff 'n' junk? As mentioned in my 'why I haven't posted much lately' post, I have recently enjoyed a spectacular holiday driving around California visiting various cities and National Parks alike. There were of course many highlights but few relevant to the usual content of this blog. One, however, was very relevant, and I didn't discover its existence until mid-way through my second-to-last day of the trip when a friend I had met up with who lives in (or near) San Francisco.

The magical place in question was the Musée Mécanique, located at Fisherman’s Wharf in the north of San Francisco, and it's a museum of coin-operated arcade games. While the machines on display do include classic video games like Galaxians, Robotron, Phoenix, etc, the museum is perhaps even more noteworthy for its collection of antique electro-mechanical arcade games, and the best part is that all the machines have been lovingly restored and are fully playable too! Some of these date back as far as the 1920's, amazingly, and range right up to the 70's where of course the electronic games we know today were born (yes, okay, I know Spacewar was earlier), and they were absolutely fascinating to behold.

Holiday Time Again!

Yes, it's that time of year again! The few regular visitors I have here at Red Parsley may have noticed fewer new posts lately and that's because I have been on holiday for the last two-and-a-half weeks. This trip was the most ambitious yet undertaken by my wife and I and represented the fourth continent to have been visited by my good self (although my wife had already been there).

Passing under the Golden Gate Bridge on a boat trip...

This continent, following on from a few trips around Europe and South America, as well as a recent visit to Asia, was North America; more specifically California where we had decided to attempt a road trip. After arriving in San Francisco, we intended to drive east to Yosemite National Park, then down to Fresno where we would be staying for a few nights while we explored the mighty Yosemite along with Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks which are right next to each other. Sadly, Kings Canyon was closed due to a raging wildfire whose smoke partially obscured Sequoia Park as well. It seems these fires are much more common than I had realised too. Indeed, there was much evidence of previous fires in the other parks, particularly Yosemite, and all the fire hazard signs we passed were set at the 'very high' risk level. Oh dear.

New Blog!

Yes that's right! As some of my longer-term readers may well already know, another subject I'm interested in besides video games and films is astronomy. I've posted a handful of related features here before but I know most of you come here for gaming-related stuff so I've kept them to a minimum. It remains a subject I'm very interested in though, despite being hopelessly ill-equipped to comprehend much of it, so I decided to create a separate blog just for spacey stuff.

It won't be updated as often as Red Parsley - I only have so much free time after all - but if you have any interest in the subject, I invite you to check it out now and then. Click here to see! http://skysofullofstars.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post today to wish all my readers, whether occasional or regular, a very Merry Christmas! That's if you celebrate it of course. If you don't, I hope you're all having a great time anyway, regardless of what you're doing! The festive season here in RKS Land has been spent fairly lazily for the most part - something that will no doubt shock those who know me personally - but I've received some mighty fine gifts including a couple of games. Look out for posts featuring those... at some point. Until then, wishing Happy Holidays to all of you. Have fun :)

 

Arcade Shmups #20

R-Type (1987)
By: Irem Corp Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 159,200
Also Available For: PC Engine, PC Engine CD, X68000, Game Boy, Master System, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MSX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum
Download For: Xbox Live Arcade, Android, iOS

It may not seem like it but this is a rather special shmup review today. For those readers who haven't been keeping track (probably all of you), this is not only the 100th arcade review here at Red Parsley but it's also the 100th shmup review too. At the same time! Amazing, huh? And what better game to mark such a momentous occasion than arguably the most celebrated example of all time?! However, a legend it may be, but it's also a game I haven't played nearly enough. I had it for my Speccy and Master System (probably still have, actually) and both were superb conversions, but by far most of my R-Type gaming has come courtesy of Super R-Type on the SNES which, as you may know, features more of R-Type 2 than the first game. So, the motivation behind this review, other than featuring a game worthy of such a landmark, is to finally, belatedly dissect the original arcade version that so wowed gamers back in the mid-80's. Bydo Empire, prepare to be smacked upside the head!

Happy Holidays (to me - tee hee!)

As some of you may have (hopefully!) noticed, I have been somewhat complacent of late with regards to this humble blog. I seem to have been very busy over the last month or so, partly owing to Christmas of course (although that's never seemed to affect things too much in previous years), but I've also been preparing for the holiday in Thailand with my wife from which I have just returned. We left the UK on December 26th which of course means we were able to enjoy a nice Christmas morning at home (when I received some splendid gifts from my beloved including a new (to me!) console - see forthcoming post) before heading off to see my family who had gathered at my sister's house where we enjoyed a lovely meal and great company. The next day, however, we were off. A rather arduous full day of flights and waiting later and we arrived in Bangkok. A few days were spent here looking at temples and stuff before we moved on to our next location - Phuket - from where I originally wrote this post while sitting poolside in the blazing sunshine.

The setting in which this post was written :)

Unlike my last lengthy holiday two years ago to Brazil, I sadly didn't store up a reserve of reviews and features to post here during my trip this time and, as you may well appreciate, I'm not likely to spend too much time writing stuff while I'm here either. Rest assured, though, that more idiotic ramblings will begin appearing here again now I've returned, whether you want them to or not! In the meantime, may I rather belatedly take this opportunity to extend my hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas time (if you celebrate it) and to wish you all a fantastic New Year. Some of us may have had a great 2013, some may have had an awful one, most will probably have had a mixture of the two, but I hope 2014 surpasses it anyway. I've got plenty of great (in my opinion, at least!) posts planned for Red Parsley, and there's some potentially exciting times ahead for us all. Enjoy!
 

Happy New Year!

It's that time of year again and, although I'm a bit late in saying so, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! This is now the third 'festive season' since I started Red Parsley and, unlike last year when I was in Brazil for a month, this year I'm spending it all at home. For that reason, I didn't bother 'saving up' any features or reviews to post over the holidays like last year as I assumed I would have time to write some. This has turned out to not be the case as a few regular readers here have noticed! As well as spending time with my lovely wife, we actually have some friends staying with us which has been really nice but has also unexpectedly deprived me of any blogging time I might otherwise have had!

Helpfully, however, our guests include a great friend of my wife and her husband who, as chance would have it, is a big gamer himself. Unsurprisingly, this means he likes PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii rather than twenty or thirty year old games like me but it has given me another of the pushes I so often need to try some of the so-called games for one of these new fangled machines, namely my seldom-used PS3. The results of this will probably make up a post here in the near future but for now I just wanted to offer my thanks to all my regular readers for your support and to convey my warmest seasonal greetings, even if I am rather late on one count!

It's been quite a year here at Red Parsley - there was the 200th review a while back and the 500th post just recently, amongst other things - and I hope you'll join me in making it an even better year next time around.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

500th Post!!

Well, like it or not, Red Parsley has been clogging up the world of retro-gaming blogs for over two and a half years now and I've now arrived at my possibly-prestigious 500th post! I won't start spouting clichés like 'where has the time gone?' or 'seems like yesterday that I started' because, to be honest, they're not true. I can barely remember not having this splendid excuse to play loads of classic (and plenty of not-so-classic) retro games and babble incoherently on about them. It almost seems like I've always been doing it and I'm not really sure what I spent my spare time doing before. Having said that, Red Parsley was started at almost the same time as I switched from a very physical night job with long hours to an office day job so I'm sure the sudden increase in my spare time has helped.

Red Parsley has made me pretty busy nonetheless, but I've also enjoyed it very much. I would say I've enjoyed every minute but some games I've looked at have really stunk the place up! I'm gradually increasing in popularity though, with more page views per month now than I had in my first eight months combined which I hope means I'm doing something right! I even get spam emails now - surely a sign that I'm becoming famous?! Anyway, enough about this nonsense, I figured I should do something to mark the occasion, but what?

Well, since the whole point of Red Parsley is to broaden my gaming experiences, I had an idea. Up until I started blogging, I was already a very keen gamer, focussing almost exclusively on retro games, having lost interest in 'modern' systems after the demise of the Dreamcast. However passionately I might've pursued my interest though, it was done in a rather blinkered way - mostly arcade style games on mostly Sega consoles with a few others included. But some of the most popular systems of all-time were ones I'd never even tried until recently. So now that I have, I think the most appropriate thing I could do is reveal the biggest revelations I've had about these things since starting Red Parsley. Behold:

People Like Lists!

Or 'Top Fives' lists as far as Red Parsley is concerned. With the occasional exception - usually articles that snag a mass of search 'bots of some sort which is most likely a coincidence - the most popular posts here by far are always the Top Five lists I create, even some of the more nonsensical ones. I was actually going to start a separate blog purely featuring all manner of weird Top Five lists originally, but I'm now glad I didn't - Red Parsley probably would've fallen flat on its face if I had! So, rather than competing with each other, they're now part of one and the same blog. I've tried to alternate between game and film related lists and other more obscure ones, but they always end up with more 'hits' than any other posts of the respective month. It's getting tougher to think of more game-related ones, at least without extensive research, but rest assured list fans - I still have plenty of ideas yet! So, what next? Top Five Bums? I know who would win that one...

200th Review!

Space Station Silicon Valley a.k.a. Evo's Space Adventures (1998)
By: DMA Design / Take-Two Interactive Genre: Arcade Adventure Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo 64 First Day Score: Ongoing...
Also Available For: PlayStation, Game Boy Color

No, your eyes do not deceive you! Not only has it now been almost exactly two years since I started publishing my inane and nonsensical ramblings here at Red Parsley, but this anniversary also happens to coincide with my 200th full game review as well - hooray! During this time I've covered some of my old favourites, finally played titles I've been meaning to try for years, and even discovered some games I'd never previously heard of. It seems like it's been even longer than a mere two years actually, but in order to sufficiently recognise such a special occasion, I need a special review, or more accurately, a review of a special game. The title I've selected is one which arrived in the N64's prime and proved to be one of the few decent games that wasn't by Rare or Nintendo themselves. It was well-received critically and yet almost no one bought it which is both strange and a great shame. It also means it's a game of which I sometimes think I'm the only fan, so allow me to enlighten you...

Merry Christmas!

So, for the second year it's Christmas time here at Red Parsley, and indeed everywhere else that celebrates it! Unlike last year I'm not at home in the UK but am instead enjoying a sweltering festive season in Brazil right in the middle of their summer so it's been a mixture of searing temperatures, monsoon-like downpours, and brick-shaking thunderstorms. This of course means it doesn't really seem like Christmas to someone brought up not too far below the Arctic Circle. I'm lucky enough, however, to have a great family who arranged a special early Christmas for me before I left the UK so whatever happens here over the next week or so is a bonus!

This also means I will be doing virtually no gaming, retro or otherwise, during this most celebrated of festivals, but I suspect many of you will be. Of course, this is likely to be stupid modern games that take an hour to install, two hours to download updates, and are still riddled with bugs, but I'll leave you to it! I'll be back to super retro-gaming before long and, unlike last year, I've actually had a few posts saved up this time too. Regardless of my pursuits here or at home though, I hope very much that you all enjoy whatever you spend your time on and that you have a lot of fun. I've made some great new friends here over the last year including Sean, Bryan, Eric, Pablo, Marco, some older friends have continued to drop by including Marc, Edward, and Darkstalker, and there are of course many others too, so it just stands to me to wish you all, as well as everyone else who stops by here, and most of all my wonderful wife:

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!