If you’ve read the latest issue of Retro Gamer, you’re probably aware that there’s a great retro event, namely Chris Wilkins’ Retro Fusion ’08, taking place on the 19 and 20 of July at the Leamington Rugby Football Club.

 Confirmed guests include Archer Maclean, Sensible Software’s Jon Hare, Bullfrog’s Andy Nuttal and Alex Trowers, Martin Hollis, who was in charge of Rare’s N64 hit GoldenEye and Ste Pickford (who looks nothing like his picture in Retro Gamer as that’s actually his brother Jon).

 As well as ensuring that there’s a healthy amount of arcade cabinets, computers and consoles to play on, Wilkins is also planning a Q&A with the various developers (and any other special guests who turn up) a raffle (where you can win one of two JAMMA cabinets and various high score competitions (hint don’t enter a Galaxian competition is world record holder, Gary Whelan turns up).

 If all that wasn’t enough, we’ve also decided to head off to the event so we can report on it in the following issue. Stuart will be joining me and we might even be able to persuade Stephen to turn up (we’ll tell him there’s a football match there or something).

 Anyway, we’d love to find out who’s going and look forward to having a good old natter about the scene. Just remember that Stuart likes a Jack Daniels while I’m rather partial to a pint of diet Coke.

For more information about this fantastic event take a trip to www.retrofusiononline.com/event08 where you should still be able to buy tickets for a bargainous £12.

We took it upon ourselves to hand the caricatures of the RG team around the Imagine office and ask people who they think the pictures remind them of. Here are some of the best suggestions that we received, enjoy. And there’s a Part 2 to follow.

Mike Tooley / Frank Lampard

Richard Burton / David Beckham

Martyn Carroll / The Mona Lisa

The latest package to arrive at Retro Gamer towers received quite a lot of interest from Darran, and not just because it wasn’t actually addressed to him. What we have here is a brand new book dedicated to the ZX Spectrum that has been put together by The Rubber Beermat’s Michael Fraser and Retro Gamer forumite Paul Johns. Covering just two years of the Spectrum’s life span, it’s features an insane amount of reviews and is (according to the editorial) the first of a six-part series.

While it obviously loses points for not featuring the greatest 8-bit machine of all time (that’s the Amstrad in case you were wondering) this is nevertheless an essential guide for fans of the machine and at only £7.95, represents something of a bargain. We’ll be covering The Spectrum Games Bible 1982 – 1984 in a later issue of the magazine, but in the meantime you may want to head on over to the official site http://www.spectrumgamesbible.co.uk/ and place an order.

 Now where’s our bloody Amstrad book?

You have to ask yourself, why did Asmik think this image would help shift copies of their game? Two teary men in a fuzzy stadium sharing a tender embrace and looking longingly at the Playstation logo. Seriously, it looks like propoganda. They might as well have opted for an image of two laughing cows taking a grass dump on a compact disc or two catfish flicking elastic bands at a wristwatch. 

Right, the game’s called Jewel Master so clearly the intention here was to have some jewels and some part of a ‘master’ feature on the box somehow, somewhere. 

Apparently, according to this picture, in this game you get to play a giant girly hand adorned with giant girly rings, and must use them to spray a badly drawn phoenix with a triangle of girly looking water. Sounds truly unwonderful. Neither Darran nor I have played the game, so in the unlikely chance that this game is absolutely amazing and has some huge web-following that we’re completely unaware of, we’ll apologise for lambasting its artwork in advance.

No, we don’t mean the sort of person who likes to hang around abandoned shopping areas and steal from old ladies when they’re not looking, but gamers with a genuine love of retro games. Ben Watts obviously is as he’s sent in this rather ominous picture of himself and a nice bit of speil as well. So are there any other Retrobates out there or is Ben the only one? 

Ben Watts

Huge fan of the Final Fantasy and

Resident Evil series.

I also love and will never forget

Cool Spot, on the Sega Mega Drive

and its sequel Spot Goes Too

Hollywood.

Expertise: XBOX LIVE! and making

my own written game guides.

Currently playing: Eternal sonata,

Command and Conquer Retaliation.

Favourite game of all time:

Resident Evil on the PSone.   

We smell a conspiracy here…We were recently sent this rather lavish Commodore 64 book (expect a review in issue 52) to complement the Speccy book we already have, but we’d love to see an actual Amstrad CPC outing in the same style. Then, and only then would the 8-Bit holy trinity be complete* * We purposely didn’t include the BBC Micro, so please don’t write in and complain. 

Ok, so we’ve not updated the blog for a while (that’s deadlines for you) but we’ll return with a fresh ferocity from tomorrow. In the meantime here’s a Christmas card that Konami sent us. It’s several months old now of course, but it’s so cute we just couldn’t bear to throw it away.