2011/2012 at Gaming Hell Headquarters...

20th May, 2012
HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY, GAMING HELL!
Another year, another joke about the fact that we've been on an ENEMY OF THE STATE black-list since inception and yet we still haven't been shut down. This year's been an exciting one, though! We had an exclusive faux-interview with the developers of Judge Dredd Arcade, a temporary crisis where we had to move the entire site (thanks, Cauterize), an excellent email from LordBBH who basically inspired this very site, some of my favourite articles, and an odd rise in the amount of tat, including whatever the hell this is. If I may toot my own horn for a moment [No you may fucking not - Ed] it's gone surprisingly well! (You'll have to excuse my cranky editor, he's only just recovered from the horrid shit I did to him April Fools' Day.) [Oh, you think I'm over that? Get to fuck! I'll see you in court. - Ed] Admittedly, the fact that I wasn't readily available on the internet from June to October did put a damper on things, and the fact that I wasn't able to put out a proper update for March and April set me back a little, but, well, that can't be helped, eh?

Anyway, this year's birthday update is what we were supposed to put up last year- it's the Puyo Puyo Library, which will, over time, hopefully become a bit of a resource for scans of everything to do with Puyo Puyo. Primarily the instruction manuals to begin with, but hopefully we'll expand eventually. However, it isn't Gaming Hell's birthday without something going comically awry, and due to incompetence laziness greivous bodily harm enacted upon me by my editor circumstances beyond my control, we've only got three manuals up for the launch. And one of them is one we've had on here for years. So to start, we have Puyo Puyo (Game Gear), Puyo Puyo (Game Boy) and Puyo Puyo Tsu (Saturn), plus the front and back cover for All About Puyo Puyo, a guide book for the first game. Once I figure out what where it all went wrong the bodies stop piling up I lock my editor in the basement things calm down here at Gaming Hell HQ, we'll get more up ASAP. For now, uh, enjoy?

Here's to at least one more year of self-pitying humour, playing vid-cons, and attacking aggressively!

And now Vocaloids too. We're branching out, y'see. Gotta get more Haku on here somehow.
[Wait, what? A thousand times, no! That's everything I stand against! - Ed]
Oh, pipe down, Ed. You've got at least 10 Miki songs on that ratty MP3 player of yours anyway.
[I... Er... Oh, bloody hell. - Ed]


18th April, 2012
Alright, a quick update. I did a cheap-and-nasty page about Nazca staff members in Irem games. It's not 100% foolproof but hopefully someone will email me some neat info on this particular subject. We live in hope, eh?


1st April, 2012
- [This is Ed the Editor speaking. What up, assholes? Yes, it's the day of fools once again. My favourite day of the year. Well, no, actually, it's not my favourite day of the year, because something always ends up happening in the office and I end up reviewing a fucking horrible video game. This year, I caught my writer cohort playing some animu-based nonsense so I felt compelled to intervene on principle, and got sucked into the nightmare that is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This was hard to write, because a) the game is a bit pants and b) Haruhi Suzumiya is an asshole, but I persevered. For you. See you next year, dickwads! - Ed]


29th March, 2012
Alright, you got me! There's not going to be an update for March. Lots of reasons, most being too dull to discuss on this little website, but you can rest assured that our traditional April Fools' Day article will be going up. Besides, it's not a total washout, because I was able to update a lot of older articles instead. Most of these were pimped out on Twitter, but not all. So, here's what we fixed, including one we actually uploaded last month. Because we are incompetent in every single way.
* Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd - Cleaned up the text a bit (I forgot to mention this rhythm game has slowdown, what the fuck?), added info on the two different versions of the game, and, because I probably won't get the chance again, made a note about Hatsune Miku's Miku Hatsune's appearance in the bizarre Tomoyo Fighter Perfect.
* P.O.W. - Prisoners of War - Added links to some fucking ace fanart drawn by our good Twitter friend, @Supcat/@Slonie. MAN VS. HELICOPTER.
* Puzlow Kids - We changed this ages ago, but important to note- turns out Mean Bean Machine GG came out after Puyo Puyo GG and not before. Thanks go out to SMS Power for that one.
* Psycho Soldier - Info regarding the stand-alone PSP Minis version of the game added. It still pauses to load the music. SIGH.
* Bubble Bobble II - Finally, finally added a scan of the original Official Playstation Magazine review of the game. This article has also been substantially rewritten and moved to Let's Gaming Tat as it doesn't seem fair to review a game like this- I still don't know if this was actually sent as review code. Because if it was, fucking hell.
* Fighters Megmaix - A lot of the review has been rewritten to make sure it doesn't ompletely suck.
* Fighting Vipers - UH-OH! BIG UPDATE! The review text has been cleaned up immensely (seriously this was probably the most embarassingly bad page on the site- I've preserved the 'original' version for myself but I don't think you'll be seeing it again) with some extra notes added about the Sega Ages 2500 version for the PS2, some parts of the guide have been fixed (in particular we found out that the Portrait Gallery was removed from the US version!) and there's a new page detailing the removed/replaced Portrait pictures in the US version.

Ooh, those Fighting Vipers/Fighters Megamix changes are peretty extensive, ain't they? There's a particular reason I changed them, though, mostly pertaining to the FV review. When I initially wrote that review- almost three years ago now- my knowledge of the fighting game community (lovingly known as the FGC or, as I call it, the FIGHTMAN WORLD) was pretty much limited to, "Blimey, they like their Virtua Fighter, don't they? Let's poke some fun". This was, of course, completely ignorant and incorrect, and while I'm still not going to visit SRK.com regularly anytime soon (have you seen me play UMVC3? I run a team of Frank West, Strider and Spencer, I'm a mess at it) I've learned a thing or two about how to approach fighting games and the community surrounding it, and so both reviews have been changed to reflect that. Mostly by removing the jokes at the expense of VF fans, ho ho ho. Also, I follow @Zerochan on Twitter, found their defunct Fighting Vipers fan page, looked at mine and figured, "You know what? We should fix our page on that game, and Fighters Megamix too. Zero's got us beat here. They're a disgrace." So here we are.

tl;dr version - HA HA HA I SHOULD NEVER WRITE ABOUT FIGHTING GAMES EVER except maybe warzard/red earth i dunno

Oh, and one more thing... After almost four years, Lord BBH, the dude whose own site inspired the creation of Gaming Hell, found the site and sent me an email. I think it freaked him out a bit (and freaked myself out too because holy shit this site is nearly four years old oh god why) but he was good enough to forgive me for ripping off his visual style (and everything else) and basically give me a thumbs-up for the site up to this point. So cheers for that, sir!

There will be an update next month, I promise. Maybe even two if I'm feeling generous.


24th February, 2012
Bit of a change of pace this month- such a change that I had to get reinforcements. Today we tackle Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd, and this is dangerous territory for someone like me. I drafted in an expert in the field of Vocaloid, Matchi_chan (a Twitter follower) to make sure I wasn't talking out of my arse. For once, I was't (except the part where I spelt their name wrong. Twice) so thanks for that. Please, enjoy this overly-beardy look at a portable rhythm game only released in Japan.


13th January, 2012
Something quick for the unluckiest day of the year- we took those emails we got from Jake Simpson and Eric Kinkead about the Judge Dredd arcade game and organised their notes into one page, chronicling the rise and fall of Judge Dredd Arcade. Enjoy.


8th January, 2012
God, 2012! Now the Robotrons only have to wait seventy four [That's seventy two, dumbass - Ed] years before they take over the planet. Use your freedom wisely. Anyway, it's a new year and so we resolve that absolutely nothing, not a fucking thing will change on Gaming Hell. We are going to be exactly the same stupid, cretinous morons we've always been, contribtuing absolutely toss-all to the internet, and above all, we'll try to retain our self-appointed status as the strongest, most aggressive vid-con site on the net... But hopefully we'll update a little more than last year too.

Speaking of updates, let's get right to it. This month's update is a little Let's Gaming Love ditty on one of the worst Breakout clones ever made, Block Gal. As a favour to you, the reader, here's a list of games like Breakout that don't suck- Arkanoid, Prism Land Story, The Highly Responsive to Prayers. Go and play those instead. Please don't play Block Gal. I am begging you not to play Block Gal. Please.


31st December,2011
The Trash Talk messages from Bloodstorm. All of them. ACROSS THREE PAGES. Why do we do this kind of thing to ourselves? Well, the thing is, some dudes on Twitter liked some of these messages, so we figured, why the fuck not? We'll probably regret this at some point, but who cares.

We have some more updates for the older pages as well.
Touhou Project - Fixed some glaring, horrifyingly stupid errors here. Seriously, I thought Amusement Creators was some team that developed the PC-98 games. What a klutz!
Touhou Time #3 - There are now five certified sane Touhou fans on the internet. We updated the list at the bottom of this article.

Hmm, isn't that odd. It's just Touhou pages that got updated. I'm sure that's not a hint of something awesome to come or anything.


16th December,2011
Another update this month? Well, go on then. After a visit to The Cutting Room Floor we found a hidden staff list for The Fairyland Story, so we updated the article and created an incomplete staff list for the game, including their previous works. Also, we now have a pack of the voice samples from Alien³: The Gun on the Odds and Ends page. Also also, we'd like to give a shout-out to whoever's running the GDRI Twitter account 'cause they linked to our Laser Ghost article. And they followed us. And they retweeted our page about the staff of The Fairyland Story. Every little helps, an' all that, so ta!


13th December,2011
OK, let's go you gang of clowns! We finally got off our duff and made a new Wretch! Video Games!! play through, this time for a spooky Master System lightgun shooter, the fairly unique Laser Ghost. For those without the time or inclination to read the full thing, here's the short version. This is the first real 'new' article for the site since the move, so that's nice, isn't it? Last month's update doesn't count. It kinda broke my heart to give this game a three-star rating, but the game is so... Uneven. Remember though, friends, that on this site, three outta five ain't bad! It's when we get to two-star games that things get ugly.

Man, the last time I did a full play through was Bullet. Almost a full year ago!


30th November,2011
I told you there'd be another update this month. Sadly, this isn't the first real 'new' article on our new hosting service, because we finished this one well before 110mb died on its arse- it was designed as a fail-safe, to be uploaded if I ever reached the end of the month without new content. Sadly, it is a look at a cursed tome, The Maid Clothes and Machine Gun Complete Works. We're sorry. So, so sorry. At least it's educational. Besides, it has possibly my favourite image on the entire site- you'll know it when you see it.

Also, we made three two microscopic fixes this month:
* Yohko Ishino - A couple of notes on the Master System version added.
* About the Site - We added a hilarious 'file photo' joke. We really thought it was funny.

We have a totally righteous update planned for the Bubble Bobble II review as well- a very generous RetroCollect member (thanks, homgran!) sent us a copy of the review of the game from the Official Playstation Magazine- but we need to wait until we get a scanner that isn't totally shit before we can do that. It'll be neat, though!


18th November, 2011
Normally we wouldn't update the site without also adding a new article, but this time it's a little different- by chance, I was contacted by Jake Simpson and Eric Kinkead, ex-Midway employees who worked on the cancelled Judge Dredd arcade game. After exchanging a lot of emails with them, they gave me enough material to edit the article and add in a director's commentary of sorts, including the problems encountered developing the game, proposals to fix the game and make it fit for release, and critically, what happened at the game's location test in Chicago. It's now the most complete coverage of the arcade game's rise and fall, and makes for fascinating reading. Read on, drokk it!

Oh, and there's two more fixes this month:
* The Fairyland Story - We finally found Ptolemy's cameo in Bubble Memories!
* The Maid Clothes and Machine Gun - Official artwork and wallpapers added in a new bonus section.

There's a proper update coming later this month. We promise.


11th October, 2011
Our holiday was longer than we anticipated. Missed us, internet? Ha ha ha, no you didn't, don't fucking lie.

After three years (and two months, give or take) gaminghell.110mb.com is NO MORE. What happened? At the start of August, the site went down. While I initially thought that 110MB had decided to just firebomb my entire site on a whim (because, let's face it, who wouldn't?) it was actually just the particular 'box' my site was hosted on being down for a few weeks. It eventually came back up, but to be honest, I'd had enough- I wanted to host this horrid shit-pile on a respectable hosting service, one that didn't shut down without warning every now and then. Thanks to some absolutely invaluable assistance from Cauterize (the Final Big Boss of RetroCollect- without his help, this site would still be dead) we're now hosted on Vidahost. And for cheap, too!

I guess this proves that Gaming Hell is the strongest website, because even 110mb shutting us down hasn't broken our spirit! We're kinda like roaches, in that nothing will really kill us. Not even nukes. We'll be here moaning about video games foreverrrrrrrr. Since this is technically a fresh start, I've decided to cover a game very close to my heart this month- it's Taito's creaky puzzle-platformer The Fairyland Story. I have lots of nice things to say about it, despite its proximity to Bubble Bobble- some of the nicest things said about the game on the entire 'net, in fact. There's even a cameos guide for the game, showing where Ptolemy and crew would show up in later games. I would just like to emphatically state that it is much, much better than Chack'n Pop.

In order to properly move the site, we had to comb through every page for broken links and all that, and in the process, we fixed updated the content of a few articles:
* King of the Monsters 2 - The Next Thing - A few more references hidden in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum noted.
* Märchen Maze - Blimey, lots of changes- developer noted as NH System (an offshoot of Namco), there's a new section with some miscellaneous art I found, and actual screenshots of the Sharp X68000 port.
* Momoko 120% - Loads of additions to the section on The Game Paradise, with new Saturn secreenshots and info.
We'll be updating some more of the older articles soon.

Since my 'trusty' editor is also back from his holiday [I wouldn't call it a 'holiday', more like a month of decadence and self-loathing. I saw things no man should see, and did things no man should do, so needless to say I've already booked a trip to the same place next year - Ed] I guess that means we'll be back to updating once a month again. Hopefully. What does the future hold for Gaming Hell? Lots of bitching and moaning, inevitably, but games like Alien Syndrome, Undercover Cops and Balloon Kid should be covered soon. You'd better get the fuck ready, assholes! We're the strongest vid-con site on the net!


11th June, 2011
Right, put the party hats and confetti away, birthday's over. Hopefully next year (assuming there is a next year and we aren't bought out or destroyed by [REDACTED - Ed] ) the article intended for our birthday will actually happen rather than get replaced at the last possible second. Anyway, this month's victim is P.O.W. - Prisoners of War by SNK, a game I desperately wanted to like. I mean it, I wanted to love this game just so I could say that SNK made one decent scrolling brawler (aside from Sengoku 3 and, at a stretch, Mutation Nation). Alas, I couldn't!

I've also been updating a few articles here and there. In the name of transparency, here's what's been added fixed lately:

* Touhou Time Issue #3 - A section regarding 'legit' Touhou merchandise added. A few corrections here and there too.
* Bullet - A tiny but significant detail added- a song from Bullet is in Alien Syndrome's sound test, which makes my comparison of the two even more apt.
* Psycho Soldier - Info added regarding the version included in SNK Arcade Classics 0 for the PSP on the final page.
* Fighters Megamix - Links added to the complaints from Virtua Fighter fans. See, I didn't make that shit up!
* Puzzle Bobble 4 - The three PS1 screenshots have been replaced with ones that don't look shite.
* James Pond II - Codename: Robocod - Info and screenshots of the PS2 version (reviewed at RetroCollect) added.
* Fighting Vipers - You can now disable the character bios so they don't clutter the page.
* Judge Dredd - A very long-standing omission fixed, made a note regarding the control panel- it's borrowed from NARC!
* Hard Head 2 - Almost all of the animations have been replaced with higher quality versions. Let's face it, the old ones were shit.

And just as a little warning, there might not be an update next month- I'm being sent out into the middle of nowhere for a year (long story) which might impede my ability to update until I get myself sorted out. Besides, Ed's booked his holiday for the next few weeks [About fucking time and all. I'm off to France to get some cultrue for once, so the rest of you bastards can kiss my ass. - Ed] so productivity's going to grind to a halt anyway. See you in August, if all goes to plan!

You want to keep going...? Click here for Year 3: The Year of Aggression
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