VGM Vinyl - Some Serious Childhood Nostalgia

I am really excited about this one! This time we have a whole bunch of vinyls, and a couple of particular ones at the end really hit me with heavy nostalgia. Here’s more information on what’s here this time:

Art of Rally: This is one of the most minimal, purest racing experiences you will have. Here we have a typical rally game with one simple goal: to have the quickest time. You’ll be thinking that it’s not too hard, just take the best racing line and you’re golden. However, this game has much more realistic physics than you would expect, and you will find yourself wrestling with cars from the 60’s that let’s just say aren’t particularly suited to rally. It’s also difficult getting these to drift round corners, which needs to happen as the cars also have 60’s handling & acceleration and you will lose valuable time if you don’t. Cars progress through the years all the way until 1999. While you may think this gets easier to handle being that rally cars became better designed, the action only becomes more heart-in-mouth and you will find you need to take serious risks to keep up with the other competitors. But you must remember your goal to become a zen rally master, and the giant buddha statue that pops out of the ground at the start reminds you of this. If you like a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, then this is a game for you. As another example, one of the car shapes is jokingly said to have come about because the owner of the company sat on a baguette! Alongside all of this is an airy, bright, almost 80’s inspired soundtrack that really lifts the gorgeous horizon as you race through locations such as the cherry blossoms of Japan, as well as others. The colours of these vinyls are appropriately named Sunrise Galaxy & Sunset Galaxy for this reason, a beautiful set & worthy of any collection.

Minecraft (Alpha): A game that needs no introduction. It helped greatly to pioneer procedurally-generated worlds essentially made of blocky Lego, bringing voxels (3D pixels) to the mainstream. It can be thought of as the ultimate, easy-to-access sandbox world that will hook you from the moment you punch through your first block of wood. It will keep you reeled in as you restart again, and again just to explore new worlds, find out new tricks, and build new things. It treads a well-balanced line between freedom and constraint, which can be further narrowed in scope by adjusting world generation settings, changing textures and character skins, adding beautiful graphical shaders for reflections & god-rays, and even access a horde of incredible mods such as Chunk Animator, which will animate new chunks of blocks in the distance into existence. You can choose to adventure through day and night battling monsters and upgrading your tools in Survival Mode, or become the ultimate master builder you want to be in Creative Mode. And you can easily do all this with friends too. The soundtrack is at this point legendary, created by C418 it is what you will hear underpinning your adventure with its beautifully ambient tones. And of course I just had to have it, having played Minecraft for too long now!

Minecraft (Beta): More Minecraft music you say? What a splendid idea! This is an extension of the Minecraft soundtrack, which is described by C418 as ‘bigger, more varied and sometimes even dark and introspective’. It also includes those music discs you find through fishing and dungeon-delving, which are complementary to your adventure as you return back home, set up your music box & listen to a disc while looking out at the landscape. I can’t help but wonder if this message somehow subliminally got me into VGM vinyl in the first place? We can only wonder! The vinyls themselves are gloriously firey and evoke the feeling of the Nether and End parallel worlds.

Sonic Adventure: I’m going to need to take a deep breath for this one. There is absolutely no game that defines nostalgia and that warm childhood feeling for me than this one. First some context, believe me it’s needed here. I grew up through what I see as a beautiful time period called the 90’s. I believe there was simply no better time to be part of games and technology (with the possible exception of the early to mid-late 00’s). Right at the beginning of the decade, I’d started playing this little game called Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega-Drive (or Genesis). It was a game that widened my eyes, that made me uncontrollably excited as I navigated this blue speeding blur of a hedgehog through loops, platforms and Badniks (the main robotic antagonists powered by animals captured within). This 2D vibrant world was like nothing I’d experienced, and I could only look over at my SNES counterparts in their Mario world and snigger at how un-rollercoastery it was alongside the dull colour pallete. Don’t get me wrong now Mario definitely has a lot of merits (as well as being one of the finest franchises to date), but there was seriously nothing like Sonic. Then the sequel came out, amping everything up to 11. So it continued through the 90’s. The first Sony PlayStation then came out in 1995 and blew everyone away by making 3D graphics mainstream with incredible CD-grade soundtracks (yes the Sega-CD and Saturn were both out, but I never knew anyone that owned either of these including me). But then, in 1998, the Sega Dreamcast was released. For the first time ever, incredible 128-bit arcade game conversions at perfect quality such as Crazy Taxi, Soul-Calibur & House of the Dead were available at home for anyone to play! However, I didn't play any of these games first. That title belongs to Sonic Adventure, and it absolutely blew me away. For the first time in a video game, my hero Sonic was truly 3D, he was now voice-acted and was unbelievably cool! The game was fast, very vibrant & varied featuring an incredible cast of 6(!) characters each with their own storylines revolving around the central antagonist, Dr Robotnik (named correctly in my opinion, fight me!). There was also an ever-evolving liquid-based monstrosity serving as the over-arching antagonist: Chaos. This became an ever-increasing threat and was more interesting with each absorbed Chaos Emerald. And the music……..was absolutely sensational. It engaged every adrenaline-based neuron in my body and got me seriously hyped up. If you want an idea of what this felt like, play Sonic & Knuckles then watch the intro for Sonic Adventure. And yes, this was the first intro ever to modern Sonic. It still gives me goosebumps every time & hopefully you can see how much it blew my mind! I played this game so much that when I received it on Christmas day, I checked my clock to see what the time was after a while: it was 8:00 in the morning on Boxing Day! The soundtrack is beyond legendary, and will be forever treasured in my collection. Probably helps that there is also a nice lyrics book included, as I’m still bad at remembering them!

Sonic Adventure 2: It’s safe to say I had an incredible time with Sonic Adventure, and felt every emotion from some of (in my strong manchild opinion) the greatest storytelling in any game. And then…..there was a sequel. Much to my excitement, it was every bit as good as first one and even added some fresh twists! The main one being that although there were again 6 playable characters and storylines, 3 of the characters were the bad guys, and ONE OF THEM WAS DR. ROBOTNIK. You could play as Dr. Robotnik! This blew my mind all over again and I couldn’t wait to get stuck into this campaign. But of course I had to start with Sonic being the fanboy that I am, and little did I know that right out of the gate I would be playing one of the most memorable levels in history: City Escape. A captured Sonic blasted out of a helicopter and boarded using the door down San-Fran style hillscapes. This to one of the coolest soundtracks with some very memorable lyrics, while blowing away all of the G.U.N robots trying to capture you, and ending with a gigantic truck trying to catch and run you over. It was pure game entertainment gold! Then you had the introduction of one of the coolest characters in any Sonic game: Shadow the Hedgehog - Sonic’s main rival. His amnesiac story arc was great and it was interesting to see how it turned out. A final notable change (though there are many) was how they perfected a cult-classic feature of the first game: the Chao Garden. For those who don’t know what this is, it was likely inspired by a certain craze in the 90’s called the Tamagotchi; a pocket-friendly, portable monochrome LCD device, where you take care of a digital pet. It was so popular it got banned in UK schools. Chaos are like little pets that you can breed and nurture and it was so effective that there are communities today that still play it. You could even play using the Virtual Memory Unit (an interactive memory card the Dreamcast is well known for pioneering)! Going back to the soundtrack, the musical themes in Sonic Adventure 2 are again very memorable & with a variety of genres (notably the hip-hop Knuckles theme Pumpkin Hill), and as with the previous collection, there is a very nice-looking book of lyrics included.

Whew, that definitely took something to write. If you do get the chance to play Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, give yourself a nostalgic treat and I’ll see you around for next time!

VGM Vinyl - Some New Vinyl & One Not-Vinyl

Here we are again! I’m sure many people are currently nursing their wounds after the devastation to your wallet that was Black Friday Week (or Month….maybe even Year before we know it!). Even I wasn’t safe this time (damn you Steam!). So here are some new vinyls as well as a tasty book of handheld devices for gaming and such, & I’ve uploaded a video to give you a first look of said book. Check out more below!

A Handheld History - This is a wonderfully crafted book written by many game lovers including some well-known individuals on YouTube and even from Gadget Show (one of the coolest shows on UK TV for many years of my life!). For anyone that loves little devices for taking their worlds on the go, this is defintely for you. It’s a grand love letter to the history of handheld gaming that spans all the way from the humble Game & Watch consoles (the first handheld consoles created with huge influence from the inventor of the D-pad himself, Gunpei Yokoi) to the currently in-vogue Steam Deck (my favourite handheld currently, created by Valve). I had a strong nostalgic feeling reading this, and If you have a penchant for handhelds I urge you to treat yourself to this bundle of paper joy!

VVVVVV - Yes I still don’t know how to pronounce this name myself! But it fits absolutely perfectly, as this now largely hidden gem is a 2D adventure where you can’t jump but simply change gravity to overcome obstacles. It also looks like the spikes you constantly bump fall to your death to, and is devilishly hard as can be expected by the creator of Super Hexagon. The game introduces some very interesting mechanics making it a joy to play through, if only to reunite the lost characters around the map and brighten their day (provided you haven’t thrown your controller out the window). I was in the middle over whether to get the vinyl or not, but it really hit me in the feels when I heard it again on Spotify, and I also forgot how great the chiptune score was on this one!

Streets of Rage - You may be surprised to know that I didn’t actually play this as a kid with a Mega Drive…..I may have been a little too distracted by Sonic the Hedgehog. However during a small window of time in the early noughties, when a shop called GameStation was open and had a massive basket full of cartridges going for as little as £1, I started a retro journey. And this game absolutely rocked. The gameplay involved throwing, slamming, punching & kicking like other beat ‘em ups such as Golden Axe & Altered Beast ( I never got along with this one for some reason). It was so well executed and varied that I just kept coming back for more. It was even more entertaining when I was playing with my then-partner, and you could punch or throw their character ‘accidentally’. Don’t look at me like that, you would have done it too! It also helped that the soundtrack was incredibly kick-ass and had an awesome early 90s nightclub beat to it that made your head bob. Fantastic debut and a definite must play!

Streets of Rage II - Of course, with the first game being so awesome on its first outing, there just had to be a sequel. And there was. And they absolutely nailed it, taking everything from the first game, adding even more move intricacies and variety in enemies and movesets. You also had some real agility from the Skate as well as the backflip kicks from Blaze. The graphics had even more colour, neon signs and city vibes somehow than the first. They absolutely dialled this up to 11. This extra detail extended to the soundtrack, that had even more punch and timbre than the previous outing. If you’re going to buy the first one on vinyl, the second one definitely will get bought!

That’s it this time around. I will be popping off to South Korea next week for some fun times & I might even be in with a nice post with all the glorious street food & sights when I get back. Of course I am also expecting some more sick vinyls soon as well. See you soon!

VGM Vinyl - The Latest Additions

A pretty awesome set of videogame music vinyls this time round, more info on each of the ones pictured are below!

Doom (2016) - If you’ve checked my previous posts, you’ll notice that I’ve already bought the Doom vinyl collection as one of my first ever set of vinyls. So why have I bought it again? Simple, in a rare event the limited edition 4LP anniversary collection became available at RRP due to overstock. Good thing I got it too because it sold out in one day! As you can see it’s enormous, and even includes a thematic slipmat. Definitely going on the turntable when I get one. Of course, I also just had to have Mick Gordon’s incredible soundtrack in full with no compromises. You can’t see it easily, but if you can squint you can see that red & black murkiness of hell as the vinyl colour.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute - Sometimes more affectionately known as the original ‘Doom: The Musical’ within the Reddit community, you take on the mantle of a rather angry valkyrie by the name of Göll. Similarly to Doom, you punish a load of baddies but as a twist on the formula, it adds a rhythmic element. This means you have to fire to the beat, reload to the beat, dodge - you guessed it - to the beat. It can be challenging not to go out all guns blazing as uaually happens in a first-person shooter, but hitting the beat flawlessly & brutalising a room full of enemies is incredibly satisfying. The particular room-based roguelite style gameplay also reminds me of the glory days of Binding of Isaac. The smoky finish is incredible on these, and matches the shader colour palette of the game perfectly. The metal soundtrack is awesome, but for some reason I keep coming back for that whistling tune of Huginn's Shop!

VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action - I’ve already reviewed this game here, but for those that don’t know this is a visual-novel style game with a unique bartending mechanic that is used to influence the story. All this is cleverly explained by the barternder (Jill) herself: “It’s time to mix drinks and change lives”. Although I found that this was less influential than I’d hoped, I did still very much enjoy the game and I kept listening to the soundtrack on repeat on Spotify. Particularly the track named Every Day Is Night. It’s a kind of dreamy-synth soundtrack that puts your mind into the moonlit lounge of a midnight bar, while you sip that cocktail. Good job Garaod!

Thumper - Last but not least we have another rhythmic game, but this one is different. The game is often marketed as ‘rhythm violence’, but I’d class this as more of a ‘rhythm horror’, or ‘rhythm nightmare’. Here you are essentially a supersonic chrome beetle, coasting along at breakneck speeds as varying obstacles speed towards you. All this while the horrifying yet alluring soundtrack builds and builds in intensity and the backdrop evolves with imagery of skulls and uncomfortable shapes. The haptic feedback really kicks in your hand (at least on the Nintendo Switch version), and you can feel your palms sweat and your fingers gripping those buttons while you hang on for dear life attempting to keep up. It truly is one of the most intense experiences I’ve ever had in a video game, and it goes without saying that the soundtrack became essential. And it had to be the limited edition 2016 pressing because it’s very pretty.

I’ve just updated the previous posts with the inner gatefolds and actual vinyl pictures, as they look too good not to be there. Check out the updated posts under the vinyl section in the archive. That may be it for a little while with the vinyls, as only more expensive ones seem to exist on the list at the moment. More in other areas will be coming your way soon!

EGX: A Grand Day Out

For those that don't know, there is a massive event in the UK for all the gamers out there, known as the Eurogamer Expo or EGX for short. And it is very popular, as the early access line (on Thursday I might add) demonstrates:

It's no wonder then that many developers and publishers, even hardware manufacturers want a piece of the action. But of course there was one place I wanted to look for first if you know anything about me from this blog.

The Retail Zone

Of course I had to see if there was any tasty vinyls I could get my hands on, so I pegged it there first. Unfortunately, to my disappointment there was no resellers present. On the plus side, it meant I could focus on other stuff. Like these Pokémon terrariums:

Made by the lovely folks at Bespokemon they were a nice detailed little world that you could place on your shelf. Here's a close up:

Later on, there were a few other vendors visited but of course for me I had to check out some custom keycaps.

Anyway moving on, as there wasn't much else for me what with the vinyls making a no-show, I thought it might be a time to you know, play some games!

The Main Gaming Zones

There was one game I wanted to play, the main raison d'être for EGX this year: Sonic Frontiers. If you don't know, this is an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog game that has been highly anticipated since the gameplay trailer. However on my way to the retail zone….

Well that was a problem. Someone even joked the queue looked like the Dreamcast logo; it even looped past the first circle where the queue started! Therefore I decided to go to the next important place: the Steam Deck Zone.

This is a device I had been waiting for for nearly 3 months, essentially a handheld gaming PC, however it also has extremely versatile controls what with the different input styles. Rather ironically, Evri (the courier about to deliver my Steam Deck) sent a text that I'll receive this by 2:30 PM while I was waiting in the queue. You can't write this stuff! Anyway, I got to the front and immediately got into the first game anyone should play on the Steam Deck: Aperture Desk Job.

It's a 20 or so minute demo taking you through all the controls of the Steam Deck, in the most entertaining way possible. In true Valve style, the first thing you do is quality test toilets. You then notice a pipe above the toilet that says ‘ammunition’ with bullets flowing through it. Putting that together with the picture above, and you know you're in for a good time! This was certainly my highlight of EGX.

Later on I found a stand hosted by TikTok, which held a few secrets.

I found some machines here that played both Sonic Frontiers & the brand-new Street Fighter 6. Finally getting to play Sonic Frontiers was great. There are some new combat features, and I was slightly annoyed that I got killed by a powerful ninja-like enemy during the demo. Still stings me as a Sonic fan. I also had a go on Street Fighter 6 which was a beautiful, inky reimagining, although my history of that game did not disappoint: I was terrible at it! Unfortunately I don't have pictures of these, check out some trailers online for gameplay.

I did also briefly visit the Retro Zone to check out some retro Sonic games as well as play a bit of Guitar Hero. Spoiler: I was rubbish. Moving on…

The Manufacturers

There was a fair number of exciting showings from the hardware specialists. Let's just have a bunch of pictures:

All custom PC needs are catered for here, custom towers, keyboards and all sorts. The Lenovo stand had some kind of fun competition for any Crystal Maze lovers where you leap for the paper in a fan room, although this one was shaped like a Legion tower which was eye-catching.

The Chillzone (or Horizon) stand had a lot on show from VR with the Vive to custom PCs to accessories.

I also came across some awesome Cooler Master keyboards. They are 60% of a regular size, and this has arrow keys which they usually don't. This Cherry Red keyboard was discounted from £85 to £35. I even got one of my friends to buy one. He's still trying to get me back for it!

Last notable thing was the Asus ROG Flow Z13. This is a Surface Pro style tablet with a full fat graphics card in for gaming. It was epic to see in the flesh.

The Rezzed Zone

This zone was all about the independent game developers, as usual. They also had plenty of variety as usual, I got up to a lot here. To give you an idea of how fruity it gets, this was just placed in the centre with no explanation.

I played a numerous amount of games here and they were all great. I kicked things off with a fantastic in-progress anti-gravity racer called Dune Riders. Anyone who has played the wipEout series frantically will appreciate the attention to details with the physics. For me it even outdid Pacer, which as far as I know had ex-wipEout members.

There was also a very charming RPG called Eastward which had a glorious and quite charming art-style, reminiscent of some of the moving lofi pixel art backdrop GIFs you may have seen on Pinterest and Instagram. The mechanic of switching between characters for different attacks was pretty cool.

In between these was a terrific zombie shooter called Sker Ritual that took the legendary CoD Zombies and distilled it into a standalone game. This was complete with perks, doors, a gun shop and my favourite part, Lucky the dog (or the Mystery Box). It's rather unfortunate I don't have pictures of that, guess I was having too much fun!

The last one I played was a one-button ninja game called Ninja or Die. This had an unusual mechanic of having one button for both jumping or attacking. You aimed your ninja to parkour, and avoided dangers to slashin while leaping. And it was heaps of fun!

Here are some pictures of other stuff around EGX for your delectation:

That's all folks, stay tuned for more!

VGM Vinyls: Some PSP (& PS3) Nostalgia

A few new vinyls are in, harking back to a period between 2005-2015. Here they are, from left to right:

Loco Roco - One of the happiest little games I've ever had the pleasure of playing on Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable). Here you unusually use only about 3 controls, none of them on the d-pad(!). You use the shoulder buttons to rotate the world itself and send your rolling and singing companion from one side to the the other. Of course with a happy game there has to be a happy soundtrack, which in this case has most lyrics in a gibberish language that actually sounds really good tonally. There's a lot of variety in the genres and some soles even have your chosen Loco Roco singing along!

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - An awesome DLC for Far Cry 3 (which incidentally is my favourite in the franchise with one of the best villains of all time, Vaas). This one is different in that it's a shorter take that's reckless and a huge parody as if injected with comical values of testosterone from 80s action films. The cutscenes are ridiculous (complete with 16-bit sex scenes), the protagonist openly mocks the tutorials, there's lasers and laser dragons everywhere. There's even an assigned button to flip the bird! It also carries a really punchy synthwave soundtrack which invokes anemoia (nostalgia for something that never happened).

Lumines - A rhythmic block-dropping puzzle game, almost like ‘Tetris: The Musical’. This unique title debuted on the PSP and was really good for those commutes. You have a grid that's 16 blocks wide, and a scanline passing over two bars at a time, erasing any blocks that form part of a square. The blocks themselves consist of two colours, and led to some frantic placing to get as many squares as possible while you race said scanline. It goes without saying that the music gets into your head over time, and although more repetitive keeps that vibe moving as you zone in.

There will be more vinyls soon, but also a trip to the fabled EGX (Eurogamer Expo) hosted in the UK. Hopefully there will be much to play and experience, as well as some secret limited edition vinyls!

VGM Vinyls - More New Additions

More VGM vinyls have arrived, it’s always exciting to see these in the flesh! More info about these is below:

Sonic Mania - There have been many Sonic games played over the years (it’s one of my most beloved franchises as a kid). This one however is very special, it is a faithful attempt at what a sequel would have looked like on the original hardware, but it is also by far the most quintessential 2D Sonic experience outside of the originals. In fact it takes some of the original levels and adds some incredible mechanics, not to mention any Sonic fans will notice a tonne of easter eggs such as Game Gear sound effects during a particular boss battle. The nostalgia and happiness of my inner child was unmatched! But it also adds small but substantial changes like extra animation frames making the rotoscopy of the characters look even smoother, and other details such as depth of field with lost rings. Considering all there was prior was the disappointing physics of the Sonic 4 series, this was a welcome breath of fresh air. Of course, the soundtrack is also fantastic. It takes the original feel and elevates it to Sonic CD quality (being one of my lesser favourites, the soundtrack was nevertheless notably kick-ass). A little bit gutted that the reimagined Lava Reef Act 2 music isn’t on this, but still it’s worth having. Particular note to Studiopolis Act 1, one of my favourites!

140 - So I have a confession: I have a penchant for audiovisual and rhythm games, having been a drummer at one point. An interesting twist is this game, so named because of its tempo. It’s a very minimal, yet (as far as I can tell) unique type of platformer where all moving elements are synchronised with the soundtrack. This means timing and patience are key. Because of this, the game gels together really well as a cohesive and pure whole, giving a short (around 1-2hr) experience that is memorable, and for a pretty cheap price.

Nuclear Throne - Few in the indie developer community around the mid 2010s would not have heard of the legendary name of Vlambeer, the developers of this game as well as others. They were responsible for two main things for me; making a press kit much easier for independant developers to produce, and for their presentation on the ‘Art of Screenshake’. On the latter, they put forward the idea that you can turn up the screenshake to 11 everywhere, as well as add many other over-the top elements such as huge bullets and ricochets to make a game more exciting. No game expresses this ideology more than Nuclear Throne, a roguelite twin-stick shooter with ridiculously over-the-top risk and reward action, where games can end as quickly as they began. You can even use one character to explode corpses! The soundtrack is incredible and gives the game a sort of wild west mercenary-for-hire vibe that could also be sung as an anthem around a campfire.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for more!

VGM Vinyls - New Additions

Some new vinyls are just in! A little more info about these is below, Going clockwise from the bottom left:

Sonic Spinball - Gaming started for me with Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive (or Genesis). I was a massive fan boy of this franchise. This was one of the unusual entries where Sonic in essence became a marble in vertical pinball-style levels. This was also merged with a couple of platforming areas to create some unusual yet satisfying ricochet action. It also had kick ass almost rock style music, in true Mega Drive style.

Axiom Verge - A 2D adventure game that will greatly satisfy both Metroid and sci-fi fans. The level design is very glitched & the way you can scramble enemies with a ray gun to change their characteristics is so much fun. The soundtrack is very deep with some chiptune elements, however it comes out as a very rich, deep, dark and in a way soulful. The huge amount of weapons were also fun to use.

Axiom Verge 2 - A sequel that initially feels very different to the first outing. Here there's a lot more exploration over combat. Although it takes longer to get into this one, some of the great mechanics from the first are here and turned up to 11. Also, the soundtrack is incredibly beautiful. Helped by the voice of Mayssa Karaa, Monsoon is one song that moved me in so many profound ways for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

Nice to Meat You (aka Super Meat Boy) - This game needs no introduction to those in the indie scene around 10 years ago. It's a brutal, insta-death platformer with saws galore and incredible gore. I mean the protagonist has no skin and gets hurt by salt, which should give you some idea as to the theme. The soundtrack is by the legendary Danny Baranowsky and earlier versions of the game feature the music. Unfortunately it is not the same any more, which makes this all the more valuable. In terms of sound, it is gritty and almost foreboding, but also full of energy.

For now, this is what's arrived. Stay tuned for more!

VGM Vinyls - A New (& Dangerous) Hobby

As mentioned in a previous post, I have played through quite a few video games over a period spanning decades. That being said, I’ve never really had a need to commemorate them with collectibles; bobble head figurines and special edition game cases never really appealed to me for some reason.

However, something has changed recently. Since writing reviews about games and getting into them once again, I’ve felt a new and reinvigorating energy about gaming in general. They have provoked me to really go in depth as to why they are great, and I in turn realised that there are some truly astonishing games that should never be forgotten. 

My father (who is no longer with us unfortunately) possessed a small vinyl collection and introduced me to amazing music such as David Bowie’s Space Oddity (1972 version). I can also tangibly say that a great video game tends to have a great soundtrack. And I love a good soundtrack. So of course the logical next step was to start collecting video game music (VGM) vinyls.

Here is what I’ve started with so far:

Shovel Knight - I’m not usually a fan of chiptunes……..I know I’m a terrible excuse for a gamer. That being said this is most probably the most uplifting chiptune soundtrack I’ve ever heard, for one of the most fun and rewarding platforming adventures. Really gets you ready for some questing!

Portal - This is one of the first games I ever played on Steam while it was still young. It’s a portal-jumping first-person action puzzle game with a memorable antagonist. This was part of a collection by Valve called Orange Box, which featured some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time such as Half Life 2 and its two further episodes. The end credit song will definitely be played on repeat. 

Okami - Probably the most important and beautiful video game ever made in my opinion. Every step is a breath of fresh air, the main mechanic is to this day one of the most unique I have seen, and for longer than a decade it topped my favourite games of all time list and likely still does. It is by far the most expensive out of the lot; a jaw-dropping £450 spent. However it is also the very game that ignited my now undying interest in traditional Japan as well as being quite possibly the most beautiful collection of vinyls ever conceived alongside some astonishing ukiyo-e artwork.

Cuphead - This game has a very unique 1930s animated aesthetic that is beautifully executed. It’s also one of the most frustrating games I have played. Be that as it may, you just want to keep on going just see what the next boss looks like because they all have gorgeous animated movement. The soundtrack is also quite unique in the field of video games.

Hollow Knight - I have already gushed over this game in a previous review. Quite simply, I believe it to be quite possibly the greatest game of all time, as the only issue I found was slightly harder difficulty. Everything else was ambitious, well-executed, full of variety & memorable. The soundtrack is incredibly immersive and beautiful, perfectly capturing the essence of each dramatically different area on the map.

Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery - An obscure game that can be considered very ‘indie’. It’s a chilled out, in some ways zelda-esque audiovisual adventure with laid-back dialogue presented in quite an artsy way. It is short (around 3-4 hours), but it is also a haunting adventure that will remain with you. It’s quite an experience.

Doom - An over-the-top metal soundtrack that really gets your adrenaline pumping while you rip and tear until it is done. You can really envision the shooting and glory-killing of the various hell monsters, in a roller coaster of arena battling while you traverse facilities to end the torment.

I do have some ground rules however. Firstly the game has to have been played and there has to be some great memory or story attached to the game. Secondly, the soundtrack actually has to sound good or unique. Thirdly, I will be opening and eventually playing these. I can then consider purchasing. A vinyl can be the most gorgeous ever made, but if there is no memory or story of it, then it’s an empty purchase.

As more vinyls come in, I will have some more opportunities to talk about some great and sometimes obscure games. I’ll also show these opened up, as VGM vinyl is greatly eye-catching. Keep checking back for more.

Welcome to my Planet!

This is where I will put all of the things I’ve created, and will be creating. With others, or without others.

This blog-site will serve as a journey and hopefully a place where there will be many wondrous things that can add some excitement to other’s lives.

Watch this space and this will continue to evolve from a rock into a lush ecosystem!