Category: Video Games

Ummm sorry but Super Metroid should have been first, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night should have at least been in the top 10 and so should have Shenmue. Still an interesting list to go through if you are a videogame fan. [Link]

I went to the Cedar Lounge yesterday at the Beirut Airport while I waited for my flight since they have a business center with free Internet. After getting frustrated with the slow connection I decided I would go over to the kids section since the last time I was at the lounge they had a bunch of PlayStation 2’s in the kids room and one of them had a MotoGP game. I figured to kill time I would play some video games. To my astonishment it turns out the kids room was recently overhauled and now had 4 new Xbox 360 stations complete with extra wireless controllers and a bunch of games to choose from.

I ended up playing some Gears of War until it was time for me to leave. Since kids are in school the kids section is usually deserted with only business travelers hanging around outside. One thing I was surprised at was the lack of security camera’s in the room. It is extremely easy to steal a wireless controller, game, xbox hard drive or even the whole xbox if you really wanted to.

The Windows Gaming Championship should have started on May 10th (yesterday) but the custom PC’s the organizers had ordered were not cleared by the Kuwait customs. The event has now been postponed till May 17th and 18th. Here is a message from the organizer:

Dear All, Please accept our sincere apologies but due to a technical problem, we haveto postpone the Windows Gaming Championship Kuwait event until next week. The event will take place on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th May, on the ground floor of Sharq Market Mall, near Zara and Next from 1pm – 10pm on both days.

With many thanks and best regards,
Louise Hickman

For more information visit the official tournament website. [Link]
Here is the website of the Gulf Gamers. [Link]

Thanks Yousef

I got an Xbox 360 last week and a few minutes ago I just finished playing Pro Evolution Soccer with some guy in Ecuador. It was my first time playing on Xbox Live and it was pretty cool talking and playing with someone who was all the way across the world. I thought it wasn’t possible to play online because of lag but I am on a 512KB Qualitynet connection and I didn’t have any problems.

We were done with the music recording at around 7PM and so I came back to my friends place where we played some Nintendo Wii. I think I am over the Wii, its not as fun as I imagined it to be and its really exhausting to play. When I pick up a joystick to play a video game its because I want to relax and chill out in front of the TV. The Wii on the other hand demands physical effort which I really don’t want to give. I think I am going to get the Xbox 360 instead. Forza Motorsport 2 is coming out in May and thats all I really need, oh and an NHL game.

Today I had to wake up at 5AM because I had a photo shoot at 6 in the morning. Once the shoot was done and after having a quick breakfast at Krispy Kreme, me and a friend decided to head to the Friday market.

Last time I went there was over a year ago and things have changed condierably since then. The place is cleaner and more organized then before. They seriously sell the strangest stuff there, you can find anything including used deodorant cans.

After walking around for around 40 minutes I spotted a guy with a ton of vintage video game systems. He had a ton of video games for the SNES, NES, Megadrive and MegaCD. He also had some video game consoles, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x, Sega MegaCD, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguars, NES systems, a Panasonic 3DO and a NeoGeo. They weren’t all in the best of shape plus I had most of them so I wasn’t really interested in any of them for my collection. Then I spotted a NeoGeo game. The guy noticed I was interested and told me he had more pointing to under the table. I looked down and was like fuuucccckkkkk…. There were around 15 NeoGeo games just pilled up there.

A quick history on the NeoGeo. It was released in 1990 and back then it was priced at $650. It was one of the most expensive video game consoles and each game used to cost over $200 and most of the time over $300. Finding a brand new NeoGeo console today is very difficult, the last time I saw a brand new one online they were selling for $1200. Luckily a few years ago I got my brand new NeoGeo for less then $300.

So back to my story. The guy wanted KD5 for every game. I told him the prices were too expensive but he then pointed to the original price tags on the games.. KD75, KD60, KD65 etc.. I told him yeah they cost this much back in the 90s. I offered to give him KD10 for the 15 games. He said no and so I left. 30 minutes later I came back and decided to haggle with him. In the end I ended up getting 11 NeoGeo games (I had the other 4), a NeoGeo joypad and 2 Atari Jaguar consoles all for KD14. I have an Atari Jaguar but I accidentally ruined it a while back and needed a replacement. He didn’t know if the 2 systems he had worked so I decided to take both of them.

When I came back home I quickly started checking the NeoStore for prices of the games plus checked the price guide and it turns out I walked away with over $700 worth of NeoGeo games, the most expensive being Aggressors of Dark Kombat which is selling for $149 at the moment.

I had heard of Second Life numerous times but for some reason I never bothered to try it. Then a few days ago a reader emailed me a link to Second Life and I decided what the heck let me try it.

Second Life is really freaky, its literally a second life. Its another world and its not a game its just a different parallel universe. You can make money, sell stuff, buy stuff or just party and have fun. Today for example I went to this club which had Tiesto playing then I visited an art gallery followed by a walk on the beach. Everything we have in real life is available in second life. Actually if you are living in Kuwait there is more stuff in Second Life like alcohol, casinos and strippers.

There are over 3 million other users in Second Life so there is a lot to do and tons of places to visit. The experience is free, you just download the software from the Second Life website and create a free account. It runs on Windows and Macs and the setup file is like 60MB only. If you haven’t tried it yet then you should. [Link]

PS3 60GB is in stock on Amazon for $599 [Link]
Hurry while it lasts..

Thanks xnax

Just got back from the city after meeting with a friend for coffee. On the way back I was racing with a few cars and the G35 was faster then most of them. I think I read somewhere that the G35 accelerates from 0 to 100 in 5.3 seconds which for a 4-door sedan is pretty fast.

Anyway my friend was at Rihab earlier buying games for his Nintendo Wii when he spotted a store selling 60GB PS3’s, American version for only KD199. Thats the cheapest price so far. For those of you planning to order one online beware, the PS3 is REALLY heavy. I can imagine shipping would easily cost more then KD20 probably like KD30.

A D&G mario t-shirt for $175. Its soooo not worth it! [Link]

A very informative article on why old systems and specifically the SNES get discolored. I always figured it was something in the plastic and that light might also have something to do and turns out I was mostly right. [Link]

Someone in the forum is selling a brand new 60GB PS3 for KD250. Thats KD50 cheaper then the cheapest place I know of which is ClicknBuy. Here is the link to the post in the forum. [Link]

There is a link on Digg to an eBay auction where an unopened SNES got sold for $265 on eBay. I got my unopened SNES from a store in the old souk in Kuwait City for $50. The guy also had unopened original first generation Gameboys for $25. Some times you can find some really good deals here in Kuwait.

Tonight at 10PM local time Amazon had a special deal on the Xbox 360. The were offering it for only $100, the catch.. only 1000 pieces. I knew I didn’t have a chance when I saw that deal plastered all over the web including places like Digg and Gizmodo. Still, I decided to give it a shot and see if I could be one of the lucky 1000.

At around 9:45PM I started refreshing the offer page every 20 seconds. By 9:58 Amazon’s servers got overloaded and the page stopped loading. So using two computers I started opening the same page in like 20 tabs on each computer. Finally two of my tabs loaded and I saw the Get this deal button. I quickly pressed it but my other tabs started loading and I noticed the same page now was saying Sold Out. I was hoping that since I clicked the button already I would be counted as one of the first 1000. Around a minute later one of the tabs where I had clicked the Get this deal button loaded and Amazon was asking me what 11+16 was. I quickly loaded up the calculater (yes I suck) and calculated their question and entered it and pressed Get this deal for a second time.

Sadly, by the time the third page loaded around 10:13PM I got a message telling me the product didn’t exist. The 1000 Xbox 360’s got sold out in under 15 seconds. With our lousy internet connection here in Kuwait I didn’t stand a chance. But, at least it was a fun experience.

Here are some screen grabs of the two pages aftr I clicked the first Get this deal button.

Second page message
Third page message

Marzouq posted pictures and prices of the PS3 and Wii in Rihab Complex. As you can imagine the prices at the moment are extremely high.

Sony PS3 60 GB (Jap Version)
Price: 450KD

Sony PS3 60 GB (US Version)
Price: 750KD

Nintendo Wii
Price: 250KD

1KD = $3.45 / €2.68