Patent Pending presents: Mario & the Brick Breakers!

A week ago Tachiko & I headed back to Cowley road to see one of my favourite bands, Patent Pending, play.

As we reached the venue we noticed that the game shop was open so we popped in for a quick look as we were early (but more on that another time)

Inside the venue I spotted Joe, the lead singer, chatting with some fans so I wandered over to see if I could get my picture taken with him, he agreed happily and said he loved my t-shirt (princess peach), looked at Tachiko's t-shirt (Mario) and said 'I like your tee too...I have that tee....PRIMARNI!!'

I told Joe that we loved the song 'Hey Mario' from the album Brighter and Joe asked if we had heard of the album they've done called 'Mario & the Brick Breakers' which they decided to produce after the Hey Mario song proved to be so popular. I replied that I had heard it but had yet to buy a copy.

We wandered over to the Merch table while waiting for the show to start only to see that they were selling copies of the album for £5 so of course I had to buy it!! 

I went back over to Joe who was signing tickets for people and asked him to sign it for me, He agreed to saying they'd only got the albums that day and as far as he knew I was the first person to buy a physical copy!

During the show I kept wondering if Hey Mario would be played when the band all suddenly left the stage except Joe who sang a song called Spin me Around which he wrote for his wife. 

Joe then said they were leaving the stage for a band who were very big in the 90's.... and came back on dressed as Mario & The Brickbreakers!

Oddly enough I don't have any photos of the band dressed up which is a massive shame

They played several songs from the brickbreakers album including My Princess Peach, Boom Boom Pass the Mushroom & Rainbow Road.... But not Hey Mario! I was beginning to lose hope towards the end of the show but luckily they played it in the encore! 

Tachiko did shoot a couple of videos of the Brickbreakers part and of Hey Mario but the lyrics of the songs are bit hard to hear so check out the official lyric video for Hey Mario below!

 Patent Pending have also done a documentary as Mario & The Brickbreakers, check it out below!

Here are a couple more photos of the gig for you guys!

This band, Suburban Legends, was one of the opening acts and they are AMAZING!! All their songs have a real feel good factor and they do some amazing Disney cover songs :)

I want that Batman Scarf!

Destination: Aldershot (round 2)

The next day Tachiko mentioned seeing a copy of Timesplitters for the Gamecube in Kart Klub that he wished he'd picked up so what choice did we have but to head back to Aldershot!!

I couldn't leave Kart Klub empty handed so I picked up a copy of Aladdin for the Mega Drive. 

Purely for nostalgic reasons, growing up one of my friends had a megadrive and as far as I can remember this was the only game we ever played!

We were just about to leave when Tachiko spotted an official Gamecube Scart cable in the display cabinet, I'd been complaining to him that the picture quality through my 3rd party scart was terrible compared with his official one so of course I had to buy it (no picture of this I'm afraid as it's being used as I type!

After leaving Kart Klub we decided to have another look in Game as the day before we'd been kind of rushed as it was almost closing time. This time we both managed to find another 3 games each in the promo offer (except I bought 4...)

mine :) I've been after Okami for AGES!!

for some reason Tachiko's photographed Trama Centre New Blood when he actually picked up Trama Centre Second Opinion the same as I did....oh well.

Thats all for this round of Pick Ups, next time:

Patent Pending Presents: Mario & The Brick Breakers!!

Destination: Aldershot (pt 1)

The weekend after Eurogamer and Wales I spent the morning in Guildford waiting for Tachiko to finish a 4 hour shift at work.

He'd mentioned seeing a Gamecube controller in the window of CEX that was purple on top but clear underneath and that he was 'thinking' of buying it. You may be wondering why thinking has ' ' around it, well it's because whenever Tachiko says he's thinking of buying something, what he really means is that he'll think about buying it until it sells to someone else then say how much he wishes he'd bought the thing then he first saw it....there are too many examples to mention....

To save prevent this happening again, I bought it (for him!)

After Tachiko's shift finished we decided to head to Aldershot as I wanted to pick up Doctor Who on bluray from CEX using my vouchers and trade in my DVD versions at the same time.

We popped into Game while we were there, just to see what games they'd had traded in and actually found some pretty cool games for the Wii as part of their 3 for 2 promotion.

Mine- Death Jr & Drawn to life I picked up from Cash Converters for £6 not Game!

Tachiko's- Fragile Dreams wasn't past of the offer but it was still a pretty good price.

After Game we headed around the corner to Kart Klub, Tachiko's local retro game store.

Again just to see what was new and after picking up my NES in Wales, I was interested in buying the boxed copy of Pac Man I'd seen in there before if they still had it (they did!)  

Tachiko picked up a copy of Alien Trilogy for the Saturn 

and a brand new in box controller for the Dreamcast

As he was paying he got chatting to the owner who informed us that sadly the store would be closing down after Christmas. This information prompted me to not only buy Pac Man as previously planned but also pickup a complete (unboxed) copy of Pokemon Stadium

While it is always sad to hear of an independent game store closing, particularly one so close to home for Tachiko, we will be planning as many trips to the store as we can before it closes for good.

Next time: More Pickups!

Unboxing: the first ever ARCADE BLOCK

Tachiko and I subscribed to Nerdblock's BRAND SPANKING NEW block for GAMER'S ONLY!!

Check out our first ever unboxing of this amazing new box below!

Destination: Next Level Games

Next stop on our impromptu trip to Wales was Next Level Games in Pontypridd.

(of course we totally forgot to take a photo of the store both times we've visited and I can't find one on the net!)

This store seems tiny from the outside but it's like Aladdin's Cave when you get in there! Last time I was here I didn't buy much but this time I went a little mad, treating myself to my second console of the day, a turquoise crystal N64, Crash Dummies for the Master System, Echo the Dolphin on the Mega CD, Pokemon Colosseum for the Gamecube and a walkthrough guide for Animal crossing Wild World. I also got given a NES Zapper gun and a copy of Sonic for the Master System with a photocopied cover.

Tachiko also treated himself to a second home console, this time breaking away from the Nintendo franchise and heading into Sega territory with a Dreamcast, again in a stunning condition with minimal if any signs of aging! Following his love of Crystal consoles he also nabbed a clear Gameboy Pocket (the only handheld I am missing from my gameboy collection), a boxed copy of Flashback on the SNES, Soul Calibur 2 for the Gamecube and a free rumble pack for his new Dreamcast!

We were also given a few other freebies, an empty N64 controller box and a carrycase designed to fit a gameboy pocket pictured below with our other freebies.

Again we spent quite a bit of time chatting to the owners (again their names have escaped me sorry!) about our collections, eurogamer, midnight launch pickups back in the day and the trails of running a retro game store. 

To find out more about Next Level Games and to see what amazing things they'd got in stock check out their facebook page here: Next Level Games Facebook Page

Tachiko and I discussed the possibility of heading over to Newport to check out Toy Army but decided that given the time Toy Army would be closing by the time we got there so we decided to stay in Pontypridd for a little longer before heading for home, We popped into Game where I found a copy of Animal Crossing 'Let's go to the City' for the Wii and a walkthrough guide for Pokemon X&Y on sale! I also bought a couple of magazines from the newsagents :)

Before long it was time to head home but we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our trip to Wales and that retro game retail therapy itch was well and truly scratched....or so we thought!!

Destination: Super Tomato

So after seeing and playing some of the exciting new games that Nintendo has in store for gamers in the near future, Tachiko and I were feeling the need to indulge in some Retro Retail Therapy and where better to go than to Wales?

Admittedly we probably should have done this the day after Eurogamer as the 4 hours of driving to Cardiff and back to Oxford nearly killed me but it was totally worth it!!We knew we wanted to hit Super Tomato in Cardiff and Next Level Games in Pontypridd with the possibility of checking out Toy Army in Newport on the way home if there was time (there wasn't) but we'd also heard about another game shop 'Retrobution' in Llanelli, sadly Sat Nav stated that this was another hour and 30 minute drive after Cardiff so maybe we'll go there the next time we stay in Wales.

Anyway, we stopped at Super Tomato first.

After getting our heads around the stores changed layout since we last visited earlier this year we started looking at all the lovely stock on offer. Shockingly I didn't actually spend half as much as I thought I would and nowhere near as much as I did the first time we visited but I did come home with a lovely reconditioned NES in the mint-est box I have ever seen and a boxed copy of Kirby's dream course (total sucker for a Kirby game, I love that pink marshmallow!)

Tachiko came away with a SNES for his collection (unboxed but in stunning condition, not even the slightest hint of yellowing) and a couple of unboxed games for it -warpspeed and FIFA '96 (freebie from the bargain bin!) 

We were also given Columns for the Sega Game Gear as another freebie (again I found it in the bargain bin) and Tachiko 'won' a GBA game from the vending machine for £3 :)

All in all we spend a good couple of hours in the store browsing and chatting with one of the owners (sorry I've forgotten his name) about some of our latest pickups, eurogamer and reminiscing about our last visit to the store but pretty soon our parking time was running out (parked right outside the shop!)and it was time for us to move onto Next Level Games in Pontypridd.

More on that next time but Super Tomato hasn't seen the last of us yet! To find out more about Super Tomato and updates on the latest things they have instore, check out their facebook page via the link below and give them a like :)

Super Tomato Facebook Page

Eurogamer: the pickups

Hey guys!

GmrGrl here to show you all what we got at Eurogamer! 

As I type this Eurogamer is but a dim memory to me (thankfully Tachiko's vivid post about the event itself makes it seem as if it was yesterday and not just over a fortnight ago as it is in reality) 

Before I start showing you what we got I have to tell you a bit more about the Smash Bros Tournament we watched. Every hour Nintendo would bring up 8 guys (4 at a time) to compete on the Wii U version of Smash Bros, the winners from each group of 4 would then compete head to head and the winner was awarded a certificate stating they beat everyone else & a prerelease copy of Smash Bros on 3DS and the limited edition 3DS XL to play it on!!! 

VERY JEALOUS!!

The guys at Nintendo also gave out goodies to those watching the tournament, so here is our first pickup

Super Smash Bros  keychains!!!

They were throwing out all sorts of stuff including SSB dogtags, pikmin keychains and sweets etc but I'm kinda glad we both got the same thing so neither one of us feels jealous of the other :)

The majority of my pickups came from the official Nintendo store as they had some seriously sweet deals on. The one I was most excited about was 'spend £30 on Legend of Zelda Merch and get a free poster' so I picked up this hoody for £35

back detail 

front detail

And this is the poster I got :)

Link between worlds poster :)

One of the other deals that they were running was 50% off the Mario DS holder, now I couldn't say no to this as Tachiko was given one for his birthday back in July and I've been insanely jealous ever since :)

Nintendo was also giving their customers 15% off anything that wasn't already part of a promotion if they collected stamps to show they had demo'd both a 3ds game and a wii u game so I picked up these snazzy 1UP knee high socks 

The last things I picked up weren't even gaming themed... I bought pop vinyls.... 

Tachiko's pickups were fewer than mine but way way way cooler :) firstly he picked up these two tee's

The grey one is Lylat Wars/ Star Fox and white one is obviously Pokemon (funny seeing as he's never really played a Pokemon game...)

And then Tachiko's other pickup was this totally awesome, imported Monster Hunter 4 diorama of  Tigrex.

close up

Totally saved the best til last! So many people were asking where we'd got this figure from and all we could really tell them was 'it's over there!' 

So there we go, not that many pick ups from Eurogamer but as Tachiko said we were expecting a little more in the way of retro games to buy rather than play but we soon solved that problem, more on that next time!!