Big Car Boot Bargains

Ah, Sundays. We absolutely heart Sundays here at Orange and Cyan HQ. Every morning is a musical celebration as we loudly sing our heads off to Abbo's show "SoundsTracks" on Forest FM, then after gulping down some milk and checking if the sun is shining, we head off to the car boot.

This week there were dozens of old Xbox's on sale and the first thing Tam picked up was the original C.S.I game as she likes to pretend she knows complicated and impressive things about solving murders. Moving swiftly on, we then bagged a retro delicious 10p Tron Video, a yellow glass fish dish, a beautiful mustard yellow cowboy tobacco tin (perfect size for kirby grips) and a blue sewing needles pouch in need of some Tam T.L.C.

There are actually 2 car boots in the area - you can see the other over the road from whichever one you're in so swinging our carrier bag of bargains, we hit car boot number 2, stuffed ourselves with broccoli and mushroom quiche (from the tasty polish run cake stall - massive slices for £1 - we love it) followed by Strawberry and Lemon cakes. Charged with sugar we hit the stalls, haggling over a lovely little invaluable and instructive 'Love, Courtship and Marriage' guide for the romantically inclined from the Hugh Evelyn Victorian Library. We rather like the morbid advice under the section of 'Etiquette for Husbands and Wives' that states you should always leave home with a tender good-bye and loving words as they may be the last...

Next Abbo snapped up 3 gorgeous Bus Driver ties for 75p each that we can't wait to show our friend Nursey Bang Bang as she is currently working on a Gentleman's range of tailored ties (we got a sneak preview this week and love the new range). Some Citadel Combat card games, cheap greetings cards and cheaper postcards later, we finally grabbed 3 loose tea spoons for 10p each that with a bit of spit, polish and elbow grease, will make excellent gifts.

Sunday afternoons are spent remembering what we've bought and playing pooter games. We're currently reviewing LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, Gatling Gears, Section 8: Prejudice and trying to finish Portal 2 - that's if you can tear Tracey away from Dragon Age Legends on Facebook!

Bliss :D

Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat 2011 vs 1992

2011
Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS) vs Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360)

Imagine a world where you’ve got a miniature animated army, some who’ve been around for nearly 25 years, in the palm of your hand. You choose your finest fighter to take on 8 consecutive fighters to be crowned the baddest, maddest fighter on the street, airfield or jungle in glorious 3 dimensions. Welcome to SSIV – 3D.


Imagine a world, on an original 2D fighting plane, ram packed with glorious gore, brand new x-ray super moves and the old favourite - fatality moves. Combining mortals and gods – a fight to save earthrealm at any cost. On the big screen, 27 playable characters, new lands and the almighty pit. It can only be Mortal Kombat.

Both operate on the classic arcade style 2D fighting plane (this was the second most fan requested feature for the developers of MK9), they both have new playing modes and features (SF – collecting figurines, utilising the innovative street pass to fight battles when you’re not looking and MK has Tag Team mode and Krypt collections) and they both offer online playing possibilities. MK has the big screen possibilities to see all that lush and detailed background and beautifully rendered character artwork vs the small screen, tightly packed, diamond like quality of SF. They’re both brilliant and it’s the first time a fighting game has felt good enough being portable to compete with the big screen big boys - though some of the intricate moves are a trifle difficult to execute on the d-pad. In comparison the 360 controller reacts to every feather light touch in your finest fatal hour, if you can’t pull it off – tools workman bad blames his a always.

What makes both such strong games is the speed of play, the combo’s and there’s a familiarity, like they’re both old friends but have been re-energised, pimped, stripped down and re-invented for the modern fighter. MK runs at an impressive 60 fps and the fighting system is as impressively deep as the 3DS tasty little screen. Both games are dip inable, but MK satisfies that thirst for a heavy session, romping through the story mode, playing through each of the characters and slowly unlocking your XP. The more you play Mortal Kombat, the better it gets.

1992
Street Fighter II (SNES) vs Mortal Kombat (Megadrive)

Twas just shy of 20 years when these first fighting beasts made the leap from arcade goodness to home console happiness, but now, many iterations later, we’re on MK9 and SF43 (ok a slight exaggeration). Who wins? 1990s vs 2010s, SF vs Mk. You decide. Or rather, I will.

I, Mr Cyan, can safely say that the class of 2011 lay to bed any of the nasty, complicated and unnecessarily embellished versions of the 2 games in the last 20 years.

As the great Chairman Mao once said: Civilize the mind but make savage the body.

#tamzombie - the results

Earlier this month, I got a tad excited as @tamcgarrigan hit the magical 100 followers on Twitter! To celebrate this small but satisfying achievement, I invited people to send me titles of their favourite zombie games which would form the inspiration for some free Mother's Day cards. Some of the suggestions included the Nazi zombies from Call of Duty: Black Ops, the cowboy zombies from Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare and our green friends from Plants Vs Zombies. However, after much deliberation and playing of zombie games late at night, the final designs are ready and feature two iconic zombies on their best behaviour - one of the Bella Sisters from Resident Evil 4 and the big bag of gas that is Boomer from Left 4 Dead.

All you have to do now is select your favourite card, print it off, write a lovely comment for your mum along the lines of "I will try not to eat your brains this Mother's Day, love from your walking dead son/daughter"

Huge thanks to everyone on Twitter for their suggestions and comments.

tambo

#tamzombie

For reasons unknown but not to be scoffed at, I've reached the grand total of 100 followers on Twitter! Whoop Whoop!

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I've decided to do something special! As it's Mother's Day coming up at the end of the month, I'm asking all followers to tweet me their favourite video game that features Zombies. The best 3 suggestions will be made into cards that you can give your mum this coming Mother's Day! Why give your mum a cheap pink rabbity card when you can celebrate all her undeadness with an Orange and Cyan greeting card?

Suggestions already put forward include the Nazi Zombies from Call of Duty: Black Ops and my personal favourite, the Los Ganados from Resident Evil 4 (yup, a blatant excuse to put a picture of Leon on the blog)!

To have your say on the final selection, tweet your fave game to @tamcgarrigan by 4pm on Friday 18th March!

Retro Review

Mickey Mouse
Game Boy

In the days when men were men and mice were mice, this, uber simple but incredibly addictive, puzzle platformer sees valiant St. Mickey traverse 80 levels on the original portable 8 bit super handheld to rescue his beau Minnie.

Released in 1989, when there were a speight of female mice kidnappings by evil warlocks, it is your task to gather miniature keys across each of the levels to enable progression.
Avoid enemies, in the least fearsome dungeons you’ve ever seen (think Castle Grayskull designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), by popping up and down Mario pipes or laying the smack down with the limited weapons and ammo you find as the game develops. There are plenty of hair ‘em scare ‘em moments though as you think you’re not going to make it to the stairs in time before sneakily passing them on the way up.

The soundtrack suits the mood of the dungeon and oh the beauty of passwords. You can come back to the last level you completed, as long as you wrote down the correct password. It’s part of the Crazy Castle series which saw almost identical games but instead of St. Mickey, you had St. Bugs of Bunny rescuing carrots and maidens across dungeonville.

Hey Mickey, you’re so fine; you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey!

More excitement coming this Spring!!

After months of hyper speculation, rumours and wishful thinking, today Nintendo revealed that the new 3DS will be released in the EU on 25th March (we're already booking that day off work)!

Leading the way once again, Nintendo have designed a very clever piece of kit that we can't wait to get our hands on. Available in Cosmos Black or Aqua Blue, you don't need glasses to see the amazing 3D graphics. There are 3 cameras - one points at the user, while the other two point outward and take photos in 3D. There's a new circle pad to allow you to have 360 degrees freedom in games, a built in motion-sensor that you can use in certain games or as a pedometer - perfect for long walks along the beach. Also, when in sleep mode, you can use StreetPass which allows your 3DS to talk to other 3DS consoles it senses in the area - you can exchange game data and swap pictures of your Mii's - yet another new feature! You can listen to MP3's and of course play loads of great new games.

We're looking forward to Resident Evil: Mercenaries (come on H.U.N.K) and of course seeing the classic Zelda: Ocarina of Time in glorious three-dimensional technicolour!

Having sold more than 3.5 Billion (yup we're talking 9 zero's) games worldwide, the bank of Nintendo will be swelling come March but can't think of anything else we'd rather spend money on! Will retire the old DS and add it to the growing Console Collection :-)

Japan!

Today we can happily brag that Orange and Cyan Arts are going to be hitting Japan this Springtime! A Mecca for computer game lovers and Manga fans alike, we have booked ourselves a mega time in this diverse island nation!

We kick off our tour in Tokyo, followed by a couple of days in Hakone - a town famous for it's onsens (hot natural springs) plus we'll be using trains and funiculars to ride up Mt Fuji. We're then heading on to Kyoto, the former Imperial Capital with around 2000 magnificent temples, shrines, palaces, museums and Zen gardens. It's also the home of the International Manga Museum - hurrah! After Kyoto, we're continuing by train to Hiroshima, a peace promoting city following the explosion of the atomic bomb there in 1945 and will spend time in the Peace Museum.

We are also planning a trip to Miyajima Island to take in the views, especially the the floating Torii Gate which glows at sunset.
From there on to Koyo-San and more mountain railway journeys. This time it's to Mt Koya, a religious centre founded in 816 by the Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi. staying in temple lodgings run by monks (shukubo) we will eat Shojin-ryori (tasty veggie meals) and have the chance to be up at dawn to observe the monks praying. Next we're off to the culinary capital of Japan - Osaka where Ian will no doubt be consuming octopus balls whilst Tracey goes electronics shopping in Den-Den.

After that, we'll be heading back to Tokyo for a further 6 days
to enjoy Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing parties) in Ueno-koen where there are over 1000 flowering trees.

We'll also be hitting Origami Kaikan for demonstrations on the art of paper folding, The Sumo Museum which is a huge store of records, relics and pictures of past yokozuna (grandmasters of Sumo) and is also a venue for matches, followed of course by a visit to Fujita Vente and the Sony Centre where we'll be testing out the latest electronic gadgets, gizmos and video games.

We're taking empty bags to fill with goodies and souvenirs from the cos-play streets of Harajuku and 'Electric Town' Akiharbara.

Phew! So there we have it - trip of a lifetime here we come!
Sayounara, O&C

The Console Collection

We've been working furiously for the past two weeks on a brand new micro museum which has had many significant donations from our good friend Mr Sol Cartman to add to our own collection.

It is with great pleasure, we present to you: The Console Collection. A series of vintage video game consoles and hand held gaming systems from the 1970's right up to the modern day which are all playable and in working order.

The collection is now so big, the list would be too long if we mentioned every system and game included but we'd like to draw your attention to several of the collections highlights and our personal favourites:

On the Nintendo shelf we have a NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube and Wii. A Gameboy with Gameboy Camera and Printer, Gameboy Golour, Gameboy Advance, DS and 3DS. Check out the golden Zelda cartridge.

Up on the Sega shelf we have a Master System 2, Mega Drive 1&2, Game Gear and joysticks plus a Game Genie that came with a code book to cheat at hundreds of Sega classics - extra lives on Alex Kidd in Shinobi World anyone?

On the Atari shelf we have a beautiful, wooden panelled Atari 2600 and it's offspring the 2600 Junior plus an Atari Lynx Mark 1 and Mark 2, Atari ST along with original Atari monitor and mouse.

Taking up most of the bottom shelf, we have a ZX Spectrum +1, +2 and +3 with Magnum Lightphaser and Commodore 64. There wasn't room to display the Commodore Amiga 500 with it's iconic white box with red and blue stripes.

The games titles are many and varied as you can see from the images, but whilst putting the collection on show, we've been indulging in a spot of Streets of Rage on the Mega Drive and Dr Mario on the Gameboy which has inspired us to plan some Retro Reviews. These will be coming soon to our blog and will showcase some of our favourite titles from days gone by.

If you'd like to view The Console Collection and enjoy some tea, biscuits and retro chit chat, we warmly welcome you to make an appointment - get in touch!

Very best retro wishes
O&C

Preparation!

It's been a while sine our last post as we're frantically putting the finishing touches to our new exhibition! As part of Dorset Art Weeks (29th May - 13th June), our tiny hallway will be transformed into a haven of all things orange and cyan. Ian is working on a new series of playbills and has been doing lots more writing whilst I'm busy shooting the next in the 'Plastic Words' series (which really means playing with Playmobil and occasionally taking some photos).

This exhibition will be a collection of old and new works so now's the best time to buy some O&C pieces before they all go! We're looking forward to inviting people from around the UK through our art deco door and can't wait to see what other artists in the area are creating too.

To get in the mood, I've been swap-botting again and this time I've made some ATC's inspired by Resident Evil 4! I've always wanted to draw Leon as he's my favourite character and am working on a cross stitch of him but thought I'd try and translate key moments from the game onto a 2x3 inches ATC - what a task! I've played the game again and again (research purposes, honest) and I've created two cards so that when they sit together they form one big picutre or when apart, become an evil vs good set. Hope you like!

Tracey