And so we have, the UCHG has donned some new span­dex and now has also moved from the wooden chair to a leather couch.

Head on over to the new site and let us know what you think in the comments.

Due to word­press’ lack of help­ful­ness this means all of you who were watch­ing our pre­vi­ous loca­tion will need to resub­scribe. You’ll prob­a­bly also want to throw out the old site’s feed as noth­ing new will be posted here ever again.

In between quacking my shot off and celebrating Christmas with the use of pies I have also played a game. Not just any game mind you! Oh no this is one of “those” games.

That’s right its time to take my hand, sit precariously upon my knee and stroke my beard as we take another trip down to the red light district of gaming. This is

Bachelor Party

And what a party it is! Released in 1982, and rather unsurprisingly on the ATARI 2600, this game was developed by our old friends Mystique and is broadly based on the Breakout model of gameplay.

The story behind the game is simple. You are a bachelor and it’s your party. So like all good bachelors you have decided to invite no-one but hookers to your party. You have also banned any form of clothing and made them stand in lined ranks. For the final part of your party plans you have decided to charge naked at them with all the vigor of a recently rescued miner. The point of charging “head” first at the ranks of eager clunge is to bang into some and make it disappear. That’s right. You must hit that so hard it disappears! The urge to shout BOOM at the point of impact is incredible.

Once the bachelor has disintegrated some tang he bounces back to the other side of the screen where it is up to you to send him back in there using a paddle that looks somewhat breast like. You lose a life every time you fail to return the bachelor to the party and so the cycle continues.

Now I understand that back in 1982 things were different to how they are today. However I’m pretty certain that even back then if anyone were to arrange a party and invite no-one but prostitutes they would not exactly be considered to be the pinnacle of cool. This point was even proven in 2008 with a certain ex member of the FIA and a few, shall we say, women in uniform. The moral of this game is simple then. If you are going to have a party consisting exclusively of yourself and ladies of the night, don’t make a game out of it and don’t forget to buy some cocaine.

BOOM!

彼らは親切に私たちに才能の男性愛情ビッグクリスとして知られていた。 2つだけのことは、あなたがビッグクリスについて知る必要があります。彼は大きさ1と2、彼はクリスと呼ばれます。

だけ戻って我々のコレクションで、これらの観光客を有する描画さ、私たちはそれらを再生できる、私たちのどれかに書かれているが理解できるコンソールのいずれ…

さて私は言う私たちのどれが噂では、我々の独自ロスは、瞑想を介して現実の別のプラットフォームに超越するため、これらのゲームを翻訳することができることはそれをしています。

我々が望むことができる私たちは本当に限定版『グランツーリスモ4』をプレイしたいと思いますが、彼はすぐに戻っ取得です！

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Then read the original text

What freaked you out the most?

After I had resided to the fact that this illness was going to make it difficult to go out in the blissful weather without coughing up yellow slime on complete strangers. I decided I would spend my free time playing the new Mafia 2 game on my PC. I hauled my diseased self over to my PC and got ready for some 1940’s gangster fun.

As the game involves both third person action and driving I plugged in my game pad and opted the pad for driving, keyboard and mouse for killing. The ultimate set up! This setup was however short lived as for some reason or other my pad would not work. After fiddling about with the calibration settings and checking the USB connection I tried again. Nothing! and just like Mick Jagger said I could get no satisfaction! Now mildly confused and, due to a recent sneezing fit deaf in my left ear, I decided to consult the internet. After sifting through countless images of semi naked people I discovered that my trusted game pad was incompatible.

Incompatible! What the hell is up with that! I have never plugged a game into a NES or a Playstion and been told the controller was incompatible. It’s just some buttons! Some buttons I press to make things happen. How the hell is that not compatible? Is that not the basis for all controllers? I have had my controller for well over 5 years and the idea of replacing him was, to be honest, a bit upsetting. We have completed NFSU, NFSU2 and NFSMW together. Torn through all of the Lego Star Wars games, won the World Cup and the Stanly Cup many times over and now it was time to upgrade. It was like losing a loyal pet, and by loosing I mean having them put down for biting the neighbor. Sure it is wrong but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the animal!

Having only a day left of my free time I decided to support the high street and risk covering a sales assistant in bioluminescent goo. I knew which pad I wanted, a Saitek P990, and I headed off to the nearest stockist to pick it up. After entering a number of computer retailers I still had no pad. It was becoming increasingly apparent that if I wanted to buy a “compatible” game pad it would have to be an Xbox 360 controller. I consulted Ross on this and after he offered to set me on fire and shoot me with a shotgun if I got any worse he agreed that the Xbox 360 controller was indeed the future. This saddens me. It seems every platform of gaming out there gets its own controller whilst the PC is left with hand me downs from Microsoft. Further more it is a little known fact that I can’t stand the original Xbox controller. No matter how hard it tries the new 360 pad still carries the same issues. Yes it has shed a few pounds in weight but what is the point of a button in the middle of the pad that does nothing at all? And why have a 9ft long cable? Who sits 9ft away from their monitor?

This new pad of mine may well allow me to enjoy Mafia 2 the way I like it and play Need for Speed Hot Pursuit when it finally gets here. But why I ask cant a game on a PC be played with a pad made for a PC? Call me old fashioned but I will miss my old pad and what’s even more annoying is now that I am back at work my cold has decided to fuck off and annoy someone else. Still it could have been worse. Ruth Jones could have actually sat on my face.

Or as Steve says – Big Frightening Games! But what really makes a game scary? Can there be more to it than pure shock value?

Games covered – Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 5, Realms of the Haunting, F.E.A.R, Penumbra: Overture, Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Doom, Dead Space

As a long-time reader and subscriber, I’ve been reading PCZONE for many years now – the first issue I can find in my collection is #83, from December 1999; and features reviews of such epic games as The Nomad Soul, Prince of Persia 3D (wow!) and an exciting preview of Half-Life: Opposing Force.

The first magazine to be dedicated purely to gaming on the PC, it is probably largely responsible for getting me into gaming in the first place – and it has always done so with as much humour as it has with great reviews and content. Always blessed with a great staff of writers, PCZONE’s articles have never failed to entertain as well as inform – during the period I started reading the mag, Charlie Brooker was one of its reviewers, and was personally responsible for getting it pulled from shelves in the notorious case of “Helmut Werstler’s Cruelty Zoo” which featured photoshopped pics of children brutally killing animals in a tribute to, uh, Tomb Raider.

The Infamous Cruelty Zoo

I loved the vein of silliness that ran throughout PCZONE too – from stupid captions on pictures, mock-up imaginary games on the backpages (like The Fresh Prince of Persia, starring Will Smith), to the constant use of Steve Hill’s head to cover women’s boobs. Awesome.

The hardware advice was always spot-on too – for years, I based my own purchases on the recommendations on those pages, and the tips taught me that building my own PC was easy, more cost-effective and much more satisfying than a pre-built one could ever be.

Of course, it was the reviews that were the best thing about PCZONE – even when games were already out, it was always worth waiting to see what the verdict was. They were pretty much consistently an honest and reliable source: if a game was over 70%, it would be good; if it was over 80%, it was great – and over 90% meant that regardless of the genre, it really was a Classic and not to be missed; and not many games got to that status. A few blips were in there of course – like Unreal II – but it was almost completely accurate.

My PC Zone Collection

I will always have a soft spot for PCZONE – I can hardly think of any game of note without thinking of their review at the time; over the years, the mag has been with me through such gaming milestones as Deus Ex, GTA, Half Life 1 and 2, Far Cry, and, uh, Daikatana.

I’ve had an offer to transfer my subscription over to PC Gamer. I will not be renewing. I’ll be very sad to see it go; though arguably it’s been inevitable since changes in publisher and so many different editors.

However, maybe there’s hope – PC gaming is certainly not going anywhere, just ask the UCHG – and so maybe one day we’ll see a return of the gaming monolith that is PCZONE. Maybe I’ll leave you with one of my earliest memories of the mag – Charlie Brooker’s prank call to Activision about the original Quake…

Brad picked this game up online, mentioning at the time that he’d seen someone speedrun it on youtube – and that sounded like a challenge. UCHG vs Youtube speedrun – who will win? Find out now!

It is not a well known fact but keeping old games and consoles is both fun but extremely dangerous. There are certain consoles that are more dangerous than others and on Thursday night Brad was unfortunate enough to come face to face with the most deadly of consoles.

A Pissed Off Xbox!

This Xbox is particularly pissed off because it has been stored away for many months as the bastard child of the collection. It has already tried to make a break for freedom and has harboured an unimaginable hatred for Brad since he called its controllers fat!

It was late at night when the escaped Xbox chose to strike! Pouncing on Brad’s face it managed to take him down before he could get a shot off. It burst into a violent rage and was only stopped when Steve charged in and kick the shit out of it!

The unprovoked and brutal attack was caught on UCHG CCTV as this chilling still shows.

After Steve had waved cordite under Brads nose, and allowed him to reboot, the extent of the damage became clear. The irate Xbox had struck with such force it had removed a tooth and damaged Brad’s boyish good looks, luckily not forever.

Brad was medevaced to the nearest field hospital where he underwent intense surgery to reconstruct his face and subdue the angry goblin that powers him. It was said that had Brad not been the owner of an extremely manly beard his jaw would have been ripped clean off.

It was touch and go at times but we are glad to announce that the surgery was a success and that Brad has now been fixed and upgraded to version C4.7 alpha.