Hey Everyone,

As most of you know (especially folks on twitter) I’m a mad collector of retro games and arcades boards, and I mentioned on Twitter recently about some dedicated display cabinets that I was having built to house the entire collection.  Well, these cabinets were finished recently and look beeeeeeautiful.  They span the width of the room their housed in and stand from floor to ceiling…yes, floor to ceiling ;)  I’ll be cataloguing the whole collection soon, but as a rough guide there’s over 300 games and over 30 consoles :)  This is the outcome of a lifetimes collecting, so whenever I see something worth adding…I add it :)

Everything you see is boxed, with instructions and in either good, great or as new condition.  I’m rather fussy about that part ;)  There’s some real gems in here too, a boxed and as new Virtual Boy, a rare Japan only Sega MegaJet, a mint Multi Mega, plus loads of other crazy stuff.  The core of the collection is focused on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, so a very large amount of the games are for this system.  Man I love the Mega Drive!!

So to any of my wonderful games customers that happen to be reading this, if ever you needed any further proof of my obsessive love for this industry, look no further ;)

Anyway, without further ado, say hello to the collection!  Its split over two sides, one side for games, one side for hardware.

The Games:

The Hardware:

I hope you enjoyed the show!!

Mike.

P.S. Yes, that’s an official replica of Conan’s Father Sword hanging on the wall…call it my security system ;)

Hey Everyone,

One of the recent iPhone games I’ve been busy on, is the sub-story follow up to the worldwide AppStore hit, Trenches,  attractivly entitled, Stenches!

After the phenominal sucess of Trenches and the huge expression of love from the players regarding secret unlock-able ’Zombie Horde Mode’, Thunder Game Works decided to create a whole game based around this awesome little mini-game.

So you can imagine my excitement when I was tasked with bringing this vision to life!  I love anything Zombie related, so couldnt wait to get my teeth into this!  New characters, environments, branding, menu’s, everything!  Absolutely awesome fun!!!  Just to give you a preview of what’s to come, I’ve showcased the main zombie characters below, and as you’ll see, there’s quite a mix in this new game :)

The game is crammed with awesome new features and game modes, but I wont babble on about those here (you’ll hear more in the press real soon) and I’ll leave you take a look at the concept sketches.

If you’re a fan of Trenches and/or Zombies, you’ve got to grab a copy of this puppy when it launches as I can honestly say it’s absolutely SUPERB!!

I hope you like them :)

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

I know I’ve been talking about this almost none stop recently and haven’t posted the final photos, but that’s because I’m too fussy, and am re-art-working the machine as we speak ;)

But, just to appease a few folks, I decided to show the machine as it is now, before I apply the new artwork.  As you’ll see, the room my two machines live in, is our tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny spare box room, just wide enough for two arcade cabs, a bookshelf and little else.  Perfect for a miniature arcade :)

I’ve decided to make the new machine a mock Neo Geo MVS cab, so its going to be a beautiful mix of rich red, black and white…very old school.  Anyway, here’s a few pics of my babies running.  Awwww, dont they look cute together :)

Oh and I’ve gone even crazier since the last post as I got the chance to pick up some truly amazing original arcade boards in bulk…so I bought them…and blitzed that already depleted budget into non-existence ;)  The collection now sits a little something like this…

• Art of Fighting
• Fatal Fury
• Fatal Fury 2
• Fatal Fury Special
• The King of the Fighters 94
• The King of the Fighters 2001
• Metal Slug
• Metal Slug 2
• Samurai Showdown
• Samurai Showdown 2
• World Heroes
• R-Type 2
• R-Type Leo
• Caddilacs and Dinosaurs
• Golden Axe
• Knights of the Round
• Street Fighter 2 – Champion Edition
• Super Street Fighter 2 X
• Street Fighter Alpha 2
• Darkstalkers
• Vampire Saviour 2
• X-Men Children of the Atom
• Carrier Airwing

I’ll post the final, final, final pics when the new artwork is applied and finished :)

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick one to let you know that the few video’s featured on the site are now being delivered through the awesome Vimeo.  I decided it was high time to use a service that would allow a more social element to the clips and make them more accessible.  If you’re a Vimeo user feel free to say hello and comment at your will :)

Thanks!

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

I’ve been tweeting a lot about this arcade project of mine for quite a few weeks now (or maybe months actually) and intended to put a dedicated site up about the build.  Well, me being me and never having 5 mins spare, I decided to throw a quick blog post up instead.  There will eventually be a site, but just not quite yet.  For now, here’s a few piccies of the project during the build and the final finished shots will be posted up very soon.  I’m just tidying up the edges at the moment.

Step 1 – Shopping!

Ok, so initially I started ordering in all the parts, which was just going to be…

• Bare cabinet
• Monitor
• Controls
• Jamma wiring
• Power supply
• 1 jamma board, most likely Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition

Well that didnt quite go to plan, as my games collecting madness took control and I decided to order a few things more…well…a lot more.  This is when a few of the large boxes started arriving…

Before I knew what had happened, I’d gone and blown my budget on the following games…

• R-Type Leo
• Golden Axe
• Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
• Street Fighter Alpha 2
• Darkstalkers
• Vampire Saviour 2
• Super Street Fighter 2 X
• Metal Slug 2
• King of the Fighters 2001

…Ooops.

Any arcade geeks out there will also spot that I had also gone had grown the complexity of the job 4 fold, as this was no longer just an old school Jamma cab, but also a Capcom CPS2 cab, a Neo Geo MVS cab and also a Sega System 16 cab.  Now I really had blown my budget, by a further 50%! Time for another oops.

Step 2 – Jazzing up the rusty old 4-Slot Neo Geo MVS motherboard

It looked nasty, and I wanted it looking pretty.  A clean up, black powder coat and some lovely SNK decals later, it was looking super sexy!

Step 3 – The CGA monitor and the bare cab

Finding true arcade CRT CGA monitors is damn hard these days as nobody makes them.  I wanted true classic CGA goodness, as there is nothing prettier than those damn fine scanlines! Forget HD, forget scaling up to large res LCD monitors, nothing compares to CGA!  I was lucky enough to find a seller on eBay called Digital Systems Design that had bought all of Pentranics CGA stock when they went bust, so he had 100′s of brand new, old stock monitors in stock! RESULT!

The bare cab arrived soon after (Which was made by a cool company in Wales who sell them via eBay)and was ready for building! You’ll notice my other machine in the background, that one is a MAME machine, which is great, but I wanted to a true Jamma classic machine, original boards and 100% true to its roots.  I cant express the warm glow I have knowing I own original 1980′s arcade boards!  These things have been shipped around the world for over 20 years, played by probably 100′s or even 1000′s of people and are now being loved by me :)  Oh, you also need a very understanding wife and spare room ;)

Step 4 – Testing the purchases!

I enlisted the services Barry Parsons from www.gamesroomservices.com to do the build as I already knew Barry and knew his skills were unrivalled, the guy is a pure genius when it comes to electronics and arcade/pinball building.  So, we started by test wiring everything up and testing the monitor and each game board.  This was rather exciting :)  I was especially excited about seeing Golden Axe in all its glory, as I never actually saw this in the arcades back in the day, and had only ever played it on the Megadrive.  It looked SOOOO AWESOME!

Step 4 – Testing complete, time to build!

With all the the games tested, it was time to build everything in!

Wires, speakers, boards, its arcade heaven!

Monitor in…but oh no, it doesn’t fit! The cab turned out to be too shallow, DOH! Some modding was required to the back panel, but nothing too major.

The CPS2 motherboard was mounted on the right side and the MVS on the left, with the Jamma on the shelf above.  Barry had done a truly first class job planning this baby out!

Step 5 – The artwork.

Ok, so this step isnt photographed as yet, I need to tidy the games room up, sort everything out, finish of a few lose edges and get some photos taken :) Watch this space!

I hope you enjoyed the article!

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

Well, that was the first 2 weeks break in over 2 years, and boy was it good!  I’m now fully re-charged and ready for action!

I’ve got a mountain of emails to work through, so if your awaiting a response, I’ll be with you as soon as I can :)

I was greeted back with one enquiry that has really made my day too, from one of my all time favourite old school games companies!  I cant say any more than that for now, but boy am I excited!

I’ve got a whole ream of new releases to get into the portfoio pages too, including trailers, games, websites, the lot, so watch this space!

Thanks!

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

After two and half years since setting up Fully Illustrated, I’m finally finding time to take a much deserved 2 week break! Yey!

I’ve been booking holiday’s in every year since I started, but have always ended up cancelling them due to fun projects coming along (the trappings of absolutely LOVING what you do), but this year I decided that I HAD to have a break and re-charge the creative batteries.

The plan is to have some fun,  eat lots, chill and spend time with my lovely family and friends…but chances are I’m going to end up in a trance like state as my body shuts down for two weeks ;)

Anyway, Fully Illustrated will be a little quieter than normal for this period, but rest assured, I’ll be back with a vengeance in 2 weeks time! (Monday 30th)

Uh oh, I can feel my eye-lids slowly drawing to a close…no, no, gone………………………….

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick one to let you know that all of a sudden I’ve just recieved a whole swathe of great press!  I just had to let out the excitement somewhere :)  My dinosaur character that came to life on my iPad has been featured in .NET Magazine and Mac Format! And to add to that, Voodoo Controllers has been featured in .NET Mag too, scooping site of the month!  What a lovely contrast to all that god awful hacking and copying!

You can take a look at all the coverage over in the press section.

Oh, and I also got a rather lovely mention in the 3 Circle Studio Podcast last week too!  They ran a podcast on ‘The Most Inspiring Creatives‘ and they chose to include little old me (about 33mins in)…flattered is a bloody understatement!  Thanks guys!!

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that Fully Illustrated has been under attack recently from some unscupulous hackers and pirates.  This past week has seen the site hacked and copied a number of times.  I’ve got a number of people helping out at Media Temple, WordPress, Codefor plus assistance from a kind friend Ben Hogan, so a quick thanks to you guys for all your continued support and help, its much appreciated!

Fully Illustrated gets ripped off about once a month, but recently the site has been copied no less than 6 times in 4 weeks, which is very annoying and time consuming, as speaking to the relevant hosts, infringer’s, and my solicitor, becomes a full time job.  But rest assured, anyone that copies this site will be followed up via legal channels.

A quick thanks to the kind folks that let me know when they see my work being used elsewhere too!!

So, if you spot any strange goings on, on the pages of Fully Illustrated, it will be down to this, so please bear with us as we sort the issue out.

Thanks.

Mike.

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick one to let you know that I’ve recently been interviewed for a quick few words over at Spicy Web Designers.  Take a peek if you fancy :)

http://www.spicywebdesigners.com/

Thanks.

Mike.