THE ARGOS SPRING SUMMER 1993 CATALOG

Seeing as its the summer season I thought it would be great to take a look at the 1993 spring/summer Argos catalog. I really wanted to review the 1996 one but this was the closest I could get my hands on. I have only chosen pages of interest and not done the whole book like I did for the 1985 one. So lets indulge.

Nothing says summer more than Super Soakers! Super Soaker water pistols were a breath of fresh air (well high powered blasts of water) in the early 90's. The real appeal of these water guns was the fact that these guns actually hurt a bit instead of just getting people wet. The pump action one was a great addition to my collection of stuff to annoy my sisters with.

These are outdoor houses and slides. What caught my attention on this page was Quadro something I forgot existed and I am not sure if it even still does. Quadro was a construction toy where the possibilities were endless in a Lego fashion using plastic red scaffold pipes and tiles. Quardo was extremely expensive and most kids only got to play with this at school. The materials were strong as hell and I remember we made a stage for a school play once using Quardo and it was strong enough to carry the weight of the entire school pupils and staff. There was also a smaller scaled version also.

This may look like a page of out dated scientific calculators but these are also 1990's school status pieces. Now days kids have iphones and whatnot to be competitive about but in my day.. it was scientific calculators. The more buttons your calculator had at school meant the more it cost, and the more it cost the more awesome you were. I had one with quite a few buttons and I'm sure I never used any of them. I got expelled during my maths lesson.. it was never my thing. Neither was school either!

Kids had scientific calculators and yuppies had electronic personal organizers as status pieces. These bad boys could save phone numbers, addresses, plan dates and that's about it. Looking back these things were a complete waste of money and had all the usefulness of a broken Nokia phone.

These are some portable TV's which were very handy for holidays and bringing to school when England were playing back in the day. The hand held ones were super expensive and although they did work to a degree getting them to tune in was a pain in the arse and they only really worked in a stationary position. Trying to watch a hand held one in a car journey was very hit and miss due to signal loss. I got one for Christmas in 1992.

Here is a page of VHS video tapes from 1993. Not really much to choose from here unless you like kids TV shows, Del boy and wanking off to Cindy Crawford fitness videos.

This is a page with all the bog standard musical instruments. These were the first guitars alot of people owned growing up so I'm sure alot of you may have sentimental memories of some of this. The main reason this page struck my attention was the girl modelling the Karaoke set. She looks like a right pratt and you can tell she has a terrible voice. I know you cant tell just by a photo but a picture says a thousand words and this one says a thousand bad ones.

OK now we hit my favorite part of the book.. TOYS! So on this page we have the WWF Hasbro action figures which were still going strong at this point. The ring was the second version which had black ring posts and a sound effects board which sounded horrendous. The WCW ring was one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood and was a terribly put together toy which fell apart within days. The sets of Monster in my Pocket and mini Boglins were cool but didnt become very collectible until they became available for free in cereal boxes a year or so later. The Britains farm and castle were solid toy play-sets which survived almost 2 decades in the catalogs and toy stores. The Talking Dinosaurs plushy is something I would love to have in my current collection of crap from the 90's!

James Bond Jr was something I wasn't really a fan of when I was a kid. I loved James Bond and the closest thing I had to an action figure of him was the Corgi Aston Martin. Although I didn't like the show the action figures were pretty awesome and had their own actions and cool accessories. The Spider-man stuff was in actual fact part of the Toybiz line of Marvel Super heroes which was an amazing set of toys. I am guessing here that Argos decided that Spider-man was the only marketable toy from the set so they only sold his figure and vehicle. I had the Spider-man dress up suit but my miserable, strict, shit cunt of a primary school teacher Mrs Trim took it off me and never gave it back! Mighty Max is something I have written in great detail about before on here and they were awesome hand held play-sets for boys who loved horror and hated Polly Pocket. The talking Kevin from Home Alone doll is another toy I have written about in great detail before on Lost Entertainment. I may have to stop writing about toys as I have nearly exhausted them all.

Thunderbirds had a massive comeback in 1993 and they became one of the top selling toys in the action figures and play-sets department. Although Tracy island was reasonably priced for a leading playset alot of families still couldn't afford it and had to resort to making their own via instructions from Blue Peter. The Superman Costume was another sad day for me which I will relive now briefly. Basically when I was 4 I really wanted this costume so bad. The main reason I wanted it, was because I genuinely thought by putting the costume on I would become Superman and would be able to fly away and do loads of awesome shit. My mum ordered it from the Freemans catalog and I had to wait weeks for it to arrive. When it did I put it on and stood on the edge of the sofa with the window open and my arms out stretched and... Nothing. I cried my eyes out and have had a very dark outlook on life ever since. A big part of me died that day.. I don't know what part though but it was big.

The Terminator 2 Kenner action figures will always have a special place in my heart and I still have many of these to this day. These toys were just plain badass and the fact they were still hot sellers 2 years after the movie was made is just a testament to how great they were. The bioflesh re-generator was an anti climax as you could only make one naked Terminator at a time. I had visions of making loads of Terminator figures and selling them off at school. As you tell by now I was a fucking idiot as a kid and looked way too much into the capabilities of toys and costumes from Argos. The Batman stuff was still going strong considering the movies were a few years old at this point. Good toys were good toys back in the day and their shelf life was much more prolonged. Now days summer movie figures are long dead by Christmas.

The Crash Dummies were a nice little gem from the mid 90s which were huge and then disappeared into obscurity as quick as they became popular. They were a cool concept which also had its own animated show and video games. The figures and vehicles all exploded into bits on impact only to be snapped back together. Hours of fun indeed. The Action men in the bottom right hand corner were actually anniversary editions of GI Joe figures and are super awesome.

I have reviewed a few of these games before including the awesome Atmosfear but I just wanted to turn your attention to the Crystal Maze game. I remember this being so awesome and I need a copy bad if anyone wants to donate to me.

So here we have some watches that have LCD video games installed on them. These games were the worst things ever made and even Satan himself would shy away in sheer terror if forced to play one on a long drive across England. Battleship is a solid champ when it comes to table top gaming I never played the V Tech one so I cant comment. Electronic chess games are mental. You can play against this tiny machine which at a certain difficulty you can never win. This is awesome for kids or people that never have anyone to play chess with.. If they ever make a version for wanking I will never go out again!

This is a whole page of LCD games. LCD games were the worst unplayable things ever made. The only thing these games have to with the associated product is the sticker and the box. You would probably have more fun rubbing turds together in a hot car than trying to play one of these things during a road trip! That being said these things are highly collectible especially boxed.

The Super Nintendo now we are talking!!! All the games on this page were pretty solid minus Home Alone which was so bad being left alone aged nine and burgled in real life would be more enjoyable. The Super Scope was a cool gimmick but apart from the cartridge that came with it and Terminator 2: The arcade game were the only things worth using it for.

At this point the Nintendo Entertainment system was well on its last legs but Super Mario Bros 3 had pumped 2 years worth of life into it. Like I said though the console was dying and the age of the 16 bit was well in force. Minus Mario 3 all these games were horrendously bad even back then and haven't aged well either.

Here have the Nintendo Game Boy which maybe my favorite hand held console from back in the day. Great games on a horribly colored green screen with no back light to boot. My mum must have spent hundreds on batteries in the early 90s for this thing. I had the magnifying glass for it but my main memory of this was a kid used it to burn a slug to death in Marshalls park in Romford when I was 9.

The Sega Game Gear is something I have on the wall boxed here at Lost Entertainment. Some days I prefer it over the Game Boy. It was in colour and had a backlight so in that department it kicked the Game Boys arse. I never had a V-Tech painter was something I wanted but I ended up getting MS Paint so never needed it. The Atari 2600 was still hanging in there at £31.99 which is pretty amazing considering what year this was and what else was going on in the world of video gaming. The Commadore was a cool computer for its time but was the middle between a Master System and a Super Nintendo with a keyboard.

So here we have the Sega Megadrive selection. The Megadrive is one of my favourite consoles ever and will always have a place in my heart and my gaming collection. Some solid games here minus Home Alone AGAIN. The gun was pretty useless as there were only a handful of shooting games on Geneisis and most of them sucked. The Game Genie was awesome and something I hope they make for updated consoles so we can cheat and mod again. The Megadrive also had snap on add ons which as well as making the console look hideous, also needed extra power points for them which was a real pain in the arse. By the end they wanted your console to resemble Megatron from Transformers with all the snap on shit they were bringing out.

Finally we have page dedicated to stupid yuppy gadget toys like stress balls and mini punch bags. I thought growing up that men in office towers just practiced putting golf balls all day and squeezed stress balls. The truth of it is.. that is exactly whats happening and the main reason the world is so fucked up now. Have a nice day!

TOYS: LUCHA BRITANNIA BOOTLEG ACTION FIGURES SERIES 1

Lost Entertainment is pleased to announce that we are releasing the first ever series of action figures for Lucha Britannia, the best live wrestling show in the country and night out in London! (refer to Time Out magazine if you dont believe us) The toys will be on sale EXCLUSIVELY and ONLY at the next Lucha Britannia show on the 17th of June at Resistance Gallery Bethnal Green. Click Here for tickets

The figures are very limited edition so first come first served and are priced at £20. The figures are for display only and should be kept mint on card.

A second series will also be in the pipeline also as well as a legends set.

Also Lucha Britannia will be joining forces with the biggest stars of Lucha Libre from Mexico on the 1st and 2nd of July 2016 at York Hall Bethnal Green. Last years event was the best of the year and this years looks to be just as good if not better and bigger. Click here for Tickets 

Please visit luchabritannia.com for more info and events.

K ROD

LOST ENTERTAINMENT WILL BE APPEARING AT WARP ZERO SCI FI AND TOY FAIR

We are proud to announce that On Saturday May 14th 2016 K-ROD and Lost Entertainment will be in attendance at the Warp Zero Sci fi, toy show and art fair at Resistance Gallery Bethnal Green. We will be selling shirts, prints, clothing and maybe some toys. There will be EXCLUSIVE discounted science fiction art originals by K-ROD for that day only including canvas paintings and inked drawings. For more information please check out the event on face book by clicking this link.

Details

At last an international collectors 70's/80's Sci-Fi & Fantasy Toy fair, show and art market featuring sellers, collectors and custom toy makers from around the globe.

7 hours of buying, selling, sighing, swooning and haggling over some of the rarest and some of the most loved toys from 30-40 years ago!

Featuring Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, Star Wars, Thundercats, Star Wars, Henshin Cyborg, Starcom, M.A.S.K, Centurions, Doctor Who, Go-Bots, Transformers, Voltron, Zoids, Mazinger Z, BattleStar Galactica, Rock Lords, Space 1999, Planet of the Apes, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, He-Man MOTU, Godzilla, LOTR, Bionic Man, Mego, Takara, Palitoy, Mattel, Kenner, Ideal, Bandai, Remco, LJN, Hasbro, Matchbox, Tonka, Marx and many more!

SCi-Fi themed cabaret club night after party too!

Please contact Fred Yee if youre intrested in having a sellers spot. And share the event to those who need to know!

HOW TO GET THERE

The Resistance gallery is a minutes walk away from Bethnal Green Station and is very easy to locate.

GAMING: GRAND THEFT AUTO

As this game recently turned 18 years old I decided to give it a write up. I find it amusing (and at the same time horrifying) that Grand Theft Auto is old enough to go into a UK game shop and buy its self now.

So Christmas 1997 I was getting Playstation one games as gifts. I had heard everyone at high school say that this crazy violent driving game was out, which had tons of violence involved. When I picked up the game in store and looked at the back for screen shots, the graphics looked like Super Nintendo quality and I didn't like the idea of playing a top down video game in 1997 on a 32-bit console. I chose the Duke Nukem 3d (a game I already had and loved on PC) Playstation port instead. Duke Nukem sucked and was a terrible port and to this day one of my biggest shopping regrets ever. Not long after I rented Grand Theft Auto from Vidbiz in Collier Row and ended up doing so all the time throughout 1998.

So Grand Theft Auto is a video game where you take the role of a two bit criminal who makes his way up the criminal ladder by taking jobs given out by payphones. These jobs range from bank heists, bombings, drug deals, murders and many more dark deeds. Another way of completing Grand Theft Auto was by scoring points by raising as much hell as possible.  Due to this feature the game was one of the first ever sandbox type games where you could explore the world at your own leisure. It was this type of freedom that set apart this game from other adult titles where the games brutality and violence was really down to the players own aggression or mood.

The game was very large in terms of maps which had 3 giant cities for you to explore and cause as much havoc as possible. The game was full of lots of different cars and bikes which all handled differently and had different music tracks for radio stations. The game also had a good variety of weapons ranging from a standard pistol to a rocket launcher.

The game also featured secret missions and mini games including Kill Frenzy which once activated the player scored points by committing the most murders as possible in the allotted time. Another odd points bonus would occur if you managed to wipe out a straight line of Buddhist pedestrians with a vehicle.

Although the game had decent driving mechanics and giant maps with unlimited freedom, the game did suffer from terrible combat mechanics. Being a top down game made accurate shooting extremely difficult in combat situations. The player can only shoot in the direction he is facing and it takes a fraction of time to turn him in that direction. So blowing up cars and non aggressive NPCs is no problem but when facing an aggressive element such as police and other enemies, its very difficult and they are always very accurate when it comes to shooting you. Unless you have armor equipped you will die in one shot.

The police in the very first Grand Theft Auto are as cheap as hell and literally turn up the second you commit a crime and turn up in force. Their AI is very simple- to destroy you and keep re-spawning at any cost. The only way to shift them is by collecting stars strategically placed around the map or completing the current mission. Another thing which hasn't aged well at all is the mission structure. Once you are on a mission that's it! if you die or fail you will never be able to retry it unless you power off your console. There was a saving option bu this was only available after completing each map.

Another thing which has not aged well at all is the navigational system of the game. The game sports 3 giant maps of Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas but without a map on the pause menu, all we had to go on was the giant printed map which came with the game manual (which most people lost) to navigate your way round. There was an arrow which pointed from your car to indicate which way to go but it wasn't much use if you were stuck on the wrong side of the map making a 20 minute mission into a 3 hour road trip.

Minus the above mentioned flaws of Grand Theft Auto its still a great game to play and something which can be mastered and learned by spending countless hours playing and learning. The freedom it gave us and the fact we could bring out the sociopath in all of us just by playing a top down driving simulator was what made it stand alone when it came to videos games from back then. This is also what made the game one of (if not THE) most controversial video game titles of all time. Like always liberal douche bags were using the title as a scapegoat to blame all of Americas social problems on at the time. Another game which got blamed for violence and crime among young people. My take has always been that if kids were playing at home on their Playstations then how could they be out stealing cars and stabbing nuns? .. Oh yeah.

One day if someone starts crucifying and stoning people to death in the streets after reading the bible.. will they ban that?

Grand Theft Auto had another 2 top down sequels (one of which a London expansion pack) and made the jump from 2d to 3d in 2001 with GTA III and now the franchise is the biggest selling game of all time.

Grand Theft Auto is up there with Super Mario when it comes to the most innovative and important video games, but unlike Mario.. this one has not aged well at all.