The quiz was won by Lauren, Andrew, Mike and Larry, with a stunning 19 points out of a possible 20. For their efforts they took home a mini arcade Space Invaders game and a cool Pac-Man key ring.

Fourteen people took part in the Monkey Fight tourny and punched each other to buggery (in a gaming sense, mind), with Andy Davis coming through as the champ and taking away the Family Guy mug and bottle-opener.

Well done to Andy for winning the tournament, and Lauren & Co. (for that was their team name) for coming first in the quiz! Thanks to everyone for coming along and making it such a top night, and special thanks to Bert & Lisa for coming so far to attend – really great to see you there.

Click any thumbnail below to see the full size photo.

Thursday 25th August 2011 – the 15th Pure Machine Code at the Star & Garter in Manchester. This time: a surprise Jackass tournament on the PS2. Believe it or not, Jackass (The Game) on the PlayStation 2 is a gem of a party game. It has lots of funny mini games that veer from totally reprehensible (but entertaining), to actually quite cool little games in their own right. For our tournament we decided to go with the simple, but endlessly entertaining Roof Top Cart Stop, a game where the aim is to stop a shopping trolley as near edge of a precipice as possible, without falling off. Sixteen people took part, in a knockout tournament to win the first prize of a Zoltar mind-reading figure. Liam, Graham Brown, Dan Eagle Lord and Mike Fishcake won each of the semi finals, after the first round of heats, with Graham and Dan going head-to-head in the final. In a best of three rounds, Graham made it two wins in a row to take the Jackass crown and take Zoltar home. Well done to Graham for the win. Dan got the runner-up prize of a Jack Daniels t-shirt and playing cards. After the tournament there was some more Jackass play, including the just-plain-wrong dagger between the fingers game (same thing as Bishop does to Hudson in Aliens), which was an eye-opener on the big projector screen. Oh yes – Jackass (The Game) just oozes charm…

Afterwards we were treated to a dazzling display of the brilliant guitar-based rhythm game Gitaroo Man courtesy of Andy and his deft joypad moves. Gitaroo Man is marvel of modern games engineering and should be played by any self-respecting PS2 fan, as we were shown by Andy. A great ‘silly’ game for music lovers.

Other games I saw being played: Primal Rage on the Xbox, The Last Blade 2 on the Dreamcast, Mario Kart on the N64, Big Mutha Truckers on the Gamecube, and the original Grand Theft Auto on the PlayStation. And that was just the tip of the iceberg…

So, another good night of games, consoles and responsible drinking. I enjoyed it immensely and want to thank everyone for coming along, for taking part in the tournament, and for generally being good sports.

Next one is the last Thursday of September – the 29th. Stick it in your diaries and hopefully see you there.

Click any thumbnail below to see the full size photo.

First: apologies for this update taking so long to appear. Had a big computer crash on Friday last week and am typing this from a notebook I just bought in order to rescue my email. Still not got the main PC sorted yet either, so bare with me

What was so great about Pure Machine Code last month? The great thing about Thursday 29th July, at Pure Machine Code (at The Star & Garter, Manchester, no less), was that more than quite a few people got to play and experience the joys of Katamari Damacy on the PlayStation 2 for the first time. This stunning roll ‘em up has been an underground hit for the past couple of years, but on Thursday we dug the original game out and it played host to the first of our two tournaments. It was split screen – Katamari versus Katamari action; each player trying to pick up more than the other in a best of three rounds contest. Ten people took part, with Dan H eventually rolling up the opposition and winning the first prize of a Star Wars Mr Potatohead Spudtrooper.

Our second tournament was Micro Machines on the N64. Eleven people took part in a far-too-gruelling best-of-five tournament, with John Lowe winning his first solo tourny and scooping the first prize Star Wars Mr Potatohead Darth Tater. Well done John, and well done Dan for winning the tournaments, and to everyone else for taking part.

Notable happenings outside of the tournaments: Andy Davis gave a fine demonstration of Capcom’s amazing God Hand on the PS2 – a hilarious beat ‘em up with ridiculous moves and over-the-top action. I could sit and watch that game all day.

Was a pleasure to see Gaz in his element, playing Megadrive Road Rash. We’d talked about it a few times, but finally he got to play all three on one of the Xboxes. Ahhh – the retro gaming time machine .. How we love it!

Thank you to everyone for coming down. Hopefully see you again in  a few weeks time.

Click any thumbnail below to see the full size photo.

Thursday June 30th, 2011 and we’re at the beginning of a new level in that weird and wonderful 3D adventure we call Pure Machine Code. The one where you wander around city streets, looking for a pub with a projector and consoles and games and stuff, and enter the big door to take on the bad guys who are trying to get you drunk with their ‘beer’.

In Pure Machine Code – World Two – we utilized our thirteenth monthly retro games jamboree to good effect with a superb Street Fighter II Turbo tournament, involving 16 players. The quality of the play was really high throughout, and four strong contenders emerged through to the semi final stages – Aiden, Robbo, Joe and Chatri.

Chatri made mincemeat of Robbo in his semi, and Joe versus Aiden was a tightly fought battle of wits that eventually saw Joe prevail, playing as Ryu. The final, between Joe Henthorn and Chatri, was tooth and nail stuff – both players knew the game well and gave little away. Joe ultimately came through as winner, and becomes the champion of our first Street Fighter II tourny. For his efforts Joe took home a very cool limited edition Ken Vs. Ryu t-shirt. Chatri got the runner-up prize of some records and a roll of cling film. Nice.

Here’s a nice graphic showing the final standings in the tournament.

Thank you to everyone who took part, and to everyone else for coming along. Another decent night with lots going on. Just as a new level should be!

Click any thumbnail below to see the full size photo.

Just published a new Flash-based interactive quiz on the website. Twenty retro games-based questions, including some cool drag-and-drop sections. To pass you need to get all twenty correct. If you do that: consider yourself very clever indeed – this quiz is definitely not easy (in the spirit of the ones we do at the pub!)

Click the image above, or the following to link to try the quiz out.

http://www.puremachinecode.co.uk/quiz/

This was created as a proof of concept, and as such is a bit rough around the edges in places. The typography’s not that great, but I’m happy with the audio visual timings. Any comments or suggestions should be sent to: paul@puremachinecode.co.uk

Since this was Pure Machine Code’s first birthday Special Edition 12th Event we also had the extra treat of a 1997-themed quiz from Andy, who took to the mic and mixed a bit of Jim Bowen with Ted Rogers (and a touch of Les Dawson combined with Vic Reeves) to baffle us with science, the law, retro gaming, music and bad adverts. Most of us remembered the adverts, but no one knew who Nintendo sued over a small piece of ‘backup’ hardware. The winners of the quiz were Mike & Davey under the collective team name of Jet Set Penis, and they took away a Doom t-shirt with the very geeky (but cool) “iddqd” God mode cheat line, and also some comedy toilet roll with writing all over it. I think they liked it. The ‘booby’ prize, for the best team name, went to Laser-Guided Ass Ferrets On Acid, who won a fetching William and Katherine commemorative royal wedding teaspoon. Good for making cuppas with, then.

There was plenty to play on the night and most consoles were occupied for long periods of time. The PlayStation 2 on the projector worked well. Space Invaders, Rainbow Islands, Out Run, Forgotten Worlds, Street Fighter II – the PS2 had some great retro game collections out for play, and we only scratched the surface of those. Surely to be explored further at the next event?

We haven’t yet decided when that date will be. Check the front page of puremachine.co.uk or the events page on the Star & Garter website for updates soon.

Click any thumbnail below to see the full size photo.

The eleventh Pure Machine Code event took place at the Star & Garter, on Thursday 28th April 2011, and was a lot of fun. This time we held a Super Bomberman tournament on the projector screen, with a humble SNES and a multi-tap, for the grand prize of a brand new USB Competition Pro joystick and a Warriors game poster. The response was phenomenal, with 21 players taking part in total, requiring some juggling to make it work. But make it work we did, with heats, semi finals, and then a grand final of three players, they being: Jaster, Danny Parker and Pete Johnson. In the end Danny came away victorious, with three wins in the multi-player game, bagging the first prize. A play-off between Jaster and Pete saw the latter of the two walking away with the runner-up prize. The atmosphere throughout the tournament was superb – again with plenty of cheering and heckling as the assembled crowed fought it out for Bomberman dominance.  Thanks again to everyone who took part and made it such a great occasion!

Aside from Bomberman on the big screen, we also had a Gamecube, a PlayStation, a Megadrive, a Dreamcast, a Crazy Boy (a cross between a SNES and a NES), a Nintendo 64, and a couple of modded Xboxes out for play, which were enjoyed by the assembled crowd. Games I saw being played: Sensible Soccer on the Megadrive; Bubble Bobble arcade; Mario Kart on the Gamecube; and Perfect Dark on the N64. Everybody seemed to be having a nice time, drinking beer and playing old games on old systems, which made for a good night.

The next event, planned for Thursday 26th May, will the first birthday of Pure Machine Code. We haven’t yet decided what the plan is, but expect cake and more retro gaming goodness. Possibly another tournament, or a quiz – or both. There’ll be more prizes on offer, and we’ll announce here soon what we’re going to do. So look out for it!

Click the thumbnails below to see the full size photos.

On Thursday 28th April 2011, at the Star & Garter in Manchester, Pure Machine Code is having a Super Bomberman tournament! Come down and take part for the amazing prize of: a USB retro Competition Pro “Kempston-style” joystick, with a Commodore 64 games disc (with 99 games). The runner up will get a rare “Warriors” game poster. Check out the pictures below to see those prizes.

The game will be Super Bomberman on the SNES (the first game in the series), and we’ve got a multi-tap so up to four players gane play in simultaneously*

The format for this will be: up to four players in each heat, battling it out Bomberman style, until the first person in each heat wins three games. The winner in each heat will go through to the final, and the winner of three games in the final will take the top prize.

* = Note: if, for some reason, the multi-tap refuses to work on the day (which it shouldn’t, but – hey – you know old technology…) then we’ll have two-player heats.

If you want to take part: get down early – ideally we want to start the tournament before 9.30pm – so come and find me and put your name down on my list before the places fill up.

As usual: the Pure Machine Code Retro Games Jamboree is FREE ENTRY, though right of admission is reserved (ROAR). For more info see the Star & Garter website.

Hopefully see you there!

Games include C64 classics such as Bomb Jack, Ghosts N Goblins, Defender Of The Crown, Turrican and many more.

As announced on Thursday night: at the next Pure Machine Code evening we’ll be hosting a Super Bomberman tournament on the SNES. That’ll be happening on Thursday 28th April, so get practising

More details to follow.

Click the thumbnails below to see the full size photos.

Okay, the last Worms tournament was just a warm up – this time it’s war!

Thursday 31st March 2011, at the Star & Garter Manchester, we will have another go at it
- this time with the following rules:

Four Worms each, 100 health
20 minute rounds – 30 second move time
No Sudden Death (will reduce the chance of drawing)
1 x Airstrike; 1 x Ninja Rope; 2 x Homing Missile
No Girders, no Blowtorch, no Drill, no Teleports – to encourage skilful, attacking gameplay.
All other weapons are set to default.

Exact play conditions are detailed in the screenshots below.

As before: this is to be contested on the PlayStation, on the projector screen, and this time we have a fantastic prize – the winner will walk away with a Sega Megadrive Nano Sonic the Hedgehog Special Edition (basically a miniature Megadrive with six or seven built-in games, that you just plug into your TV and play). Check the picture below to see the prize.

I’m hoping that this time we can have 16 players taking part – the prize is definitely worth a punt. And games should be quicker and less confusing than the previous dry run, with hopefully no draws this time ’round! If you want to take part: come and put your name down on Thurs 31st March and get ready for some booze, Worms and vitriol – this one’s gonna be epic!

Entry to the tournament is free though right of admission is reserved on the night (ROAR). – For more information check out the Star & Garter website.