| Welcome to Hirst's BleedingCart - the computer games equivalent of Heron Foods |
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A phrase I haven't used for over a decade - welcome to my website!
Update 11.03.2025: Why not check out our Links page? (don't say why not)  Me (on right) playing games on someone's head I am Hirst - some guy who lives in Northern England and has been buying and playing computer games since the days where 50p coins needed moving with a pallet shifter and everyone's auntie smoked 60 B&H a day. Like many, I grew up with fond memories of what gaming was like in those days - the old 8-bit micros, smoke-filled arcades full of problem gamblers, trading used Mega Drive games on the outdoor market, the gradual rise of import gaming, widespread disc piracy and the various solutions to do so, blind-buying Japanese PS2 games and hoping you can get past the menu screens with trial, error and Altavista Babelfish. Despite this, I find the memories that people share on the Internet are growing ever more distant to my own, with shared recollections becoming increasingly homogenised into that of what happened to middle-class suburban Americans and their - apparently universal - N64/Pizza Hut/sleepover combo. Apparently, nobody sat around playing a borrowed copy of Blast Chamber on the Saturn with a potted beef sandwich and a can of Shandy Bass.
 Sun City, former home of Rolling Thunder and Hot-Rod Whilst what happened in middle America with some slightly spoiled-sounding children makes up part of their own unique story, I want to try and capture and save what I remember here, whilst my brain is still functioning and hasn't dissolved under the weight of that irritating LNER advert with the dancing puppet. Gaming culture is a culture of sorts, with some of the very best - and absolute worst - people you'll ever meet. So I figured, why not start a very Web 1.0 style deposit of information that will inevitably be crawled and stolen for AI-generated content? (rhetorical question) I also want to talk about some of the great games I have played that are frequently considered off the beaten track for an English-speaking audience, with many lesser appreciated games, especially (but not exclusively!) imports. So whilst there's some Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu, there's also some Pipe Mania 3D. We don't forget our PAL 50Hz upbringing. I would also like to share my love and genuine enjoyment of some subjectively dreadful titles such as FIST and The Yakyuuken Special.
 "Games are art" (EDGE Magazine) I don't really have a plan to go at it with any specific order, so by all means I might start talking about the spectacularly downbeat realism of running a failing used car pitch on New Wheels John? on the ZX Spectrum before talking about, I don't know, the charmingly weird 428: Shibuya Scramble on the PS4. I'll probably share thoughts on why despite owning hundreds of games I would never, ever call myself a collector. And I will definitely tell you about how important it is to follow your own path and play the games that you want to play, exactly how you want to play them. As usual for anything I do, this has become very lengthy and self-indulgent. On that basis, if you'd like to send any complaints to Points of View or whatever so it can be read out with some kind of regional accent. But if you got to the end of reading this drivel, you have my heartfelt appreciation and kind regards and you're one of the good guys (probably). Thanks for coming!
Hirst
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