Welcome to the SemiRetroGaming blog!

Doesn't it always make your gaming experience much better when there is current conversation and community spirit around the game that you are playing? A place where you can vent, show off your progress and gain hints and tips from other people. For the majority of gamers playing recently released or long term trending games, this is not an issue. But what about those playing older games that have had their heyday? For most of these games, the community has moved on. Yes, the content, comments and conversations remain online in the form of blogs, websites and social media posts but it is always preferable to have an active community that you can engage with.

For the following reasons there are lots of latecomers to such games:

• Games are released at such a rate these days that not everyone gets a chance to play all those they want at the time of release.

• Those of us with families, full time jobs, commutes will have limited game playing time, meaning limited game coverage. There will always be games on the playlist to go back to.

• If you have an older PC or previous generation console you may want to make the most of it before upgrading. Some may not be able to afford to upgrade to keep up with later games.

• You may be a 'one game at a time' person whereby you want to make the most of each game, attaining all achievements possible (shear geekery!). Games are so large these days that this can take a considerable amount of time. This will certainly hamper the rate of games you will get through.

• Community conversation about an ageing game can expose it as a cult classic. This can advertise the game and draw people to investigate long after its release, even long after the hype has been and gone. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

For these reasons there are always newcomers to every game.

This blog is not aimed at the large masses who are playing the latest games. No. There are enough blogs out there for that. This blog is not aimed at those playing vintage retro games. There are also many blogs out there for that. This blog is aimed at something in between, those playing 'semi retro' games. What are semi retro games? These are best described as modern games that are not too old and not too new. Games that have had their heyday and may or may not be making a come back.

This blog will primarily provide hints and tips around optimising various aspects or tasks within a game i.e. the best, quickest and most efficient way to do things. But the format is open and anything goes really. I would like to hear from readers about what they would like to see in the blog and which games to cover.

Enjoy the blog!