Based in South Wales, Infinite Frontiers has been serving the geek community since 1989. Since that time it has run Doctor Who and Star Trek fan clubs, published fanzines covering a wide range of subjects, run conventions including the long-running Transformers convention Auto Assembly between 2000 and 2015, released computer software, and everything else in between!
We're now running four websites catering for the geek community - our main Infinite Frontiers website covering all things geek from sci-fi, movies, television, comics, toys, video games and retro gaming (www.infinitefrontiers.org.uk), the Mastertronic Collectors Archive which is dedicated to the 1980s video games publisher (www.mastertronic.co.uk), Auto Assembly which is dedicated to all things Transformers (www.autoassembly.org.uk), and Vita Player which is our first video games site dedicated to Sony's handheld consoles (www.vitaplayer.co.uk).
There was a chase pin as I finally got my first one after over 5 years subscribed! 😂 Good video. I tend to agree with your points, On the one hand I can totally see why they put in a few cheapy bits like the wristband, as their margins must be pretty low after paying wrestlers for autographs (and like you say, they always knock it out of the park those, Pro Wrestling Crate could only dream of chucking a Bret Hart or AJ Styles or both Hardy's in a box) but ultimately it's just going to end up sat in my box of 'miscellaneous stuff from mystery boxes' and that only exists as I'm a terrible hoarder and can't bare to throw things away. The Auto's and Tee's are the reason i get the boxes (and I've accidently become a pin collector too, as they are usually great) and if they continue to be such high quality, then I'm really not too fussed about what else is in the box. Sorry I've rambled on a bit there.
I did think it was strange about the chase pin as they usually print on the back when there's a standard and chase version but congratulations on getting the chase one! I've wanted to get a board for the mancave for ages so I can display them all properly but I have no idea where to put it! with the gimmick items I'd rather they left them out, gave us one less item and just saved the money and the boxes are incredible value for money as it is. to be honest if it was one t-shirt, one autograph and one magazine or DVD and nothing else then they'd still be incredible value and I don't think anyone would be upset for the price. - Simon
The tour was fun albeit short and it was amazing to think who was actually on it - Will Ospreay, Gabriel Kidd (who's been making waves in NJPW), Grado, Joe Hendry and so on. They're back filming this month after a long hiatus but it seems as if it's for streaming rather than TV this time. - Simon
Usually when there's bubble wrap in boxes I'll take that out as I go along and comment on it. The box was packaged well but in this case there wasn't any bubble wrap inside but none of the figures or their outer boxes were damaged. - Simon
Wrestle Crate rarely disappoint if I'm honest. The only things that have ever been a let down have been a few of the "gimmick" items, and the occasional free video, but those have been more because of the subject of them. They're definitely the most consistent boxes I've seen from any type of company though. - Simon
Thanks! I'm pretty lucky having templates set up for most of my regular videos so all the intros, end sequences, titles, backgrounds, overlays etc can be done very quickly at the editing stage. When it comes to the filming itself, I've got a camera tripod / lighting gear permanently set up in the mancave right next to the green screen so i can go in there and be set up ready to film in a couple of minutes as well. - Simon
Absolutely. This version used for the live tour was tweaked slightly from the one used on the WoS TV show but he never did any of the custom entrances he did elsewhere sadly. Saying that, the entire WOS series was taped in two days back-to-back so the wrestlers spent more time in this short-lived tour than they did on the series itself! - Simon
Wouldn't be the first time he did that. His current TNA theme was originally created for RoH and I've heard him re-use elements of his older songs a few times when he's put new parodies together. Understandable when you're traveling a lot between promotions and in the case of WOS, prior to the tour most of the talent were originally only booked for two days of tapings and that was it. They spent more time together on the tour than they did doing the entire 10 part series! When it came to this live tour version of this theme he tweaked a few words in it to remove the references to the TV show! - Simon
I remember he talked about bleaching his hair and why he did it. it was a few years ago and was so he could stand out from the crowd more. makes sense as I don't think the old look - entrance and everything aside - would be as noticeable. In that particular match, Grado was his tag partner and he had the biggest pop of the night. Joe's was pretty tame in comparison! - Simon
Glad you enjoyed it. Did you get the same trading card in your box or was yours different? Got to say I was impressed with how well it was protected. - Simon
That would have been enough to put me off using the C64 and sent me back to my Vic 20 instead! First ones I bought were Finders Keepers and Rambo. - Simon
I remembered the nWo after I'd finished editing it, but as a gimmick gift it's still something I'm not overly keen on. I was really happy with the bonus badges to be honest. as soon as I can get a display board I'll show it in a future video. - Simon
Thanks for putting me straight on that one. I haven't really watched WWE for years and I'm only getting back into watching it now since they started working with TNA. More a time/money thing than anything else if I'm honest, but obviously seeing the NXT belt that's the brand I assumed he was on at the moment. - Simon
Hi, I saw the list you made of PSVita Cross Buy games and I wanted to ask you, are you sure that all those games listed are still cross buy? I'm asking because on the Playstation store, the FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster, Ys Origin and Grim Fandango Remastered games unlike others, they don't specify that buying them will also be downloadable on PSVita.
None of the Final Fantasy games were ever Cross Buy sadly (definitely a wasted opportunity), some were different in the UK and US, but there are some titles that are Cross Buy even though the store doesn't mention it. That's even more common these days with Vita games only being available to buy through the Vita itself unless it's a Cross Buy title. - Simon
@@InfiniteFrontiers Okay, I thank you. So even though it doesn't say Ys Origin and Grim Fandango Remastered are cross buy, right?. But is the list always updating? In case you discover a new game or a new game comes out with the cross buy feature?
As far as we know, everything on our list is still accurate unless there are any games that have been completely delisted for the PS Vita that we are not aware of. There won't be any future Cross Buy releases (the last ones were when Sometimes You added support for their older games and when Tikipod released Astro Aqua Kitty for the PS5) but with no more Vita games coming out apart from homebrew that's it. The updates to our guide now are fixes to any errors we might find as well as adding review links which we're slowly doing as we're attempting now to go back and review as many games as possible from the Vita's library, but giving a focus on Cross Buy titles first. - Simon
Most of our gaming coverage will be top ten focused or reviews, but we thought that this would be a great way to see how the loading art differed between formats. Finders Keepers was definitely an interesting one as the C64's loading screen was based on John Smyth's box art, while the Spectrum original was closer to the in-game art style. - Simon
it's surprising how good the artwork was on the ZX Spectrum when they had to work around 2 colours per character and arguably a poorer colour pallet than the Commodore 64. Obviously this was a bigger restriction in games on the ZX Spectrum, especially without any hardware sprites.
I agree. Every system has their strengths and weaknesses but there were some fantastic artists on the Spectrum who really knew how to get the best out of the way the graphics operated. While the C64 had a higher resolution when it used the same 2 colour mode, the Spectrum's brighter colours certainly worked in it's favour. Swapping to multicolour, the lower resolution didn't help the C64 but the extra colours (as was the case for the Spellbound title screen) really helped breathe life into some. Saying that, people are still pushing both machines beyond their official limits today making the older games look primitive! - Simon
I'd love to see some of the older classics remade across most systems using techniques developers know now - we'd see some pretty remarkable stuff. I do think we would have seen better back then if time pressures weren't as tight as well. - Simon
I wasn't expecting the figures to be anything special to be honest, or even anything likely to be staying in the collection. Although I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that between them the boxes *did* manage to equal the value that I paid for them - I was expecting it to be less and for them to be worth around £3-£5 a figure at current market values so at least it was something. To be honest, when it comes to mystery Funko boxes, the best option is to go for specialist traders who usually put fantastic value boxes together. - Simon
The ZX-spectrum and the Commodore64 are really very overlooked systems, with many fine games and a few great ones, if you're reading this and you haven't played them before, give them a try.
Mastertronic released some great games across most of the 8-bit machines they supported as well as re-released some real classics from other publishers. We're trying to cover as many as we can over on our Mastertronic website at www.mastertronic.co.uk and we'll be looking at a lot here as well along with other 8-bit games too. I grew up with Commodore systems though, starting with the Vic 20 then moving onto the C64 so I've always been an 8 bit gamer at heart! If there are any in particular you'd like us to look at on the channel, please feel free to put requests in and we'll see what we can do! - Simon
What I found interesting with the loading screens was that the C64 and Spectrum ones were so different, but then all the other games in the Magic Knight series used the same artwork but just different interpretations of it. Not surprised that the Spectrum ones sold the best though, as David Jones wrote all of them for it then they were ported to other systems later. - Simon
Usually they're pretty good at sorting out problems and they do tend to have a few surplus stocks of a lot of items so it could be worth sending an email if this happens again and see if they can sort out a replacement (it's probably too late this time around). - Simon
For the next C64 one ideally we want to look at some of the other labels more to show the re-releases and how diverse Mastertronic really were so it will probably focus on labels like Ricochet, Americana, Mastertronic Plus and Tronix but we're always open to requests! Got plenty of other video ideas too including game reviews to run alongside the website! - Simon
We did the video primarily to link in with our Mastertronic website, but I won't rule out other publishers if a) there's enough demand, b) there's enough artwork and c) we can get the rights for suitable music from one of their games as we have at the moment. So never say never... - Simon
I miss hearing Derrick’s views on all things Transforners and pop culture in general. His Delightful Tedium site was so much fun. You are not forgotten Derrick.
It was a shock to all of us when Derrick passed away. Taken far too soon and his contribution to Transformers - and pop culture in general - will never be forgotten. - Simon
Yeah, collision detection wasn't particularly forgiving on this one although I have to be honest and say despite it's simplicity, this is MUCH better than the Commodore 16 version that came along later. While they tried to add some new gameplay elements to it, they just made it worse. We've covered it over on our dedicated Mastertronic website at www.mastertronic.co.uk - Simon
I didn't quite think it was top ten material for me, but I do want to find time to do more PC Engine videos soon and start looking at individual games so I'll definitely be taking sugges on board for ones I can review so I'll add that to the list for ones I can try to take a closer look at. - Simon
I think that's been the problem with Funko generally for the last few years. They've made figures for almost any film, TV show or franchise with endless variants and over saturated their own market. I sold a lot of the ranges I was collecting as they just got too large and were filling up with junk. - Simon
i think we had a dancing G1 Soundwave at one of the earlier ones but I don't think I've got any footage. Saying that, I didn't even know this video existed until it was sent to me not long ago and I've got loads to sort through like it! - Simon
To be honest I only got them as they were boxes I hadn't tried yet and I thought it would be something different. I'm quite wary of random pop culture boxes as well as my collecting tends to be more focused on a few franchises, wrestling and gaming these days, but I'm still willing to give most a try as long as it's not food related. - Simon
For the price I wasn't expecting much,. although I was surprised that the value (just) managed to hit the price of the box. Doubt I'll be getting any more of these though! - Simon
We aimed to cover all of Mastertronic's ranges in this and our future loading screen videos, which is why you'll see games included from the Americana, Ricochet, Rack-It and Rebound labels alongside the core Mastertronic lines. There are loads of great games out there on all the 8-bit and 16-bit systems and we want to showcase as many as we can. We're working on the next three right now - the second C64 collection, and one each for the Spectrum and Amstrad. - Simon
Glad you enjoyed it. If you've got any favourite C64 loading screens or soundtracks let us know and we'll try to feature them in future videos. We're working on something new for our Mastertronic Twitter and Facebook pages as well along with more updates for the website so plenty of new content most days! - Simon
Glad you enjoyed it. It was a tough call over what Hubbard track we were going to use for this one, although we have a few ideas for next time, possibly Master Of Magic or Shockway Rider as I love both of those but there are plenty of great ones he did for Mastertronic! - Simon
The boxes are really inconsistent. I am buying another one of these soon and I've just revisited the Red variant and was really impressed with that but both the Red and Blue are not only produced for HMV by the same company but they're also done at the same time. They're not - as you might think - made separately but are done randomly so they've all got the same mix of contents selected from fixed stock categories. So while items are random and it would be incredibly rare, you could get the same items in a Red and Blue box. my latest Red video shows just how good they *could* be though. - Simon
And sadly, just this week Glen Jacobs (Kane) has opened his mouth again on Twitter just reinforcing the comments I made about him in the video. - Simon
Yeah, Ordyne's not a bad little side-scroller although probably a bit too cute for my taste (one of the reasons I left Parodius out of the list). I am going to be doing a lot more PC Engine videos over the coming weeks/months though so hopefully this will include individual game reviews or themed videos (such as arcade shooters) so I could cover it (and others like it) that way. - Simon
Yeah, really enjoyed this one and definitely going to be getting more. If I hadn't sold my Star Trek comic collection recently (I've replaced them with the graphic novels) I would have gone for that, but I'm almost certainly getting another Spider-Man bundle. - Simon
Yeah, I did a video explaining how my scoring system works for boxes and I'm pretty harsh when it comes to the inclusion of stickers or trading cards in boxes no matter what they are or what company has produced the box... and believe me, I've had them quite a lot! - Simon
As a mystery box item it's not the greatest thing but I'd say it is the sort of lower tier "stocking filler" type of thing most boxes would have. You tend to get one or two star items (the most expensive which would usually be a t-shirt if the box includes them) then gradually dropping in value so I don't mind things like this if the box overall isn't too bad. But in the case of this particular box, when it ended up being a highlight, it was pretty worrying! - Simon
I try to rate each item individually to be as far as I can and then leave my thoughts about the box overall st the end. I don't give the boxes themselves a score purely because of the way they're all different both in terms of price and what they cover. They're not really equal in that sense so just a comment is probably the fairest way to go. This one in particular it has a couple of decent things but the rest let it down while I've had others that were.generally great with the odd awful item (like the latest Wrestle Crate box). - Simon
You can find them on eBay and there are a lot of collectibles stores all over the UK that do sell them as they tend to buy collections from fans and sell figures individually. I've picked a few up from one of my local stores that way in addition to the ones I've had from the Doctor Who and HMV boxes. There are a LOT in the set though so if you do play on collecting them, it's possibly worth focusing on key characters or some of your favourites as it can get very expensive! - Simon
Definitely eBay then sadly. I know after Eaglemoss went into Administration a lot of their leftover stocks were bought by companies like Amazing Mystery Box, HMV and a few others so they'll gradually come up for sale as these companies work through their inventories. I'm the same with the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection as I started to collect that - still got quite a few of those to track down! - Simon
Amazing Mystery Box have done some incredible boxes over the years - I've covered a lot of their Doctor Who and Star Wars boxes before and had a subscription to their Doctor Who one - but this just felt like a warehouse clearance bundle with no thought given to it. It's shocking really when the highlight of the box is a set of sponges! - Simon
It was a tough list to put together. I focused solely on HuCard games and just for the base PC Engine so no SuperGrafx titles either but even then I had a bigger list than 10 to narrow down. In the end it was a combination of how accurate as well as playability and more than anything whether I enjoyed them or not. Vigilante, for example, is a near perfect port but I always thought the game was pretty average! I'm already planning a follow-up focusing on CD based ports, Amiga games converted to the PC Engine and a few more! - Simon
There are quite a lot that are pretty close - and that's without taking CD into consideration. I think a lot forget that it was only an 8 bit machine at its heart, but just backed up with a great graphics chip that gave it an extra kick making it seem a lot more powerful. - Simon
Hi simon hope your all ok, bit of mixed box to be honest the notebook is probably my favourite item, it just about makes it to £15 but no where near £30 🙂 -Matthew
Yeah, they're very careful in the way they talk about the value of their boxes and often base it on RRP or an "Amazon value" but all it takes is for one seller on there to overprice something and they can claim that something has a high value when it doesn't. The real problem with these boxes being produced by Pyramid is that they can select the cheapest items with the highest RRP and make the boxes seem to be great value on paper no matter what is inside! - Simon
@InfiniteFrontiers yeah some people are a bit to kind saying oh yes this is worth this much but when you look how many there are of the item on the Internet they don't even sell for said price of value, yeah true, whats worse is when they put a postcard in or stickers and make that as part of the box overall value. -Matthew
I don't mind postcards to be honest (got a huge collection going back to the 70s and we used to produce them to give away to attendees of our Transformers convention every year), but they're quite low value items and only cost 5 - 10p to produce at most. But when boxes including any paper/card items they've got to be protected though and they've got to arrive in perfect condition. The one I had this time looked like it was damaged before it was even put in the box! - Simon
@InfiniteFrontiers yeah it is more the value of a postcard, it must be great to have such a collection of them, its cool you do conventions i enjoy going to comic cons/conventions. yeah it shouldn't have been that damaged they should put it in an non bendable envelope just to protect it. -Matthew
Not done any events for almost a decade - stopped for health reasons amongst other things although that was probably a good thing as I was probably living with a hernia for a few years so I'd been risking my health without knowing it for ages! We've got 400gb of footage from them though so we've got plenty to upload! - Simon
About the same as the last HMV Exclusive Box I'd say... although no doubt I'll get another in about six months and try it again! Got to get another Blue box next! - Simon
Hi simon hope your well, not a good box at all i like love island but wouldnt buy a game, think there capitalising on the show love island the games, why add stickers i dont know if there extra fine but if the £25 isnt there, they they dont count as a bonus item and as you said who would have a 5 year old stickers for sale, also pretty sure warhammer champions has been discontinued 🙂 -Matthew
When you hear gaming you think videogames and to be honest this is exactly how it's marketed on Amazing Mystery Box's website so including something like the Love Island game doesn't even fit the overall theme of the box. As for the stickers, surprisingly they're actually counted as part of the advertised quantity of items (it promises 8 and those are part of that total). How have you been getting on with the Doctor Who box over the last couple of months anyway? Any improvements since I stopped having them? - Simon
@InfiniteFrontiers yeah I think the same gaming means like stuff to do with video games, no love island doesn't fit the theme of the box, really can't believe they count as part of the 8 items. yeah there are definitely some improvements to the doctor who mystery box less duplicates, last couple had audios in which is always good. -Matthew
Not sure if I'm brave enough to give them another go but if I do I might try and save up for a three month subscription so I can cancel it before it renews.and it's.long enough to prove its worth. Only problem really is the t-shirts as I've got far too many - I could wear a different one in every video and you'd still see a different shirt in all my videos for a year or two! - Simon
@InfiniteFrontiers yeah sounds like a good idea least you will know for sure if you decide to that is, yeah shame there isn't an option to say no t shirt. -Matthew
It's strange to be honest as they offer a no t-shirt option when you buy the boxes as a one-off so I'd say they've got loads in their warehouse and they think that the boxes are a good way to clear their surplus stock. - Simon
Yeah, think the title says it all for this one! I honestly don't know what they were thinking with most of the stuff in there. Most boxes that have included stickers have treated them as bonus items as well, and for those to be included as part of the promised quantity is absurd. I'd have been annoyed paying £10 for this, let alone the fact that I paid £25! - Simon
I've got a comic box coming up in the next few days, but yeah it doesn't take much work to make sure customers don't get duplicate items in their boxes. - Simon
Glad you enjoyed it! Already got arguments here over who is having the mug! My only gripe this time was the pack of stickers - if they'd left them out the box would have been perfect. it definitely lives up to the promised value though! - Simon
@InfiniteFrontiers it is a good mug so im not suprised 🙂 yeah stickers are always filler which doesn't need to be in the box, even if you collect them it's still not worth it. - Matthew
I can appreciate that these are added as a "bonus" but unless it's something you already collect or are interested in, it generally backfires as most will see them as wasted space and money that could have been out to other items in the box instead. While these stickers may have only cost a few pence to include (despite having an RRP of around £1 a pack) most buyers won't see it that way. - Simon
For the cost I can't see what else they could include other than a postcard (they're a lot cheaper to produce than people might think - we used to produce them to give away every year at Auto Assembly), but I'd say it's better to skip them altogether if they can't get something cheap like that. Or even a sponsored item like Wrestle Crate does with their video content so it wouldn't actually cost HMV anything to include them. Or even something like a discount voucher would be a great item. - Simon
I was really surprised at how good this box was to be honest. Well worth the money and I'm going to grab one of the £9.99 Blue Knockout boxes as soon as I can. Be warned though... the next unboxing video is a bit of an eye-opener! - Simon
Glad you like it - as I said in the video, Wrestle Crate is definitely my favourite mystery box right now and easily the most consistent. I filmed four earlier today and the others will be uploaded over the next couple of weeks (didn't want to overdo it!), but I'll be honest right now and say that one of them is the worst box I have ever seen... - Simon
