Any memories of the old shops we used to visit?

I've got many happy memories of going down a dark alley in my town back in my teens, there was a little shop at the end of it called Console Mania that did all the consoles, part exchange, accessories and imports :)
We bought so many games from there, and I was quite sad to see it go in the late 90's, they had things like Action Replays, all the multi region adaptors, the floppy disk add on for the snes that let you pirate stuff, and a very early Japanese import of Street Fighter (turbo edition i think?) for ~£95 pretty much the week it launched, as well as things like early saturns/dreamcasts, a neogeo etc.
I've still got the big fully metal fighting stick I got from there somewhere in the loft.

There was another shop on IIRC the outskirts of Hemel that I used to go to and they did older PC games and hardware, we bought so many games for the 386 and 486 there.

There was also a little shop at Shenley Church End in MK that we'd go to on a regular basis in the 486/pentium days, I remember walking in one day and seeing Warcraft II running on the demo PC and promptly buying a copy of it.
 
I still have quite a vivid memory of going with my dad to Debenhams in Hull to pick up an Atari 2600. This will have been not long after they finished the Humber Bridge so was probably the first time I went across that. I can close my eyes and see us approaching the electronics area of the store. Also, when we got it we didn't go straight home but he dropped me off at an Uncles house and I don't know how but my uncles neighbours kids ended up coming round and we set it up on my uncles TV first and played Combat all day. Have quote a vivid memory of that as well.
 
Countcussy said:
Growing up in Sheffield with a C64, the ONLY place to go on a Saturday morning was Just Micro on Carver street, the original home of Gremlin Graphics. They used to have early demos of upcoming projects. Was such a welcoming and fun place to be.
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Yes Just Micro was a legendary shop. Going in every Saturday and perusing the games on cassette tape playing a few of the latest ones in store. Gremlin Graphics had the offices upstairs. The entrance was further up Carver Street. My mate got a job their and worked on Potty Pidgeon and a few others. ACE Magazine ran readers lotteries to go to Games Publishers and you got shown round and met the Devs etc. I ended up going to the Gremlin Graphics one and came away with a few games.
 
Does anyone remember Software Warehouse(?)? They were a bit like PC World back in the 90s and I'm sure I bought a modem or something from them.

I thought they were pretty big at the time but can't find any trace of them now!
 
Growing up in Chelmsford, I was always hassling my Dad to drive me into town so I could go to Special Reserve - they had bricks and mortar stores in Sawbridgeworth and Chelmsford. I spent so much of my pocket money there on things like Syndicate, all the old Microprose flight sims (1942 Pacific Air War was a favourite) and Carmageddon 2. They had their own prebuilt PCs which would be running the Quake demo at a framerate our 486/66 could only dream of. My Dad would sneak games home and hope I wouldn't notice them - I remember spotting a Sim City 2000 box appearing on the shelf one day then harangueing him until I was allowed a go. I remember in 1996/97 my brother and I had saved up just enough to get a second-hand 3DO - my Dad realised this was a terrible idea and took us both to Special Reserve after school one day and paid the extra so we could have a Playstation.

Good times - I think it's a hairdresser's now...
 
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