marrakoosh
I’ve been away from this game far too long. I’ve not blogged in month(s) and yet I have yearned for it.
I return.
Not to triumphant and epic fanfare. Oh no.
But to a quiet whisper of.. ‘who the fuck are you anyway?’
It’s easy to feel insignificant in the blogosphere. I’m sure the numbers of blogs and blog posts out there make all but the vast, endless quantities of stars out there (points upwards-ish, out of train window) seem small.
But to me? I’m everything. And until you rationalise that you are everything first, I’m not sure you can fully accept someone else is something or anything at all.
Cryptic, yes. Bullshit…maybe.
Some may know (though of course whether you care is entirely your own) that I am newly single.
And what have I done? All that good men do when in a personal crisis.
Play computer games, drink more beer than normal, and indulge in philosophy-lite.
I’m also room-hunting. Something arguably more productive than any above. I’ve not done it in a little while now (c. 2 years) but it’s got no less stressful. I already hate it.
I’ve seen one so far.
Was in Grove Park. Now I will apologise if anyone reading this is from Grove Park or likes the area. But it’s awful.
Greeted at the station exit by a boarded up pub, and a shop parade with only half the lots being used as shops. The other half presumably being cultivated by Alan Sugar for his more primitive electronic boardings – posters.
The room itself was a good size. Ensuite too. House was big but dated and needed some TLC. All seemed to treat like student digs.
Not for me.
I’m now pursuing other lines of enquiry. I’ll update when I know more…
Filed under: The Generic
So I’m blogging on-the-go tonight. I’m actually in a pub opposite Blackfriars station with work people after a tough week. Wales and England are on soon. Can’t wait.
This is the mobile web in action. Social media at it’s prodigal best. I am a living, breathing web 2.0 demi-god.
Can I be topped? Probably not. Can I be stopped? Yes. When I lose 3G signal.
Drats! As much as I love this, I’m always thwarted. There is always a downside.
I must now return to my pint.
Oh and this is a photo of some old Citreons I took this morning near Waterloo.
Filed under: Football, The Generic | Tags: katie, lily allen, my girlfriend, nike
I do completely have to apologise. And a lot. And I will.
Right now.
Right here.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m a useless berk. I’m sorry that as I am this useless berk I have been unable to write. Or in fact do anything.
Yes, that was exactly the problem. I was unable to do anything. Not even like…eat.
Okay so I took that too far. I just didn’t write. I think I exhausted writing c. 1000 words a day.
All right, so c. 800 words a day.
But I was doing well and felt that I didn’t want to keep up that standard, ya know? I’m like..managing expectations. I don’t believe I could deliver that for a year. Perhaps after I have already completed a year of something far less…committed.
So the last couple of weeks have been okay.
Katie my girlfriend has come back from Australia.
Just back from Down Under right mate?
Please don’t think my girlfriend is Lily Allen, she is not. Hence why she is called Katie. This is just a picture of a girl who is presumably just back from Australia. It fits okay?
So good times was had by both the fact that she was back. Two and half weeks away was tough and she was sorely missed.
I also got two new t-shirts! I would photograph them, but they are being washed as I have worn them just so much.
Other than this, I have been working and that’s kinda it really.
Today I had my appraisal. Which went really well. Really very good feedback, and very happy.
Towards something more interesting….I’ve started running. I bought some running shoes (pictorial) and I plan to get fit and into a good state. I’m currently not fat, but I have begun to get a belly from too much time spent sitting on the computer. I used to be so trim and stuff, and so want to get back to those stages and washboard abs (can’t actually remember if I ever had them but I assume I did at some point…)
- Nike Lunaracer+ 2
I’ve already been on a couple of runs and I have a Ultimate Frisbee tournament this weekend in Norwich, in which I will get to run around lots, which will again help my fitness. Now I just need to get a Nike+ thingy to help me with my running – because it will – and then I’m good to go and get myself back to the well-oiled machine I once was.
I gotta go watch football now. It’s important. It really is.
My future blog posts will be short like this, but more frequent for sure. I’m sorry…again.
Filed under: Geeksville, SDOTWSC/T | Tags: caprice, davis cup tennis, desert strike, jungle strike, megadrive, premier manager 3, sonic and knuckles
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
It’s back…
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
…and it’s better…
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
…than ever before…
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
..and probably ever since.
Sorry. A bit drunk. Couldn’t resist this New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Tres tasty. So much so, it’s all gone. Epic.
Please very quickly go to the bottom of this post and start the video going. The music will accompany the prose. Honestly, it makes it so much more interesting.
So here comes my MegaDrive memories, which also weirdly includes the CD-i…
I can’t really do a megadrive-based blog without talking about the SEGA Mario. Sonic.
I remember one of my friends, Katie – whom I played lots of tennis with – had a MegaDrive. We played so much Sonic 2, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3. I remember you could plug Sonic 3 into Sonic & Knuckles and then it kinda added some extra things to the game. We had an awful lot of fun with it. We literally spent HOURS playing that, and being as I didn’t own the console, I wasn’t allowed to be Sonic, so was always Knuckles. That really crappy red guy with floppy hair and I would kinda float as my special move. Crap. We completed it a few times and I am sure that once you completed it you would go through again getting the super emerald crystals or something ridiculous.
Once again, this occurred over the summer. Obviously.
With Katie, these were all the games we played – apart from Theme Park and Theme Hospital, but these were later on, on her PC.
Moving from this to MegaDrive playing with, at the time, my best friend Matthew; we played so much Desert Strike.
What. A. Game.
The first level was incredibly tough. This massive great desert. Lots to do. Lots of things that would easily shoot you down. But then you could come across some random man in the desert, and he’d turn out to be an incredible pilot! Used to think it was incredible. You’d shoot a tent. It would explode. A crater would be left behind. ANd controlling the helicopter itself was an absolute art.
Wait…why am I bleeding? There is blood all over my middle and ring finger on my right hand.
Hmmm. Seems I picked some skin round my nail (always do it) but didn’t see I had gone a bit too deep and it had bled.
Damn. Now I find blood on my mouse and glass. Sigh.
Right, so that’s cleaned up now. Back to DS. As ever with games back then, I remember it being fairly unforgiving. The amount of times I died, and had to start again and shit. Pretty annoying. But as ever back then, we carried on. None of this easy save things. Hell, the Amiga used to give you a password for every level, which you would write down and then input to carry on your progress. HA. Lemmings did that. You’d end up with a huge list for all the different levels of difficulty and by the end you hate a notepad full of them. Those were indeed the days.
Sequels to DS? Jungle Strike, where you got to drive like a hovercraft, bike and a stealth bomber or something silly. Urban strike was worse still. I’m pretty sure the last level was INSIDE a casino. Ridiculous. The others, Soviet and Nuclear strike on the Playstation were pretty awful from what I remember.
Aside from DS, we also played some tennis game. Davis Cup World Tour Tennis or something. Loads of fun. Had enough depth for us, but very challenging. I don’t think Matt and I ever got past the first round of the cup. We were awful. But good times nonetheless.
Finally for MegaDrive was Premier Manager 3. First foray into football management sims that would culminate in all-nighters on Football Manager 07 in my third year of university with my housemate. We’d chain smoke (one did the funky stuff, the other normal cigs) and sit at my computer and play it all night. Taking it in turns. Drinking cheap bottles of wine from the bottle. I’d be Everton, he’d be Villa. Haha. Honestly, the amount of time we spent on that was absurd. It would take hours to get through just the first game, because we’d both spend so much time sorting out our team at first. We’d start to limit the time to 5 minutes and eventually, after about a week, we completed the first season. Facing each other in the league or cups was the best. Watching the match on a fairly slow speed, seeing all commentary. What geeks we were, but high and drunk geeks nonetheless.
Anyway, back to Premier Manager. You were forced to a Conference team (usually Dagenham & Redbridge or Kidderminster as they started with most money) and told to work your way up. Buying crappy players from your league. Expanding your stadium and it’s facilities. Speaking to agents. Even choosing the sponsors and where they would go on your boardings!! Great depth. Overwhelmed to be honest. Here’s a picture.
Can you work out what each one meant?
I don’t think we ever took a team to the top, probably Div 1 at the best. We had short attention spans back then and were just getting into the whole buying FHM phase, and Caprice posters. I’m sure we weren’t the only kids to do this.
Okay, I’m sorry but I need to wrap this up. I need lots of sleep tonight. I’m afraid CD-i will come Thursday where it will be short, thus reserving Playstation (FFVII, Porsche CHallenge, Tomb Raider 2, Twisted Metal World Tour) until next week. For the better, for the better.
Peace out homies. Here’s a tune to thump to whilst reading…
Filed under: The Generic
So I’ve had a couple of days off, just to chill and hopefully increase inspiration for today.
And I know my SDOTWSC/T dictates that I talk about career. But I am totally going to break that.
Instead, I am going to keep it short and wish that everyone would go and do something that they really want to for a career.
Seems pretty foppish and pathetic, and it probably is. But seriously. Go do it.
Tomorrow I’ll get back to My Gaming Memories, Part III. The Megadrive & Miscellaneous, including CD-i, the ghost-like predecessor to the Playstation.
I'm looooooonely...
No, honestly, it is!
FMV was god back then. You’ll see!
Filed under: SDOTWSC/T, The Generic | Tags: france, Frank Black, mary elizabeth winstead, milk, phil davison, scott pilgrim vs the world
I will of course – as is polite and…usual – apologise for my late posting of Friday’s blog. If it comforts you – and it should – I started writing this on Friday, but consequently finish it on Saturday. I am obliged to say it took me a day to write. Much like ‘see you next year’ when you say farewell to friends, in full knowledge you will not see them again until after New Year’s.
So yeah, it was a shit joke. But definitely a joke.
My Friday blog is meant to be on the subject of drinking. A vague one you might cry out, but I can assure you it will be specific to myself, though not to alcoholic drinks. My favourite drink is milk. Wonderful, refrigerated, semi-skimmed milk. The white gold. On this subject I shall talk.
Pfffffft. Wow. YES.
I’m not entirely sure why I started to enjoy milk so much. I think though, it began when I had this amazing sensation from drinking cold milk, straight from the fridge not long after I had got up, where I was totally warm. You could feel the ice cold milk slither down your throat and into your stomach, sending out this tingle of cold energy throughout my limbs. Refreshing me. Re-energizing me.
No.
It was just nice…like.
To this day I still drink at least 2 pints a day. I can just get through it. Often glasses aren’t large enough so I keep going back for more. But then if I’m running on a pint glass, I’ll easily put away 4 or 5 pints of it.
As I said, white gold.
I even own a very special glass bottle and glasses for my milk. Though I need to buy bags of milk to refill it. Which only come from the Big Sainsburys. It is a 15 minute walk there. It makes me sad.
Probably my most prized possession.
Many people ask me if this is how I got so tall. No. This is not how I got so tall. I think that is a consequence of taking steroid tables when I was younger due to incredibly bad asthma. I think. For sure we did not have a tall postman or milkman.
I can never understand why people don’t like it either. What is not to like? People sometimes say ‘oh it’s DISGUSTING when it’s warm…’ I agree. Hence why I drink it could douchebags. I used to drink blue milk exclusively (full-fat to the scientific) but I felt…well I didn’t want to get obese and shit. I stopped. I controlled. I was modest. It was easy. Why can’t the rest of them?
WOW. Controversial written word.
Haha this has just reminded me of a video…
MY NAME IS PHIL DAVISON….
….AND A MASTERS DEGREE IN COMMUNICATION!
If you don’t get that, video below. One of the funniest moments of last year, was probably watching that video (and ‘Double Rainbow’) with Baron, Max, Pete and Harry. Smoking a few. And Baron sitting on this full-on, back-tilting, leather office chairs. You know the ones. Where they are so comfortable. He was laughing so hard, his face was red, he was crying and then very nearly fell off the chair. Which of course to the rest of us was even more hilarious.
Please check out the video, perhaps after smoking something with other people where you are giggly.
Yeah I know it’s old. But always tickles me. He’s trying to be a treasurer? Wtf.
So my main aim of this post wasn’t actually to address Friday’s SDOTWSC/T, but instead talk about a film I watched tonight.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World
And what a movie it was! Absolutely loved that it was essentially a video-game from start to finish. Small little sound effects really made it great. And I have to admit, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is really quite attractive. Not sure on the hair, but nevermind.
Mandatory photo. Need to make it interesting somehow.
I’ve employed size for clarity. But then I also think this extra media just makes this go the extra distance. I’ve still typed 700-odd words. I now wonder why it was so difficult at university to do. I bashed out 1000 words last night without breaking a sweat.
So back to the movie. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Needing to find the soundtrack now and give that a listen.
Wow Frank Black got involved. What a track too. Very Pixies-Doolittle too. Man…I need to give that a listen again.
Finally on films – there are some cracking movies on TV tonight late. See below…
- BBC1 – Starship Troopers – 11.30pm -> 1.30am
- ITV1 – US Marshals – 2.40am -> 4.50am
- More4 – Talented Mr Ripley – 12.45am -> 3.30am
So I’ve got things to keep me going should the cat keep me up.
Tomorrow is likely to be a boring and short blog. I’ll have nothing to say. Unless the cat like throws up, or something big in the news happens, which is likely to be a disaster if the media report it widely, which I obviously wouldn’t wish to happen anywhere.
Well..maybe France.
Filed under: Football, Geeksville, SDOTWSC/T | Tags: amiga, awesome, double dragon, NES, nintendo, push over, rad racer, rodland, super mario bros 3, zelda
Oh hello. Didn’t see you there.
How are you doing? Good, good. You came round to see if Part II can come out to play? Let me just go check.
[waiting....waiting....]
I’m afraid she’s in the bath. You can go up if you want.
Wait….what?
WELCOME TO PART II OF MY GAMING MEMORIES! WHOOP WHOOP!
So I promised some movement chronologically but before I do that, I need to very quickly revisit some gems I had actually *gasp* forgotten about in my first part of this delectable program of literature.
And how was I reminded of these? A friend at work, Darren (you can see his quest to run the marathon (scoff) at his blog here – I hope he does it, he seems to be going through some awfully good music whilst training, it’d be a shame for it to go to waste…) emailed me regarding the blog and got me thinking…
Firstly, just back to Arsenal. He is right. They lack a leader of men, a fiery, driven Englishman. For all John Terry’s faults (and there are many…) he is a leader. He is passionate and driven, albeit shit. Man United have Rio Ferdinand. Even Newcastle have someone like Nolan who does a fine job of it. Arsenal have no-one like this. No-one with true grit. Too much guile. And Fabregas’ comments today in the press really show him up to be a player lacking in class. Were they playing Rugby? Well if they were, they still beat you at football, despite you being the ones playing it. Jackasses.
Anyway, the Amiga. I found a video. 100 Amiga games in 10 minutes. Granted it’s a long video to be watching on YouTube but it’s well worth it for anyone who owned an Amiga. And the game I was going to mention was Rodland. Yes, a dubious name. But it was so cute and addictive! It’s around 6:40 on the video.
Highlights: Rodland, Desert Strike, Populous II, Sensible Soccer and XCOM Enemy Unknown (my favourite game ever, though I first played it on the PS)
So moving away from the Amiga as promised, I head towards Nintendo’s outing with the NES.
I didn’t have a NES. God no. My next door neighbour Sammy did. We played that into the ground. He had four games. Super Mario Bros 1, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros 3 and Rad Racer.
It was worth as much as it looked...
Zelda was fantastic, it was a gold cartridge (see right bozo’s). And we enjoyed that so damn much. Despite it being only a one player, we’d sit round with the map and aim to complete it. I remember Sammy on this one bit where you walk through a desert and it’s always the same screen unless you do the right combination of up, down, left or right. A strategy employed by many games in the future, notably Final Fantasy VII when you’re in the desert prison and you need to find the big black guy, his name was JAKEDEATH when I first played it, or at least when my uncle played it. It was pretty damn hard. Especially the dungeons. If you didn’t have a shield you were screwed, especially with such clunky controls. Nevertheless, we played it through and finally completed it during the summer holidays (these things always happen then). It was great times.
Next was Super Mario Bros 3 (I’ll skip Mario Bros 1 because everyone has played that…or at least they should have done). We played that so much I can still remember the 8 worlds; Normal, Desert, Water, Giant, Sky, Ice, Pipe and Shadow. And then there were the flutes which would take you to the next tier of levels. You got these on the third level; the first white block floating from the end, sit and duck on there for like 4 seconds and you would fall behind the screen and you could run to the end, jump over and into a room with the flute. Second flute in world 1 was in the castle. Near the end where you had the door into the boss room, you needed to make sure you had the Racoon suit, and run, fly and up above the boss door. All the way along to a secret room, again for the flute. EPIC. Crazy how I remember that shit, like 20 years after it happened. Jeez.
That's right, that covers your pixel-penis.
We never completed it though. Shadow land was too hard. There was one level…just a pitch black screen. WTF was that about. Too difficult. Sorry. Nope. Nothing doing.
Finally from the NES that I will talk about, Double Dragon. My neighbour never owned this himself, he borrowed it off his other friend. But what fun we had! It was one of those classic Co-op-beat-the-shit-out-of-1980′s-goons genre. Similar vein to Streets of Rage, but more….fun. Played for hours. Because of these times, I have had a lot of fun with this genre since, or at least whenever there is a worthwhile game out. Streets of Rage, Fighting Force on the Playstation, and I believe Tekken tried to do it for Tekken 3 as a mini-game, but it was batshit hard though. That was also the game that had a boxing kangaroo as a playable character? Go figure.
Okay, so I was going to hit up the Megadrive in this version as well, but feel it’s already quite lengthy. Also, who am I to deny myself an obvious subject next week when I am languishing at the bottom of the inspiration tumulus.
Please do enjoy the amiga videos.
What a bloody game. Want it.
Filed under: Football, SDOTWSC/T | Tags: amazonian princesses, arsenal, arsene wenger, arshavin, cesc fabregas, football, sdotwsc/t, van persie
I’ll begin by telling everyone I was again off work. Feeling awful yesterday, and through the night made me incredibly tired. I got very little sleep, due to both illness and cat and as such this morning I felt 100% wank. It helped that I knew I had very little to do at work, if I was busy then I’d have certainly powered through.
Right, enough of my sob story.
Sticking to the old S.D.O.T.W.S.C/T (seven days of the week, seven categories/themes), Wednesday is football. I based this on the fact I play in a 5-a-side league with work mates, and so it seems ideal. Whilst my adrenaline is still flowing, I can get on here and write about it. But it also works if I don’t play, because if there is ever mid-week football, it’s on a Wednesday (at least the stuff worth watching).
Today, I’ll broach the subject of Arsenal. Tonight they lost 1-0 to Ipswich Town, a team very much in the gutter (but certainly something to prove). They recently lost a manager who, to all intents and purposes, was shit. They got thrashed 7-0 by Chelsea in the FA Cup, a competition where the underdogs CAN win, where the big teams will be weak and can be beaten. Chelsea weren’t.
You’d think, this is Arsenal’s time to pounce. They haven’t had some silverware in a good few years, even something like the Carling Cup could be really great for the club, but they just don’t take their opportunity. You look at the semi-finals and see Ipswich, Arsenal, West Ham and Birmingham. You immediately think, Arsenal are getting some silverware this season. God knows they need it. Certainly they’re not out of this tie, they are only 1-0 down and Ipswich have to come to the Emirates which is going to be tough, though we have seen other teams win there.
I won’t be surprised if Arsenal lose, and part of me will even be happy. Why? Because I just don’t think they deserve it. This is all down to Wenger. I believe – as does my flatmate who happens to be an Arsenal supporter (he’s a Watford man first though) – that Wenger is living on his reputation and past accomplishments.
You'd laugh if Squillaci did this to someone like Berbatov
Sure, back in 2003 he had a sensational team. They were good everywhere. He had fiery but reliable centre-halves. A strong and gritty midfield, and some fantastic pace and finishers up front. Perfect. He also had some good, hard-working Englishmen in there who complemented the technical ability of the Dutch and French.
Nowadays there is only technical ability it seems. Fabregas, as great a footballer as he is, seems a bit of a pussy. He’s continually complaining about the physicality of teams. Maybe he could identify that as a weakness in both his and Arsenal’s game, try to fix it, and then shut the hell up. As for their defence, I think I could hold Koscielny off the ball, let alone someone like Drogba who just eats him.
The whole squad is just too much about technical skill. And I think it really let’s down the squad when they need to grind out results. Which they can’t do, and so will not win a league or a cup tie. You need to be able to win 1-0 on a freezing January evening, away at some League 1 team’s small, backwater ground. Arsenal do not have this kind of grit. I think this also shows in how they cannot cope with physicality and why they get so many injuries; less keepy-uppies, more time in the gym.
And of all of this, what I dislike most about Arsenal (yeah so this has moved from a discussion into a hate-piece (though hate is perhaps too strong a word)) are their fans. Once again quite delusional. It’s a constant stream of ‘IF’s’. About everything, on everything.
IF Fabregas was fit. I’m sorry, but what? Fabregas is prone to injury. You know this.
IF Van Persie was fit. Ha, even Amazonian natives that have never seen a TV know Van Persie is only going to make a third of the season at best for you.
IF we had a good goalkeeper. You’ve had a shit goalkeeper ever since Seaman left. That’s hardly a single transfer window is it?
IF we had a stronger defence. Well…see above. Get to the gym, get some maxi-muscle. If you’re still struggling buy someone else……….oh wait.
IF Walcott had done that. Walcott is young and pretty good already. Wenger chooses to play him at certain times. He’ll flourish. I hope.
IF Wenger wasn’t French. Well Wenger is French. Deal with it.
In all of this? Wenger’s stubborness to change his plans. He has absolutely no Plan B on anything.
If their delightful (and it is often delightful) passing game, around the edge of the area, doesn’t work – they simply do not know what to do. And they never have a striker gambling in the six-yard box. Tonight for example, Walcott played an incredible ball on the six-yard box line. No-one there. Closest player was Bendtner (as it should be) on the edge of the area (as it should not be). They need a player, like Hernandez from United, who will be in the box, making a nuisance of himself. Looking for a quick flick or a poke-in goal.
Sigh.
Well anyway, that’s all I really have to say on it. I love watching them play, but even for a Neutral, it can be frustrating seem them continually not adapt.
If this was natural selection, they’d be on their way to extinction. Wenger needs to act.
Oh and Arshavin is absolute toilet. His moments of genius are not frequent enough nor good enough for him to be starting for a team who consider themselves ‘up-there’ in European football. He needs to be a big fish in a small pond, that’s not at Arsenal.
Please feel free to comment on anything above, and make sure you include the obligatory ‘United fan in London’ shit. I’m sure that has everything to do with Arsenal failing to deliver…again.
Filed under: Geeksville, SDOTWSC/T, The Generic | Tags: amiga, colin curly, game gear, illness, mcdonalds, mortal kombat, one-a-day bloggers, push over, quavers, zool
I was off work sick today; yeah I know, poor me.
I’m actually quite tired, as I didn’t get too sleep much in the day – checking work emails, doing chores, etc. So I need to go early. No more just hitting of the deadlines. I’ll be a good 40 minutes early today. Go me.
I did have a great idea on what to write in today’s blog, but I didn’t write it down and so had forgotten it. Throughout my typing of this post I will try to remember what it was, and so if I go off at a tangent at any time – that’s why.
So because I was lacking in inspiration, I put out the plea to the rest of the one-a-day bloggers on Twitter; and they duly delivered.
I guess I’m really only allowed like 3 pleas of help in the entire year, so there goes one of those, and we’re barely into our second week. I suck.
Right, enough of the fore-play.
Oh the memories…
So I can never remember when I first started playing games exactly. I know that very early on I had a Game Gear and an Amiga 500+. On the GG, I had the mandatory ‘Columns’ as well as this cool Mickey Mouse game, which I will always remember this toy-themed level at which I would get to the end of it, and there would be a train. And I had no clue where to go from there. It was by pure chance – after weeks of trying to work it out – that I landed on one of the puffs of smoke it was throwing out and up and away I went. I completed the game shortly after. I must have been young at this stage, for something so…obvious to elude me. As far as I recall as well, the Game Gear fell off the back of a lorry…if ya know what I mean 
My parents paid cash to a guy who came round the house with it. The guy was a skinhead, spoke funny and was quite tall. It’s likely he worked with my dad.
As for the Amiga 500+, I got it for Christmas. My first PC..as it were. I got this four game boxset. Striker, Lemmings, and then a couple of bits of software for drawing and making some animation. I forget what they were called exactly, but I do remember spending an entire weekend making a ball bounce on this animation software. I was so proud. Striker was a pretty crappy football game, but I would had hours of fun; 45 minutes each way (actual time), I was Italy, they were Qatar (now it’s considered satirical) and I would win 89-0 or something silly. I found a loop in the game where I could sprint up the right wing, cut inside on the edge of the box, shoot and curl the ball so much that it would almost curl back out of the goal, but the goalie would always…and I mean ALWAYS dive over it. I’m not sure why I continued to do that, I can’t imagine that being anywhere near as fun now. Especially if that happened on Fifa.
As for other games..played Chaos Engine, Global Gladiators (McDonalds sponsored platform game), Lemmings 2 Demo (my mum wouldn’t buy me the real game) and finally, I got Mortal Kombat. I don’t think my mother knew how graphic and bloody it was…Ha! And, the only time I have ever won a competition, was with Quavers. They had sponsored a game called ‘Push Over’ – a side-view platform puzzler. It was like a big game of dominoes. There were lots of slabs to push. Some did weird things like float upwards when they fell over, others kept rolling, others exploded. You could move the normal slabs about, and then choose the right one to push in order for them all to go down in one go. You could run on ahead and move some others around to keep it going. But it was very tricky. And you’d have that Quavers mascot, Colin Curly (no images, but better..an ad from 1989!)
That’s actually a very ‘dark’ looking ad I think. Whoever did the design of the museum backdrop has issues. It reminds me a little of the room from The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors episode where they recite part of Edgar Alan Poe’s classic poem, ‘Raven’.
Anyway…moving on.
All in all, it was a fantastic game. Note to self: find an Amiga emulator asap.
Just a quick run down of some other games before I hit the big ‘un: Cannon Fodder, Worms, Chaos Engine, Cool Spot and James Pond: Robocod.
The big ‘un I mentioned is…well…I loved it. Probably my favourite Amiga game and the one I played the most. It was: ZooL, Ninja of the Nth Dimension.
How fucking cool does he look?!
I was rockin’ ninja’s back when most today that are rockin’ ninja’s were probably not even born.
The levels were ingenious and made up of sweets, or fairground stuff. Always brightly coloured (no doubt why I liked it) and was very entertaining. Again though – unforgivable. You die, you die. You start again. Tough tits. But I completed it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
They tried to release a second one, ZooL 2 unsurprisingly. This time he had a female companion who had a whip. She was shit. The game wasn’t as good. I was still of the age where I thought girls were inferior and rubbish and they smelt (about 8/9 years old).
Nah just kidding, that was a like a week ago.
HA.
I’m done.
Part II on Thursday, where we hit up Mega Drive, NES, Game Boy – but I only owned the Game Boy. The others were my next door neighbour.
Filed under: SDOTWSC/T, The Generic | Tags: boring, careers, game dev story, Kay Burley, market research, superheroes
Do you ever get that feeling that what you do just isn’t exciting? I get that. A lot.
So imagine the sitcom/movie/tv scene. I go to a friend’s dinner party. “What is it you do?” “Um market research. I work in financial. We do a lot of research for banks, find out whether they should release a new current account, make recommendations, statistics. What about you?” “Oh I work for SuperWicked Corp. I’m a superhero.” “Wow. That must be amazing.” “Yeah it is. So which banks do you work for? Number crunching is it?”
WTF. I wanna talk about you being a superhero instead of me telling you about international insurance. C’mon!
Is it my fault that I have an unamusing profession? That can’t but not bore the sodding pants off you? Well yes I guess, but mostly not. I’m sure some people find being a superhero boring, people who….who….well like evil villains. Like Kay Burley.
Should I feel inadequate that my profession and career is not “interesting”? I’ll admit I don’t find it the most captivating thing in the world, but it’s a means to an end and can be good from time to time. I certainly feel knowledegable about financial stuff. Albeit still quite shit when it comes to handling my money.
I got fed up with Pablo continually making mistakes...BURN!
What else would I do? Well, get into games somehow. I’ve been a QA tester before, which wasn’t much fun. Lowest of the low. The next generations factory workers. Want to get into design. My background in Game Dev Story provides me with a firm understanding of the market. Gilly Bates is a fantastic programmer and Iam Gamer is a poor artist. Amy Less has her ups and down as a sound engineer.
But even then, would I have something more interesting to say to these people? “I am a games designer..” “So like…you design Mario?!” “Well, no -” “Wait, I bet it’s Sonic! I know so much about it all, my little brother who’s eight loves playing them!” “Fuck off.”
I guess part of it stems from my father; he doesn’t have an interesting job. He would say this himself the most. He has never wanted me to end up like him. In a job he dislikes, where he has been for well over a decade, and with no prospects for the future – he’s retiring in a few years.
This is what drives my restlessness; I don’t want to get stale and instead be different, interesting. Even if it’s so my dad, when asked my family or friends can say:
“What does Jacob do these days?” “He’s a game designer…” “WOW. He must love that!” “Yeah he really does…”
Is that too much to ask for?
I’m sorry for the short blog post today. I was over-whelmed with World of Warcraft, Fifa 11, FF13 and Glee. Shame on me. Also, the lateness of my post is inexcusable. But I was pissing about with the formatting for ages. I hate this editor already.
