But anyway. Letters? Let us (letters) do that. Lettuce.
If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
Humana-humana! I'm back! Did you miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? Get this: the next few months will be taken up with Digitiser and Digitiser-related projects - including finishing Digitiser The Show. Not forgetting that it's still the 25th anniversary year for Digitiser, and that the year isn't over yet, there may still be one or two surprises to come. You shall be informed of these in due course.
But anyway. Letters? Let us (letters) do that. Lettuce. If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
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![]() "Hey, everybody! Welcome to The Most Iconic Light Gun Shooters ever, sponsored by Le Spiced Bean Cafe. I'm Gulliver Sullivan, owner and chief barista here at Spiced Bean, and I'd like to offer you all a 10% discount on your next order of raw muffins. "Just use the code 'spicedbeanlightgun20' when you come in and we'll fix you right up. Can't wait to see you guys! We just finished a refurb down here at Le Spiced Bean, and the joint is looking FRIGID! We stripped everything back to the raw brickwork, and It is deck, brah! "But hey - enough of my hard-sell, let's get on and check out the most iconic light gun shoot 'em ups of all time! It's gonna be wack, yo!" ![]() "Borag thungg, earthlings! I am Art Garfunkel, the folk singerman from Simon und Garfunkel. Why 'Art'? It's short for Artificial, because when I was born my parents thought I looked like some sort of weird mannequin of 'Garfield's uncle'. I still do! Ha ha. "I shortened my name to Art because I really like art (paintings and that) and f'arts (smelly bum noise). This is why I've chosen to tell you about ten of the best-looking Sega Mega Drive games you've probably forgotten about, while also telling you about some of the best farts I ever did. "I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun, so here's to you, Tommy Robinson - racists love you more than you can know, woh woh woh!!" Just before I took my summer break, you may be aware that IGN was forced to fire its Nintendo editor Filip Miucin when it was alleged that he had copied the script for his video review of Dead Cells from a review by YouTuber Boomstick Gaming.
I won't recount it all, when plenty have already done so. I mean, I could just copy-and-paste what others have written, and change a few words here and there, which would be totes funny. But anyway. Miucin posted an apology video in which he made excuses, and later added the mistake of daring people to find any further examples of his plagiarism. Presumably, intending to imply that they wouldn't. They did. Since then, many more examples of Miucin apparently slightly rewriting the work of others have come to light, with much hilarity ensuing when parts of his Linkedin profile seemed to have been cut-and-pasted from a sample template. IGN is now reviewing all of Miucin's work for the site, having taken it down at least temporarily. Many have been amazed at how little Miucin changed the pieces he allegedly cribbed from, but in my experience the plagiarist is blatant. I've certainly had people rip off things I've done, and the worst time it happened was when I was a struggling screenwriter, and someone more successful, influential and powerful than me borrowed fairly liberally from a script Digitiser's Mr Hairs and I had written, and put elements of it into a broadcast pilot. Years later I found out that said individual had a bit of a TV industry reputation for doing this, but - at a time when we were trying to get a career off the ground - we were fairly powerless to do anything about it. Similar things happened to me a further two times (that I know of) in the early days of my TV writing career, and always by people you would expect to know better. Each time I felt the same sort of impotent anger and frustration that Boomstick Gaming must've done. In sort, it happens more often than you think it might, even though plagiarism is one of the worst creative and journalistic crimes a person can commit. And - hold onto your scandal-pants - it's a crime of which I too have been guilty... Back in my day, there were about three game genres; the jumping one, the shooting one, and the fighting one. And the driving one and the puzzle one. And the strategy one. And adventure games.
Whatever, brah. Anyway, the point is... we had a manageable number of genres, and those genre labels pretty much accurately described the game they were applied to. Nowadays, young people games journalists - you know the sort - in addition to using the word "agency" about 20 times per paragraph, and in-between cribbing from other people's reviews - have added two new sub-genres to the list, and every time I see them used, it's like rusty nails down the blackboard of my spine. The two biggest offenders are "rogue-like" (named for the long-forgotten 1980 dungeon-crawler Rogue), and "metroidvania" (a portmanteau, obviously, of the sprawling, side-scrolling, action platformers Metroid and Castlevania). I know what these two terms are supposed to mean. I know what they relate to. I just don't like them. What's wrong with "randomly-generated" or "action platformer"? That's what we used to call these sorts of games back in the day. I mean, where do you draw the line? Release a game that's a bit like a cross between Assassin's Creed and Dark Souls, and decide it's a new genre called "AssSouls"? Do you see? It's a real good joke! Digitiser is taking a bit of a break for the summer and will be back around August 27th. If you're going to Play Expo London this weekend - that's the 11th/12th - don't forget to check out the exclusive Digitiser The Show Panel, with my co-hosts Paul Gannon, Octavius Kitten and Larry Bundy Jr, to learn some exclusive secrets about the upcoming series. Also - hey - I've filmed a short introductory video by way of an apology for my absence. Please blow me kisses.
Before I leave you to your August, here's one final Digitiser Letters Page. Think of it like a sort of unwanted "going away" present, like a bad perfume, or a dog's spine, or a trowel, or something. If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com ![]() "Hi, guys. Louis Pasteur here - the microbial fermentation dude! Do you remember when real-time strategy games were massive? "I can't say I do - I mean, I died in 1895. However, I'm reliably informed that RTS games are still around, though the days when an RTS would be considered a major, triple-A, blockbuster release are long gone. You know: like rabies and anthrax are long gone, following my invention of the vaccines and stuff. "I mean, I don't want to blow my own trumpet. I just worry that all my great work has been forgotten. Has it been forgotten? Please let me know in the comments. I hope I don't sound too needy!!!! "Anyway. Look: here's a quick history of the evolution of this most point-and-clicky of genres. Remember to leave me a message in the comments, guys. Thanks, guys." Because I'm a walloping great moron, I bought Skyrim for my Switch last week. I'd played it when it first came out some years ago, and stuck with it long beyond the point where my interest had condensed into animosity.
I remember the moment at which I finally snapped; I'd ascended some mountain or other, and kept dying. Eventually, the final, fraying thread of my enjoyment came apart, and I admit that I may have sworn like a taxi driver as I quit the game in a blind convulsion of rage. Everything up until then had felt like a slog, reminding me of the times my parents would drag me along to their friends' houses for a gruelling marathon of smalltalk. I'd sit there, minutes tightening into weeks, while they intoned about, I dunno, wallpaper and work. Typically I'd retreat into my own head for respite. On one occasion, I became so lost in some ridiculous imaginary scenario that I burst out laughing and spat a mouthful coleslaw all over the hosts' dinner table. Which, on the plus side, so embarrassed my parents that they concluded subsequently that I was old enough to look after myself while they went out. Frankly, if that's what I'm doing while trying to play a video game, then I have to accept that the video game might not be for me. Indeed, the most fun I'd had up until the point I stopped allowing Skyrim to ruin my life, was running around a village in my pants... having thrown all my clothes and armour onto the roof of a house. "Art" imitating life... ![]() "Wotcha, pillocks! Gordon 'Swearing' Ramsay here. Unquestionably, The Bitmap Brothers were one of the highest profile game fakking studios in Britain during the late-80s and fakking 90s - one of the original 'rock star' games studios. This is why I've been asked to present this listicle - because I'm the original 'rock star' chef. Whatever that fakking means. "Unfortunately, I recently opened a new boating lake, and some of the rental pedalos are staying out beyond their allotted fakking hire period. So, I'm going to have to try and sort that out while giving you a brief overview of The Bitmaps' history. "Of course, the company's immediately identifiably, chunky, visual style - basically, no hard fakking edges - was matched by the quality of their fakking games. Rarely did the company dabble in the same genre more than once - beyond a sequel or two - and they were one of the few reasons fakking console owners looked enviously at the fakking Amiga. "Alas, the Bitmaps - led by MD Mike Montgomery - haven't developed a brand new game since 2003 (though ports of some of its most iconic titles have appeared on smartphones). That's a fakking shame, in this era of homogenised triple-A releases. "Here's a brief celebration of their finest fakking achievements. Come in number 9, your time is fakking up! Fakking liberty. Fakk's sake." So, next weekend - the 11th and 12th of August - sees Play Expo come to London. Pretty much everyone who's anyone in the retro gaming community will be there. With one exception.
Unfortunately, I've had to cancel my scheduled appearance. Suffice to say, I'm more than a bit gutted, but it is, sadly, unavoidable. I'm especially sorry to everyone who was hoping to see me there, and disappointed that I'm not able to hang out with everyone. That said, the rest of the Digitiser The Show hosts will be in attendance. See if you can get a selfie with them. In other news, this - right here - is the penultimate Friday Letters Page. After next Friday I'll be taking a couple of weeks off to try and recuperate from what has been an unusually busy year, before launching into a busy - but Digi-centric - autumn. There are some jolly exciting things on the way... If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com Following the release of Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega's Sonic Team - headed up by Yuji Naka - became a byword for real sweet stuff. Unfortunately, that reputation gradually withered, until it reached a point where the perception was that Sonic Team would just pump out any old shit with Sonic's face on it.
Nicely, Sonic Team is undergoing something of a re-evaluation in the wake of Sonic Mania - which it supervised, probably. That must be especially nice for them, given that their most recent fully-developed game, Sonic Forces, was about as much fun as forcing a push-pin into your own forehead. But hey - Sonic Team isn't all about Sonic. Here are 10 Sonic-less games - barring the Puyo Puyo sequels it has worked on, because... reasons - which were produced by Naka's heirs. Ha ha; knacker hairs. ![]() "Hello, everyone. I'm Feargal Sharkey. You probably remember me as the lead singer of The Undertones, and my 1985 solo hit, A Good Heart. I'm here today to... oh! Oh, fuck shit, guys! There's a fuckin' wasp in here! "Typical. I always used to enjoy adventure games, and was hoping to lead you through this list of some of the greatest point-and-click adventures ever released. "Unfortunately, it looks like now I'm going to have to spend the whole time dealing with this fuckin' wasp. "...Stop telling me not to swear, mammy! There's a fuckin' wasp in here! God, I really hope it doesn't sting me on the fuckin' butthole!" |
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