Guest post by Larry Bundy Jr
The creation of a video game can be long and arduous, especiall designing the characters themselves,. Not every protagonist can be a brooding, gravelly voiced slap-head! But the hardest thing to come up with is simply what the character will be called.
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Here’s a smidgen of well known video game characters that started this world with completely different names…

I feel the need to say something sincere and gushing about this final episode - and I'll try at the end here - but Digitiser has consumed my life for the past four months, editing day in day out, and I'm just... I'm ready to stop.

It's a weird thing, but writing affects me in a completely different way to editing. With scripts, when I've finished a first draft, say, my brain feels compressed, and like it's overheating, but with editing... I just get tired. So, so tired. 

Without wanting to tempt fate, I'm hopeful that now we know what the format is, series 2 is going to be a little easier. Certainly, I'm not sure I'd take on all of the editing myself again. Aside from anything, I didn't get paid for doing that, and I still need to cover the bills. So, that's something we're going to have to budget for as and when we do more. 

When will we do more? Well, we've promised two more specials next year and a live show, so there are those to think about, but the sensible thing to do would be to try and get everything to coincide with a longer filming block for a series 2. How quickly we're able to do that does depend on the sort of budget we have to play with. If I can get paid for doing the show, I can take on less of my day job over the coming year. That would be ideal.

You can help though by backing me on Patreon; from now on Patreon will not only fund this site, but further videos on the channel, on a regular basis.

Anyhow, for now... here's my behind-the-scenes commentary on the final ep of Series 1. Beware: SPOILERS!

A games controller is everything. It's the interface between the player and the game, and - arguably - the most iconic hardware element of any console. It's telling that Nintendo has kept that classic d-pad design, and the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 joypads are direct evolutionary descendants of the original Xbox and PlayStation controllers.

And yet... when a controller goes wrong, it can go very wrong. and not even the big boys and girls of the games industry always get it right. Here are 10 big name controllers which really should've been better.

Prepare your sacred cows for a battering! 

I still remember the first time I spilled my eyes on a PlayStation, months before its release, hidden from syrupy fingers within a perspex box at a trade show. It looked - and still looks - gorgeous, losing none of its design classic status in this: its new shrunk-down form.

As is the trend for these miniature "classic" machines, the PlayStation Classic offers an HDMI cable, USB controllers, and... no AC adaptor. The latter doesn't bother me much - I've plenty of spare USB power plugs lolling around - but it needs mentioning if only to point and cackle at everyone who has thrown their toys out of the pram over something so insignificant. 

If that's the sort of issue which fuels your boiler then congratulations: you've clearly got nothing else to worry about in your life. 

Of course, this reproduction minikin offers a wad of old games; 20, in fact. Indeed, in some respects, the PlayStation Classic has more of a reason to exist than the Super NES, NES and Commodore 64 minis, given that PlayStation games are something more of a faff for the average pleb to get working with an emulator. 

Because, let's be blunt here, these mini consoles are not for the hardcore retro enthusiast (not that this stops the hardcore complaining). We know you can shove ALL THE GAMES into a Raspberry Pi. We know you like playing on the original hardware. These machines are for those gamers who remember enjoying a PlayStation back in the day, and will appreciate a quick nostalgia fix, before shoving the thing under the telly come December 27th, never to touch it again. 

We're into the final stretch now. Next Sunday, Digitiser the Show comes to the end of its first run, and I think it's fair to say that over the course of the past five episodes we've come a long way. We've definitely established what the show is, won many of you over who weren't convinced by the first episode, and talked about old games - a lot. 

I'm immensely proud of this series. The amount of work it has taken is above and beyond what I could've predicted, but we delivered exactly what we promised. I'll save the real thankyous for next week, but a quick shout-out to Paul, Jenny, Octav1us and Larry, who are the glue which hold it all together on-screen.

You can't underestimate what a daunting prospect this must've been for them - to walk into a studio of people they barely knew, with immense pressure on them to be informative, funny, and professional. Jenny and Octav1us had never done anything remotely like this before, but you simply wouldn't know.

You're extremely exposed in a situation like that - especially in this day and age - where it's your face on screen. Putting yourself out there takes a huge amount of bravery. The fact that they overcame all that and performed not just adequately, but brilliantly, is genuinely humbling. I don't take it for granted.

Anyway... let's take a look behind-the-scenes of Episode 5.... BEWARE: SPOILERS!

Oh, and incidentally, if you're wondering where Episode 1 has gone to, I've taken it down temporarily so that we can fix the sound and frame-rate issues. It does mean we'll lose all those lovely views, but - let's face it - half of them were from wankers anyway. 

Sunday night. 9pm. The penultimate episode of Digitiser Series 1. This one is something of a guest-fest, with Ashens, Imran Yusuf, John Robertson, Dan Maher, Quang from Asobi-Tech and DJ Slope.

As others have correctly pointed out, the show has very much found its groove now. If you, or anyone you know, drifted away after the first ep or two... it's time to give it another chance. The most gratifying thing after last week's episode was seeing people talking about games off the back of it. That's when I knew we'd gotten the balance right. 

In the words of Sonic The Hedgehog, this weeks ep is "A good 'un!"

Interestingly, Ep 5 was the quickest one yet to edit - and I've realised that it's because I'm doing less experimenting with the format. And, also, I'm getting a bit of help with the sound and colour grading. Which is just as well, as this week my battered adrenal glands finally gave out, after a month or two of threats, and I succumbed to The Cold. 

So, one last ep next week - the big series finale. Which, in true end-of-the-series fashion, brings back everything you've loved so far...

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, or you've got a picture of a bin you wish to share, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
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GUEST REVIEW BY SUPER BAD ADVICE

Museums are pretty great – where else can you see dinosaur skellies, poorly taxidermised cross-eyed apes and probably cursed mummies in the same place? What’s not great, though, is going to a museum with someone who insists on taking in every word of every single information panel.
 
You know the sort: while you want to move on to the T. Rex and that bit where you can pull levers and make a dented ping-pong ball go down a pipe to represent nuclear fission, they’ll be reading a novel-length epic about a lump of bauxite in a dusty corridor that hasn’t been visited in decades.
 
Worse still, they’ll even linger to read plaques in the human reproduction exhibit, right in front of the disturbingly hirsute nudey models who look like they’re from that ‘funny yoga’ book you found under your mum and dad’s bed in 1982. Perverts.
 
Now, imagine that you’re with 3 or 4 people like that, and you ALL have to read the information boards before you’re allowed to move on whether you like it or not. Does that sound like fun? Does it, Dennis? Of course it doesn’t. So you’ll be as delighted as I was to discover that this craptacular gaming mechanic has inexplicably been made an integral part of Fallout 76’s multiplayer experience.

​Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Of all the original PlayStation icons, Spyro the Dragon was one that I never expected to endure. Somehow, the character - albeit eventually coming to be buried beneath a coagulation of fellow dish-eyed cartoon characters - saw his series evolve into the long-running Skylanders franchise, despite having all the distinctness and personality of a clog that somebody had scrawled the word "DUDE" on in biro.

Despite that, when my kids were little, Spryo was something of a fixture in our household.

​My youngest daughter was never big into games, but the Spyro series (and, later, Kameo: Elements of Power) were her games. Consequently, the splashback nostalgia she still radiates has given me a sort of latent sentimentality towards the Spyro series.

She's 22 now, but even asked for a second-hand PS1 and a copy of Spyro for Christmas last year. Naturally, I was happy to oblige, given that she usually just wants crystals, and dreamcatchers, and all that shit. Though I have noticed that they now do a Spryro incense burner, which is a surprising confluence of things she's into.

Actually, for £29.99 they can fuck off. She can have socks.

It's getting better and better isn't it? For me, last night's ep of Digitiser is the best one yet. In terms of balance between all-out stupid stuff, chemistry between the hosts, and talking about games, it absolutely nails it. 

We know we've already won back a few people who buggered off after ep 1, but the general consensus seems to be that, well, people just want more. In all honesty, I don't know what happens after the series ends.

At the moment all I can think about is the next couple of episodes, and then taking a break, but just know that we would love to build on what we've achieved, and we're open to suggestions as to how we fund it. I'm a bit off the notion of doing another Kickstarter at the minute... 

For now, the best thing you can do is tell people about this show. We've found a core, passionate, audience - but there have to be more people out there who'd love this. We're well aware that we've made something very special here. 

Anyhow. Time to reveal some of these: secrets.

If you've yet to see the episode, be aware that this article contains spoilers...