Earlier this year, my wife and I went on a walk.
 
It's not something I do very often, but she loves walking, and every once in a blue moon I'll take one for the team and go on a walk with her. Obviously, I love spending time with my wife, but I find walking - for the sake of walking - a bit sort of, y'know, dull. Regardless, I was determined to prove how devoted I am by doing the walk in full, all the way up to Ivinghoe Beacon, whatever that is, from Tring Station, and back. A distance of just over 10 miles, up and down hills.

I can't say I enjoy the act of climbing a hill, but I do quite like the view from the top of hills. Frankly, it's a shame that escalators are not a natural feature. 

Unfortunately, a mile or two from the end of our walk, something popped in my knees, and I shuffled through the remainder in searing agony, stopping every few steps to wail and shriek, and complain. It must've appeared that I was attempting the equivalent of breaking a dish while doing the washing up, and consequently my wife has sworn off ever going on a walk with me again.

Which I wouldn't be able to do anytime soon anyway, as my knees still haven't recovered.

ANYWAY.

The point of all this is to preface this review of Death Stranding: the new game from heralded "genius" Hideo Kojima. Much has been written about its origins - and it has been fun (for "fun" read: "aggravating") to see games journalists attempting to up their game, and deliver a verdict/thesis that they feel is worthy of this work of high art.

A work of art which is full of product placement for Monster Energy Drink, where the only show on TV is Ride With Norman Reedus, which features a character called Die-Hardman, and co-stars talk show host Conan O'Brien.

Strip away all the eggy guff around Death Stranding - and there's a lot of guff of the eggy variety - and at its heart it's a silly open world game in which you play a sort of postman, who must deliver packages to remote communities in a post-apocalyptic America (which looks like Iceland, and where the only notable company still operating is Monster Energy Drinks). Thus: reconnecting the shattered country.

Yes, it's a walking simulator. And a balancing-packages-on-your-back simulator. And a lot of it isn't even a game at all, but a CGI movie. 

Do you remember the Star Wars films? Do you? Do you remember them? What was your favourite bit of the Star Wars films?

My favourite bit of the Star Wars films was probably all those bits where the characters went sliding down a loooooooong slope. Because that happened a lot in the Star Wars films didn't it? Sometimes it felt like you couldn't go five minutes without Luke Skywalker or one of the other characters sliding down a slope.

They would stand at the top of a loooooooong slope, and then - whoosh! - off they'd go, sliding down it, unable to stop. It happened so often I don't know why they didn't just be done with it and call it Slide Wars!!!!!!

Sometimes though... sometimes in the Star Wars films... there'd also be some big, balloon-like plants, wouldn't there? There would be these plants, and the characters would jump on these plants... and they'd going... BOIIIIINGGGGG!!! And they'd be flung around the place, from one springy alien plant to another, like they were pinballs, or, I dunno... trapped in one of the lesser 3D Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Certainly, these are two of the main things people remember about the Star Wars films: the sliding, and the boing-y plants. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo leaping around, sliding and being catapulted about the place.
​
At least... this is what I am led to believe based upon Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. 

Oh man! We're celebrating five years of Digitiser2000, whatever that is! And here to mark the occasion I offer you a bunch of things that I've created over the last half-a-decade that represents a reasonable cross-section of The Best of That Stuff. 

Starting, of course, with the first proper episode of Mr Biffo's Found Footage, which you can click on above. I miss it. Maybe I'll do something in a similar vein.

WAIT AND SEE.

And if you like that, there's a whole load more of it here. It really should be the most popular thing of all time. 

Next...

Five years ago this week... Digitiser was reborn. Well... sort of. To be honest, I never really saw this site as the actual continuation of Digitiser. It was always going to end up as a sort of hybrid between my old blog and Digi's reviews. 

What it gave me, at first, was an outlet for all the stuff that had been forced to stayed cooped up in my brain for the best part of a decade - and once the cork was off the bottle... well... you only have to look at the insane, three posts-a-day, schedule I was managing when I first started. I had a lot of itches to scratch. 

I did, in the early days, hope Digitiser2000 might take off in its own way, but I realised relatively early on that the site existed in a completely different media landscape to the one the original Digitiser launched in, back in 1993. To stand a chance of breaking through would've required me to kind of compromise on what I wrote, and I fast became aware that I didn't want to do that. 

Truthfully... we don't really get a lot of people reading these days, barring the occasional article which gets some interest outside of the core audience, though any disappointment over that has long since dissipated.

I've tried, on and off, experimenting, but ultimately I had to conclude that I needed to write what I wanted to write, and to hell with trying to compete for clicks, or making the entire point of this site in any way coherent and consistent. 

There have been times - even relatively recently - where I've wondered why I continue in the face of widespread apathy (blunt I know, but there's no real way of dressing it up as anything else), but I think I enjoy the structure it gives me. I like having a schedule to keep to, and I like the mental workout of having to think of what to write. 

And I like that there are at least some people who appreciate it. 

ATTENTION, Americans, Canadians and Dutch people... please pity the rest of us: you've got access to Disney+ four months before the rest of the world. Yes, I know the UK has bigger problems at the minute, but c'mon... we just wanted something nice.

Fact is, it means that Star Wars fans elsewhere in the world are seeing The Mandalorian before the rest of us. That sort of thing used to happen a lot when films were released in America months before we'd get them. Generally, we'd be none the wiser.

But then isn't now, and now we have the Internet, which means we've got four months of avoiding spoilers for the first ever live-action Star Wars TV series. What should've been a moment of celebration for Star Wars fans across the planet has instead given a lot of us the runs.

Disney's Bob Iger has made it clear that, post-The Rise of Skywalker, TV is going to be the focus for Star Wars, at least for a few years, and here's where that is meant to begin. So, I hope you'll forgive us for feeling aggrieved. 

Of course, it's not just Star Wars that Disney is pinning its streaming hopes on: it's also expanding its Marvel Cinematic Universe onto Disney+, with big budget shows featuring characters from the films. Those won't start arriving until next year, so for now there's only one of Disney's tentpole, movie spin-off, shows on the service from launch (unless you're a massive High School Musical fan, or desperate to see the tepid hidden camera series, Pixar In Real Life).

Apparently, it's a licensing issue that's preventing Disney launching in more than three countries, though based upon the issues users had connecting to the service on the first day, it might be as much to do with Disney not wanting to take on more than it can handle.

​Which is fine, but doesn't change the fact that Star Wars fans are a rabid bunch, and we live in an age where things need to be released more or less simultaneously around the globe, or they're either going to be spoiled.

​Or they're going to be pirated. 

In today's world, four months is forever, and I'll admit we're a bunch of entitled, spoilt, arseholes. We know what we want, and think we deserve it now.

I finally got around to seeing Terminator Dark Fate at the weekend. Now, I loved the first two Terminator movies. Controversially, I even sort of don't hate Terminator 3, which has at least one genuinely great action sequence, and an actual, didn't-see-it-coming, twist (spoiler: the Terminator really hates sausages!).

Salvation was slightly better than its reputation, though Genisys was utterly bizarre, and probably the most miscast movie I've ever seen. But... oddly... I don't hate it either, probably because its many, many, many, faults actually make it kind of interesting, in a messed-up way. You know: like a washing machine that discharges a torrent of ghee whenever you parp a horn.

Nonetheless, not one of the movies since T2 has come close to reaching it in terms of greatness. I love The Terminator, but it's a low-budget, punk-y, kind of a film; more horror movie than sci-fi. T2, by contrast, really ushered in the era of the summer action movie, pushing forwards special effects and action... while somehow having characters and a story with a ton of heart. I'd never seen anything like it, and upon release I watched it three times in the space of a week. 

Dark Fate is... it's... kind of... it feels bland. Like a waste of everyone's time. I didn't want to come away feeling like that, but it's nothing to nobody, and I didn't care. 

Fundamentally, it's just a retread of T2, profoundly inoffensive and unremarkable, but at least it's straightforward, and has a couple of really good performances from Mackenzie Davies and Linda Hamilton.

Even if I do have issues with the way they've continued (or not) Sarah Connor's storyline (SPOILER: they kill John Connor - the character the entire franchise has revolved around - in an audaciously throwaway fashion within the first five minutes - thus wiping the slate clean, and removing Sarah Connor's entire motivation... Instead, she just sort of hangs around, uninvited, with no real agenda). 

But I'm not here to talk about whether or not Dark Fate is a good film. I'm not going to get into the weeds of what it gets right and what it gets wrong.

I want to discuss why it has done so abysmally at the box office, because for some of us, on paper, it should've worked: they told us they were ignoring the sequels that everyone has decided were terrible, they brought back the lead from the first two films, James Cameron was back on board (albeit not in a directing capacity).  

And yet... not enough people were interested. It has flopped massively.

​Why? I've got a theory, and it isn't just to do with it being simply an okay sort of a film.

Biffo and Ashens tuck into some of the most bizarre flavours of crisps (or chips if you're from overseas) from around the world - including eel, menthol, and "Hunter's sausage"...

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Guest review by Super Bad Advice

As the famous tag line from the film Alien says, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Which is true, but then it’s also true that no one could hear you play a kazoo, alarm an ombudsman with a powerful erotic dance involving maracas, or emit a ‘bronx cheer’ either.
 
Obviously, the wording chosen is supposed to evoke a very specific sensation that space is scary, deadly and full of real weird stuff (so essentially, like the middle aisle in Lidl but with fewer discount patio sets) rather than just lacking the requirements to transmit sound. But is space really that scary? It’s basically just full of nothing, and even the titular alien itself is no worse than things you get in Australia – a continent so heaving with lethal fauna it’s a wonder the koala doesn’t have a handgun for an anus. Yet people still happily go there on holiday!
 
I think the real worry it’s trying to impart is this: fear of being alone.
 
What with its lack of air, heat, a floor, and branches of Costa, space is a bit rubbish to live in and so very, very few people do – and those that do have to exist sealed up in space stations: essentially giant orbiting caravans where you have to eat baby food, Velcro yourself into bed and poo into a special hoover (mercifully, not simultaneously). 
 
Should things go awry, having no one around to turn to for help while you float about trapped in a tin box surrounded by literally buggerall is obviously a bit rubbish and scary, and that’s the premise behind Observation; a creepy puzzle solver spewed out by the excellent folks at Devolver.

Ghosts. Unh! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again! 

I've said it once already. You really should've been listening.

Seriously: if ghosts do exist (they do not) why are people even scared of them anyway? What do ghosts even do? They just float around moaning and groaning. Frankly, that's most people on social media, and we're not scared of them. They're just annoying.

Ghosts aren't even scary to look at; they're just like regular people, only more transparent. Again, like many on social media...

Oh, I'm on fire today!!!!!

Furthermore, the most scary thing a ghost might do is, I dunno, move a glass, or open a cupboard door, or something. In my house, if somebody leaves a cupboard door open, it's irritating, not terrifying. Also, while I'm at it, if you finish the toilet paper, is it really that much effort to replace the roll for the next person? The spare rolls - and the bin - are right next to the toilet! Are you in that much of a hurry that you can't take five seconds to switch them over, and bin the empty roll?

It's an important issue that needs to be dealt with, but I admit it's a digression that you probably didn't need to know about. Let's move on. 

Thing is, while ghosts apparently aren't scary in actuality (or even real in actuality), the idea that they're scary is so ingrained in our consciousness - through movies, and books, and games like Luigi's Mansion 3 - that even the most supernaturally sceptic among us can, if the conditions are right, get a bit freaked out by the unexplained.

For example...

I can't be arsed with drama, and last night some of you will be aware that I found myself in the middle of a load of it.

Basically, here's what happened: a couple of days ago, the folk on Yogscast did a live stream in which one of them, Simon, chose to portray that absurd new Digitiser character Beanus. They're a huge network - Digi is dwarfed by their millions of viewers - and I found it flattering.

I sort of wrongly assumed they'd give ample shout-outs to the original source of Beanus. And they kind of did mention me a couple of times in the two-and-a-half-hour stream, albeit in a sort of bare minimum, throwaway fashion, I felt.

Certainly throwaway next to the presence of Simon-dressed-as-Beanus throughout the entire stream, during which his stupid catchphrases and characterisation were used wholesale, including during a moment where he was involved in a nod to their sponsor. Which I'd never have agreed to. 

Regrettably, I'd not been contacted about any of it beforehand. The first I knew is when people on Twitter told me about it. 

Bouphe, a fan of Digi, general good egg, and part of the Yogscast team, kindly posted links back to Digi in the chat, but when the Twitch stream was uploaded - probably automatically - in its entirety to YouTube, there was no link to the Digi YouTube channel or... anything.

It felt... I dunno... kind of unfair? Not least because - judging from comments - a lot of their fans had seemed to have missed the whole "Beanus is the intellectual property of Mr Biffo" comments, and took it as given that he was their character. 

I tweeted at Simon and Yogscast to give us a link and maybe retweet our original video... which Simon did, after Bouphe got involved (though he'd already linked to our new Beanus merch on Redbubble, for which I'm grateful). They've also belatedly added a link to Digi's original video, which I appreciate, albeit with the disclaimer that Simon had just dressed up as the character "For Halloween".

Yet it was the fact that fans were thinking Beanus was theirs which sort of pissed me off. And the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I felt. 

Horace: he's the name on the tip of every retro gamer's tongue these days! But who - or what - was Horace?

Created in 1982 by one William Tang, employee of Aussie software house Beam - the creative arm of publisher Melbourne House - Hungry Horace was something of a short-lived sensation.

Tang's game spawned two sequels, before Horace slithered almost completely off the radar for almost 40 years. Buried beneath layers of sediment, formed by the decaying flesh and bones of better ZX Spectrum characters, Horace is remembered merely as something of a joke - a fundamentally terrible character.

Indeed... possibly the worst games character of all time.

And here is why. 

Just like all the best kids' shows, Digitiser needs pets - and in this ep we treat you to our pet sea monkeys, show you how to raise and look after them - and play a game of wriggly worm charades!

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