the digitiser friday letters page

Letters, letters, letters, letters, letters, letters, letters, letters... BATMAN! 

See the above image? Sneak peek at something that's being made for Digitiser The Show. You may recognise the face, even though you're likely more used to her appearing in blocky, teletext-o-vision. Some of you may also be very happy with who has agreed to provide her voice for a number of Digitiser The Show on-location reports... But aaaanyway...

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

HAIRLESS WHISPERS
All things come to an end. My having hair for example. And my working in a brilliant job is finishing tomorrow (today when you read this). 

As a result my year-long Switch holdout has also come to an end. That's due to the fact I have a commute to that London every day and time to kill each day on the train. 

Where to start though? Ostensibly my purchase was bought with my four year old son in mind too so Mario Odyssey was the first game I bought.

Mario Kart is another obvious choice as I've not played it since the 3DS incarnation. Zelda is another but I'm holding out for a cheap copy.

Skyrim I finished on 360, the same with Puyo Tetris on Xbox One. 

And that online store is a horror show. Coming from the Xbox & PS4 I'd have thought things would have improved from the 3DS in terms of content. But if anything it's got worse. 

They're missing a trick by not having a Virtual Console, I'd happy buy Super Mario World for the umpteenth time. WiiU ports must also be technically possible too.

What to do? I suppose there's PS4 reviews to be getting on with too. :)

Worse problems to have I suppose. 

Either way, my initial impressions are good and things can only get better on Switch. 
Ian

Yes. Switch is nice. Press reveal to see what else is nice.

REVEAL:

SMASH
So, I smashed the screen of my iPhone - face down on the bathroom tiles, if you please - this week and got it replaced in one of those high street computer repair shops for £80 rather than £150-odd at the Apple Store.

I am convinced it is now hugely inferior to my old screen, both in terms of touch sensitivity and range of colours (although everyone else tells me I’m wrong and it’s just the same). Could it be so, Biffo? Have Apple won this round?

Richard

Have you tried putting it in a bowl of rice?

THE WONG TROUSERS
I miss Armstrong Wong. 

Thank you for your time.
James x

We all miss Armstrong Wong. I was going to get him to do a second video, but he'd disappeared off of Fiverr... :-(

RE: CRUIT
I was thinking about the Digitiser Show the other day, and I started wondering how you recruited people to be the co-hosts and guests. I imagine it was probably a bit like the Dirty Dozen where you picked the baddest people from some kind of Youtube prison.
Stringfellow Hawke

It was nothing like that. I simply sent poison to a random sample of 1,000 people, and just went with the ones who survived.

COLOUR ME BADD
Firstly, a massive congratulations on an extremely successful Kickstarter campaign. 

I didn't contribute anything, but that's not because I don't think it's going to be awesome; I'm in the process of buying a new home, have just bought a new car and my finances are in tatters. 

Good luck making what I'm confident will be a defining moment for all of those involved, and indeed video games coverage at large - it's important work you're doing!

I've recently swapped my PS4 for an Xbox One. Initially this had been only a temporary measure for my brother and I to enjoy pastures greener (or bluer for PS4 (sorry)).

I'm an absolute idiot for Carcassonne and once I started playing it again I couldn't let it go but enough about that, what did I make of the Xbox One?

Ultimately it's a bag of stinky pants. The Windows 10 interface is a poor fit for a console, and it lags like a deathrow inmate on their way to a 4 in the morning wee (No.1).

I've played Halo 4 on it - for about 10 minutes. Sea of Thieves is not 'hitting' for me, and Cupboy, though absolutely gorgeous, is just a load of tedious poo (No.2) that reminds me why Nintendo are better at this sort of thing than anybody else. Lucky Tails? That games is a great reminder of how making decent games isn't easy. Shocking stuff.

My son had a game of FIFA on it - compared to the PS4 it looked last gen, but was in fact a newer year than his previous PS4 one.

But then GTAV opened my eyes to something... something wonderful. So wonderful in fact that I think I actually prefer the Xbox One to the PS4.

COLOUR.

You see, I'm a bugger for some colour. It's right up there with peanut butter.... sweet mercy, colour is such a fanciful treat to behold and, get this, the Xbox One has colour for days! The PS4 is so muted by comparison; erring on washed out. To my mind this makes games on the Xbox One pop harder than a dirty great cyst.

Put simply, the Xbox One makes games look fun again; like how they used to look at the arcade.

Do you or any of your gentle friends have an opinion on this?
DEAN

Having not had the benefit of comparing the same game on two different systems, I don't really have an opinion on this. Have you played Horizon Zero Dawn on the PS4 though? That's a nice, colourful game.

I've yet to play Sea of Thieves or Cuphead, despite having been very much looking forward to both of them. By all accounts they've disappointed to some extent. Thus: not gonna bother, yeah?

THE FINAL NURDLE
As you will of course know I'm kind of a big deal these days and was wondering what are the best steps to take in order to ensure that my transplextion nurdle flaget is protected at all times?
​
This has been of worry to me for some time now and I hope you can help me find the best solution.

Thanks in advance,
Gubbins

This is great and everything, and I'm really pleased you wrote in, but I don't really know what to say.

SPYROTECHNICS
With the recent announcement of the Spyro Reignited trilogy, and my utter apathy, I must ask am I alone in being far more interested in the Medieval remaster and your thoughts on the return of our man Dan.

Also are Cheese and Onion the most disgusting crisp flavour or is there a worse one?
Emily Green.

Cheese & onion, in my opinion, are generally unpleasant, with one exception: Waitrose cheese & onion. If you've ever had their own-brand crisps, they're all massively over-salted, and the amount of cheese & onion flavouring they put on is absurd. Somehow it's so extreme that it transcends the usual stinky breath-ness of C&O and makes them worthwhile.

Medievil remastered? Yes, I'm looking forward to that. Though the series is now inexorably linked in my head to my driving instructor, who was obsessed with the first one. When I passed the test, I gave him my Digitiser review copy of Medieval 2, because he'd told me he couldn't afford to buy it, on account of his divorce.

He also turned up at my house once for an unscheduled lesson, not on the usual day, after I'd been on a trip to the Science Museum with my daughter's class (where I paid a boy 50p to give himself an electric shock). I was certain that I didn't have a lesson scheduled for that day, because I knew I was doing the school trip.

Malcolm's response? "I know I wouldn't have made a mistake."

BUDGET GAME
Both readers eagerly anticipating Digitiser: The Game will be pleased to hear that there is now an official page hosting development news:

http://arbitraryfiles.com/games/dtg/devdiary_001.html

Can I have my £2.99 now?
David W

Go - go now! Go and read about David's many labours to bring to you this gaming necessity!

TAPPED OUT
How are you? I saw you had a lack of letters this week so thought I'd get one typed up. I say typed, I'm on my phone so it's more tapped. 

Anyway, a thought I've been having that's really boring. Them games like Gone Home, What Remains of Edith Finch and the like keep getting called walking simulators, which is a bit reductive and derisory. Do you think there's a better name for them? I asked people on Twitter but they ignored me. I'm split between exploration narrative game and first person looter.

Anyway, hope this helps fill out your letters page. Looking forward to that Digitiser show. I hope it has bums in it and maybe some form of lewdness.
Anthont

Yeah, I don't like that they're called walking simulators. That's a stupid name for them. That's like calling any movie without action in it a "walking film".

BABY-LESS
I do not care that there is a new royal baby. But the fact I am keen to point this out makes me worry that I do care.
 
Now I’m wondering if I do indeed care about there being a new royal baby, or conversely I just care about people caring whether or not I do care about there being a royal baby.
 
So if I don’t care about it, but I care enough to attempt to not care, does this suggest I do in fact care?
 
Or am I just jealous that I can’t live in a palace for free.
 
Yours faithfully,
Octav1us Kitten

You're the second Digitiser the Show co-host to write to Digitiser in recent weeks. What's going on?! You can send me emails and Twitter messages you know. You don't have to communicate through these pages.

Anyway, ​I think you care about the wider context. You don't care about the baby itself per se, but our society's reaction to it, and you care about how you're perceived. Which is interesting, because it's about how you perceive people who do care about the Royal baby. What do you see in them that you fear others will see in you? And why does that matter to you?

You know we're not going to have this level of intellectual discourse on the show, right?  

STRESS RESPONSE
A year or so ago I decided to quit my job and go back to university. I still have a project to complete over the summer, but today I finished my last exam. Please for to telling me the most stressed you ever have being.
​
Kindest regards,
Gerard

Hmm. Most stressed I've ever been? I think it was about 8 years ago, when the kids show I was working on, Dani's House, had two series commissioned at once, and both of them had to be filmed in a year. I was down to write 10 episodes overall, and it nearly killed me.

I ended up going on an American road trip with my dad in the middle of it all to try and unwind. It was fine, but I got scarlet fever while I was there, and had to get an injection in my bottom in a little Navajo medical centre in the middle of the desert. 

I was also incredibly stressed in the run up to the Block Party/Digifest in 2016. So stressed, in fact, that I gave myself gastritis, and had to have a garden hose shoved down my throat.

Also: I was very, very stressed a couple of weeks ago, around the end of the Kickstarter. I have yet to get ill from this. I'll keep you posted.

COPPED OFF
Just a quick one, have you ever copped heat from "The Man" for using the Digi name and logo etc.?
​
Just wondered if the soulless big business bread head types would try and bully the little guy (i.e. You) into changing it into something else?

A Rose by any other name would smell just as sweet etc etc etc which is funny because your name is Paul Rose.
James Walker

There's a bit of history to this. Shortly after Teletext left our telly screens, I contacted them with a view to buying the Digitiser brand. Twice. They never replied to me.

​When I started this site, I obviously gave it the "2000" bit at the end, in a sort of "Bobby Gee's Buck's Fizz" copyright-avoiding way. Not that I think Teletext - or its owners - ever had any sort of interest in the brand. I mean, it's so inextricably linked to me, they'd be stupid to try and resurrect it with somebody else (he says, arrogantly).

But anyway, a couple of months ago I applied for the trademark, had it provisionally accepted, and now there's a waiting period (which is nearly over, I think) in which Teletext can object. Though providing nobody does... Digitiser is mine - all mine!!!!!!

RIP RICK DICK'
Well, today brought some sad news - Rick Dickinson, Sinclair's industrial designer died this week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43907248

I am a late owner of a Spectrum, which I do think is a nicely designed machine (apart from those rubbery keys). I did buy a Z88, which I used in anger throughout my university times for essay writing, and the thing just looked so damn good, as well as having decent keyboard for a portable machine at the time (and ran off 4 AA batteries too).

​It's a shame he never lived to see the release of the cased Spectrum Next, which is under production at the moment. That's one lovely looking machine.
Paul Dunning.

Yep. Very sad. I'll likely do a bit of a tribute to him on Digitiser next week.

TIT' FIGHT
You were desperate for letters so here we go.
 
I was going to write a moan about TSB but you’re probably sick of all that.
 
So instead I’ll agree with your point from the other day about how something as tragic as the sinking of the Titanic can now be a naff arcade game and no-one bats an eyelid.

I wonder if it’s when everyone involved has passed on? Seems that for some the first thing they think of is that awful film, rather than an actual historical event. I remember when the Costa Concordia went down there were reports of people saying “Ooh it’s just like that film Titanic”, though that might be apocryphal. Have a great weekend.
Chris Dyson

The thing I find odd about the Titanic, is how tiny it was in comparison to modern cruise ships. I've been on a few cruises now, and the ships are ridiculously huge. 

On one of them we went to a restaurant where the chef cooks the food on a hotplate in front of you, and throws eggs into his hat and stuff. We had a chef who informed us that if an egg has one yolk "It's a girl, if it has two yolks it's a boy, and if it has no yolks it's a gay". 

On the another cruise, we watched a show by a Spanish musical comedy trio, who appeared to go insane and started throwing raw eggs at audience members.

That's the main thing about cruises: lots of egg memories.

THE 50 Q'S OF WHYTE
1.  I really like the new God of War and it almost gives me hope that what I think of as being the best games i.e. single-player experiences are going to disappear any time soon. Almost everything about it is brilliant, but...

So far there hasn't been a moment in it (I'm not finished it yet) that makes me feel the way that the best moments of the original games did, especially the first two. No, they weren't realistic but they had a sheer ferocity that nothing else I've ever played can match. Change was, in this case, necessary but not all good, despite the new game's undoubted quality.

2. Speaking of God of War, it spawned a really good and incredibly unlikely clone in Dante's Inferno. What is your favourite rip-off of another game?

3. From a creative point-of-view, do Nintendo need to be a hardware manufacturer? I ask because I cannot lose the feeling that something that made Sega special was lost when they stopped manufacturing consoles. In theory it shouldn't matter but I think a XBox Mario would be strange although Mario was originally multi-platform (I think) so maybe it wouldn't matter.
John  Whyte

1. I completely, and utterly agree with you on these points.

2. Favourite rip-off of another game? Hmm. Probably... Resident Evil. Which was a rip-off of Alone In The Dark, and nobody ever took it to task.

​3. I also agree with this. Imagine if Nintendo had left hardware behind after the GameCube. It scarcely bears thinking about. Whatever you think of the Wii, Wii U and Switch at least they weren't just identikit black slabs.