THE DIGITISER2000 FRIDAY LETTERS PAGE

Another Friday means another this: Digitiser2000 Friday Letters Page. As you read these words, I'll be hard at work on location either filming Found Footage or preparing to film Found Footage. Or I'll have died.

Comedy.

Rest assured, normal Digitiser2000 service will be resumed in a week or two. Who knows? I might even get around to reviewing Mass Effect: Pingu Mouths.

Anyhow, if you would like to appear on next week's page, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone - please send your emails for next week to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com

TAXMAN COMETH
I have woken up. It appears to be before noon. What is this business? As I look about I see other people are awake. Has this always been the case? Is this how people do all this 'tax evasion' I hear about on the radio?
A Passing Drunk

You need to sleep 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you want to evade tax altogether. Although if enough people tried that, They'd probably try and tax sleeping too. Who are "They"? The Illuminati, duh.

THE QUOTE BOAT
How do you feel about fans of your work quoting it or mimicking the distinct language that you use?  Would you have objection to people doing Found Footage fan/speculative fiction? Likewise cosplay?  As you previously stated you definitely didn't want people sending you sketch scripts and the like.
Glyn Heaviside

I don't mind people quoting stuff I do, or trying to emulate it at all. Or, indeed, engaging in cosplay or fan fiction-y type things. It's incredibly flattering, and I bloody love it.

The only time it has grated a bit is if people do something that apes me, but don't make it clear that it isn't me doing it. Or if somebody rips off one of my ideas wholesale. That does "rasp my zither" somewhat. I'm very happy to be considered an influence; it's honestly an enormous privilege to get told I've been that for someone. Plus, Lorbbus alone knows I wear my own myriad influences on my shroud.

​The only reason I didn't want to be sent scripts and stuff is purely a time issue, really. I've got about five jobs and about fifty kids, and I just don't have enough hours in my day to read everything that everyone might want to send me. Or, more to the point, I hate disappointing people, so I'd try to read the stuff and then be left with less time to do everything else. Or I'd put off reading it because I'm busy elsewhere, and spend all my time fretting that I've let somebody down.

It's also part of the reason I don't have a lot of guest posts on here anymore: if I open the doors completely to people submitting guest articles, reading them is all I'd spend my life doing. And then my family would hate me, and I'd mess up my work, and I'd be alone and unable to pay the bills. Or somebody might send me something that's awful, and I'd have to let them down, and they'd hate me for it.

Plus, I think people mostly support this site to read stuff from me. So on them very rare occasions when I do feature a guest post... it's me cherry-picking.

Also: if you want to get on Digi2000... that's what the letters page is for! Hello! 

MORGUE-MAN FREE-MAN
Today I drove 130 miles to collect a massive printer that was needed for my work. It was kept in an old hospital morgue which is now our storage room.

The only reason I volunteered myself for this particular job was that I couldn't find Persona 5 in stock anywhere, except a particular Argos in the middle of nowhere, and my online preorder failed because the card they have stored against my account has expired.

​I didn't update the account because I can't remember what I have preordered across all the different sites I've used in the past. I don't want to end up with another utility room full of Street Fighter 4 Tournament Edition fighting sticks or, even worse, a copy of Mass Effect Andromeda.

​What's the furthest you've gone or the most effort you've wasted just to avoid having to wait a bit longer to get a game or console?
NDrinks

P.S. The printer is still in my car. I'm 95% confident that the box isn't full of really old body parts, but it was bloody heavy and it wouldn't fit in the boot.
​
P.P.S. Yes, I was a terrible child in the run-up to Christmas. I still feel bad for what my parents likely put up with.

Uh... well, I'm sure I've told this story before, but I repeatedly stole my copy of Ultimate Play The Game's Underwurlde out of my mother's bedroom, and played it to death before Christmas Day. Consequently, I had to pretend to be surprised when I unwrapped it.

​I think that's about it; risking the wrath of my mother.

P OF F
First things first... do you want/need these letters from me? My paranoia and anxiety keeps jumping up, thinking you'd rather not have to deal with the loony who keeps changing his pen name but always brings up Party of Five. So, if you could clear that up for me, that'll be swell. (For about ten minutes, because that's how long my anxiety usually stays sedated).

OK, something else so this isn't a complete downer. Oh, I know! In response to your article on Gaming Controversies You Never Saw Coming: Do you know why PETA hates videos games so much? Because this is getting ridiculous now.

​I remember when they campaigned against Super Meat Boy because the main character was made of meat, and they responded to Cooking Mama by making a parody game where the sweet Mama was a animal slaughtering psychopath. 

I am as much a supporter of being nice to animals as the next guy (To the extent somebody can be while still eating meat) but hating on Mario for the cutesty Tanooki suit? I suspect these PETA guys are the real psychos, not Cooking Mama. I am just curious on your views on this, hoping they will be morally sound, but also hilarious. No pressure.
St. Jones of Oxbridge or Cambridge or Some Sort of Bridge

Well yes. Please keep sending letters. Somebody was a bit snarky to me about the letters page the other day, and suggested I drop it, but it's one of my favourite parts of the Digi week. We never get as many hits on a Friday, but I hope I'm not alone in loving it.

As you probably noticed, since receiving your letter I wrote a piece about the PETA gaming protests. In all honesty, I don't know enough about PETA to really have an opinion on their utter madness, but a lot of people seem to think they're at the Malcolm X-end of the vegetarian scale. Basically, they promote the cause inadvertently by making more moderate vegans and vegetarians seem more acceptable to meat-eaters. You know: because they do mental things like rant about Pokemon promoting cruelty to animals.

I dunno. I'd really like to go full-on vegetarian, but I struggle to break the meat habit. Plus, not being the biggest fan of many vegetables, I know what'd happen: if I stopped eating meat I'd just end up eating all sorts of crap, and probably expire.

That doesn't answer your question. And I don't care.

AND THE WREST'
How do! Did you watch Wrestlemania?  If so, what did you think?
Jim Leighton (Future World Darts Champion) x

I didn't watch Wrestlemania, and therefore don't think anything about it one way or another. I really hope this puts an end to the ceaseless speculation.

ALL HANDS ON DETEC'
Has there ever been a decent console detective game (not including point and click PC ones)? I'd love something in the vein of Nordic Noir (The Bridge, The Killing, Wallander etc.) or Broadchurch. Lots of characters, lots of motives. 

Obviously it would live or die by the quality of the narrative, but I could see someone like The Chinese Room doing a decent job. Seems to me a style of game that could thrive under the banner of "walking simulators" and their ilk.

I played Heavy Rain, which is the only thing I've ever felt came close, but some of the gameplay was a bit mental... like that rocking the baby to sleep thing.

Anyway, good idea? Or should I shut my stupid, hairy face?
Susan
​
P.S. Since I haven't been particularly silly in my letter, I shall be so now. Ahem... Anyone want to buy a copy of my new pamphlet "How to Bum a Wasp?"

A decent console detective game? Uh... yeah, probably. I'm sure someone will comment below with some suggestions. I'll say this though: Heavy Rain was a steaming pile of old shit, and anybody who wants to argue about it can fight me.

GAMING MILL'S LETTER
I was in hospital yesterday. I had to see some sort of doctor (I don't know what sort of doctor she was) and I need surgery on my foot it seems. However, I need to have an MRI scan on it first so the surgeon actually knows what's up with it. Quite disconcerting, the fact he said I need surgery, but they don't actually really know know what's up with it.

I was also made to have a blood test whilst I was in there. I had to wait nearly two hours for it and I don't like hospitals (who does, unless you work there?) and was getting increasingly nervous to the point I was visibly trembling.

When I finally left and drove home (which didn't help my foot) I had to go for a pint in my local. Donna, the barmaid, asked if I was okay because I was still shaking. I only managed about a third of my pint then had to get a taxi home. The shaking made me look like I'd been drinking heavily for the last 48 hours which didn't help.

The worst thing about it though was the fact that it dawned on me in the blood clinic bit of the hospital that I've got a really bad fear of supernovae - I have recurring nightmares about stars dying and exploding. It was then that I realised that it wasn't the hospital making me nervous but the fact I was sitting there, waiting, and the death stars were playing on my mind.

I shouldn't have left my phone in the car - I would have had something to do rather than sit there worrying, looking at loads of ill, odd looking people for two hours with my fear of dead stars playing on my mind.

I was going to say I am fit and strong and that is all but it seems I'm not. Still, it'll be fixed then I'll be good again.
Gaming Mill.

P.S. It cost me eight quid in car park fees. Eight quid!

Well I quite like hospitals - so long as they're not too hot.

HANDWRITTEN IN BLOOD

The obvious answer would be "Beatles music", but... I'd like to think The Beatles would get Marillion to do the soundtrack. Ha ha. HA HA. HA HA?

Incidentally, did you see the meme that went round a few weeks back about people suddenly realising that The Beatles is a pun? What the hell is wrong with everyone?! It's the most obvious pun of all time. You only just realised that it's a pun?! Now? They're the biggest musical act of ever, and you never noticed the spelling of Beatles? 

Here's a funny name The Beatles could use if they ever feel like making an undercover comeback: The Peetles!!!! Also: here's a funny name that the people who didn't realise that The Beatles is a pun might like to call themselves: Massive Idiots.

G-SPOT
Dear Biff-o-rama. I wanted to send you a letter but, in all honesty, I’ve not much to say this week. Certainly nothing amusing, witty or insightful.

So attached is a sketch of Clarendon’s lower-case ‘g’, which (as I’m sure you’ll agree) is the very finest of letters.
James Cooper
aka Mr Jalco
aka El Tirano de Palabras

Turn that G on its side and it looks like a pair of old-timey spectacles. How do ya like them apples?

'STRALIA
Hello Mr. Digitiser. I am a young man from Australia who owns four Japanese arcade candy cabinets that I keep in my garage. I don't read your magazine or anything yet, but I think my credentials here should get me a spot. I have tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment & games behind nothing but a tin roller door. The garage has flooded twice, but my machines have sustained no damage so far. Thanks.
Richter

What?

TAKE A TRIP... TO THE WHYTESIDE!​
1. Which game would you say has had the bigger influence on subsequent games, Mario 64 or Doom (original version)?

2. I remember reading that you are a fan of the Big Tasty, what is your opinion of Nando's?

​3. This is a long shot, but I once saw a game on a BBC Micro where you answered maths questions to increase fuel (I think) for a car to jump over a gap. Does anyone have any idea what it was called?
John Whyte

1. Oh man. That's really hard. I'm going to say Doom, just because you see a lot of FPS games, but very few cartoony 3D platformers. Especially ones with the structure of Mario 64.

2. Right. No. NO! You've got that very wrong. What keeps happening, see, is I keep buying Big Tasty burgers despite hating them. They taste like somebody dropped a load of cigarette ash in Mary Rose sauce and spread it over a stale bit of cardboard. But - presumably because of the name - I keep going back for more. Every single time I regret it.

3. I remember that! I don't remember what it was called. It was one of the games I used to borrow - along with the BBC Micro - from the school my mum worked at. It was very boring. It had maths in it. Why on earth would you want to recall it?

++ PLUG ZONE ++ PLUG ZONE ++ PLUG ZONE ++ PLUG ZONE ++

On April 22nd, Thomas Podmore and his friend Nico are holding a 24-hour charity gaming marathon in support of mental health charity Mind. You'll be able to support them via the Just Giving link below, and tune in to watch their sleep-deprived antics via Twitch.

Says Thomas: "Most of my closer friends and family will know the reason why we're doing this but for those that don't... Aaron was one of my closest and longest friends who sadly passed recently. This was due, in part, to the lack of assistance he had with the depression, anxiety & addiction he was suffering from. 

"Raising money for Mind is just one way we can honour his memory. Another way is by doing a marathon, but because he probably ran a total of 1500 meters in his entire life it will be a marathon doing something he loved. Gaming. 

"So for 24 hours starting at around 10am on Saturday the 22nd we will be gaming non-stop for this cause. "

Click here to support this very worthy cause.