Bootsale round up.

 First of all a sad farewell to those at the Forest of Illusion game preservation group, it just goes to show how shallow it all is. Cost of living and precious little time to work on preservation was the final nail in this coffin.  News story here. 

In a bizarre twist to this, we went to the boot sale today, no stick with it. Along with a Dell keyboard for £3, (super nice) and a windows 7 back up along with a few other things. I've hit the motherlode of old paper ephemera. 

Chucked out near the bin in one of the green garden waste bags was a load of paper from various computer fairs and things ripped from magazines. I  guess whoever it was that owned them before was really into early 3D. So there are bits and pieces from TV Paint and Lightwave 3D, various rendering leaflets from long dead companies and some glossy brochure from Rare, which is the highlight. I'm guessing its circa 1996 because it has an Ultra 64 logo instead of the released N64. It shows a rendered Diddy and Dixie Kong along with Sabrewulf from Sabrewulf (Killer Instinct), and plugs their Rareware 3D platform. 

Also some weird internet road map that has to have come from a computer show. And yes it's an actual map. 

Jumbo milestone

 I've got nothing really worthwhile to say this week only that this is post 757. I know we should have put up something when we hit 747 posts. But seeing as its a plane milestone have a picture of an old jumbo jet my Granddad took*.

An East African airways jet 1970's

*He lived near Heathrow so has an excuse.

Bubble Bobble 4 Friends review.

Finally got this at a good price (£22 for those that have to know.) And, if the absolute low bar is the execrable PSP version, this ranks somewhere in the middle.

In fact, if anything, it can be summed up with one word, Mid. 

It takes place in some unknown child's bedroom with a toy version of Bub and Hyper Drunk. That come to life, and the various levels seem to be based around the room they are in. The privileged little fucker seems to have a Bubble Bobble arcade cab in his room, and a quick blast confirms that this is still fun . Though how the fuck you get the special ending on Switch lite, when it's only one player is a mystery to me. 

Less fun are the new levels that you have to play with. Gone are the iconic enemies and in their stead are weird little tanks and Lego blocks. A new version of Zen-chan would have been nice as well as Stoner and Beluga. Though the bouncing due on the second level rivals this for sheer cunt levels.  Oh and the first boss is a piece of piss to beat, just stand on the blocks above him and wait till he rams himself into the wall and bubble him till he's fully encased. 

Bubble Trouble.

Which brings us to another thing blocks and scoring. There is no special drug in which to cull off bosses nor do you get any of the regular powerups in a level. The only thing you  get are Extend bubbles which don't give you a 1up but extend the use of powerups you get for beating a boss. 

They're triggered by the shoulder buttons and you can't bubble while crouching. Your basic shot is just a short range attack that is serviceable but not to be fully relied upon. So far I've seen no way to fall through the floor nor trigger element bubbles that were part of the original.  Oh and did I mention that apart from the weird glass floor, you cannot jump through platforms.

Boring scoring.

We finally come to the meat of the problem and it has to be said, its redemption, too. Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is pitched more like a score attack game than the old game. With all special power ups stripped out, and a guaranteed bonus at the end of level (no matching digits here.) Your overall bonus is dependent on the biggest amount of enemies you've bubbled up. Plus the mobilesque end of level bonus with its three star rating and EXTEND bubble log, you are immediately looking for ways to exploit the levels for bigger bonuses. 

Overall. Unless we get a port of Bubble Bobble Neo from the Wii / XBOX 360 or Bubble Memories as an Arcade Archive. This is about the best you can do for the modern era. It's far from perfect but at the same time not a total abomination.

Final score 60%

Um, Forgotten

 Warning this heavily spoils the current series of Unforgotten. 

You all know what this is, its a British cold case television show on ITV with Sanjeev Bhaksar playing a cop Sunny Khan with Nicola Walker as his boss. But she got killed off last season and now there is this unlikeable blond in it.

The case revolves around a woman's body discovered in a house undergoing renovations. There is the usual suspects, I can't be bothered to name them properly.

Tory MP 

Last name is Hume and has terminal cancer. Oh and as soon as they mention Tory in these sort of things you tend to think he did it. (Sort of,) Labour MPs get a free ride in these sort of shows. Anyway his wife is Hayley Mills. 

Ebellie

Co owner of a restaurant and a husband beater. It turns out by some trick of fate that Tory MP raped her mum in the 1960's. Her daughter is the one walled up in the house. And no she never faces any consequences for being a husband beater either. 

Smackhead cunt. 

A smackhead cunt living with his girlfriend, also a smackhead, in a squat. Essentially  fits up the Tory MP for the murder of what turns out to be his mum. 

Tiny Hat Tribe Jowski

A polish Jew, who worked as a social worker for the walled up girl, he moved to France and now works for Amazon. A thief and an upskirter. 

There are your protags and of course it gets much worse. It's still bearable, it was an excellent show at heart but it lays on the politics pretty heavily. Dim witted brexit jabs, check, cuts to funding, check and fuck witted "reparashons and slavery days bollocks" double check.

The theme still remains excellent though and you get to see Heads and Tails Derek Griffiths as a security guard. Shame they had to bring politics into this, as its given cancer to such a good show. 

Devils Paw

 A.K.A. Frank and Joe in the cold north. You know the drill by now, a short review and a couple of DLs to the original texts so you can read along at home.

This is the Hardys in Alaska, hence the tagline. Summoned up by telegram to help Tony Prito's summer job as a ranger on the Kooniak river. They run into poachers and worse a foreign power looking for a fallen rocket. With the help of Ted Sewell, a wildlife tracker looking for his dad and Fleetfoot, a Haida youth, the boys take on these creepy crooks. Oh and Chet comes along as well. 

The first thing you'll note, doing some research on this  is that most of the places and things detailed in this are real things.

The Devil's Paw is a mountain that is on the border of British Columbia and Alaska and looks suitably bleak.

Kotzebue where an Inuit woman comes from, and where the boys gatecrash her wedding when they visit Fleetfoot. is an actual city in the far north of the country. The blanket toss, which sees a hapless Frank propelled high in the air. is also real, and forms part of the Inuit Olympics.

 The part where the gang loot from Indian Grave houses is kind of true. Its just in one spot in Alaska, and it seems to be a refuge for the deceased persons soul rather than house artefacts from their life. 

The Kooniak river doesn't exist, though its probably based on the Kodiak river which does. Do not hold me to that, I can't find any info on it.

Anyway, the original and UK edition are mostly the same. The UK gets some continuity edits, a line about Wildcat swamp is cut as the book has yet to occur in our timeline, and some unfamiliar terms and Americanisms are cut. 

The rewrite tones down Fleetfoot so he doesn't sound like a heap big stereotypcial Native American. It also performs some edits for space and clarity. 

You can find the original here and UK version here. 

Edit. With this all done I'd like to say whoever did this put in the research. Pioneer trading talk, proper place names for most of the area and a revised edit that isn't too bad for once. 

Rewrite version is available here.