Necrolog Kevin Keegan.

 One of those straight out of the blue posts. Someone you didn't think about for absolutely ages and then, bam, he's dead. A good sort by all accounts, and who's loss will be felt across Newcastle as well as the larger Tyneside area. 

The real reason I've highlighted Kevin Keegan is here is because of two games. Both the same titles, sort of, and both with surprising bits. 

The first is a home computer version of Kevin Keegan's player manager, a  middling management title officially released for the SNES back in the day, but thanks to games that weren't was going to get a PC and Amiga conversion. But that is neither here nor there. The real reason is this.

Half Keegan half Leslie Grantham

Saw this on Bluesky ages back when the proto surfaced, but this bug eyed Kev is one of the images that come into my mind from time to time. 

The next post set it all off for me. Its the PS1 update called Premier Manager 99 endorsed by Kev himself. That is not why I'm posting, though. 

Imagine logging onto Facebook after work and coming across a post by one of your favourite band's The Black Dog. There is a post saying that they worked with Kev on this in some capacity. Going down to the comments you find its artwork rather than the soundtrack. Although was hoping for something from their Spanners era. Anyway proof below.

It's coming home

 Without any trophies, save for a runners up medal and or a participation badge.

I did, for my sins watch the second half and extra time and penalties, that is only because there was nothing of any use to watch apart from football.

I will say though it wasn't bad and we got a hell of a lot further than what we usually do. Also we have a new Gareth Southgate in Marcus Rashford who joins a long line of England players who've hit the post whilst taking penalties. Maybe they'll be an update of the old Pizza Hut advert with Sancho and Saka rubbing it in. Though its probably going to be a cold day in hell as we can't do humour now, and will be classed as racist.

There was a minority of racist comments, some, even from the UK, due to them missing the penalties, which provoked an absolute storm of anti racist activity. This included the mural of Rashford being defaced with slogans and then being defaced with more outpourings of love and support. I always thought it was weird, that I never saw what was written on it to begin with, 

And the only photo's I've seen, either blurred it out or just contain the after shots with the hearts and flowers. I can sort of see what it said, but I would like to see what it said.

Like I say there was an absolute swarm of anti racist types, as if you poked an ants nest and they all came out angry with them saying racism bad (it is) and taking the knee (which I don't agree with, though that is due to me hating all political point scoring.) You never really heard anyone take the mick or that, and apart from the few racist bits which were fucking minor compared to the anti stuff. 

Even at work among those who cared about football and Monday teatime was an absolute postmortem on the game. The consensus is we did well and have nothing to be ashamed about, 'cept that dude with the flare up his jacksy.

As for me, my message to the team is that of Young Mr Grace from Are You Being Served? and that is. 

You've all done very well.

TXK

So we finally got this to download and install.  Its an awful lot of work that for once was basically only a download code on a receipt.  We are down my aunts place in the country and decided to take advantage of her Wifi to do bits and pieces and install a few things on my Vita while I can.

I was going to write a massively long post about this being a bastard to do on PSN but once I worked out that my email had to be lower case then it was plain sailing from there.  Code was redeemed and the whole thing downloaded without a hitch.

If you have not guessed (or Googled this) already then I'll say one thing, this is a Jeff Minter game, if you aren't a big retro fan step away its not for you.  Loading this up and hearing some storming acid blaring out of a vector style title screen, you know this is going to be great.  Looking at the credits and seeing basically an old school ascii art of some sheep along with credits to Eugene Jarvis and Benoit Mandelbrot, I get the feeling this is what a rework of Llamatron or Ancipital would look like instead of another revision of Dave Theurers Tempest.

Music is another thing that they get right, whether its a full scale acid or hardcore or even some less frenetic house and trance tracks, there is a full credit listing for all music and a bandcamp page if you wish to buy it.

Of course this means nothing if the gameplay isn't that great and I can happily say that it is.  It gets hard, fast but that is part of the appeal, it will not hold your hand or make it easy its old school and fun.  You have to shoot everything that moves while moving round the grid, please make full use of the analogue nubs as it makes it easier (not much but it does) and collect the little plus signs for power ups.  You'll get a smart bomb, a better laser and an A.I droid that looks a lot like a pollen grain
under intense magnification. Worth the wait of me keeping hold of this,  a deserved 9 yaks out of 10.

Finally here is a few late round up articles,  EA are going to add women players to their popular yearly football cash cow, something I've wanted for ages.  I can only hope they'll be a lesbian equivalent of this previously homoerotic glitch. 
Also a bit of confirmation bias here but here is a bit on Liz Jones about teh Pr0n in the Fail on Sunday, if you've read here long enough then you'll know my stance on porno.

Sodding Football.

This could be considered a round up of sorts, we really don't have much of a liking for the "beautiful game" as I find it boring, and besides whenever I watch my token  team (Liverpool) they lose.  To be honest, this antipathy extends to videogames as well.  There must be at least 60 copies of  Fifa Soccer for every man, woman and child in the UK and there are further variants punted out every year.  Whether its hardcore management or five a side, there are millions of the buggers, there are even online variants of Panini Football stickers but with a FIFA edge to them. 

One of these days we will pick up Sensi for Amiga or one of its console variants as it seems closer in ethos for what football should be to me.  I.E  unlicenced and utter nonsense, if I recall correctly they had a granny team as well as various other fabulous sides. 

In fact here is a few games we'd love to see being made under the FIFA licence.  Oh and yeah dig our new site remodel, TBH we've been wanting to do this for ages now.

FIFA Park.

Yeah we know its kinda derivative of FIFA Street but, and this is the big but, it really is nothing like we played
football as kids.  What we want are.

Jumpers for goalposts.
Rush Goalies (they were allowed to come out of goal and be striker and as memory serves we made to feel foolish whenever you tackled them and scored)
 Fat or Geeky kids in defence.  The personal place of choice for the terminally unathletic.
Girls.  Yep sometimes girls played football, often though they'd just watch and talk with their friends.
More than eleven players on each team,  but often much less.

For this to work it'd have to be sort of like Inazuma Eleven, or Nintendo World Cup but not as shit.  Though without the super powers or anything else, just kids playing football in the schoolyard or the Park.

FIFA Soccer Womens Edition.

This incarnation of the popular game is probably the most mundane version of the lot.  A ladies version of the popular football game but with the proper licences from the Womens F.A and that.

To be honest this doesn't stand a hope in hell of being made.  I can't remember the last time I even saw a woman take part in a football game and the people who usually buy FIFA are not really that interested in womens soccer, unless they are particularly fit.  In fact google says that there is a game by American Soccer star Mia Hamm {though her name actually sounds like a cartoon pig} that was devoted to womens soccer, although that was just a crudely rebadged Michael Owens Football.

FIFA ate my hamster.

Actually the idea I'm gravitating to more is this one.  Rockstar ate my Hamster was a pop simulation game, where through constant stunts and pop tracks you tried to gain notoriety for your act and tried not to get yourself killed.  Due to the bad behaviour of footballers nowadays youi could easily replicate this type, but instead of getting killed, the outcome would be dropped from you team or jailed.  Add in some two footed tackles or unnecessary diving on pitch and you would have a winner or at least an interesting IPhone game.

FIFAsona.

This is a version of the above game but much more serious.  It would play out a lot more like the Persona RPGS, which involve strong team mechanics (a team of school kids investigate supernatural occurences, with the focus on team building and such).  I'd love to see a game where you are a new transfer into a made up team, in a lower league club.  Going through the footballing year, working on relationships with your team mates and playing in various cups.  Like Persona you would need to get on with your team, choosing who to hang out with and taking part in training sessions with your team. 

Where as I'd love to see this, even more so if they used a Sensi style overhead view, your average punter wants his RPGs to involve orcs and Goblins, like Skyrim, and not to involve footballers.

 

Make mine a 99

Can't believe this, but this marks our 99th post, the next you will see will be our hundredth missive.
If I can find and remember it we'll be looking into whether the list of derivative porn names provided by the excellent Golden Turkey Awards ever existed as films.

In fact we haven't had a scan of the week in ages nor some half remembered tat from my childhood. So here is two for the price of one.

WCCF Stattos dream come true.

As a child of the 80's we grew up with the era of the Panini football sticker.  Every year they would punt out a new set of stickers and an album to stuff them in.  We would rush out and buy them an furiously swap them in the playgrounds with cries of got, got, got, got, need.  We never managed to collect a whole set and despite coming close.  They were split into what would now be called the SPL and Premier league clubs, with occasional foil stickers of club badges that were bloody hard to get.  We wanted an Arsenal badge but no one would swap, in fact now I remember it, the Dunfermiline Athletic badge was hard to get hold off as well.

Panini did other stuff as well (we collected Beano and Dandy stickers as well as stuff from the Transformers cartoon), but all they were ever known for was football stickers.

What brought all this back was a booklet from an issue of Game Japan we got from the Japan centre sale.
Apart from some quite literally pornoriffic Queens Blade artwork, there's quite a line up of info for arcade games including World Club Champion Football 08-09 by Sega. 

A bastard mix of Panini sticker and Football game, that if the arcade hadn't coughed up blood and died sometime in the mid to late 90's could have been the saviour of the arcade in the UK.  I'm pretty sure there would be a market for this, as soccer is well known for attracting Statto style anoraks.  You get an IC card to register data and have a mix of cards to lay down on the screen to make your team.  Like the fantasy football leagues printed in the papers, certain cards are marked out as rare and cost more rather than your rank and file players.  You then assemble a team from the cards you have and play football.

Of course this being Japan there's a strong Engrish prescence here, located in the various skill descriptions.

Rather than bore you with all the normal ones we'll put up some of the most outlandish descriptions in a small list here (clubs they play for in brackets).

Samir Nasri.  The Brew Master (Arsenal)
Francesc 'Cesc' Fabregas 4-Dimensional Through-balls (Arsenal)
Adriano The Power Horse (InterMilan)
Stevie G Terrifying Right Foot (Liverpool) Actually you could picture Motty saying this in a pinch.
Karim Benzema The Trench Mortar (Lyon)
Nordin Amrabat Sturdy Penetration (PSV Eindhoven)
David Villa The Wedge Buster (Valencia)

With that we will leave you for another week.