Justified and Ancient.

 I have spent a good time updating the sinister signpost blog post, so this week I'll just link to a cool think that popped up on my timeline. I've seen it before here and didn't realize it was from these two.

If you ever watched MTV back in the 90's and loved dance music, then the name Simone Angel will be no stranger to you. This is a Youtube channel and indeed podcast, where Simone and her old producer from Partyzone, talk about old guests and indeed with old guests. There's Ray from 2 Unlimited and Marc Archer from Altern8 along with some other clips from her place out in Aruba.

Official channel, here.

Necrolog

Seems to me that there's been a spate of deaths recently among people I could give a damn about. I'll list them in decreasing give a fuck order if you will.  Starting with

DALE WINTON

This guy was Mr Saturday night for most of us, due to either The Wall on BBC but much more likely In It To Win It, a lottery show that was much better than it had any right to be.  He was the camp perma-tanned host bringing a bit of glam to the show and before cutting out to the lottery results with a grannyish looking Gaby Roslin. You may also know him for Supermarket Sweep from the mid 90's and what I didn't know was that he worked for Lifestyle TV back in cable days when it showed the original version with David Ruprecht  as host.  I will miss the big orange guy he genuinely alright and reminds me of a number of gay friends I've known over the years.

Verne Troyer.

Heard today in the press that mini me had died, you know him best as well.. Mini Me from Austin Powers the Movie a spoof James Bond that long outlived its usefulness in the late 90's / early 2000's.
He also did casino ads on the TV BGO if memory serves correct.  He seemed to really enjoy them even though its pretty much all there is on TV nowadays.

/\ \/ I C I I 

This one is probably the most out of the blue of all.  He was only 28 and it appears been suffering with ill health after an operation.  The thing is I hated most of what he stood for and his music, that shallow EDM with its build up and I know its speaking ill of the dead but I can't praise him for making these tracks.  Fair play for reintroducing dance music back to America and such but now they think everything will sound like half baked europop and the worst excesses of Brostep. and hell, dance music is much bigger than all of that. 

Fantasy Game post idea ting.

If you play games for any length of time you kinda want to make your own, untill you find out how much trouble that is.  No seriously coding is a bitch, and for me its one of my holy grails to actually learn how to do this.  Of course I won't, its horrible, tedious stuff, unintuitive and illogical (plus our lateral thinking is massively massively fucked) instead we'll just post our ideas for games here.  You'll get three increasingly monged ideas.

1. Superhuman Riderborgs vs Spectre Rangers SRPG. (tokusatsu vs kaiju edition)

This is going to take an awful lot of explaining so here goes.  I would love to see a tribute to Super Robot Wars,  but instead of anime robots imagine that it involves more super sentai shows instead.  Think Power Rangers, Masked Rider, and any number of rubber suited monsters and beasts from saturday morning shows and cheesy 60's b movies.   It would be licencing hell of course to bring this to the west, I'm not sure that Japan would fully co operate but damn, controlling the big G with Mothra as his wingman and getting support from Spectreman and some of the Beetleborgs as well. 

In fact the only way to do this is probably to create homages Think Disgaeas Prism Rangers as prime example of this and you can't go far wrong.  To add to the idea, there are a few Super robot wars games that have official translations, these are based off of original IP and thus avoid the whole licencing trap.

2. The Final Fantasy parody.

Our last two ideas are probably the worst of the lot. Parodies of games seen through mass hallucinogens and far, far too much sugar, and as a consequence will never be made.

They already have a loving retread of some of the original FF games, whether its FF4: After Years recapping what Rydia did when she grew up or FF9's homage to the original games with its fan service and excellent card game.  (Hey Squenix why not release the card games from FF8 and 9 for IPhone, whack on a RPG mode and you'll have mucho profit, they were good.)

What we are proposing is a run through of all the games in the series told via the memories of a bullshitting old man.  Inaccurate memories told via Kamishibai, recapping famous scenes with a healthy dose of ad lib parody and sight gags.    These bits of the games would be the cutscenes as he gathers the audience around and eventually it fades into a playable scene from one of the games.  Think of the quests from Crisis Core but played for laughs and with the narrator chiming in at set times to provide commentary which is often at odds of what really happened.

3. COD of War Comradeship is Manic.

I really hate modern FPS shooters, with 15 colours for brown, ultra grim and sweary storylines and its online world.  We recently had a go at Gears of War and it understated all that is wrong with gaming.  (of course I sucked at it, but man, I would love a top down viewpoint in those games, just so it looks like I'm playing a SNES game on drugs).

Which is where our new game idea comes in.  Its 2015 and the Russian goverment lead by Sergei Orlov and his trophy wife Vivian Leigh have devoted the last quarter century to ressurecting the Soviet empire via the medium of counter terrorism and cybernetic bear droids.  The EU and America of course do not want the Soviets to rule the world again and decide to parachute in Billy the Fish from Viz.  Armed with nothing but twin laser rifles which are upgradeable via tech support from Rasputin and Nikola Tesla, the Goalkeeper cum mercenary must single handedly bring down the evil empire and thwart the meerkat army and its undead leader Zombie Octopus Leon Trotsky.

The graphics are of course presented via the medium of Cel shading and should look something like Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast complete with low poly modelling and variable ragdoll physics (set from none to hilariously over the top) if it resembles a late era PSOne game, that would be cool.  Oh and all cut scenes must, must be presented with Engrish and all voice acting intentionally over the top.   We are aiming for House of The Dead levels of acting here.

On line modes would mute voice chat by default and have variable physics as well with things that explode randomly or summon massive things.  Something along the lines of this would be cool.  But much expanded, possibly some of the bosses from single player mode but vs teams of folk. 

A bit about MTV.

Oh joy of joys, not only is FDS Monty Mole finally getting a translation, (thanks Pennywise) but they're bringing Beavis and Butthead back.

I'll say that again they're finally making more proper shows on MTV and not relying on shit like they have done the last 10 years.  Beavis and Butthead were fucking awesome simply for the fact that they were not only the class idiots but because they were sharply observed class idiots.  They're the slackers slacker, whether rooting down the couch for stuff to go couch fishing with, panhandling with Z from Police Academy (he played a Harold Ramp in the episode of the same name) and of course Cornholio Beavis's alter ego emerging in times of extreme crisis (read sugar rush) chatting about his bunghole and TP the best thing ever.

Finally its the best things that are largely absent from the video compilations and DVDs put out, Music Videos and B'N'Bs stock demolition of each and every one of them.   Edie Bricknell Pinching a Loaf, to wanting to pee on Blur (and apart from the sublime Monkey soundtrack who wouldn't) their put downs rocked.
A raver like me getting into weird metal stuff like Suicidal Tendancies and Danzig (hey Mother does rock even if I still hate guitar stuff with a vengance).  They sometimes played other weird stuff too like MC 900ft Jesus with Beavis singing throughout much to Buttheads annoyance. 

I can sort of remember B'N'Bs church song, Beavis yelling fire at things oh and Butthead being summoned out of the crapper by Beavis because there was bare ass on TV (and him to repeat the trick because there was a dog with a surgical brace round its neck thus earning him a dig to the nads). 

Though I like King of the Hill, and am pretty sure Hanks a relative to Tom Anderson, its great to see Beavis and Butthead return.  May the new episodes rock as hard as the older ones.  I said hard Heh Heh.

Oh and they'll be more on MTV mainly Partyzone stuff and the birth of the career of Davina Mc Call for all the good its done mankind.