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. 

Revisitation

So we decided to go back to Walthamstow.  Just to see, if after a month or two, that signed Michael Rosen book was still there.  Of course it wasn't and so this unconventional round up begins.

There's a lot of sadness to report here, so without further ado we'll begin.  Walthamstow was just a brief stop here instead of the main focus this time and there wasn't that much different than last.  We were on the look out for any unusual records, and we got Popcorn by Hot Butter and Stop/Start by The Assembly.

The former is a cover from the old Gershon Jackson synth track from 1969, and its still a killer tune after all these years.  The latter is a side project for Depeche Modes Vince Clarke and pirates friend Feargal Sharkey and we really hope its not too bad (it promises guitar along with synth)*.

Though these were nice, the real prize was finding a copy of EGM in their post office.  Times were we used to pick up nearly every issue of EGM whenever it hit UK shores (which weren't often).  Then in the mid 2000's they changed the layout, culled most of the foreign news and add Seanbaby to the mix (which wasn't so bad).

We seemed to have picked up the yearly honours edition, and that was piss weak at that, like an American edition of Edge with all the design knocked out of it.  In which they had relegated Tobias Bruckner (trash game commentator) to a small side column, which about summed it up.

The main destination was as always, Tottenham court road.  Akihabara for the English and home to the only decent arcade in town, the Leisure Casino.  They had a few new cabs to play including Cave/Atlus team up Esp Ra De and a slightly flickery R.Type Leo.

                                                            Now for some sad news.
We found out that another Indie game shop has closed down.  Game Focus was an excellent little shop selling all sorts of old and new games for a  reasonable price.  They had a window full of rare stuff including the last time I visited a Hyper Neo Geo 64 and some reasonably priced Saturn games.  Though they used to have a decent games such as a pretty boss selection of DS games the downturn really affected it and these dwindled to absolutely nothing which was a shame.   I did get some great things there including Disgaea DS back in the day.  Though they were a shadow of themselves they were still worth a look.

PSVita. Are we having fun yet?!.

Scan of the week.

We picked up a promo launch mag for the PSVita, Sony's great white hope, a while back and flicking through came across this guy.  I think he is meme worthy and sums up the publics apathy to the Vita in all its guises. 

*Edit.  Its patchy, whereas the first side (Never Never) has Fergal singing on it and is largely wank, the B side (Stop/Start) is of course much better being as its all Vince Clarke synth work.

Snap the pieces together...

All shapes and sizes, snap the pieces together Lego blocks.

So sung, Glass domain back in 1991. We had the bigger, Duplo blocks as a child back in the early 80's, along with a Dukes of Hazzard Playset and a Snoopy school bus (complete with Lucy and Charlie Brown figures).  But its Lego that I came back to.  We had a space set as a kid and a fire station set too, complete with astronauts, Lego firefighters and another set which had Percy pig with a wheelbarrow. 

I still have Lego on my main desk, a space plane remade now and again, and added to whenever we have new bricks.  In fact we never had Lego at school though we did have a substitute.  Polydron.

Though their site at the moment seems to be knacked, Polydron was a triangular based  (and looking at other sites, had hexagonal and square pieces too).  You got to play with it at school only on special occasions possibly as part of maths class, we remember making spinning tops out of the triangular pieces (and them falling apart at the slightest touch).  I hadn't thought about it for a good 20 years, till we, talking with my parents over dinner, the topic came round to old toys.

Its funny what you remember and what you choose to forget.

Hot Potato.

To be honest we don't read too many papers, they all boil down to the same stories over and over again.  On facebook we have the Fortean Times weird news round up which is nice and covers stuff you don't find in the regular press (or rather the populist press).  You do come across online versions of regular newspapers which are weirdly at odds with their print cousins such as the 'celeb' chasing Mail Online or the paywalled up Times.

Others are just too fucking vile, the Mail is all Princess Kate and Downtown Abbey stuff which makes me want to shoot bile like a Metal Slug Zombie.  Where its polar opposite the Mirror is a left wing rag not fit to line litter trays, with its polarising simplicity of whatever wrong is with the world the Tories did it.  The Star is kinda like a hybrid of the Mail online at its most vacuous and The Sun (which I get for Ally Ross on a Tuesday I'm a sucker for TV listings).  I kinda like the idea of a big newspaper, the Times mentioned before used to do a nice science bit on mondays (subs pls check as the last time I read the Times was circa 1997 so this could now be a puff piece on TOWIE or some such cock).  The Guardian, when I've bought it (mainly to get free films) wasn't that bad, it just doesn't relate to my centrist lifestye, oh and Charlie Brooker was either off or piss poor leading to further upset.

This leaves either the Telegraph (imagine that old Two Ronnies sketch about the two old boys in a country club thats your readership that is.) or the Independant (my favourite of the broadsheets.) The Express is still dedicated to Madeleine McCann and Princess Di which makes it a minefield to navigate (incidentally how many of those recent Maddie sightings are of her as she looked as a 3 year old rather than as she would look now, I think we should be told). Which leaves the Daily Mail...

Currently obsessed with ridding the Internet of Porn or at least letting ISPs create an opt out for those that love their porno, with a variety of unverified anectdotes from people, that sound more like propaganda than actual hard facts. (I'd love to do some real research to test the veracity of those stories, as it just seems to convenient to the Mails story).  Also I don't think creating an opt out list will do little to stop the pron, people will find a way to look at it.  Whether through using proxies or a variety of torrenting /downloading methods, if people want it internet filth, there are many ways to get it and indeed watch it for free.



Then there is the whole debate on what this opt out list is used for.  I am with the google lady on this, create filters to block your kids from seeing stuff they don't, put safe search on when you use search engines.  Plus educate your teens if they think what you get in porn is real life.  Cos believe me it ain't like that.  At all.

Bubble Bobble Bollocks

This entry was going to be about something entirely different but until we visited a bootsale we were totally in the dark about all this.  We've detailled previously that our love affair with NES Bubble Bobble is a deep and complex one, extending to any new system emulated we look for a version of the game to play on it.  

After a couple of disappointing bootsales we decided to revisit the memorial hospital bootsale up on Woolwich common.  Just before marathon day an all, leading to a big detour before we managed to get in.  In fact apart from some snacks, the only thing we picked up was Bubble Bobble Evolution for the princely sum of £3.50.

We heard from several sources that it was a particularly piss poor effort but untill we decided to get it home and play it well it outdoes itself on being shit.

Bubble Bobble Evolution.
Platform:PSP.
Maker: Taito corp, Licensed to Rising Star games.
Number of players: One player.
Firmware: 2.67
Genre: Platformer / Puzzle game.

The first thing we did when we get it home was read through the instruction manual and really wish we didn't.
Bub and Bob are now apparently living in 18th London playing on the banks of the Thames when they are transformed into dinosaurs and captured by persons unknown.  Their whole raison d'etre it seems is to escape from twin towers by way of using their bubbles to solve puzzles and flick switches.

There are a whole assortment of switches to flick and generators which send bubbles over the 3 stages.  Oh and there are enemies to bubble up but they don't do much here and are treated not only with disdain but almost irrelavance.  You do get points for bubbling them up but not for popping them (nor do you get anything in the way of bonuses except for some token pick ups, its all about the puzzles not the scores here), oh and before say anything this what the main monsters.

This does not bode well.

So we decided to put this in the PSP after seeing just what the fuck they had done with Bub n Bob.  Lets just say when it came to it sucking I wasn't disappointed.  We didn't mention this before, but you don't just play as Bub or Bob, your playing human Bub and Bob but this time cosplaying as the dinosaurs from the original Bubble Bobble.  Not only is this idea fucked up but the implementation is fucked also.  The controls are really woolly and there are some platforms that you can jump through and some you can't, not helped by the poor controls.  Sometimes when blowing bubbles it seems that sometimes it badly overlaps as if you've blown a big square tile (and we really hope its tile based, for PSP stuff) with a bubble on it instead of just a bubble. 

Even worse is to come when you do manage to clear a stage and face off against a boss.  You'll do this twice, no thanks to the twin towers idea.  There are set points where your bubbles can be directed to one of the badly rendered mayors in BBE.  You'll not take damage from contact with the boss (in this case a badly rendered, house faced golem), but thanks to this jet area neither will any off your bubbles, causing him to switch to another level and carry on with its attack.  Eventually you'll finish him off and have the depressing task to do it all again in the other tower.  At this point we did the decent thing and gave up. 

Tatio proved that they could do justice to Bubble Bobble with the excellent Bubble Bobble Neo for Xbox 360 and Wiiware (oh and piss off many with their update to Rainbow Islands: Towering Islands at the same time) however they seem to have a 'brown' touch when it comes to hand held implementations of the series.
We may subject ourselves to the DS version Bubble Bobble Revolution (and its pox riddled boxart.) thanks to DeSmuMe getting an update. However at this time for PSP owners and those with custom firmware get FCE ultra and the NES rom for how Bubble Bobble should be played.

Overall 2/10 Yet another atrocity comitted in twin towers thanks to Tatio's undeserved update.

Trip 3: Kew.

Our final trip didn't take place untill yesterday. We haven't been to Kew in a few years and the last time was in the autumn, to catch the mesembs in bloom in the Princess Di Memorial Greenhouse.  So we decided to visit in the spring and take a look around the place.  First up getting there is a nuisance due to planned engineering works.  We eventually took the train to Kew bridge from Waterloo East and walked the few hundred yards to the main entrance (we normally take the tube, but like we say they had parts of the district line closed for engineering works). 

The second issue with Kew is that its fucking expensive to get in.  We found that they upped the prices to £13.90 for adults and pay even more if you wanted in on their giftaid scam.  However paying an arm and a leg and finally getting your bearings its not that bad.  We found that, walking round at your own pace and generally taking your time was the best thing to do.  First up we visited the gift shop,  Kew has two, one situated next to the childrens playground and the other is a sort of mini nursery next to one of their main gates.  The first one sells the usual stuff along with guidebooks and trinkets and I found it to be rather naff, the other is much more interesting. 

We spent most of our time deliberating over plants before looking at their much more hardcore floras in the book department.  They seemed to have a lot of books for sale on Leguminosiae in the main book area, ideal if you wish to deal with peas and its many relatives.  We also took a look at some of their floras including one of Oman, before heading back to the Plant area.  Their succulents were not up to much and what they wanted for  them was extortionate, £5 for Aloe Variegata in a 3 1/2 inch pot isn't my idea of fun.  However they did sell themselves short on Lithops.  Whereas a single headed plant sold for around £2 in a 2" pot they had a 31/2" pot with several seedlings in for £5, once repotted we had 10 plants that would have cost £20 brand new.

Nolina Recurvata Donkey Tail Palm in flower.

Princess Di Memorial Greenhouse.

Or the Princess of Wales Conservatory to give it its proper title.  This is the main point of our trip to see what was in flower cactus wise.  It was in hindsight a little early for them, and should have given it another month, but I wasn't actually disappointed with the outcome.  They had a few  things in flower a lot of their Cleistocactus were in bloom and whereas their flowers are neither large nor impressive they are bird pollinated which should count for something.   Most of the side trays were dedicated to Gasteria and Haworthia where a lot of them were in full bloom. along with some Aloes too,  (Striata was pretty impressive, knee high with several flower spikes in full bloom.)

Kew is celebrated for its orchids and seed bank biodiversity projects, although thanks to the wealth of cacti on display (and pretty well grown plants too) maybe it should be better known to all cactophiles out there too.  I hope that these photos will prove my point.

Cleistocactus Hyalacanthus

Gasteria In bloom

Pereskia Aculeata: Note that it has leaves as well as areoles.

Three trips Pt2.

The second of our three trips took place last saturday, a trip to Romford, gateway to the east.

It shares a lot in common with Croydon, its a large town, a long way away from where we live and they are both pretty good for gaming.  Thats where it ends though as Romford is actually quite nice, free of christian nutters at the moment (though that is possibly due to the overwhelming caucasianess of its inhabitants). 

Fun activity: when you take the 5 bus from Canning town station, keep watch as the colour gradually fades to white, as you reach your destination.  All the skleps, Masjids and hall churches gradually disappear, especially once you pass Wood Green.

It holds a pretty decent street market on Saturdays, not on a par with say Walthamstow, but  more traditionally English rather than Multicultural.   There is also an indoor market and a pretty boss shopping mall. 

Junkwise there are a few good charity shops, (a large oxfam and a hospice shop) which I've bought stuff from in the past & a lot of good Poundland types of shop.  This includes a Sams 99p shop as well as a 99p store.

Romford is actually a hold out for more vanished shops than I can remember.  They still have all their Games,  (this includes gamestation) after their recent bonfire of shops to stop them tanking completely.  Worryingly they have both a Bon Marche (pronounced Bonmarsh) and a Peacocks and untill last year a massive TJ Hughes (which kinda reminded me of a depressing version of Littlewoods stuck in an 80's time warp) though this is now derelict.

The best thing for us though is a decent game shop.  You would have thought that with both a Game and a CEX that these would rock but the best one is in the covered market and its called That'z Entertainment.

To be fair they have a pretty decent line up of games there covering current gen as well as retro stock.  If you are a PSP fan they have some pretty niche stuff (we know you're hardcore you wouldn't come here if you weren't).  For instant last time we were there they had Disgaea Infinite (the Visual Novel version of Disgaea) as well as Hakuoki, Aksys Meiji era, romance novel, as well as a few of Ghostlight's RPG output ( They are an European outlet for all things, Atlus and Falcom).  They also do trading cards, for all you Yu-Gi-Oh fans (though we stopped caring when GX came out).  I've got some good stuff from there (Jeanne D'arc for PSP) and its well worth a trip down.