Party Season

We are in the full flow of party season now, which has seen both our cactus club do and Gilbourne teams party go off and our own works shindig planned for next friday.  First of all our cactus club party, this was a joint mix of slideshow and AGM, with snacks afterward.   We narrowly avoided dissolution (we needed a treasurer but someone stepped up at the last minute) but in all other respects we are doing quite well and may think of a merger with Dartford branch if push comes to a shove. 

Gondar Ethiopia NOT middle Earth.

Our talk was on Ethiopia from some time in the late sixties taking in Addis Ababa, Axum and a few other places and sights too, including some Gelada Baboons from a trek into the highlands.  The best of all was a place called Gondar, a mix of medieval castles transported from the heart of Europe to the dry plains of Africa.  I was astounded by this as all the current images I've seen of Ethiopia is from television which seems to have a one track mind when it comes to Africa (i.e civil war and mass starvation).

Our speaker also brought a guide book (sadly in German) with a few nice pictures and retro adverts for german fags and Ethiopian airways.

Our other party took place in a local pub, on the friday to say I'm not really a pub person is an understatement.  I really don't get the whole pissed up culture we have here in Britain that says that to have a good time you need to get wrecked and meet it through a haze of alcohol the next morning.  We stayed a good 90 minutes and had a few drinks but to be honest it was starting to get to me after a while.  Most of Gilbournes crew was down as well as the Councils training team who graciously let us finish up their buffet. 

Round up.

Did you enjoy our Fantasy phone thing we did back in May, well Samsung have sort of made my fantasy phone here.  Called  the Samsung Galaxy Fraulein  Advance Turbo Edtion Sweet Roy its a Cameraphone minus the phone, and looks like the best thing evar.  Best of all its antisocial as fuck no phone no texting and only what Droid Programs you can download from google.

Did you also enjoy the Neo Geo stats we translated back in September.  Well there are some hitches with the distributor Blaze so its been delayed till further notice.  However their site does look awesome so if you have interest then go here for it.

Finally we have sad news, that Patrick Moore has died.  For most of the gaming generation we think of him as part of Channel 4s Gamesmaster slot dispensing wisdom and laying down a challenge for cocky teens on such games as Virtua Cop and Streetfighter II, while Dominik Diamond made cheap knob gags.

He also did The Sky at Night for almost forever, and definitely sparked off many peoples love of space.

We give you our tribute to Patrick Moore right here.

Aqua Aqua Review

We recently picked up from one of our charity shop trawls, Aqua Aqua from the Pickford brothers software house Zed two now (Zee 3 digital).  It was one of those games that always seemed to be available for other systems. The original Wetrix I believe was a N64 exclusive (Wikipedia suggests some other ports including GBC among the line up) making use of the analog sticks and swish water animation, for a rather nice looking puzzler.

Like I say it was one of those games that either slipped through the cracks by either being not available or on a system I didn't own, so when I had the chance to get a copy of the PS2 follow up I snapped at the chance.

For those uninitiated its a nice little puzzler where you have to make rock pools on an isometric landscape.  Land tiles will drop from the sky and its up to you to terraform square pools (and not so square pools) to catch water drops from the sky (make a perimeter wall is the best advice I can give here). Often, stuff will ruin these plans though.  Bombs and level down land that will lower your precious walls and blow a hole in  the level, as well as an earthquake that wreaks havoc with your plans.  Often though its your own incompetence and the slightly dodgy perspective that'll be your undoing as the water sloshes over the edge of the level.  Theres a gauge that will keep track of all spilt water and if it fills up then its game over and your elf drowns (yeah there are elves as well). 

However, its not all bad, you'll get a fireball to dry out those lakes for a meaty bonus and ice cubes falling at random to freeze whatever is in its path, giving you time to shore up walls and plug those gaps.  There is also a bingo board for when those fireballs connect you get bonuses, fill a row and you get all sorts of bonuses (though we haven't managed to get anything yet due to being lame at it). 

 Modes. 

Though there is some supplementary guff about mythical beasts awakening and kicking arse for supremacy, most of the time you won't notice that and its you vs computer. 

The tutorial is a bastard as well, you'll fail more often due to dodgy perspective then not doing it right which is  frustrating.

Other modes need to be unlocked as well as the ever present option screen. 

Music and graphics.

Theres a nice ambient score going on that complements the action nicely as well as some good n crunchy effects.  In fact the best thing is the voices in it (by Janet James), every time your areas fill up with water you get a crazed sounding X lakes (x standing for the amount of lakes you have).  It sounds like its from an  old kids show which makes it all the nicer.  

Gameplay. 

Thanks to the controls you often make mistakes due to perspective leaving stupid gaps for precious water to drain away.  However it is pretty addictive with a hearty one more go gameplay, it just that perspective and pathfinding makes it tough to control.

Overall score 7.  An addictive puzzler due to shonky controls (many times I've created a small gap where I wanted a seamless wall) keeps it from its greatness. 

Incidentally the Pickfords went on to create Future Tactics with Digi's Mr Biffo on script duties (and Tim Follin on sound duties) and make Magnetic Billiards for smartphones. You can read more about what they made and more on Aqua Aqua here.

Croydon Christmas tour

We decided, as the weather was shit, to take a ride out to Croydon, a place I've been to many times before to look for junk and Xmas presents (indeed it was a family treat to see Father Christmas in the Whitgift centre we I was a nipper).  To be honest, it was a rum deal all round thanks to the weather.  Even in the pouring rain they still had Christian preachers out leafletting as well as a muslim  tent for those of an Islamic bent, one of these days i'll set up a stall in Woolwich punting out atheist material to the crowds but that is probably not allowed due to political correctness.  The good news is this, Croydon seems to have recovered from the riots and what few game shops are now actually pretty good, especially the small indie in the little arcade opposite C(r)ash Converters.   They had Nostalgia on import for sale (looks like a solid 7/10 so ideal if you finished Solartorobo or World ends with you) we were broke so no sale.  They also had a japanese version of the terrible Bubble Bobble Evolution for PSP complete with crappy gameplay and horrible graphics.  Note to Taito bundle up some of your F3 arcade games for PSP like Symphony or Memories even the original running under MAME, I guarantee it'll be the smartest thing you could do for the series.

We also grabbed some tights in Marks for my aunt and had a look at their socks for my uncle but they were all hideously expensive. I know modern Christmas is the time to put yourself in debt with big presents but surely it doesn't have to be that way.  Anyway we got the bus back to Catford to look at their charity shops and take a walk back to Lewisham to get the bus home.  We picked up Finitribe an Unexpected Groovy treat and Gimmik slow motion process albums.  Finitribe is not that great a dated sampledelic mix of old tat their earlier stuff is much better though Forevergreen is still not too bad.   Slow Motion Process however is a gem, glitchy IDM in the style of Autechre (early not their technical later albums) and well worth tracking down. 
Our journey back took us past Lewisham hospital due to close its A+E department and scenes of protestors keeping it open. So much so I had to walk in the road to avoid them.  They had a massive amount of buses lined up blocking most of them from view which was even worse and seemed to be filled with cunts from the socialist wanker parties.  Which is a bastard shame as the only real alternative in our area is the QE up on the common which is hardly ideal, looks like the scum actually have a point sigh. 

Our final trip took us to Greenwich (pronounced Grinitch nothing puts my back up more then someone saying Grenitch), they had a book sale and we got the excellent The search for Planet X a 60's paperback about the hunt for Pluto rather than Zechariah Sitchins Nibiru, and Funny Amazing Funny Amusing a collection of bloopers from the national press alongside more fortean stories. All in all a good day.

A dangerous round up

Can't believe I missed this first time round but Elite is getting a 21st centuary update.  I can't say I'm that enamoured with the original version which I've played in its numerous incarnations but Frontier its follow up is an out and out favourite of mine so will look into donating.  Dave Braben wants 125,000 by the start of January so if you really want to make your space pirate dreams come true, give him your fucking money ((c) Bono 1985).

On the other hand I've just learned about the sad passing of Peter Kuhlmann.  For those who never knew about him or his style of music, he was the master of ambient, with a massive amount of releases on his own label Fax as well as collaborations with the cream of dance music, including Ritchie Hawtin, Jochem Paap and Dr Atmo.  I have some of his stuff on label Rising High as well as a few precious releases on Fax (Escape Escape to Polaris) and in supreme irony have the Sequential ep loaded up on the system ready to play.

I'll link to some of his best works and fax highlights below for you to play.

Darkside of the Moog V With Klaus Schulze

Peter Namlook and Ritchie Hawtin

Anthony Rother Magic Diner Pt 1

Comic Strip presents.

Here is some weird and wonderful stuff that we have been enjoying this week.  Its a round up of sorts, but with a bit of  commentary thrown in as well.

We have been archiving some old stuff, that includes bits and pieces we have found over the years, obscure stuff and old gaming stuff.


First up we have some comics for your perusal, from The Sun newspaper.

Livvy, like George and Lynne long gone.

Littlecock, back when he was at least palatable, but not original.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Livvy and bit of old Richard Littlejohn, from The Sun.  Sad confession time, I used to enjoy his man of the people shtick when he wrote for the Soaraway Super Sun, the cartoons they had were at least part of the fun
and although his column can be boiled down to Health and Safety madness, bloody foreigners or gays on Hampstead bloody Heath, it never came across as nasty as it does in the Mail now, and that is partly because of the cartoons.

The Mail version of this is fucking dour, a grim humourless jackboot of a column thanks due, in no part to the
Mail cartoonist knocking all the "joy" out of it all.

Other things long gone are Livvy and Striker (which as a football agnostic I loved and seems to survive in Nuts magazine sigh). Its been replaced by a charmless Wallace and Gromit strip and a Dark and "edgy" vampire strip called Shadows the Hunted, made out of bad CG and looks like the bastard offspring of a PS1 game and Twilight, its fucking terrible on all fronts which leaves Hagar the Horrible to bring up the rear as the only traditional strip left in there. 

I kinda miss George and Lynne and their laid back lifestyle of semi nudity (and The Stars shameless clone Ben and Katie) luckily there are archived on line here with a brief explanation for newbies.

Other stuff, I liked includes the Perishers and its eyeballs in the sky and Andy Capp who doesn't have any eyes at all, both can be found in the Stalinesque Daily Mirror, along with Scorer a second rate soccer strip.
The Star has Beau Peep which can guarantee a mild titter in its genuinely odd strips, and Garfield along with Stoneytoons in the Mail is the only reason you'd pay cash money for it.

Odd streak if you didn't know.

Incidentally Peanuts (Charles Schultzs defining opus) only survives in reruns in the Mail On Sunday now unlike Fred Bassett whose soporific strip I'm pretty sure was a proper TV cartoon as well as a form of torture for all who read it.

Incidentally this is probably the pinnacle of Garfield strips around although this is also worth your time to visit.
Though this is billed as a real life Garfield, its actually ShiroNekoShiro who has a blog for those who read Japanese here (if you don't know Japanese there is some excellent cat photos and clips) he reminds me of
Old Man Ginger my old cat so gets a shoe in.   We would also like to big up Nemi in the Metro as well as its pretty cool.

Finally this last link is nothing to do with the above and I was going to talk about, before all this comic strip nonsense took over, but deserves a link of its own. The Madagascan Man Eating Tree.

Round up time again. TV Special

Round up time sees us revisit some old haunts and this time we bring you Mike Levey and Ian which we may have told you about before (we can't seem to find it but to be honest it was infomercials on Lifestyle TV).

A post on the Beexcellenttoeachother.com funny pictures thread linking to Infomercial dunces brought this up, not only the name of the two guys presenting (we knew these already) but the name of the show too Amazing Discoveries.

For those who didn't know Mike was amazed and amazed about everything, his helper was Ian a northern type with a handy gadget, be it a handy mixer on a stick, stuff for cleaning car paintwork (includes junked bonnet which they set fire to) or the ubiquitous exercise stuff (it will fold down flat to fit under your bed).

 

We did a cursory glimpse for anything relating to the childrens channel but there was nothing apart from idents this strange thing in Dutch with some stuff I had long forgotten about (including teletext pages proving that Stories without words existed after all and lasted all morning).  We also got a response to one of our posts asking if we remember something from mid 1992 but to be honest we don't remember it.  Possibly from the same era Head to Head with Violet Berlin was on along with a live action show of the same ilk but this time featuring Mario 3 (it has a canadian guy that I forgot the name of presenting). 

Also included is the pervy sounding drama Interbang, a show about two kids finding mini statutes of the leaning tower of Pisa and having to solve a mystery of some sort, remember it being fun.