Scooby Doo, How Old Are You?! (Unabridged)

 This is the unabridged version of the introduction for my 2019 Halloween special video about the history of Scooby Doo, along with gameplay from the Commodore 64 game titled "Scooby Doo" which I owned as a child. As well as having extra parts I deemed not worth mentioning in the live read I have also included links where appropriate to pages which may have more info on certain series or characters but if you would like a general read up on Scooby Doo you can click here for his Wikipedia page and here for all the Scooby Doo media made since his inception.

I hope you enjoy the extra bits!

Since my Son was born I have been adamant there would be certain movies and TV programs that I watched as a child which I would like for him to at least experience and, with any luck, love as much as I do. Everything from classic cartoons like the Flintstones, weird animation series like The Trap Door and live action shows like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will be showcased to him via online mediums and for the ones real close to my heart be available via a healthy collection of DVD's for access whenever he wants after the zombie apocalypse begins and the internet is turned off.

(It is my goal to keep Peppa Pig at bay for as long as humanly possible. The very thought of having to watch that abhorrent pig and her annoying family on a regular basis because let's face it, kids like to watch thing on repeat, repeatably, chills me to the bone. But I digress...)

I have already started his collection of classics after I happened to come across the complete series of Top Cat at a charity shop who were having a clear out of DVDs due to having a ridiculous amount donated to them over the years and there not being much call for physical copies any more, which in itself I find a tragedy. I mean, why go through the visceral exertion of putting a disc in to a player and THEN having to get ANOTHER remote which isn't for your TV to press play when you can watch whatever you want within a couple of clicks these days... am I right?! Eh? I'm not completely convinced but that's another rant for another time... I guess I am old. Now this is probably the geriatric in me thinking this, and in a world where I'm pretty certain everything will be available online at some point in the future either via direct access or through some sort of ordering system I suppose there is a certain redundancy when it comes to physical copies but I can't help but think that these companies who we subscribe to have a little too much power, and through either no fault of their own or even more sinister, by design, they can remove access at any time and you will have nothing to show for it other than an empty bank account and a empty heart. OK, that's probably taking things to the extreme but you get my point! You don't own it and it can be taken away from you whenever, for whatever reason is feasible at the time. Scary.

ANYWAY, it was on this crusade that drove me to checking a couple of other charity shops, CEX, (pronounced "sex", which is a pretty bold thing to do I think!) and when we were up early enough the occasional trip to local car boot sales this Summer when I found the first 2 series of Scooby Doo in pristine condition. As soon as I got back home I popped in the first disc and sat down with my Son for an afternoon of spooky shenanigans with Fred, Daphne, Velma and the MVPs of the cartoon Shaggy and Scooby. And it was after that first episode had concluded that I clocked in the end credits the year of release: 1969.

Scooby Doo was 50 years old!

To be precise, the premier of the original series, "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" was on September 13th 1969 and ran for 2 seasons as part of the CBS network's Saturday morning schedule before 24 hour long specials were made up until 1973. The show then went on a hiatus of 3 years until 1976 when the series was picked up by ABC due to a television executive by the name of Fred Silverman moving away from CBS to become president of their rival network the previous year. This man is a legend in the Television industry and is the person who's responsible for green lighting many classic shows I grew up watching; The Waltons, MASH, Charlie's Angels and a personal favourite of mine I still watch today whenever I see it on, Diagnosis Murder. He was such an integral person to Scooby Doo being commissioned the character of Fred in the show is actually named after him.

When recommissioned by ABC, Scooby Doo ran for a further 15 series producing 179 episodes over 15 years in 6 differently titled variants, (The Scooby-Doo Show, Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo) up until 1991, and it was in this time where we were introduced to other members of Scooby's family, most notably Scrappy-Doo - Scooby's brave and some would say boisterous nephew. Scrappy's attitude in the series along with the change of the group dynamic of the original cast since his introduction has seen a large, very vocal group of passionate Scooby fans actively hating on the pup to the point where he was supposedly written out of the series due to this backlash, but it would appear that this was a plot by the Warner Brothers network to help ease people in to the fact Scrappy would be the villain in the first live action movie... oh yeah... SPOILERS! Surely you've seen the film by now, right?

The then gang disappeared for 11 years. Nothing lasts forever, and with the intended original audience now all grown up and tastes changing from the groovy attitude of the late 60's and 70's which the original cartoon enveloped to a more modern nuanced feel of the 90's with shows like Rugrats, Doug and The Simpsons it seemed like a good time for Scooby to be put out to pasture. But this wasn't the end of the story for our favourite cowardly Great Dane. In 2002 the gang were brought back by the the Warner Brother television network for a series titled "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" which ran for 3 series before being bounced around subsidiaries of the Warner Brother network up until present day, with a new series being shown on the children's channel Boomerang as I write called "Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?". You just can't keep a good dog down!

So, time to throw some numbers at you. In the 50 years since Scooby Doo was conceived there have been 30 series resulting in 413 individual episodes, 37 feature length animated films, 4 live action films, 32 animation shorts exclusively shown on Youtube, 13 comic series resulting in 535 issues, 5 theatrical plays which toured the world and 20 computer games throughout the years running on everything from the Intellivision to modern phones. And it's the second game made, simply titled Scooby Doo for the Commodore 64 that made me reminisce about my fondness for this cartoon and make this my Halloween special for 2019. Not the best of games if I was going to be completely honest with you, and since replaying it as an adult and doing research in to the product which was published compared to the game we were touted a year before release I can say this is a firm case of those rose tinted glasses covering up the worst cracks on show but hey... that's nostalgia for you I guess.

So I'll end this by saying Happy 50th Birthday Scooby Doo, may your cowardly demeanor and courageous appetite continue to bring a smile to children for generations to come.

Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

The Baby That Came! Part 1 - The Build Up

Hello! Long time no speak! Now don't get on to me... I KNOW I haven't posted anything for a while, (over 4 months now!) but I have the best excuse ever. I've become a daddy. A surprise daddy. And as the little bundle of joy turned up unexpectedly we had zero provisions to cope with his arrival and zero room to house all of the new provisions we needed to look after him properly. The past quarter of a year, (WOW, it doesn't feel that long but typing it really does put the time frame in to perspective) we have been buying cars, renewing rental agreements to make sure we have a stable environment to bring the little fella up in, dismantling and selling furniture, buying and building other furniture, sorting out and setting up bank accounts and ISAs, chasing government tax relief and benefit payments, (I can see why people see having babies as a career choice as the money doled out is ridiculous) making sure everyone who wants to meet the new arrival gets the chance in what little time we have when I'm not working and we even managed to fit in a Summer holiday! (Booked and paid for pre-baby so we had no choice but to slog the 10 week old along with us. Thankfully it was a UK based holiday.)  Things have now started to slow down for us all and I can finally start to put my thoughts to paper, (or PC) and I think due to the fact we have no pre-birth photos, scans or baby shower memories etc. getting this all down while it is still relatively fresh in my mind is a must. I feel I owe it to both ourselves as parents and maybe even to our son who might come across this at some point in the future to record my view of the whole situation to be able to reflect upon... and maybe even laugh a little at a later point.

O.K.

So I think this is going to be a big entry in it's entirety. There is a LOT of ground to cover both before and after the birth and although I could give you a 5000 word blow by blow account of the experience and the aftermath of the event I feel breaking it down in to two, (maybe three) moderately sized chunks will work out better for everyone.

So here goes:

The last 4 months have been the craziest, happiest, stressful and emotional months of my life... and I wouldn't change them for the world!

Just in case you aren't subscribed to my Youtube channel, (although you really should be as it's AWESOME) and you're not aware of my circumstances I have become the proud Father of a bouncing baby boy. Now that in itself is kind of unremarkable I admit; I understand thousands of babies are born every day... but here's the twist in my little story: neither myself nor my partner knew she was pregnant. (I used to refer to my significant other as my girlfriend but nowadays with us being parents it doesn't seem permanent enough a title!) And once again, you're probably saying "C'mon Padge, lots of people don't find out they're pregnant straight away and sometimes not until they're just about to drop!" and once again you'd be right. But rather than months, weeks or even days warning we had from diagnosis to birth the grand total of 6 hours notice.

6 hours.

I thought that warranted repeating! I might even put it in bold AND italics for effect...

So as you might expect there is a story leading up to this moment of blind panic and heartfelt joy, and like all good stories in my life they start at my partner and I's favourite place in the world: Weston-Super-Mare.

Well, if we're going to get technical it actually started 2 days before on the Friday. (20th April 2018 if you're wondering!) After a hard weeks slog selling plugs and sockets to the masses I arrived home from work and I'm greeted to a rather flustered girlfriend who has been suffering from severe stomach cramps for the entirety of the day. Now, this in itself is usually a worrying symptom for anyone to have out of the blue, but this ailment was occurring at the end of a contraceptive cycle where bleeding and cramps kick in as the other half's girly bits whirl back in to action after being left dormant for the past 3 months since the last hormone injection. (Yes, you're correct in what you're thinking. She did have contraceptive injections throughout her pregnancy so generally you'd think there would be nothing to worry about... Did you know the injection is only 92% effective? That percentage has been seared in to my brain since I found that out!) While we're learning things here's another thing you probably don't know about me: I LOVE walking, (my partner not so much but she tolerates it/me) and after a full week finished at work coupled with the fact it had been an incredibly warm and sunny day we decided to go on one of our favourite routes down to and along the river, in to the basin and around the docks where narrow boats are moored, then back through a large park area where there are miniature railway tracks installed for enthusiasts to bring their engines down and tow carriages full of children along on bank holiday weekends. (Sounds quaint, doesn't it?!) Well, this journey on a good day would take us about an hour at a reasonable pace along with the occasional stop to grab a Pokemon, (don't ask) but on this particular attempt we had to give up after staggering about a third of the distance after an hour and a half. You probably have me pictured as some sort of brute wielding a whip over my harangued girlfriend who's in agony forcing her to frog march against her will but frequently, (every 200 meters or so... whenever she creased over in pain) I kept asking her if she wanted to turn around, but due to her strong will, (or stubbornness) and her high pain threshold, (she played women's rugby) she was adamant she wanted to carry on. We eventually returned home and she went for a long hot shower, (we have no bath) which seemed to ease the pain for her to a more tolerable level.

Saturday, (21st April) was a fairly uneventful day with the other half admitting that the pain had eased a little and she was on the downward slope to her lady bits getting back in order, so with that in mind we went on and did what we usually do most Saturdays, visit my Nan with fish and chips for a catch up and hope to get back home before 6pm for a evening of movies and nibbles. At this point I should probably make you aware that April for myself personally is a very busy and expensive month with Birthdays of my Mum, Nan, girlfriend, girlfriends Dad and Brother in law to allocate money and/or attention to, (and now my Son, thanks kid.) and that Sunday, (22nd April) was our only free day in the entirety of the month to go to our favourite place in the world, Weston-Super-Mare. Being the kind and considerate boyfriend that I am, (well, most of the time anyway) it was at this point in the weekend in between whichever movies we were watching where I turned to my significant other and asked her if she still wanted to go to our home away from home. "YES." she said rather abruptly. She said it with such vigor while looking me straight in the eyes that I knew she wouldn't take no for an answer and I've learnt over the many years of being with her that when she speaks about anything with such conviction it is pointless arguing with her. So we got up early and preceded to drive to Brean Down for a slow walk along the beach before heading to the local arcades and then along the coast to Weston where we hit the shops, more arcades and the pier, (one big arcade/amusement centre) a walk along the promenade to Birnbeck, (the old pier which has fallen in to disrepair) and then finishing off with a cheeky Nandos before the drive home. Over the course of the day we walked just over 7 miles, and all with the girlfriend's lady bits giving her as much hassle as they had given her on the Friday before.

The drive home was pretty uneventful until we were about 20 minutes away from where we live. It was at this point where the stomach pains were getting intense, to the point where she couldn't even sit in the passenger seat comfortably any more, so the missus spent the last 15 miles in various positions any contortionist would have been proud of. As soon as we pulled up to the house the other half leapt out of the car like a lethargic gazelle and went straight inside to start the only thing which had eased her back ache up to this point, a hot shower, whereas I retired to the relative safety of my PC to catch up on the day's events and watch the odd video on YouTube. It was about 30 minutes later while watching a video that I could hear this moan emanating from our kitchen over the sound coming from my closed back headphones... which means she was loud. After dropping tools instantly, (well, carefully placing them down anyway... they were expensive!) I went to the kitchen to see my significant other, hands clasped to the kitchen worktop with a vice-like grip bent over in pain. I asked her if she had had a hot shower yet to which she replied yes and it had not helped in the slightest. This got me worried. It was 10:30pm on a Sunday night and the missus who can usually take being ran in to by women twice her size and triple her weight, (it' a rugby thing) was creased up and close to sobbing, something I've never seen her do in the nine and a half years we had been together. Naturally I wanted to race her to accident and emergency to get her seen to within the next 6 hours, (if we're lucky... good old NHS) but the girlfriend was insistent on phoning 111 to see what the medically unqualified operator had to say, (ahem) and after 10 minutes of wincing in pain and going through the set questionnaire, (the first question being "are you pregnant" to which the answer was "I don't think so as I'm on the contraceptive injection") we were instructed to go to our nearest A&E department. After a fraught drive to hospital and (eventually) finding a parking space in the poor excuse of an area they like to call a car park even in off-peak hours, (another rant for another time) I helped my girlfriend in to the hospital where we were processed quickly by the receptionist and then asked to find a seat among a sea of aches, pains, breaks, cuts and, (no doubt) communicable diseases. The problem now though was my significant other couldn't sit down and if the hospital was going to be typically British about their queuing system, (first come, first served) then we would have hours to wait before being seen by someone. It was here, sitting in the waiting room watching the occasional nurse coming to the front and calling someone's name while my better half is all knotted up inside and can't sit down, where the enormity of the situation started to dawn on me. We were both prone to being ill every so often, but apart from a couple of procedures we've both had since being together, (a lump removed from my neck and her tonsils removed) neither of us have been particularly ill to the point of hospitalization. That added to the fact my partner is adopted and knows nothing about her family medical history and the acceleration of her condition over the past couple of hours lead me to believe there was something seriously wrong, life threatening even. It was while I was caught within this whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that a nurse who hadn't reared her head at the front of the waiting room before made a bee line for my loved one and then proceeded to help her through the doors and in to a cubicle where a gaggle of nurses were waiting for her. They were all running around setting up drips and peeling back the crisp, clean and slightly over starched bed sheets before helping her get in to as much a horizontal position on the bed as she could muster.

The next moment I'll remember for the rest of my life. A slightly older nurse compared to the rest of the ladies whirling around my lady approached us and asked,

"So are you ready to have your baby?"

Our response, almost in unison was,

"What?"

All the sounds of the emergency room drained from my ears whilst I contemplated both the question being asked and the response I was going to give. Thankfully, (in one regard anyway) we were not given a lot of time to fully take in the moment, (or let the blind panic set in) as it was at this time the girlfriend's water broke and we were escorted to a birthing suite. She was DEFINITELY pregnant and she was DEFINITELY going to give birth!

I think that's a good place to leave this part, I'll pick it back up from here in the next few weeks detailing what I can remember of the birth itself, (a lot of it is a blur but I'll try to recall the less graphic details for next time) as well as the media sensation which our son turned out to be... but that will be for part 2.

Again, I am sorry about not tending to this blog for so long but to put a thought to paper in the context I want to hasn't been priority recently and although entries from here on in will be sporadic they shouldn't die off all together. See you in part 2.

Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

A Gaming Tribute To Jim Bowen

Hey y'all! I'm currently working on a script for a "Thoughts of a Thirty-Something Gamer" episode which sadly takes quite a bit of time and research to produce, but will be by the end of all my hard work a readable script here on Blogger and a fully edited video on my YouTube channel. But in the meantime I wanted to write a little tribute for the passing of a man who managed to encapsulate the feeling of togetherness as a family back in my early years. The following few paragraphs are from the beginning of my latest Padge Plays! Retro Edition video introduction to the game Bullseye on the Commodore 64 with a eulogy to the presenter of the TV game show who recently died.

You can see the full video by clicking anywhere on this sentence... any part at all!

"On the 14th of March 2018 the world lost a significant figure in the world of science, Stephen Hawking, who successfully battled a debilitating disease which left one of the most celebrated minds in theoretical physics and cosmology a prisoner in his own body for over 50 years, way beyond the life expectancy any doctor predicted he would have back in 1963 and who became a pop-culture phenomenon in his own right due to his down to earth sense of humour and modesty of his own intellectual prowess.

His death is a great loss. But it overshadowed another man's demise on the same day who was less well known but for me personally is someone I have fond memories of whilst growing up in the late 80's and early 90's: Jim Bowen.

Jim Bowen was primarily known as the host of the game show Bullseye which aired between 1981 to 1995 and combined the sport of darts with a general knowledge quiz show. With it's working class appeal as anyone could pick up a set of darts and play, along with the warmth and down to earth humour of Jim himself, this lead to the quiz show amassing a weekly viewership of over 12 million viewers, my family included. Together with Tony Green, the official score keeper who was himself a professional darts referee and commentator in his own right, Jim would set 3 teams of 2, (one a darts player and one to answer the questions) against each other to see who could amass the most points in order to have a chance at Bully's Prize Board, renowned for it's mixture of rubbish prizes and quality swag before deciding on whether to risk it all on Bully's Star Prize by throwing 101 in 6 darts.

I have very fond memories of being a child at 6 or 7 years old going to my grandparents every Sunday and meeting up with the entire family for Sunday lunch, usually after going to watch my Uncle play football for the local pub team with my Grandad and Great Uncle and then the whole clan sitting down at 5pm to watch Bullseye together before everyone would go their separate ways to prepare for the week ahead. For me, especially as I get older, these were cherished times and now with streaming sites such as Netflix and on demand entertainment from the likes of Youtube it seems
the sanctity of sitting with your family at the same time every week to enjoy a TV program together, any program, is becoming more obscure with every passing year. This in itself is a tragedy in my eyes, but a minor negative in the grand scheme of things taking in to consideration the amount of choice and variety you have at your fingertips in these modern times.

Jim Bowen's passing is a closing of a chapter to my life which I assumed was closed long ago through the natural progression of a child becoming a teenager and wanting, NEEDING the independence from the family unit but with getting older and being able to look back at those times I can now see that this was truly a treasured time of life for me.

So I have chosen to celebrate the life of Jim and honour his passing the only way I know how, and that is to play the Commodore 64 version of his highly popular and widely regarded game show... and probably badly.

And remember, you can’t beat a bit of Bully!"


Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

DayZ And Me

RIGHT THEN! First big rant for this blog incoming! Brace yourselves.

 Back in my second blog entry where I was describing the brief history when console gaming was my primary source of entertainment I mentioned in minor detail the tribal mentality of gamers and the way it feels justified to defend your actions/buying practices for whatever piece of hardware you chose, sometimes to a fanatical degree but what I didn't really jump upon was the fact that the defence of a chosen gaming franchise can be just as brutal as the machine you choose to play it on; a classic example being the Fifa/Pro Evolution Soccer yearly debacle or for a slightly less niche sample over the past 10 years you could use the annual iteration of Activision's Call of Duty when compared to EA's Battlefield/Battlefront cash grab as an example... but that rant is for another time. Coming from an outsider's perspective when it comes to games like these, (I've enjoyed both football and first person shooter games on both sides of the argument over the years but never enough to outright defend the "honour" of them) I find it fascinating that someone would uphold the prestige of a game, any game, for good or ill. Which leads me on to my featured topic for this blog entry, the game DAYZ.

But first: Did you know that I originally started my YouTube channel back in 2012 with 90% of the content being DayZ? I bet you didn't! The reason being for this lack of a past before regular uploads began once again 2 years ago was the fact that I was a little embarrassed to the extent of which I had DayZ content on the channel compared to other games and I didn't want anyone thinking my choice of video content from then is how I feel about gaming today, which I like to think has a much broader scope compared to how it used to be. I also have a lot more disposable income these days which probably helps too but I digress...

 Like many of you, I discovered this open world zombie survival game due to a Reddit post to the video The Days Ahead - Welcome to New Chernarus which starred a guy going by the name of CHKilroy as he and a group of "Survivors" went around the Chernarus map in Arma 2 trying to keep the undead hordes at bay in a fairly amusing fashion. This was continued for several episodes before the videos stopped for whatever reason, but by that point and along with over 100,000 other people I was enamoured by the concept of surviving in a open world zombie apocalypse. Now if you haven't guessed it already from what I've showcased on the channel over the last couple of years I think it's safe to say that I am a zombie FREAK. I love all kinds of zombie fiction and I'm sure that come Z day I won't be one of the first to die through lack of knowledge... lack of exercise yes, but not knowledge. So to have this game which dumps you in the middle of the Eastern Bloc and says "get on with it" motivated me to see what all the fuss was about. There was only one problem with my initial hankering for the end of the world; I didn't own Arma 2, let alone know how to play or even mod the bastard and that turned out to be as challenging as learning to play the game itself! For anyone who is unfamiliar with DayZ in the Arma 2 engine all you really need to know is it can be classed as "in depth", (over-complicated) and "clunky" (a janky mess at the best of times). This is partly the fault of using this particular engine for this particular mod; most options available to the modder makes anything created within the engine very customisable but from a player's perspective  it could and did lead to having to tweak the game quite robustly in order for it to run smoothly and  for some users for it to even work at all. The flip side of the coin to this though is to settle for a less powerful and customisable engine then trying to do more than what it was originally created for, a good example being The WarZ. (Later know as Infestation: Survivor Stories and as it stands it's the largest viewed video of my old recordings with just over 15,000 views... before I deleted it. See, I can be modest!) All this merges in to what can be a very jarring experience to anyone unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Arma 2 engine, which as it turns out was about 99% of the people looking at playing this new mod for a game who would have otherwise never have even given a serious thought to playing this military simulator. A lot of us from a more casual first person shooter experience had to wade through what at times felt like an academical study of all the various buttons and key bindings as well as the contextual menu which would pop up when it felt like it whilst trying to do such mundane things as opening a door, but for me this feeling of being overwhelmed by everything all at once is a feeling I haven't felt since playing World of Warcraft... and if I was going to be completely masochistically honest with you it's a feeling I chase to this very day with every new open world game or MMO I play. The first time I logged in I felt completely lost, even after watching multiple playthroughs of various other YouTubers along with reading as many guides and "hints & tips" as I could for what was at the time a little known mod to a niche game. But I LOVED it. For me it was the first time the phrase "open world" actually construed the game in it's entirety. You were quite literally on you own from the moment you logged in to the server through to your inevitable demise. And it was tense as a lone wolf. The fact that you had this 225km² map with only a handful of players meant you were constantly on edge, not knowing if the next building you (try to) enter is housing someone better geared or better skilled than you who clocked that you were in the area minutes earlier and were laying in wait. That was what made me love that mod. I actually made 2 series over 12 months, one called "DayZ'd & Confused" which chronicled my ups and downs as a casual DayZ player, (with the boring bit sped up) and "3 Lives In..." where I would look at the other maps which housed the DayZ mod and, (surprisingly enough) try to view as much of the map as possible along with loot spawns and on certain maps a lot of player interaction! Suffice to say playing as a lone wolf was never the easiest option, especially if I was unlucky enough to pick a clan server to play on but for both good or ill I never had a dull moment.

And then it happened... on the 16th of December 2012 the DayZ standalone game was released!!!!!

And it was a fucking mess.

Now before I go on, and once again referring to my opening paragraph about tribal mentality when it comes to gaming in general I'd like to throw a word in to the mix which is seldom used on the internet and one which I think needs to be more universally applied to both this article and, (if I may be so bold) life in general. That word is REASONABLE. But we'll come back to this a little further on down...

So, DayZ launches and it appears this standalone version of the mod that everybody fell in love with is released (albeit in ALPHA... they love to stress that) in a worse condition than what the mod housed in an older engine was in. Now I understand that technically this was in the "Arma 2.5" engine, (also affectionately known as a slightly re-worked version of the Take On Helicopters engine) and so there were certain aspects of the mod which would have to be re-jigged, re-written and in some aspects re-thought but I think this was where the developers made their first fatal mistake... they released it too soon. (I say fatal... the game sold over a million copies before the end of 2012!) The hype for the game was so unbelievably fierce when the main developer of the mod Dean Hall announced in August of 2012 that there would be a full blown version of his beloved game that there was bound to be creatively cheaper knockoffs released as soon as possible to catch some of that liquid gold that DayZ had produced, and one of the more "successful" adaptions of this style of game was The WarZ. Now I'm not going to go in to the history of that game which in itself is VERY shady, more so because of the developers involved and past underhanded methods they had used to dupe unsuspecting gamers out of their hard earned cash rather than the actual game itself, but as this was released in October 2012 (again, in ALPHA!) one has to wonder on whether Dean and Bohemia Interactive, the owners of the engine that DayZ was to be built upon got a little ancy in this rival which had been released before their cash cow and in turn might have made them spring their interpretation of an open world zombie survival earlier than they ideally wanted to. But with the insatiable appetite of the impatient gaming public to adhere to surely it would be better to release something rather than putting the game back another few months and let this bunch of cowboy developers steal their sales in the meantime?! In retrospect, probably not. At the time though we were happy to have DayZ along with all the promises and expectations every early access title released through Steam has attached to them and we, (and by "we" I mean the over 1,000,000 people who had bought in to the game) were happy to sit back and play what was given to us as well as having the privilege of helping to mould the game in to what would hopefully be the ultimate zombie survival experience.

So we've established that I think the game was released far too early in order to cash in on it's own hype and also to make sure the monopoly of this emerging "survival simulator" genre was not something they would have to relinquish their large piece of the pie from for the sake of artistic integrity, but ultimately there was a bare bones game there to be worked upon... and that leads me to my second irk with it's development process: Dean Hall announcing he was leaving the DayZ project. I understand that he was half way across the world from where he originated from, (New Zealand I believe) and he had been working with Bohemia Interactive for just over 2 years on the project, (in the Czech Republic) but to me it came across as a rat leaving a sinking ship. And let's face it, 9 months before he eventually left the company as an "adviser" in December 2014 he was giving interviews to gaming journalists saying that the very concept of DayZ as a multiplayer experience was flawed, and that he was a "grenade" which ultimately would do more harm than good if he outstayed his welcome. What the fuck does that even mean? As far as I was concerned DayZ was his baby, his concept. And to see him so easily walk away from this once in a lifetime phenomenon sent alarm bells ringing in my head. Now I'm not one to judge anyone for their actions as no-one can truly understand why somebody chooses to do one thing or another but from an outsider's perspective it looks pretty bad when the father of the immersive zombie survival sim walks out on his child even before it hits puberty... or "Beta" if you prefer. This action alone in my opinion displays an arrogant contempt towards the community who supported and believed in his image of what DayZ could/would be. I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel like this either as Dean's new company Rocketwerkz hasn't been able to capitalise on the celebrity of it's founder and reach the lofty heights of the Steam charts with it's debut games and I genuinely believe this is from a large portion of the DayZ player base feeling cheated from the lack of commitment from the original designer... I mean, if he can't see one project through to a more conceivable ending then what's going to stop him from giving up on another just as easily? It's a fair point I like to think.

                                              Which leads me to my final big irk when it comes to DayZ standalone: After 5 years it's still in fucking ALPHA.

5 years. 5 YEARS!! Whole games have gone from conception to final product within that time span which are far superior to the progress that DayZ has made in that time, Subnautica being a great example. "But Padge, since the release we've seen a whole host of additional content like cars and hunting and crafting and weapon modification and horticulture and diseases along with entire new towns where every building is enterable and not to mention the new physics engine, reworked zombie pathfinding with a dynamic AI and improved graphics and sounds!" I hear you cry, but here's the thing: I didn't want any of that. All I wanted was a more refined version of the mod I fell in love with. I didn't need to be able to pick berries or skin wildlife. I never asked for clothing modification or vehicle repair to be implicated. All I was looking for was a less buggy variant of the original DayZ I played in Arma 2. And I think this is the main problem with the game as it stands right now:

The developers are so engrossed with the perfect experience (in their eyes) they're too busy focusing on what will be DayZ Version 2.0 before they're even finished Version 1.0.

I'm certain the majority of people would have been happy with a cleaned up version of the mod. Now I'm no developer but I'm sure that would have been easy to establish within the 5 year period we have just passed with the team Bohemia Interactive say they have working on DayZ... yet here we all are, mulling over what could have been and still what might be. But I fear now it will all be too late with most people moving away and on to pastures anew and ironically enough to more concentrated forms of what DayZ set out to be in the first place; with Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, Fortnite Battle Royal and more recently Escape From Tarkov gaining in popularity against DayZ's slow demise. And it's fucking sad, man. To not see DayZ even make it out of the starting trap breaks my heart, but hopefully it's a harsh lesson that both people adopting into the early access system and developers learn from. As a customer services rep one of the first things I was taught and I have stuck vehemently to is the rule to "do what you say and say what you do". Basically don't dick people around and string things out unnecessarily as people remember shit like that. So before we get any fanboys ranting at me I'm going to bring back that word from earlier which isn't used nearly enough on the internet: Reasonable.

Is it not reasonable to expect a game released in 2012, (IN ALPHA!!) to be complete or at the very least nearing completion within 5 years?

Is it not reasonable to think that the original developer of the mod would see his brainchild through to the point of at least being feature complete?

Would it not be reasonable to want the developers to concentrate on creating a stable base game on which to add all of these extras that they seem to be concentrating on as maybe free DLC, or even a enhanced DayZ 2?

If we're going to be reasonable about it all... I don't think any of these questions are asking too much considering the size of the company developing it and the funding supposedly put in to it.

Now you may think after reading close to 3000 words from me on this that I'm angry and bitter about it. I'm not. SERIOUSLY! I'm just disappointed. Disappointed that a game which had so much potential with a massive player base from the off can be so seriously mishandled to the point of killing it before it's even officially begun. And again, you'll get people who will say that DayZ isn't dead, but the fact of the matter is not even 10% of the people who bought the game are still playing it. Obviously people come and go from any game and I'm aware that a lot of the die hard fans are waiting for 0.63 to drop as there are going to be some serious changes to the engine, (again) and I'm sure come version 1.0 dropping there will be upsurge in interest, even if it's just for morbid curiosity but the behemoth that could have been will now never be... and to reiterate again, that just makes me feel sad.

I will be there too when the final full version is released. And I'm sure I'll play the hell out of it... MAYBE even resurrect the DayZ'd & Confused series I did many moons ago, but whatever I end up doing when the game goes live it will always be with a thought to the wasted potential of what this game could have been and where this crazy journey could have ended up going. I live in hope that a game directly influenced by DayZ can extend the concept that originally caught the eye of the masses and one day we will be gifted with the "perfect" open world massively multiplayer zombie survival experience.

And I'll see you in the wasteland... eventually.


Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

2 Year YouTube Anniversary Blog Post! Sort Of...

On February 14th I celebrated my 2 year YouTube anniversary as a creator so to honour this, (and the fact I'm currently battling a virus and feel absolutely rubbish right now) I thought I would release the original script to the first ever video I uploaded discussing love in games and my love for gaming in general. Although as I look back on it the editing is rather basic and I'm not completely happy with the way it turned out, (that's the perfectionist in me sadly!) it's always interesting to see where you've come from in any creative format. At least I'd like to think there is an improvement in my work... but I guess you'll be the judge of that! My favourite part of the creative process is definitely the editing side, with being able to splice videos and pictures in to the script I've written to further accentuate the point I'm trying to get across being a most enjoyable endeavour, and the actual tangents I've been lead off on whilst trying to hunt down the perfect meme or video clip has opened up whole new avenues of thought I'd never even considered before... and websites no normal human being should view! (At least on purpose anyway.)

My only real regret when it comes to this first video is the fact I haven't been able to make more of them. The amount of time it took to even put together this relatively simple recording was ridiculous but since making it I do have a new found respect for anyone who does this on a regular basis; Ahoy and Jim Sterling being two of the people who I'm sure I've taken inspiration from and have two completely distinct ways in how to present their thoughts on screen. As a little YouTuber there is a fine line you need to balance upon between quality and quantity and it's fair to say I was bummed out big time after putting a lot of time and love in to that video and it having hardly any views, even today. (313 views as I write this!) To work so hard on something and not get the recognition you think it deserves can be a very frustrating/humbling experience and it was at this moment where I needed to decide on whether I was going to do this for the views and potential money making aspect of YouTube or because it's what I actually enjoy doing, and I think it's fair to say that after two years on the grind this has become my full time hobby and my passion for creating in any respect keeps me motivated to do what I do.

 I do however have this itch which needs some serious scratching right now.

As much as I like to showcase old and new games on the channel I feel the creative side of what I wanted to do on YouTube has taken a back seat from trying to keep up a regular schedule of content and although I won't go in to specifics right here right now, (VLOG incoming soon!!) I can see myself shaking up my routine soon with regards to the length of videos I upload and also what I actually choose to bring to the channel in order to free up some time for me to be able to put more creative works on to YouTube because let's face it, this isn't going to be a career defining moment for me; I'm not suddenly going to be earning a wage off doing this so I might as well be happy with what I choose to upload.

But I digress.

Below you will find the original script I wrote for that first video. If I have some witty remark to say about anything within the script or from that point in the accompanying video I will pop it in to brackets and italics to make it stand out. And let's face it, this is me so no doubt there will be some sarcastic remark earmarked in there somewhere!

And if you haven't seen my video you can check it out here:

                                                                               Thoughts of a 30-Something Gamer: Love in Games and for Gaming

Well, here you are:

So I've been thinking.... (The intro seemed to make sense at the time although it was filmed on a terrible phone camera... and yes, that has been dubbed over!)

About a week ago I found myself browsing through the Nintendo e-shop looking at all the old games available on the virtual console when I came across Super Mario Land, the very first game I owned for the original Gameboy I had as a kid, (well, apart from Tetris... EVERYONE owned Tetris) and I felt a pang of nostalgia I'd not felt in a very long time. As I sat there looking at the monochrome screenshots of those tiny sprites it suddenly dawned on me that Mario has been rescuing the same girl for a long time. (O.K. So in Super Mario Land it was a girl called Daisy... what can I say, the guy is a bit of a player when it comes to the ladies!) (So why include a pitcure A.C. Slater from Saved By The Bell? His name's Mario for Christ's sake! Sometimes I marvel at my own serendipitous luck when it comes to visual gags.. another reason why I want to do more of them.)

And that got me wondering... from a real life perspective what was his motivation? What could the reason be to give this little plumber the drive to continuously put himself and his brother in peril? At first I thought about the financial gains. There he is, running around the mushroom kingdom picking up coins carelessly left all over the place, unclaimed by anyone, who wouldn't pick them up? He collects A LOT of gold throughout each game, surely enough to be able to hang up the tool belt and live at a comfortable level? And then it hit me, it couldn't be about the money. You see, the thing about being motivated by material gain is you eventually get to the point where the accumulation of those materials outweigh the effort needed in order to accumulate them. In other words, when you have enough cash to see you good for the rest of your 3 lives why bother carrying on? He could slap that gold into a high interest account and live off the interest from his mansion in the Bahamas. (I did think about maybe going down the route that some girls just like to be chased and love to live a life of drama but I couldn't think of a good way to wrap up that thought process.)

So what else? Could it be his sense of justice? After all, Princess Peach is the head of State, the leader on the Mushroom Kingdom, surely it would be the right thing to do? The fact of the matter is the “right thing” is purely subjective here; when you break it down can you really justify the hundreds, if not thousands of creatures killed by Mario just to get to Peach? Note I say creatures, not enemies, these are the natural inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom. Take a look at almost any level in the Super Mario series and you will see that the majority of dangers featured are animals and vegetation just going about their day. They're not actively seeking Mario out to cause him harm, they're just out doing their own thing when an unknown presence enters their personal space and they react accordingly. Now from a real world perspective if you noticed a snake in the garden and it saw you it wouldn't automatically head in your direction to mess up your day, but if you go within a foot of it and start pogo-ing around like a lunatic there's a good chance it's going to try to fuck you up. And that's even before you start tackling Bowser's minions and traps in each castle who are after all, only trying to protect their boss on his property from an intruder. And then once Mario has been identified as a threat after that first level, (he has been breaking and entering after all, or at a very minimum level trespassing on private property with a pinch of vandalism to boot) they will go to any means to stop him... or at least what they are ordered to do by their employer.

So if cold hard cash and a sense of justice at any cost are just by-products of Mario's motivation to keep rescuing Peach over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... well you get the picture, this leaves as far as I'm concerned one feasible possibility: LOVE.

And that got me thinking: A lot of narrative-driven games that I've enjoyed over the years that have stuck with me because of the story have had the subject of love as their driving force for the protagonists. In The Secret of Monkey Island (one of my favourite games ever) Guybrush Threepwood is initially driven to become a mighty pirate but soon his priorities change when he meets the governor of Melee Island, Elaine Marley and falls madly in love with her. Sadly for him the ghost pirate LeChuck is also enamoured with the governess and decides to kidnap her, at which point Guybrush decides to try to rescue his beloved. Double Dragon also follows the same narrative with the player becoming Billy Lee, out to release his girlfriend Marian from the possession of the Black Warriors gang and their leader, Willy, with more than a little help from his twin brother Jimmy. Well, in 2 player anyway. A more modern take on the same tale can be found in Super Meat Boy, where Meat Boy is trying to avoid all sorts of dangerous obstacles in order to try and save his squeeze Bandage Girl from the evil clutches of Doctor Fetus.

These three examples recycle the original principle of the brave knight attempting to rescue the stricken maiden from the grasp of whichever evil person suites the ebb and flow of the story, though there are some games that have put an interesting spin on the classic formula concerning family rather than for an opted loved one. (that Lego clip was one of many I could have chosen from but to fit it in to the section I had to do a very subtle but extreme trim of several scenes in order to show what I wanted) In Fallout 3 the main drive behind your character is to find your father, who one day leaves the underground vault you have grown up in for the outside world and you, the player, ventures into the unknown of the capital wasteland in order to find him. In Fallout 4 the tables are turned as you are now the parent, and after being witness to a personal tragedy at the start of the game you vow to avenge for your loss and find your missing son, Shaun. In the same ilk Sid Meier's Pirates! (possibly my favourite game ever by the way!) has the hero scouring the Caribbean for his lost relatives, who were sold into slavery to pay off a family debt owed to the ominous Marquis De La Montalban when he was still a child. That and to make a ton of money... and maybe bag himself a governor’s daughter in the process. For a further twist on this aspect of family you could look at Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1, where although the central character Lee isn't directly related to Clementine at the start of the game they soon form a co-dependant relationship which benefits them both throughout the story, and by the very sad but predictable ending the connection between them is so absolute it hits you right in the feels. Even a game like Altered Beast has love as it's driving force, and not from the player character. He is just a pawn being used by the God Zeus, who resurrects a fallen Roman Centurion and bestows bestial powers onto him in order to rescue his daughter Athena, kidknapped by a demon god called Neff. (As long as he collects 3 power orbs within each level, no free rides from the King of the Gods, you have to earn that shit.) (All the above examples are a pretty standard affair but I was mighty proud of that Altered Beast reference as I don't think it's as obvious a point as the others... I had to do a bit of research on that one believe it or not! Well, consult Wikipedia to conform my thoughts anyway.)

These are all in essence based around the same influence, the recovery of something that is lost. There are some games however, that have a unique view on the subject of love and how to interpret it in an interactive form. The Sims series lets you kiss, date, marry and “woohoo” (the sigh was real) anyone you like, young or old, male or female, and it seems with each iteration the options for gender, sexual orientation and sexual freedom keep getting bigger, and rather than it being restricted by the technical side of the software I think it's more to do with what is widely accepted as “the norm” which in itself grows larger with every generation. (or even since I made this video one could argue)

This brings me to one of my most favourite gaming characters of all time... Larry Laffer. (Last of the true men I tell you!) The Leisure Suit Larry series are the gaming equivalents to those sexual coming of age films you grow up with as a child; American Pie, Revenge of the Nerds and Porky's to name but a few. This 40 year old disco suit wearing, cheesy talking schmoozer has a heart that's bigger than his brain and although he always seems to end up in bizarre sexual escapades all he's really looking for is that perfect partner, that one true love.

The subject of love can span all genres of gaming, from platformers to puzzlers, first person shooters to beat-em-ups, and although unoriginal in premise the subject never gets old.

So why do I bring this up? Well, despite it being Valentines Day, (which seemed like an appropriate time to do this) seeing all those retro games available for the virtual console on the e-shop had me contemplating what gaming has meant to me throughout my life. (I'm getting old... I'm allowed to be retrospective!)

This year I am celebrating 25 years of being a gamer. (27 years now if anyone is keeping count) Schools, friends, jobs and even other hobbies have come and gone but gaming has been my one constant. (I typed "jobs" on a Google image search and Steve popped up and although it can be construed as bad taste it did give me a chuckle so I decided to keep it in) I have been privileged throughout this time to witness this leisure activity grow from a secretive, seemingly unhealthy, misunderstood pastime stereotyped by spotty nerds and middle aged men in their parents basement to a mass media outlet, enjoyed by everyone, young and old, male and female, sometimes together, and other times by yourself, but through gaming forums and websites, Youtube and Twitch, you're never alone. An outlet which today rivals the behemoths of television and film, both in money invested into the industry and money spent by the end user on the hardware, software and accessories required in order to enjoy this hobby to it's fullest.

Don't get me wrong, like any child growing up gaming has had it's teething problems, and some would say over the last few years gaming has been going through a very rough period; from software companies and distributors bleeding us dry with full games being sliced into pieces and distributed through DLC, season passes or as episodic content (and now loot boxes... *sigh*) to the actual content of the games themselves being certificated and vilified by people unable to grasp the very essence of gaming as an interactive experience and see it as a threat to the traditional forms of media and so criticise it at every available opportunity. And we don't do ourselves any favours. Over the past few years we've had fellow gamers turning on each other through the acts of “swatting”, (the act of getting armed police beating down the doors of popular streamers while they're streaming live on Twitch) for no reason other than jealousy to gaming “purists” outright verbally attacking people who are trying to shake off the stigma of what it means to be a gamer in some sort of twisted irony which seems to be lost on the attackers themselves.

These dark times can't last forever, and I know with the fullest of hearts that these problems will work themselves out eventually. It feels to me that the very concept of what makes us gamers as a society is evolving at such a pace it's forcing all of us to adapt quickly or be left behind, and it's the people who think kicking and screaming the loudest will stem the flow of change on the horizon. But things have to change. They have to evolve. Evolution in it's truest form is done by an entity to develop itself, to improve oneself, and this can only lead to a purer, more fulfilling pastime for us all.

To conclude, I love gaming, and I love being a gamer, and I love that my favourite hobby has grown into something which is widely acknowledged, widely accepted and worth fighting for. (most of the time...)

Hang on. Maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. Maybe love is the wrong way to describe why Mario is continuously putting himself and those closest around him in mortal danger. Maybe it's because of OBSESSION. Let's just spin this on it's head for a second. Princess Peach is Royalty. Royalty tend to have security guards protecting them at the very least, maybe an army at their beck and call 24 hours a day. How could Bowser continually kidnap a member of the Royal family without the guards around her getting wise to his dastardly plot? And why aren't they storming Bowser's castle and rescuing her? Maybe it's because she doesn't need to be rescued!

Maybe that's why she's never in any of the castles in the first few levels, it's not that she's never been in there, she's just high-tailed it as soon as she's heard Mario kicking at the front door. And then by the end of each game she realises the only way to get this deluded guy to leave her alone is to play along with his damsel in distress fantasy before getting back with her true love, Bowser. Think about it. Peach, this eligible bachelorette could hook up with any guy she wanted in the Mushroom Kingdom. Does she go with Bowser, this muscular, independent, powerful guy who has plenty of money lying around and a very large property portfolio or does she settle for Mario, a middle aged, roly-poly plumber who still lives with his brother? I know who I'd put my money on.... (I was SO HAPPY to find that Playboy sketch summing up my thoughts so well and it's definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it! Don't worry, I was only on the website because of the articles...)

Well, that's my childhood ruined.

--END--

 So there you have it. Now I know technically this is a cheat week when it comes to original content, (and it's late!) but I hope you'll forgive me considering I'm not very well at the moment. The past week has been a real struggle and now I don't even have a video buffer for the YouTube channel which means I can't even drip feed you a new upload every couple of days to tide everyone over. Rest assured as soon as I'm up to recording a coherent video without coughs and sneezes throughout I'll do my best to get back up to speed as soon as I can.

Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


Check Out My Youtube Channel: www.YouTube.com/PalicoPadge

Let Me Introduce Myself Part 3: A Proper PC Upbringing

 I can't believe as a guy who makes YouTube lets play videos for a hobby on PC gaming has managed to get away with waiting until his third blog entry to actually address his PC history to anyone still sticking around to read it! But please, before you go clicking off this I'd just like to say that this is the last introductory blog entry I shall be doing so you can rest confidently now knowing my cynical and slightly sarcastic views and opinions on the world of gaming together with life in general thrown in will commence in the coming entries forthwith. I mean, Logan Paul... what a bellend. AMIRIGHT? But before we start upsetting the legions of unquestioning automatons regarded as his "subscribers", (never has the word fan been so appropriate... it would take a fanatic to be able to defend and justify that prick's attitude and actions towards other people in my humble opinion) we better get on to the subject of my love for the personal computer and gaming upon said item.

Now although I started this blog series with the what's and wherefore's regarding the Commodore 64 I feel the need to create a single entry to detail my history with the open platform gaming machine which is currently going through a bit of a renaissance over the past few years. I could have pegged all this together in to one super-blog as I suppose technically the C64 and PC are one of the same, at least in essence. The one thing which has always bugged me is the fact machines of old were recalled as being "Home Computers" as opposed to all modern iterations which are referred to as "Personal Computers". Why? Is it a price thing? One could argue that today's PC's out of the box is more or less comparable to what you were paying for a Commodore or Spectrum back in the day so I guess it's more to do with the fact back in the 1980's one computer per household was enough whereas today you'd be lucky to find someone who doesn't have at least one piece of technology on their being at any one time if you take in to consideration how advanced a mobile phone is alone these days. But I digress...

I'd like to tell you that after my initial introduction to "home computing" via the C64 I was savvy enough to continue my interest with these modern contraptions all throughout my life but with taking half a decade out due to the convenience and speedy loading times of consoles when I finally did decide to re-introduce myself in to the multimedia extravaganza that had become "personal computing" I didn't have a fucking clue. I'd like to say that after doing intricate research on the matter I had enough understanding of the technology to know what to purchase and what I could expect to get out it for applications, (and games) but as a teenager that was never going to happen! So what amazing application or game charmed me enough to warrent me to try and convince my parents in to spending a sizeable amount of money on yet another games machine as far as they were concerned?  (I'd just like to say at this point that yes, I did play the "it'll be for homework!" card and thankfully they fell for that hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of the angling times.) Could it have been the interactive marvel that was Encarta 95 with those grainy videos and crackly sound bites? Was it the very business orientated and professional look of the desktop in Windows 95? I'm afraid not. I can honestly say in all seriousness it came down to a screensaver based on a Guinness advert.

In retrospect it does seem kind of pathetic to think that what has governed my social and professional life for over a quarter of a century all started with a screensaver for a popular brand of Irish stout, and to be honest it isn't even the best advert they have ever come up with. If you have clicked on the above link you've already seen that the advert itself is just a man doing a silly dance in order to kill some time while waiting for a pint of the black stuff to settle properly but for some reason as a screensaver I thought it was a interactive marvel. I mean, LOOK AT HIM!! He's dancing on my screen whenever I want him to! Well, as long as I don't touch the keyboard or mouse for a predetermined time frame anyway. Now before you start to think of me as being a complete imbecile you need to remember that this was at a time when the most sophisticated thing I'd seen on a computer before this was animation in a Commodore 64 game and this guy was grinding around on the screen JUST like he did on the TV. And I think that's why it struck a chord with me, it was the first time I had seen a computer be able to reproduce a picture like I had seen in another more acceptable and at the time vastly superior format. If I thought more of myself at the time I would say it was because it was at that exact moment that I realised the future potential of the PC and how one day it would rival television, radio and newspapers in it's everyday use as a multimedia platform... but it was only because of a man doing a silly dance for a pint on the screen in order to not have the desktop image burned in to it's surface.

So I got my first official PC! A 486 DX2-66 with 4 megabytes of RAM, a VERY basic sound/video card and a 250MB hard drive. (I think anyway, I'm not too sure on the HDD to be honest.) It wasn't the most up to date computer by any means at the time and I'm pretty sure the guy who built it, (called Mike who I ended up working for eventually) built it out of  "re-purposed" parts but I never had an issue with it from the day I got it until the day I upgraded the machine beyond the original components and case itself. It was at this point that any friends who had secretly been PC gamers came out of the woodwork recognising me as one of their own due to the pale complexion, bloodshot eyes and strong wrists... but that could be any teenage boy I guess. As I stated in my last blog entry the tribal mentality of console gamers ruled the playground, to the point where the very small clique of nerds who preferred a computer to a PlayStation for their boyhood jaunts of gaming would not even bother to defend their steely software platform for fear of being drowned out by a bunch of neanderthals not sophisticated enough to recognise the advanced power hidden away in those mini-towers. (PC Master race FTW!) But with a raise of the eyebrows and a nod of the head I was welcomed in to the coven that was the "I.T.ists". These guys, (and a single girl as we're all for gender equality in our forward thinking group who were desperate for any female attention at that age) opened my eyes to the many different genres unable to be properly showcased on a console. Point and click games, strategy and simulation games became my favourite types with Settlers 2 and Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, (VGA version of course!) being two of the first and most loved games I played. Although FPS games can have diverse themes the base workings remain the same but with more story-intrinsic and broadly different mechanics the games I discovered no matter how old they were they still felt fresh.

This isn't the time or place to start listing my favourite games on the PC, (that will be in another blog entry when I can't think of anything better to write about!) there are a few games which really frame that time in my life, mainly due to the fact I was part of the "I.T.ists" at my high school. We essentially were the guys, (and girl) who looked after the network PCs, from standard laborious chores like cleaning them up, (inside and out) to having a go at rectifying any hardware or software issues that crept up from the pupils messing about on them during lessons with one very special Summer where we replaced all the machines throughout the school and helped configure them. Now, that might sound boring to anyone uninitiated in to the group but certain school responsibilities awarded certain perks, the main one being left alone for a couple of hours after school while the teachers finished up paperwork or prepared for tomorrows lessons which meant we had free reign on the schools computers in that time! As well as having a connection to the internet at a reasonable speed for the time, (ISDN as opposed to a 56.6k modem) the more important factor was having access to 30 computers all linked up together.

THAT'S RIGHT KIDS, WE HAD NETWORK GAMING SESSIONS!

In today's fibre optic landscape it's very easy to forget where the humble beginnings of the internet began. I'm not going to lecture you on how today's youngsters don't realise how easy they have it, I'd assume if you're reading this you too suffered the pain of a dial up modem with having to disconnect whenever another family member wanted to call someone while also putting your PC gaming mates on your friends and family list with your telephone service provider in order to get a discount for calling them so damn often because of playing 1v1 on Command and Conquer all the time but I'll say this; THE PAIN WAS REAL. So, having access to multiple computers on the same network for multiplayer sessions of Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 2 and eventually the original Grand Theft Auto were a marvel and I have very fond memories for that time of my life. This was also a time where no real DRM existed which meant the sharing of 3.5" floppies and CD's with full games on them were common practice, and in the rare times where a game needed to have the CD in the drive in order to get the game working the school had a handy CD re-writer built in to the teacher's work computer and we were "trusted" with the password to it! Even back then it felt like what we were doing for those couple of hours at the end of every school day was something special, groundbreaking even, but I don't think any of us would imagine how much common interactivity there would be in gaming some 20 years later. From your standard PvP games to such simpler things such as having an online high score table to even being able to zap yourself in to someone else's single player experience just to fuck with them a bit. I'm looking at you, Dark Souls! For four years this was my life outside of the rigmorale of forced education and naturally these friendships I made through the PC gaming scene at school carried on outside of it too. Remember the guy I wrote about in my first blog about the Commodore 64? The kid who had a ZX Spectrum who amazed me with his little black box with rubber keys? Well he was in this group too and although I never acknowledged this at the time it would seem in retrospect I owe my love of computers and gaming in general to him... so thanks Pete.

When you're at school playing on those up to date computers everyone involved are on equal terms; everyone has the same specs, peripherals, screens etc. but towards the end of my school life my own computer started falling behind minimum specs for a respectable gaming rig. Games began to run slow or even not at all and seeing as this was a "family" computer and still very capable of performing the tasks asked by the other members of the household I noticed month after month the selection of games I could play were getting to the point of non-existence. At this point I have received a few upgrades from the 486 through birthdays and Christmas gifts - nothing significant enough to mention here, but with no way to finance any new parts for the big box in the corner myself, (I had a paper round where I delivered 300+ newspapers for just over £5 a week!) I had to turn to alternative methods of gaming. This was when I discovered the term abandonware. Abandonware in itself is a dirty word, supposedly any software not directly supported by the developer or publisher could be classed as "abandoned" and so open to free distribution and download. It seemed like a lot of developers were very open to their older games which haven't been freely available for a few years to be easily downloaded and played by people who wouldn't necessarily have played them in the first place, hell, maybe even have heard of them at all! But with the PC being such an open platform this was a very real possibility for anyone savvy enough to have a look on the old interwebs. Thankfully this was the beginning of the internet being a lot more widely recognised by the general populace as a viable way to project your passions to a wider audience and with a bit of digging around the wondrous treasures to be found under the heading of abandonware were mine for the discovering! Suddenly a whole world of older games which were uglier compared to their newer, better looking compadres but with no less gameplay to them had been sprung open to me and were there for me to poke and prod around with. There were games that I had heard of through conversations at school or games I remember hearing about from a few years before which I suddenly had access to and the only constraints to me playing them being the time I could afford to invest in them. This for myself was where my informal education to gaming came in to play and thankfully by having access to a potato of a machine I could now fill in the gaps from the 5 years I'd missed out on while hanging out with the cool console kids. But even better still was I could go beyond even that era, I could experience games from when I first had my Commodore and further back still. My catalogue had expanded so significantly and my choice was so varied now and all because I couldn't run the latest games my friends were playing... and I'm glad. Without this "ailment" I never would have uncovered old gems like The Oregon Trail, Jones in the Fast Lane, Street Rod, Lost Dutchman Mine, Sid Meier's Pirates and Rockstar! to name but a few and even today with every PC I build and/or upgrade I always make sure one of the first actions I do is to transfer my favourite games of yesteryear along with the latest version of DosBox on to the hard drive.

I guess while you're at school you don't really have a lot to worry about other than homework, keeping your grades at a respectable level with only doing the minimum effort needed in order to achieve this and wooing any females gracious enough to show you any interest in you so time can be a very cheap commodity. It's not until you leave education and enter the world of full time employment that you realise that time, your own time especially, is precious. And with every year onward with increasing responsibilities through work and family commitments the value of that hour here or that hour there you can squeeze in for yourself never seems to be enough to accomplish what you would like to do. Even at the age of 17 I started to figure this out rather quickly when I ended my college course early to go and work full time in PC installation and maintenance. Here I was, working 8am until 5pm building and installing computers around the UK for large and small companies on networks compared to my friends who were sleeping in until 10am and going to college/university for a few hours and then going out on the lash on a weeknight. A WEEKNIGHT I TELL YOU!! I've never been a big drinker and although these days I can sink a few back sensibly and be alright the next day this was not a possibility back then as I hadn't drawn that practical line in the sand yet. If I was drinking I was drinking to get drunk. Smashed. Shitfaced. There was no in-between! But as I was in full time employment on a apprentice's wage, (not a lot but I was earning more than my peers at the time) and the fact I chose not to go out in the week as management "frowned" on turning up drunk at work more than a couple of times in short duration I decided to invest my time and money in to my own PC at home. It would be silly not to really as I built them by day, (so I could throw bits in to it and have it all configured pretty quick) and I also had access to all the suppliers who could supply me with multiple components at trade prices! So although the items I decided to buy were still expensive at the time they should have been a hell of a lot more costly than what I payed for them so I splashed as much money at my little box as I could rationally afford! This meant budget gaming for myself - finding good abandonware titles and downloading free to play games - became a thing of the past as I could play whatever new title interested me as soon as it was published! And although since then I have had times when PC gaming hasn't been at the forefront of my social life, (thanks heady twenties!) I have always strived to have a semi-capable PC so I can at least keep up with the computer culture pack and know enough of what's going on at any one time to stay in the loop.

Although I don't work directly in the computer trade now, (still dealing with electrics though!) and the fact I now have a long term and very forgiving girlfriend (who allows me enough time to myself each week to do YouTube as a hobby) PC gaming for me right now is back at the forefront of any spare time I have and I'll relish this time as much as I can in the knowledge that realistically the next natural step for myself and my partner is marriage and children and at the bare minimum time will become even more of a constraint than it is already. My only hope is that my love of gaming, PC gaming in particular will rub off on my spawn and they too will grow up in as exciting a time for computing as I was lucky enough to grow up in. I'd like to think that Padge Jr will one day write a blog when he is my age now, (if writing still exists and Skynet doesn't just read your brainwaves directly) and be able to comment on how he/she had the most amazing childhood playing in the new VR suite they had mum and dad buy so they could do their homework better... or something along those lines anyway.

So that's it! The early years covered at a very basic level. I'd like to think that by my writing you're getting an idea on the kind of guy I am and hope what to expect in future blog entries. I've only really skipped over the basics and have many other stories to tell from both this era and beyond but I'm sure they'll be time for that in other blogs... and don't even get me started on talking about my time with World of Warcraft.

 Thanks once again for taking the time to read this and hopefully I'll see you next time!

Scott.


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