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

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 2: Camaraderie Through Consoles!

Now I don't want to sound too self-indulgent when it comes to me writing these blog posts, although committing my thoughts to virtual paper for the masses to read is in itself a self-indulgent act, (irony!) but I figure we'll all get on a lot better if you can at the very minimum see why I come to the conclusions I arrive at if you have at least a familiarity of my background and what makes me tick. This is me trying to be as clear and transparent as I can be in a world where masking one's true intent for fear of offending someone, anyone, has started to become the norm. I mean, no-one wants to be that guy/girl/non-binary do they?! In a world where it is so easy for someone to take offence and in return recompense in a militaristic fashion it pays dividends to keep your cards close to your chest at all times. And with everybody having a virtual presence either from the likes of Facebook or Twitter to even owning a bank account everyone has a vulnerability which can be exposed and taken advantage of for whatever reason... whenever the feeling arises. That is a scary thought! And who can blame anyone for being a lot more secretive when it comes to omitting their own true thoughts and opinions? But I say this; does it not make more sense to be as open as you dare to be in order to quell any suspicions of the contrary? Surely it is better for someone to know where they stand with you, (for ill or good) than to be forever questioning your loyalties and judgement? And in a world where you will always offend someone either by a differing view or from a lack of forethought to a throwaway comment which we are all guilty of from time to time, (It's what you say/type on the internet, never how you say it!) the only person you should be straight up with is yourself. In essence, say what you mean and mean what you say. I quote Elvis Costello, "Don't wear your heart on your sleeve when your remarks are off the cuff." And when you choose to publish anything on the internet, be it a Youtube video or a blog entry your soul is exposed to being poked and prodded by any and all nefarious types which come across it. People who claim to not be bothered on any level by that either don't care enough about their creations in the first place or are full of shit.

 So why do I start the second entry to my blog - which is supposed to be about my gaming history, to allow you to peak in to my mindset and, (hopefully) to help you, dear reader understand how I reach the conclusions I arrive at - with a paragraph detailing how saying what you feel is the truth from your viewpoint could be construed as offensive to others? SIMPLE. Console gaming in my humble opinion is one of the most tribal of technological leisure activities you can affordably be a part of today, and that has been the way since the Atari 2600 burst on to the scene along with it's competitors back in 1977. But why? The answer I think is a relatively simple one; It's because of the hardware and the fact you can't modify or upgrade anything within that base unit you purchased from the store. Everybody has the same set-up, with only the different makes of console to differ you from Willy and Billy down the street. Because of this it's very easy to draw big rivalries between owners of the Super Nintendo and the Sega Megadrive or the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox. Now you could say that that was relatively true for my beloved Commodore 64 when being measured up to the Spectrum ZX and although both very popular at around the same time from a hardware perspective they were an ocean apart in a technological sense. Although these days from a similar viewpoint you have tech-fiends arguing about which company manufactures the best graphics cards, CPU's, motherboards etc. etc, there is such a diverse choice out there that no complete PC can be directly compared to another.

 And they're so damn accessible! Plug and play and you're away! A product for the masses... but still expensive within themselves. Take in to account the fact that buying the base unit is only the start of what is still an expensive hobby if you want to keep up to date with the latest game releases, along with the yearly online subscription you need to purchase to even be allowed to play with your friends regularly means most people still only end up picking one console from the handful available in any given generation. This breeds a playground rivalry from the owner of said chosen console brand to justify their choice; to feel like they have made the wise decision and the owners of the other brands are complete idiots for choosing their complete potato of a machine. And these rivalries can be fucking vicious, man. I remember being at school and hearing about a guy being bullied incessantly because he had a Atari 7800 when all his peers had a NES. Don't get me wrong, I know kids generally can be vicious little shits at the best of times and in that period of your life all you want to do is fit in, but just look how the rivalries of the latest consoles breed as much contempt as past generations of gaming machines yet the average age of your run-of-the-mill gamer is between 18 and 35. That means there are a lot more adults who should know better throwing their tuppence worth in to the shit storm that is the ever evolving console war. We're not completely to blame however, and as long as the behemoths of the video game industry insist on having console exclusives and getting away with blaming "netcode" and other such bollocks for not allowing cross-platform online play from games produced by independent developers, rivalries will continue at the fever pitch it has been at for last 30 years.

 But I digress. Gaming consoles! Console gaming! That's what I said I'd write about and I'll stick to the plan... this time. At 10 years old for Christmas after having my well loved and well used Commodore 64 for five years I was ready for a change. I had grown bored of the wait times for loading games via a cassette, (although in retrospect it was never that long but at that tender age it felt like a eternity) and with myself having just started at middle school the previous September I was very much aware of what other kids were watching/reading/playing and I learnt, very quickly, that console gaming was at the forefront of the playground banter. Friends new and old were pulled in to the exciting world of 16 bit gaming via the Megadrive and SNES becoming more affordable after being on the market for around 18 months and boy! was there a frenzy in that first term at school leading up to Christmas. Obviously you had the cool kids who's rich parents had bought the console within the first 6 months of release and were viewed with starry-eyed wonder due to their veteran status with their chosen machine by their peers but now we, the common folk, could finally enter the gaming clique of our choosing. No longer would we be hovering around the edges of society, (well... the school yard) listening with intrigue about the tall stories of a podgy Italian plumber or a blue hedgehog. Now even I can throw myself headfirst in to the pixel world of whichever gaming mascot I chose to enlist under! The question was though, which one? Both of the popular machines of the time had their merits but it would appear, at least in my friendship circle, that the SNES was the way to go. So on Christmas day in 1993 I awoke to a rather large present which just so happened to be a Super Nintendo Entertainment System complete with a Superscope and Superscope 6 game, (more of a tech demo for the bazooka-shaped light gun but I don't think many developers got the memo on that) F-Zero and Super Mario All-Stars. And that was me set at school; I was welcomed in to the SNES fold as one of their own, a fellow Nintendo enthusiast brought in to the ranks ready to defend the honour of our kind at a drop of a hat. And even today I still think picking that over the Sega Megadrive/Genesis was the way to go... Now was that because of the neater looking graphics? The unique Mode 7 design? The no gore effect in Mortal Kombat? I'd like to say yes, (except for that last one) it was EXACTLY for those reasons, but at 10 years old it boiled down to one key yet shallow reason; it's what all my friends had. A decision made not by good judgement or meticulous research in to the choices I had at the time, but popularity. And although it would seem that at least this time I had chosen the winning side I believe there were no actual losers in this generation, it all just depended on what you found fun. It's true that the Megadrive had the faster paced games and smoother gameplay feel but I was never really in to sports games or action/bullet hell shooters which would take advantage of those aspects on that console. And anyway I had a plethora of interesting adventure games, RPGs, platformers, fighters and racers to occupy my time.

 "For fuck's sake Padge! you've been rabbiting on and you've hardly covered any games yet!!" I hear you cry, and I'm just as shocked as you to be honest. As I type this I never really thought I'd go this deep in to the "why's" of console gaming in my past as opposed to the "what's", but I guess that's because I feel I've matured past the minimalist pleasures that a console offers, and which is always on the back foot from a tech perspective compared to the sophistication that a PC can deliver, but that's for another blog entry. (I know... very PC Master Race right?) SO, the games. I played F-Zero to DEATH. I loved it. It was my go-to game for a very long time duly to the futuristic setting, the breakneck speed you travelled at, (over 400 km/h!) and the fact you could be completely destroyed if you didn't pay the attention needed to the car racing at that velocity because of the hazards on the track like the mines... or the other cars low on energy and about to blow up themselves... or the sides of the track which were deadly to the touch! And I also really digged the the instruction manual which doubled as a scene setting comic book! Compared to the Commodore 64 which in itself had a fair few games that felt like they were pushing boundaries of what an entertainment system could offer this game in particular felt like it was on another level completely. It is a classic in every sense of the word and this is shown time and again by the multiple nods it gets in other games, from the likes of Mariokart, (an obvious one) to Animal Crossing: Wild World. The other cartridge I had that Christmas, the aforementioned Super Mario All-Stars was a culmination of enhanced remakes of the first 3 Super Mario games along with the Japan only version of Super Mario 2 labelled as "The Lost Levels". From a relatively sensible child's perspective who would only be getting 2 games to go with his brand new console, (one from Nan, one from Mumsy) this seemed like a cost effective solution to a very real problem for anyone with limited access to funds; value for money. It was 4 games in 1 cartridge damn it! The maths don't lie!! So technically I had 5 games to last me until my birthday and last me they did, and beyond. Now you've probably noticed I haven't mention the Superscope much and that's because no-one else really did anything with it. A gimmicky light gun which Nintendo hoped more developers would support but sadly did not. I guess they were trying to riff off the back of the original light gun idea after the popularity of Duck Hunt but with the thinking of "bigger is better", (it was shaped like a fucking bazooka after all!) but it seems instead of people embracing this mega peripheral and the scope itself becoming a bulwark of gaming it was seen as a one trick pony with too narrow a field of use to be fully seized upon. Sadly this would seems to be a recurring problem with each new console generation, where towards the end of their natural life our living rooms are filled with plastic inessential controllers to games long forgotten about due to the fact it's too much effort to set up compared to picking up a regular controller... but I guess we're the mugs as we keep buying them and buying in to the "unique game design" of using them in the first place... at least until we have a large group of friends or family come round to your house anyway.

 So what of later games? Over the next few years I managed to add to my collection through birthdays and Christmases with both physical copies for games I'd asked for and games bought through an accumulation of money from said celebrations to what I like to think is a nice selection of electronic distractions. Within my assortment you could find the likes of Super Smash TV, Super Mario Kart, Disney's Aladdin and The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II and WWF Royal Rumble. Although I had a few of the more popular amusements within my collection I never felt the need to get all the classics due to 2 simple reasons, swapping between friends and video game rental. As I've said before, I was blessed with having a large friendship group which meant there were a lot of Super Nintendo's flying around which lead to a lot of different types of games being bought and, like any kids at our age our attention span could be measured in nano-seconds. So when one of you got bored of playing game X we could walk over to our friends house and swap it for game Y for a few weeks which meant (generally) everyone was a winner. Occasionally you would swap a rubbish game for a better one to a friend or as we all started to grow up some people would stop playing with their SNES, (quitters) but were still open to swapping games so the swap at that point was more like insurance than theft - never borrowed, always swapped! The other is a dead concept in the traditional sense these days and that was going to Choices Video in the UK, (a tackier Blockbuster if you're not aware of the brand) and renting a game over the weekend for a couple of quid. I know these days you can stream certain games for a fee or if you subscribe to certain gaming platforms they allow you to play whatever you want for as long as you're subscribed but these are both long-term contractual services, not something you can afford to do on a whim on some cold rainy Saturday afternoon in March. Admittedly, the second hand market is a lot larger at your local Gamestop or CEX nowadays, but you generally have to spend a lot more on a piece of software which you have no knowledge of how it's actually been treated before you acquired it. That makes me uneasy... and with more and more games these days being download only that isn't even an option for 70% of the time. "Games as subscription" is how I believe the business managers refer to it as, more like a subscription to the games you've already paid outright for... but that rant is for another time.

 So what am I getting at after all the babbling... and why have I only talked about the SNES? Surely I've had more than just the ONE console in my entire life? Well, yes I have. To cover them quickly I have owned at one point or another a Gameboy, (twice... there was a headbutting incident) a Playstation, a PS2, an XBox 360, a PS3, a Nintendo Wii, a Nintedo WiiU, a PS4, (well I guess you know what side my bread has been buttered in the following generations of the console war!) and an Amstrad GX4000. Apart from the Amstrad which my grandparents bought to keep me quiet whenever I visited, (it worked... for a short while) all of the others played second fiddle to the PC we had either as a family computer, (for "homework" - LOL!) or as my own gaming machine. That means that my time with the Super Nintendo if the only "pure" experience I've had with consoles where nothing other than that machine was my main gaming focus. I feel it would be unfair to talk about the rest on how they made me feel as a teenager or young adult as these other consoles haven't defined me as a gamer since I first launched Settlers 2 on my 486 DX2 66. Of course there have been console exclusives which I've delved in to over the years which are usually the reason why I owned those consoles in the first place but since my early to mid teens the PC is where my heart has been.

To conclude, my first and only dedicated foray in to console gaming as a youngster brought me acceptance, camaraderie and a shared wealth of gaming diversity, and I guess when I slip on those rose-tinted glasses I can kind of see why the latest generation of the console wars have soldiers on either side fighting the good fight as intensely as they do... it's for that feeling of kinship and inclusion.

 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 1: The Commodore Years

Happy New Year Everybody! As part of my New Year resolutions in 2018 I have decided to assault the internet from several new angles in order to further enhance my bid for world domination but I feel I must start this new blog with one essential caveat:

I am a man-child. 

 GREAT! Now that we have that established this I think it's time to fill you in on how exactly I have gotten to this point in my existence. I mean, c'mon... a thirty something who's only just been doing Youtube for the last couple of years? Where the fuck has this asshole been eh? And I'll tell you no lie, my origins story isn't a rags to riches tale full of drama, suspense or anything else that could make this original or particularly inspiring... but it's my story and it's all I got. And I've been told by this website I need to write something to actually class this as a "blog" so here goes:

(And before we start I have a quick **DISCLAIMER** for you which definitely applies to this blog post and I'm sure it's pretty safe to say will apply to about 90% of what will come out of this in the future. I will be using swear words and crude language at times and I'll probably touch on subjects which some people may find themselves to be a little oversensitive about. But remember this, opinions are like arseholes; everybody has one and at one time or another they're full of shit. That goes for everything I say on here... and that also goes for any thoughts that get conjured up by yourself while reading anything I write on here... you judgemental twat.) 

That was a JOKE... just so you know what you've let yourself in for!

Where was I? Oh yeah... So where did this love of gaming begin? What is my origin story? Well, it all started off when I was 5 years old and my parents bought me a Commodore 64. I can't for the life of me remember the reasoning behind this, I don't think I was running around in my Bananaman pyjamas demanding the best selling personal computer of the time and my parents themselves are not computer savvy in the slightest, not even today! So my only reasoning behind it was the fact my mother had a friend who's husband and son, (who was a year older than me... the son, not the husband) were REALLY in to their computers, especially the Spectrum ZX and maybe Mumsy saw the potential of a having one of these new fangled and now reasonably priced home computers for her young son to be able to mess around on, maybe even do his HOMEWORK on in the future! (Yeah, right.) Maybe she foresaw the technological revolution that was about to dawn on the world and thought that she would give her baby the head start in being fluent with such a device before it became mandatory knowledge; knowing it is easier to adapt and excel at new skills from a younger age rather than having it forced upon him in the future at school where having any lesson which could help you in the real world once out of education would be met with more resistance. MAYBE, (and I fear it is this reason alone) she just wanted to shut up her little shit of a child because all he banged on about was how he enjoyed going round to her friend's house and playing on their computer with her friends son. Whatever the case on Christmas Day in 1988 I opened up a brand new Commodore 64 which came with the Hollywood Pack, (comprising of Rambo First Blood: Part 2, Miami Vice, Platoon, Top Gun and the Great Escape) and the TV Quiz Pack. (That had Trivial Pursuit, The Krypton Factor, Blockbusters, Bullseye and Every Second Counts - Classic 80's TV game shows!) And that was me set for a couple of months for the very least... Well, until I found using the keyboard to control most of the games was an absolute nightmare so I incessantly bugged my parents to buy me a joystick. One of several in fact. MAN, those early games LOVED the joystick waggle! A technical term for you there; It means to alternate pushing and pulling the joystick to the extremes of it's x axis until either the suckers holding the thing in place lost their grip and you smashed your hands on the desk OR the centre point of the joystick is so irretrievably damaged your player characters in every other game will forever be inching themselves in a certain direction... even when you didn't want them to. But now with joystick in hand, (always plugged in to port 2 for some reason!?) I had the world of gaming from home at my fingertips!

I feel blessed knowing that I grew up in the infancy of home computing at an affordable level and I don't just mean from a hardware perspective. I understand that as far as PC gaming is concerned these days the main shop front for all tastes is Steam and from here you can find pretty much whatever niche you are looking for; be it AAA games or an unknown indie gem just waiting to be plucked from the ever growing gloop of available software whenever you want it. And, (if you have the patience.. another topic for another day) for the price you are willing to pay but back when I started you could walk to your local corner shop and there, wedged in the corner by the magazine racks sat a cardboard stand with all sorts of games for as little as £1.99. It just seemed so exotic and new! This made going to the shops with me in tow a nightmare for my parents as I couldn't understand why they would't buy me that latest game I clocked eyes on when they were so cheap. (Taking in to consideration that £1.99 in today's prices would equate to around £5/$6/0.000406 Bitcoins) In retrospect I see now that they were trying to teach me the value of material items by limiting my access to new shiny things, be it a new C64 game or a level axis joystick but when new games came out on a weekly basis there was always something else I had to have. Now, this may all seem trivial by today's standards where several dozen games can be released per day but back then it just seemed like the constant flow of new and innovative games would never end and I, (as an aspiring gamer always looking at expanding his gaming pallet and recreational library) just had to be at the forefront... or at least what I thought was the forefront. In reality that little cardboard stand never even scratched the surface of what was available for the Commodore 64 by the time I got my sticky little fingers on it in 88'. Unbeknown to me at the time was the fact that that little stand in the local newsagents were games of and from the homebrew community; little games that "bedroom coders" were creating/ripping off and generally selling from the back pages of popular computing magazines of the day which had built up a reputation for the polish or mechanics and put out on a larger publisher's budget range. Don't get me wrong, even back then there were your AAA publishers putting out bigger budget games with the latest TV or movie licences to instantly pique your interest and get you to part ways with five times the amount of cash in your pocket compared to those "lesser" titles but generally that meant the smaller companies and sole coders had to be more innovative, more experimental, and I guess that's why even today I'd rather try out some interesting obscure game from an unproven developer over these safe bet "AAA" indistinguishable games that soul sucking publishers with a conglomerate of developers under their ever watchful, ever judging gaze like to shit out on a yearly basis... but hey, that's business I guess. RANT OVER... back to the games.

AND OH THE GAMES! None of them were really sophisticated compared to today's standards I confess but I guess that would be unfair to contemplate anyway. It was a different time. A different era even! It's like comparing a new Ford Mondeo to a Model T, but I digress... Games back when I was a youngster had such a wide variety thematically so it seemed like there was always something new to attempt. Note I say attempt and not complete; the majority of games were quite short when broken down in to parts so most developers ramped up the difficulty or sometimes even made their games impossible to complete, (or put on an infinite loop) just so you as the end user could get the maximum "value" out of their product. This is still a common practice today albeit cultivated in a different way - see most "AAA" open world games for proof of that. One of my most played games on the Commodore 64 was victim to this but that made it no less playable as far as I was concerned, (namely due to the fact I didn't know it couldn't be completed at the time!) and that was a game called Werewolves of London by Viz Design. I just loved the fact you could run around the streets of London killing innocent people and policemen alike while also very occasionally getting the opportunity to slaughter a family member who cursed you in the first place! The music was also excellent in my humble opinion, partly an original song and partly, (mostly) a rip off of the song Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon. Another favourite of mine which was a little more mainstream but still with a horror theme was the original Ghostbusters game by David Crane and is what I believe to be the most authentic Ghostbusters experience to date. It had a karaoke section at the title screen if you wanted to sing along with the theme tune damn it!! A very refined game back in it's day too, you could deck out your car (a choice of 4) with whatever equipment you wanted/needed, go and try save the city and when the game was over you had a special code given to you at the end which represented your bank account number and would result in you having more start up money for your next playthrough so you could buy even MORE equipment! As long as you make a profit that is. It even curtailed the frustration of waiting for the game to load off the cassette by running a very basic version of Space Invaders called Invade-A-Load! Another game I have a soft spot for but to this day I find ridiculously hard to get past the first level of is The Flintstones by Teque Software. I'm told it comprised of four levels but I only ever got to see two of them as they were the only ones available in practice mode; the first comprising of level 1 where you as Fred have to paint the front room of your home before Wilma gets back but with the dodgy controls, your paintbrush/bird walking off and Pebbles being a little shit escaping from her pen and drawing on the walls this was nigh on impossible! The second level was actually level 3 where you had a game of 10 pin bowling with Barney after finishing the painting of the room, (level 1) and changing a tyre on your car. (level 2) Level 4 comprised of you and Barney going off to find Pebbles and BamBam after they run away together... supposedly. As I said, I've never had the pleasure of playing them! One of the few games I did manage to complete was Postman Pat 2 (by Enigma Variations Ltd) based on a children's program still airing to this day! The premise was simple; you, Postman Pat has had his van broken down on the hottest day of the year and you need to deliver your letters on foot while staying hydrated by doing favours for the local villagers who would reward you with cups of tea. This would keep your "tea meter" from running out and therefore stave of dehydration. (It's always bothered me that he didn't just have glasses of squash instead... much more refreshing!) You could bung lifts of a couple of locals to help you around the village if you ever crossed paths with them but it was possible to complete the game without their help. The big baddie in this game were a roving band of feral chickens who would steal your post and run across several screens before dumping their quarry and pegging it before you have the chance to catch up with them thus making you more dehydrated from the chase! (The little buggers!) I have been classically trained too by the way. The likes of Rampage, Blue Max, Buggy Boy, Paperboy, Outrun, Afterburner, Batman, Wrestlemania, NARC, Robocop and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles donned my gaming shelf to name but a few and I have many a fond memory of rushing home after school and loading up a game to play before tea then having to turn it off just when I was making progress in a game due to my dad wanting to watch the news... sometimes life is cruel.

That was my gaming life set for the next half a decade until at 10 years old on one cold Christmas morning I unwrapped a Super Nintendo. And so started the next chapter of my life I dub "The Console Years" but that's for another time. (And another blog entry!) And even though gaming as a hobby and my taste in games in general have evolved well beyond the likes of Fantasy World Dizzy, (my favourite Dizzy game by the way) I will always have a soft spot for my Commodore 64, which incidentally I still have in a drawer under the guest bed along with all my games and, (what I still believe to be) a working joystick.

Now I understand that if you've made it this far there is a good probability that you have fond memories of the Commodore 64 also and maybe even some of the games I've mentioned here but if you are curious in looking deeper in to any of the above versions I've done my best to find a relative link to each game for your further perusal and, (I hope!) a bit of a nostalgia trip. If you are unlucky enough to have not experienced any of these gems the first time around most can be found in emulated form on the interwebs. I implore you to go out there are try them out!

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

Scott.


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