Supernews49

"It's coming home. It's coming home. It's coming, footballs coming home" - Should of been fucking Vindaloo. Bastards.

SUPERNEWS49

Why have I introduced this section? The reasoning is simple my liege. I've been getting bored over the past few weeks, having to stay behind a curtain of bad and unfunny humour and things. I fancy a mouth off once in a while. So this is it. A whole new section. As an aoler would say, "Kewl."

New beginnings

What will be covered here on in then? STOP ASKING FUCKING QUESTIONS THAT I'M OBVIOUSLY GOING TO ANSWER ANYWAY! FUCKWIT! Err, well, anything that dosn't fit into news really. sn49 will become the occasional editorial of page170, a sort of cross between Weekend Rampage and news. Now and again I may also take it off on a tangent away from relevant subjects such as vegitarainism[lie] and computer/video games. If you don't mind, sir.

And oh yeah, quick news will still be placed in the news section. Do you see? ("Wish I never said that now" - Biffo)

Oh E3, why is thou so shat?

Intresting to see that many pundits are now claiming that 1998 will be a similar gaming crash to that of 1994. I, however, do not belive so.

Yes, the rather uneventfull E3 has shown us that this year's release list will be full of commercial dribblings (Quake clones, C+C clones, sequles and various other crap) of which nothing has impressed the many that went along to the show. That many seem to be pointing to 1994 and shouting "Repeat" in our faces. But no, my dear friends. It looks like the games industry has finally evouved. To being too bloody commercial for it's own good.

You could easily blame the Playstation. Sony has created a format which has gained such poprilarity that it's gone to the point where it's being blamed for the near death of the British Music Industry. It's icons can be seen everywhere, which are almost recognised by everyone. But with this great peice of grey plastic and silicon, Sony has accidently set off a trend. Everyone is after a peice of the PlayStation cake, and so, no one can really be bothered to make relevoutionary or brilliant games in order to make a profit. There are too many risks invouved. Like the pop industry, if it can be done with something tried and tested, what the fuck?

However, it could be because ametures with good ideas find it hard to get into the industry, there are less new ideas floating around, no new genres or sub genres being spawned off. There are also fewer hit making development houses around these days too, can you name one company that really impressed you in the past year, other than Rare?

And now that development kits for the PC and the Playstation are expensive, and learning C is a taboo (inless you have Ł20 and are prepared to get a copy of some sort of C from somewhere), there are few small development houses starting out. Unlike the 16/8-bit days of yore, if you don't have the cash, you can't take part. Inless you wish to make a highly original 2D game like GTA. But, would GTA have been so well known if it wasn't made by DMA and supported by Max Clifford's publicity? I think not sir.

There is so much pomp and crap involved in launching games these days the small time house would find it incredibly difficult to get off the ground and noticed anyway. Without the backing of a large development company, I assume it could be horribly difficult to get any sales. I bring forward the case of the game StarDust, a rather good asteroids clone for the A1200 (the amiga for idiots). It got rave reviews in most of the magazines, but was dogged by bad distribution, and bad sales. Infact it sold almost nil.

What's needed is a development system which can be downloaded off the net, has an easy learning curve and can be adapted to suit the games needs, so you can add 3D graphics and even (god forbid) FMV. An AMOS or Blitz Basic of PC/PS/N64dom, if you like. But will such a monster be created? Will Garden Party ever finish? No. What?

If such a system materialised, then software houses could hold games compos, and then sign up anyone who produces anything starkly brilliant. Even better, anyone who thinks they have created a brilliant game with the system, could try and pull off a DOOM style success and publish their work on the net. Usenet and IRC would spread the word around about it. Hopefully, it would get noticed in the games mags, with a publishing licence following afterwards from a large house. Maybe.

The thing is, if new talent can't get in, new ideas won't either. What we are about to experience this year may be the future of the games industry. A couple of good titles, and a load of copy-cat average/crap. An industry slump isn't coming though, gamers will still buy the games. Because we now have a new type of gamer, rather like someone who will buy any old crappy manufactured pop song, the PlayStation has brought the commercial buyer. And I don't think the trend will go away.

The probably vastly ignored Digitiser Newsletter + Digi!

DippyKev, webmaster of DYS? is now writing a newsletter named, erm, Digitiser Community Newsletter. As well as advertising the re-launch of DYS?, it provides some rather intresting info from the confines of #digi-98 and alt.digitiser. It's worth trying to pick up. To join the mailing list, go to DYS? and join the digitiser community.

Also, some well deserved publicity for Digi!, a website that unfortuntly dosn't get as many hits as this one, and really deserves them. You will piss your pants whilst reading it. Honestly now. Mr Mental has been trying to get the community's attention but most have ignored it. 'tis is good, and tis is here.

Radio1's Digital Update featuring Mr Biffo - 16/6/98

If you missed that bit of history on Radio 1 (the first time we have heard the great one's voice, no?) then you missed, well, not much (Biffo talked about the rather crowded PC Mag market, and mentioned that the PC games market was, well, rather crap). If you need to complete the image of Biffo in your head (and are rather sad) have a looksee at this thing here and click on the digitiser link.

And the digital update can probably still be heard on the Radio 1 webshite until next Tuesday.

Biffo also now has a own website of his own making. At the moment it dosn't seem to work, everything dosn't have .htm or .html at the end of the file name. Have a look see anyway. (Source: Digi Newsletter)

Still on Biffo, some have said that he has lost interest in the whole Diginet thing. I say OI! NO! maybe, well, we don't know. But we know that he has seen the DYS? acroynm - invented by someone in alt.digitiser - that he has used in his letters section. We say, well done my man. Or something not in old english.

Mr Deans's Final Thought

Never nuke a school it server with WinNuke. Just don't.