"The Food of your choice, will end your life, tonight!"

Date: 27/8/98

Welcome to the uncomprimising pit known only as Mr Yeltsins Security SwapShop. Ahem.

Russia[page670] in the shits

Whilst Russia is in an economic shit, the "ratings" of page670 have fallen, according to the LinkEx counter thingy. They've gone down from 57 from two weeks ago, to 37 for the past week. I think it was related to some sort of url mix up in the adverts, though if it gets repeated, I may consider some important changes for the e-zine.

For a start, parts of it (Lowline and Sn49) could go to a listbot type service on a "don't come to us, we'll shove this large thing in your email mailbox." But it's only a thought. Nothing else. Not a large exploding cat, or hardcore porn. No.

Sonic looks lovely, but...

Wouldn't next year, the probable release time of the Dreamcast in good old E of U, be purfect for a games industry meltdown? 1999 is exactly 4 years after the end of the 16-bit market in 1994, and 14 years after the crash in 1984. If you asked Nostradamus about it, he would probably say "Oh mi god they killed kenny." If luck as it's way, 1999 is just a bad year, man. That's reason one.

If the public don't get bored of a lack of originality anytime soon, I'll bury my head in the sand. The industry almost hole-hartly relies on the Christmas rush for next years profits here. If it dosn't do well, then it's all fucked. Somehow though, more football games, racing games, sequels to 3 year old "classics" and more racing games arn't what a good release list is made of. The PlayStation "scene" will be in the shits if Sony dosn't sort itself out with converstions and original titles. There's none of the GTA, or Parappa from last year. There is Metal Gear Solid, but that'll be too lately re-leased to have an effect. And anyway, it's just one game. The Public will get bored.

Reason three: The N64 meltdown seems to be occuring even as we virtully speak. Very few games will have an xmas release for the ill fated system, Zelda 64 may not even be ready on time. Nintendo's christmas rush will soley depend on Rare's recently released titles to push it's mound of black plastic. If the N64 don't like, they'll be more than likely to sell up the console, and buy a PS. The Self Distruct button would of been firmly pressed, inless Nintendo takes it's European market more seriously than it has done before.

Trust me, 1999 is not a good year to launch the Dreamcast. Inless it's scantly priced, sales will be poor, as punters lose intrest. Maybe......

Of course, the scarwling idiots could go out and buy a load of hyped up dereritive crap at the end of the year, and the nintendo lovvies may keep hold of their N64's just so they can finish that game of Golden-How-To-Sell-A-Console-On-The-Value-Of-One-Game-For-A-Year-Eye. And it might be ok. But that's boring. So it's not.

Webbing across the Universe

Whilst I'm here, I'll plug some of my "fave" webshites.

Senior Citizen is a combination of Exclamation Marks and some text. "Yes, you guessed it," it's written by the old man of a.d, Old Fart. The text invouves some stuff to do with websites, odd stories, software and various other stuff. If you don't mind OF's odd writing style, then this e-zine's quite refresing. Worth a looksee.

ARRGH! is basically a very good info site on most old retro consoles. If you find yourself bored on the net at the weekend, it's worth at least a quick look at. Not much in the way of roms, unfortuntly.

Fidonet On The Internet is a semi-fasinating look at the world of Fido, that seems to be falling apart at the seams. Anyhow, this site gives you info on how to join the ameture disscussion network, and where to get the software for it. It includes a introduction if you havn't got a clue about what I'm on about. Go looksee.

And Finally

The Summer Holiday is nearly over. Soon I'll have to get back to doing something useful with my life all over again. Bugger. PAMail