Cultural memory

Library jobs are thin on the ground these days. If I had my choice, I would become a digital humanities librarian. This would be a great way to combine computer and video game playing, a childish waste of time one my favourite hobbies, with my professional skills.

Libraries serve a vital function in preserving cultural artifacts for future generations, such as video games. If the industry moves away from physical media to digital distribution and streaming, as Google and Microsoft are doing, this will make digital preservation more difficult. What happens if a game company closes down, or arbitrarily decides to remove a title from its download service? This could mean that some games are no longer available in any form.

https://qz.com/1601667/the-microsoft-xbox-one-s-will-kill-retro-gaming-culture/

By Bilby - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link

Bombs away

Some thirty years after the release of Potty Pigeon on the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum computers, comes Sploot. The game has a very simple premise. You play as a seagull that flies around a seaside town, pooping on people, cars and buildings.

It's available for download on the link below. It will appeal to children, and adults with a puerile sense of humour.

http://edgeofprophecy.itch.io/sploot

Requiem for the masses

Back in the day my brother and I used to read computer and video game magazines. We couldn't afford a computer, and so had to be content with a Nintendo Entertainment System, and eventually its successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

As well as keeping abreast of what was happening in the industry at the time, looking at the advertisements for new and upcoming games was part of the fun of reading these magazines, even if we never got to play most of them. This is an advertisement for 'Nam 1965-1975, which was published in 1991 by Domark for the Amiga, Atari ST, PC, and Apple Macintosh computers. Coming in the wake of movies such as Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, and the television series Tour of Duty, to name but a couple of notable examples of popular culture depictions of the Vietnam War, it was one of those point and click strategy games. The screenshots show a menu screen, some maps of Vietnam, and a picture of what appears to be former US President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) being briefed by a couple of his advisors.

Strangely, this game is not even listed on Domark's Wikipedia page, which explains that in 1995 the company was absorbed into Eidos, best known for creating Tomb Raider. By now the reader of this blog is probably asking why this advertisement stands out. I'm glad you asked. At the time, we found it very amusing that the grunt depicted here bears an almost uncanny resemblance to Australian actor Michael Veitch, who at the time was appearing in the sketch comedy series Fast Forward.  Look him up using your preferred search engine and judge for yourself if I'm right.