HdE's Totally Unoriginal Gaming Show

Superfast and kind of unexpected update, which isn't really to do with the channel.

If any forum users are attending EGX in Birmingham this weekend, I'll be there on the Friday and Saturday.

This has all come about sort of at the last minute, so I'm currently scrambling to make sure I'm in a fit state to leave work behind and interact with folks like a fully functional human being.

If anyone's about and you see a bearded, balding, bespectacled type in the most boring clothes on site, do come up and say hello.
 
Well, good gawd... when one of your favourite Youtube channels mentions you in their own videos.

I figure this is worth a share for reasons besides ego-stroking. Some of the other channels featured here are really good.

 
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Aaaand, just by way of a follow up to that last post, the first analytics update since good ol' Octy gave me a mention on her channel have come in.

Here are the lifetime analytics for my subscriber count.

SUBSCRIBER COUNT.JPG

I figure this is worth sharing because it shows the appreciable benefit that outspoken support for a small channel can make. It also shows that good things happen when you're a stubborn bastard like me and refuse to give up.

I don't mind telling you, even as a grown man of 41, I got a bit emotional and had a good blubber when all of this happened.
 
New videroo is up! After the godlike technical excess of Halo: Reach, surely the thing to do is follow it up with something even bigger and more determined to push the hardware of its host platform, right?

Instead, I take a look at the Nintendo Gameboy version of BATTLESHIP. And I susrprise myself here with how deep I get into it...

 
I'm changing things up a bit this week with a review of - GASP! - a BOOK! With words in it!

It's still gaming related, though. Here's a look at the XCOM spin off novel XCOM 2: RESURRECTION.




Oh and a quickie reminder: Youtube's notification system is borked beyond belief. So if you're subbed to the channel and want to see further updates, I'd recommend clicking the notification bell icon Or better still as some folks are saying even THAT doesn't work reliably, find me on Twitter (@HdE_playsgames) where I'll be sure to post EVERYTHING.
 
The latest retro review is up. And in it, I look at the dark, twisted nightmare that is PAC-MAN for the NES. How this game has never provoked media outrage, I will never fathom.

 
Latest review is up! And it''s a look at MARBLE MADNESS on the Sega Master System [Insert obligatory 'balls' joke here.]


AND NOW FOR SOMETHING EXTRA! Here's a short video about a couple of rather nice indie games I had a look at back in September at EGX. Keep your eyes peeled for these. They're quite something.

 
'Allo, me old bum tiddlers! The latest video review on my channel went up earlier tonight. And this one looks at an old Atari 2600 game - Activision's BEAMRIDER.

I know it won't look like much from the thumbnail, but trust me - it's an interesting one.
 
NEW VIDEO! And a request...

This week's video arrives late thanks to a series of tech muck-ups. You lot were supposed to get a Nintendo DS game review first, but it didn't meet the rigorous QC standards set in place for the channel and had to be temporarily ditched. So, this one had to be slapped together fairly quickly. Watch in HORROR as I play the Super Nintendo exclusive SUPER R-TYPE.


And now the request: YouTube are pulling shady nonsense again, claiming that they're removing 'spam subscribers' from accounts. At this stage, to be blunt, I trust YouTube about as much as I trust the Tory party to deliver a Brexit deal that isn't a complete effing shambles.

- Bit political there. See? I know how to be edgy, like you cool kids like! -

Anyways - some Youtubers are reporting as many as NINE-HUNDRED subs disappearing from their accounts. I've lost maybe a half dozen. If my channel is something you want to keep up to date with, could I advise folks to go and check that they're still subscribed?

Also, and this is HUGELY important: PLEASE ENABLE NOTIFICATIONS by clicking the grey bell icon. YouTube have RUINED the notification system, and unless you click this secondary icon now, simply subscribing won't actually be enough to show you regular updates from channels. Seriously - you can't make this crap up!

Anyway - sorry I have to snarl the post up with that, but if YouTube actually worked properly - and in the interests of creators - it wouldn't be necessary. In the meantime, there's just one more video to go before this season of my show finishes its run. Whatever could it be...?
 
Man, I've not thought of that one in years. It was the first version of R-Type I ever played, so I didn't really have much else to compare it to, but I remember the art design of the game being quite distinctive and the weapons system was cool, it was just the slowdown that put me off in the end (don't think I ever really played it on a setting above 'easy').

Actually didn't realise we got R-Type III in the UK, but apparently we did. As the weeb rot had already set in at that stage, I probably put more time into Parodius, truth be told.
 
I truthfully pity anybody who gets Super R-Type as an introduction to the series. It's not that the game isn't enjoyable - it just fails to capture the brilliance of the series.

The only other R-Type I've come across that left me feeling similarly disdainful was R-Type Leo, which tellingly never got a home conversion (at least, not to my knowledge, anyway.) That one's a more accomplished and better designed shooter than Super R-Type, but it just doesn't feel like R-Type at all.

Still, the good news is, next time I talk about R-Type on the show, it ought to be in a far more positive light! Hopefully, I can get the C64 version lined up for next season.

My views per video may be in the toilet, but plans are being made... muahahahaha!
 
This week's update is less about games, and more about YouTube being a bag of utter dicks yet again.

This video discusses the recent 'spam accounts purge,' which actually appears to have done a great deal of harm to some honest channels that lost genuine active subscribers.


Oh and an FYI, because I saw it earlier, and it made my blood boil: If this topic is of interest to you, DO NOT waste your time with the Count Dankula video on it. There's some poorly researched points of view put forward in that. Low views per video compared to subscriber count DOES NOT equate to a dead channel in 2018. Pretty much everybody is only getting to 10% of their subscribers now.
 
So, as we bow out of 2018, I *just* managed to finish my first run of reviews with a look at COLUMNS on the Sega Megadrive.


That's season one all done and dusted.

Season two is planned for March 2019.
 
I had Columns for the Mega Drive. Came in a 3-in-1 cartridge called Mega Games 1 along with Super Hang-On and World Cup Italian 90. I also have a fuzzy recollection of seeing it in an arcade when me and my friend went to Jersey on holiday back in '94.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
I had Columns for the Mega Drive. Came in a 3-in-1 cartridge called Mega Games 1 along with Super Hang-On and World Cup Italian 90. I also have a fuzzy recollection of seeing it in an arcade when me and my friend went to Jersey on holiday back in '94.
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I remember that cartridge! Always seemed odd to me how you had two vaguely related games with a sports theme and then Columns.

Mind you, maybe I'm making a wrong association there. Both Columns and Super Hang-On had an arcade pedigree. World Cup Italia 90, as I recall, was a pretty awful. Bunging it on a cartridge with two better games may have been the only way they could flog it to people!
 
HdE said:
World Cup Italia 90, as I recall, was a pretty awful.
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Yes it was. Just watched a clip to remind myself, it has some of the same sound effects as Altered Beast, LOL!
It wasn't until Sensible Soccer and FIFA came along that there was a decent football game.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
Yes it was. Just watched a clip to remind myself, it has some of the same sound effects as Altered Beast, LOL!
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Now that you've said that, I really want the sound effects you mention to be the sampled speech. 'POWER! UP!' and 'WISE FWOM YAW GWAVE!' belong in EVERY soccer game, as far as I'm concerned.

I've had a few requests to review Altered Beast. Holy cow... I wonder if people are ready for what I'd say about it. What a complete pile of crap that game was!
 
Patient-X said:
Kick Off 2?
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Looks fairly Sensi like, but seems it predates it. Has Speccy listed as a platform it was on, but I might have had my Mega Drive by then? Although just checking the Sonic release date as I got a copy with my Mega Drive, it was June 91 and I either got the MD for Christmas or my birthday so... Oh I can't remember back through the mists of time!

TL;DR I don't think I played it.
 
If I remember rightly, the Master System and Megadrive versions of Kick Off went under the title 'Super Kick Off.' Because apparently everything on consoles is super.

Except sports games. I've never understood the appeal. Why play a digital version of something you could have more fun playing for real?

(Safe to say you won't be seeing any on the channel unless there's MAJOR demand for them. And even then only if Gillian Anderson replies to my letters and comes over to play them with me for the afternoon.)
 
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