GamesMaster the Database

Can you imagine what sort of sad individual would take the time to catalogue every single review, preview, Consoletation Zone plea, news item, feature, and contestant that constituted each of GamesMaster's 126 episodes, spanning 7 series and 6 years? To transcribe every game played, every game platform, every winner and loser and proud Golden GamesMaster Joystick recipient? Surely they'd be locked up for even contemplating it?

You've watched the TV show, you've read the magazine and got the t-shirt. Now tinker with the database! Mark my words, GMDb will be more huge-er-er-er than IMDb... albeit on a much, much smaller scale and quite a bit less Hollywoody.
What's so nifty about having all this data in a searchable and filterable format is that you can produce fascinating (pretty too!) tables of figures showing the number of joysticks won by celebrities and non-celebrities, the number won by series, and the overall total.

The same goes for game platforms. Come on, you must at some point have wondered how many Amiga games were featured in GamesMaster challenges throughout its run, and desperately craved to have that information at your fingertips and broken down series by series? Haven't you dreamed of a time when you'd be able to see at a glimpse the popularity of platforms through the evolutionary gaming epoch that was the 90s? Their emergence, and eventual demise? No? Just me then. Can you tell I work in finance?

I'd appreciate it if you could have a play with it, make sure everything works, and report any inaccuracies so I can fix them. I'm also open to suggestions for improvement.

I've already uploaded a church-load of screen grabs, but wasn't planning on capturing every single moment for posterity. If you would like to suggest any others you think should be included, I can arrange that.

N.B. This entry featured in the news section of RetroGamingRoundUp's 80th podcast show. Thanks for the plug guys. :)

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'Monkids'

Did anyone catch 'My Child Is a Monkey' on channel 4 last night? It revolved around people who, for various reasons, choose to keep capuchin monkeys as 'life companions' and treat them like human babies; playing dress-up, teaching them to eat at the table and getting them to wear nappies (I'm not saying 'diapers', doh!).

Said reasons, I imagine, fall into one of the following categories:-

- Human babies grow up, whereas monkeys can be treated like babies throughout their 40 year lifespan, giving these abusers a purpose in life.

- Nut-jobs tend to have their kids taken into care by the state, while monkeys' well-being appears to be less closely monitored.

- Human babies reared by these people would grow up maladjusted and kill the parents in their sleep.

- You can't pull out human babies' teeth or neuter them to make them more placid and manageable without getting thrown in jail.

Who'd have guessed taking an animal that would naturally have a whole forest for a backyard and wedging it into a cage the size of a cupboard might cause behavioural problems and transform cute, fluffy monkey babies into delinquent hoodlums with a penchant for transplanting people's faces? I know, it's a shocking discovery.

What's also bad for them as it turns out is to feed them a human diet loaded with carbs because this can induce diabetes. This was helpfully pointed out to one monkey-mummy by a vet who advised that unless she switched her baby's diet to one composed mostly of fruit and veg, it wouldn't survive. So what does she do? Gives the monkey spaghetti for tea and sets off to church to ask god to save her child.

God wasn't available for comment at the time of filming, but I'm sure he'll do his best.

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Just a man and his will to deprive...

...you of 50 of your hard earned dollars, and your sanity if you're not careful. Not even Adriaaaaaaaaaan could save you from this dog's dinner of a game.

In an old Angry Video Game Nerd YouTube review/rant, James covers the Sega Master system boxing game, Rocky. When the left and right d-pad buttons fail to move the Italian Stallion left and right in the ring he consults the game's manual for some sagely advice. It 'elucidates' as follows:-

"To move your player around the ring does not really require any specific buttons for execution. It requires the right situation because your player will be prohibited from moving unless you satisfy these conditions.

If you're on the offence and attacking freely, your player will move according to the direction of your blows and can be guided to the left/right or forward/backward with your D-button.

If you are on the defence, your player will not move in the direction you want until you can guard yourself effectively (Button 1). And then, you must start dealing blows to be in control of your footwork as mentioned above."

I may be a tad late to the party given that James has just celebrated his ten year anniversary, but wow!, that's staggeringly shoddy even for a game of this vintage. I think - in programmer Engrish - that equates to, 'Everything happens randomly. Whatever you do isn't going to achieve much so you may as well mash the buttons as fast as you can and see what happens'.

It kind of reminds me a lot of the Amiga game Dragon's Lair where the game doesn't amount to much more than an interactive cartoon. At least that, however, had the saving grace of it all looking very pretty, and the animation was groundbreaking for the time.

I'm actually quite surprised the programmers responsible for this game's control method didn't encourage you to grit your teeth, squint up your eyes tightly, clasp your hands together and invoke the "Eye of the Tiger" to defeat your opponent. That would have been just as effective... and more fun!

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Where we're going we don't need DeLoreans

Sitting on a deck chair in my parents’ garden at the weekend, a cat leisurely idled past with its snooty nose in the air, and with a jolt it dawned on me that this is the same cat that has lived next door for the last twenty five years or so.

The same cat that beckoned me over to it when I was nine years old with its you-can’t-walk-by-without-stroking-me, butter-wouldn’t-melt, wouldn’t hurt-a-fly eyes… and then proceeded to lash out with its extended, razor-sharp claws when I succumbed.

Aside from no longer being a kitten and having somehow much wiser, knowing eyes, it hadn’t changed an iota; identical black and white stripes in the same proportions and patterns, and the same self-righteous demeanour.

Twenty five years of life experience flashed before me in that instant. In particular I couldn’t help dwelling on all the relatives, friends and pet dogs I’d lost in that time, and yet here was this bullet-proof furball still going about the crucial business of terrorising starlings and generally swaggering around like it owned the world.

Had I fallen into a worm hole and travelled back in time?, or was the moggy taking a giant leap for cat-kind into the future from my childhood? You could answer, “Shut the hell up you idiot. Cats live a long time, deal with it”, and many would, but I can’t shake the bizarre sensation of unreality and foreboding.

So that was my weekend. Perhaps the question I should be asking is, when did I become Karl Pilkington?

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Yodel, couriers from hell!

The courier business isn't the most complicated, high-faluting of professions to be in. The way it works is, customers wrap up a parcel, slap an address on it, and the courier collects it from point A and drops it off at point B. I don't think you even need a PhD to qualify to be one these days. All of which is why my latest 'delivery' fiasco with Yodel is so staggering.

I made the arrangements through Parcels 2 Go and instructed the courier that as I would be out at the time of collection I'd appreciate it if they could take the parcel from my 'safe place' i.e. the cupboard in my porch. "No problem" they lied, and gave me the usual spiel about it being my funeral if anything should go awry.

The following day I find a card pushed through my letterbox to say, "we're sorry we were unable to collect your parcel today because you were out when we called". Really? What are the chances? Didn't we have that conversation less than 12 hours prior to the allotted pick up slot? In any case, the driver must have been standing inches away from the cupboard at the time, and unless I'm the first person to ever have arranged for a parcel to be collected while they are at work, you'd think it would have occurred to them to check the nine foot by three foot, hinged, handled monstrosity resembling an opening storage device next to them.

I got in touch with both Yodel and Parcels 2 Go to find out what was going on. Yodel totally ignored me, and Parcels 2 Go apologised and offered to re-arrange the collection for the following day. Another 24 hours go by and the parcel remains in my cupboard, though this time no-one bothered to show up to at least pretend to do their job competently, and Parcels 2 Go can't give me an explanation as to why Yodel can't get their heads around the whole pick-up-drop-off conundrum because they hadn't recorded any attempt - failed or otherwise - to collect my parcel!

I'm now told that another courier will be assigned the taxing challenge of collecting the parcel, but this won't take place for another three days because they don't do weekend collections.

In the meantime I'm having to apologise and re-apologise profusely to my eBay customer who only bought my goods on the proviso that I end the auction early and deliver immediately.

After this episode I'm beginning to look at Forrest Gump in a whole new light; next to this bunch of retards he looks like the love child of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein.

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Update: Well Monday rolled around and the parcel spent another day in the cupboard. This time City Link paid me a visit and they didn't bother to collect it either. Apparently whether or not an unattended parcel is collected is entirely at the discretion of the driver... despite Parcels 2 Go telling me in writing that this wasn't a problem at all as long as I was prepared to take the risk. I've now cancelled the purchase and refunded the buyer, and seriously need to consider making an appointment with my doctor to get a prescription for blood pressure pills!!!

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