Thursday, October 20, 2011

Dos Title Screens: The Final Chapter

Besides the freeware games I had in 2008, I also screencapped the title screens from the handful of retail and demo DOS games I had at the time to use as folder pictures. What can I say? I didn't have a whole lot going on at the time. :D I present these images to you now, with links to the game's demo underneath if there is one:



Command & Conquer

While you can hit up the link above for the DOS demo, I should probably mention here that EA have actually released the Windows versions of the first three Command & Conquer games as freeware in the last few years. You can get those from the following links:

Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Soviet Disc | Allied Disc)
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun



Cannon Fodder



Cannon Fodder 2



Championship Manager 2: 97/98



Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons



Doom II

Hit the jump for more.

Video: Outback Boogie in Malebrawonga



Over the past few weeks I've been on a crazy campaign of sorting out and tidying up all my old stuff. During the course of that, I decided to dig out try my hand at digitizing a cassette copy of Outback Boogie in Malebrawonga, a long out of print Zig and Zag single, released in Ireland in 1992. After two nights of fiddling around with a hi-fi, an extra long audio cable and Audacity, this is what I came up with.Yeah, not great and I don't have the artwork either, sadly.

Man, are RTÉ ever going to re-issue this stuff? If they put out a collector's edition of Never Mind the Zogabongs for Christmas, with the non-album singles included, I don't see any way it wouldn't do well for them. If they actually put in a bit of effort, maybe added a DVD with the music videos and a bit of a making of documentary or better yet, the also long out of print Nothing to Do with Toast video, they could have a Christmas No. 1 on their hands.

Hell, if the released that version of Never Mind The Zogabongs digitally, we could make The Christmas No. 1 live up to it's name once again, wiping the smiles off the faces of thousands of X Factor-loving children (and idiots) the country over, and in the end, isn't that what Christmas is all about?

Retromags Non-Release: Total Game Boy Color Issue 2


Damn it! That'll teach me to have a look through the Retromags downloads section before embarking on a new mag. Assuming it was too obscure for anyone to have, I ploughed into the process of scanning in this old Game Boy Color-focused magazine from 1999, digitizing about twenty pages and cleaning up two, before I discovered that wonderman had beaten me to the punch by a few months back in June. Not that I'm mad or anything; I just wish I'd checked first so I'd be further along with my next scan now. Well, seeing as I put a bit of work into it I thought I'd share the two almost-finished pages here for your viewing pleasure.


The magazine itself, I don't remember being particularly good. I didn't get that far into it scanning-wise, but the first few pages feature a entirely fabricated story on the nature of the Super Game Boy 2, as well as the repeated use of a promo shot featuring the most 1999-looking kid of indeterminable gender you're likely to see today. So, basically a mixed bag then.

Like most gaming magazines I ended up picking up in the late 90's, this randomly appeared in my local supermarket for a few issues and with no internet access or a decent newsagent anywhere around, I eagerly snapped them up and spent weeks pouring over them. The result of which, in this case, was me coming to the conclusion that I absolutley needed to get a Game Boy Colour. Looking back, I'm damn glad I held off until the Game Boy Advance rolled around. The GBC didn't really last candlelight and I'm struggling to come up with even ten games worth owning on it. I've got to admit it: did look pretty cool though.

(That lime green one was pure sex.)

deviantArt Updates 20/10/11

Man, has it really been almost a month since I posted anything on deviantArt? Well, never mind, today I'm making up for it with probably the most deviations I've put up in one day since I joined. On the older side of things today we have Flowers, a wallpaper I made in 2000 of some of my (bad) secondary school art work; Doodles 3, a set of doodles from about 2008 that I recently scanned in from a few old sketch book pages; and Core, one final image I made with Peter Blaškovič's Flame program in 2010. Based on a crappy photo I took in September, Roller Tray brings things a little more up to date in a nice, trippy fashion. While Negadoodles comes from a sheet of doodles I drew only last Wednesday to test out some old biros and highlighter pens. The original version I quite liked, but turning it negative gave it a really cool look, I think. Also: Westlife breaking up; The Stone Roses getting back together. Final proof that there is some justice in the world after all. :D