I have left it too late to write this. It's 25 past midnight and I really need to go to bed because I have to work tomorrow, and to make matters worse I have to do it with a somewhat improvised, cramped home office in our lounge because my wife decided a while back that she wanted to renovate my study.
I sound bitter, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing the end result of her work. She's stripping out the disgusting carpet that came with the house, fitting laminate flooring to match most of the rest of the house, repainting, putting up a nice blackout blind, putting some deliberately hideous wallpaper on at least one of the walls as what I believe is called a "feature wall", and generally just making the whole thing a bit nicer than it is. She's also removed the completely impractical chest of drawers from one of my desks, and I will be replacing that with something a bit more practical once the rest of the work is done.
Naturally, a project of this magnitude involves stripping everything out of the study as it currently exists, so of course I can't do my usual work in there this week while she does her thing. (She has this week off work specifically to do this project.) And so it is that I am relegated to the lounge on a tiny little folding desk that just about fits all the crap I need to do my job. I'm sure it will be fine. A change of scenery is nice every now and then, right?
It's been a busy few weeks at work. Naturally there's not a lot I can talk about that hasn't already been announced, but as well as working on the upcoming stuff we haven't told anyone about yet, I also need to come up with some stuff to promote the things we have announced. I have a lot to say about the impending Atari Arcade 2, for example; while there's a lot of largely unknown games on there, there are some absolute crackers if you like early '80s score-chasers.
My particular recommendation (besides the obvious Berzerk and Frenzy) is the excellent Tazz-Mania, which I had never encountered prior to working on this cartridge, but it's fab. Imagine TATE-mode Robotron but with the added time pressure of the walls of each stage closing in on you. I know nothing about this game or where it came from — and the Internet isn't much help either — but I do know that it's an absolute blast if you like that particular breed of colourful early '80s action, so be sure to spend some time with it when Atari Arcade 2 hits.
Right, I think that's probably enough for now. I need to go to bed. Apologies that this is such a half-arsed post, but I've spent most of my evening going through Digital Eclipse's fantastic Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story and really enjoying it, and the time just sort of ran away with me a bit.
So that's that. More coherent thoughts tomorrow, probably. Maybe.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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