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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6570
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 30/09/2009
Subject: UK TV-alert: MM/JSW on BBC 4
Last night, a programme called _Gameswipe with Charlie Brooker_ was televised on BBC 4.
It's a documentary on the history of computer-games, with particular emphasis on how they have been demonised by the British media (because they incite people to go out on the street and behave as they do in the games, e.g. jumping up and down on a patch of mushrooms, or bashing their heads against a brick wall).
Manic Miner appears 3 minutes into the programme, with brief footage of "Central Cavern".
Charlie Brooker: "Thanks to the availability of cheap, easy-to-use computers like the ZX Spectrum here, a generation of youngsters started programming quirky games with a distinctively British sense of humour. Titles like... the Pythonesque platform-game Manic Miner."
"Pythonesque" refers, of course, to the giant foot that crushes things in the British TV comedy _Monty Python's Flying Circus_.
Jet Set Willy makes a slightly longer appearance 28 minutes into the programme, with brief footage of the title-screen and "Top Landing".
Rab Florence: "Jet Set Willy's the kind of game that would only be made in Britain. It's about a guy who was cocking about inside his house, trying to avoid his wife [sic], and the great thing about Jet Set Willy was... you couldn't complete it. It was broke. You couldn't complete it! You couldn't finish it! And that's what I love. What's more British than somebody making a game and getting to a point and going, 'Nobody's gonna get this far in,' and went, 'F*** it.'"
Those in the UK can watch the programme on BBC iPlayer, or find out when it will be repeated on BBC 4, here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n1j8q
Warning: the programme contains dirty language, extreme violence, and sexual graphics.
For those outside the UK, it should not be difficult to find Gameswipe on YouTube.
I believe there could be further MM/JSW content in a programme called Micro Men on BBC 4 on Thursday 8th October.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://tinyurl.com/andrewbroad-mmjsw
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