Chris Chapman

Tired of Big Allergy profiting from my misery.

It’s that time again: another month, another recap. A new addition to the site, some new gear, and a promise of a new video soon.

https://savestate.site/stage-clear-july-2026/

Over the last few weeks I’ve sent messages to a few artists on Bandcamp asking for permission to use a track, but I’ve never received a response. Am I just unlucky/bad at asking, or is there some weird antipattern on the creator side where people don’t see incoming messages or something?

New scan: MCV 355, Sep 2005!

• Nintendo took the wraps off the Revolution controller/Wiimote. Industry response is favourable, but not everyone's convinced.
• Reports suggest that Capcom and Konami are next in line for a merger. The source isn't credited, but I assume it was somebody's fan fiction?
• Digital distribution: will Apple will be the first to crack it? No mention of Steam, but that was still Valve-only... for another three weeks.
• Top of the sales chart: The Sims 2: Nightlife.

👇

I switched away from Creative Suite earlier this year for financial reasons and to spread the pain of figuring out an alternate toolset that’ll survive the switch to Linux, but discovering that Adobe’s stopped supporting Windows 10 — before Microsoft, even — has provided another retroactive reason.

Nintendo’s official Star Fox 64 site; the earliest Wayback Machine capture (February 1998) and today.

CDKeys/Loaded are selling Steam codes for the first three Etrian Odysseys for £1 apiece!

They aren’t the best version (none of the Untold improvements, and these games were really made for a touchscreen and stylus) but they’re the best currently available, and a no-brainer at that price.

Checking in on 2026 bingo progress. Going to have to make up lost ground on at least one square to be in with a chance of a line by year’s end. (Ironically, Microsoft adding another year of support to Win10 kind of screwed me on the top row, since I can now defer that until I have more time.) But it’s looking better than last year’s card, at least.

New scan: MCV 354, Sep 2005!

• Actual headline: "Nintendo loves Sony PSP". Hard to imagine them doing that today.
• Sega signs an unannounced game from Bizarre. That would be The Club. RIP PGR.
• Top of the sales chart: Ubisoft continue to monetise Tom Clancy's corpse with Rainbow Six: Lockdown.

👇

Browsing the Christmas 1982 issue of the TV Times on the Internet Archive; got chills when I saw this ad and realised what I was looking at.

Source: https://archive.org/details/1982-12-24-1983-01-07-thames-lwt/page/110/mode/2up

It appears I’m not getting any more sleep tonight.

“Nintendo’s the future and will be for a long time, along with the M2”

TBH, the writing was on the wall when they stopped making Entertainment Packs.

It’s 7/7, Bungie Day! All the upcoming announcements from the Destiny team today:

Social attitudes varied in the early days of the home computer revolution.

From MicroComputer Printout, June 1981. (Address redacted with an abundance of caution, even though it’s highly unlikely that this man—who couldn’t be more clearly in his sixties—is still alive 45 years later.)

This is a bit of a long shot, but does anybody still have copies of 1UP’s “PC Project/LAN Party” podcast?

There were only ten episodes in Oct-Dec 2008; they went out on the old CGW/GFW Radio feed after that show ended. I’ve downloaded two of the mp3s from Wayback. Missing the other eight.

Contemplating the last 24 years of incredible advances in silicon, emulation and product design, and how it’s led to this: the ability to play GBA games anywhere we want.