At no 10: the 1995 Sega Saturn! Rushed into production to beat the Sony PlayStation it launched with only six games available. A massive advertising campaign couldn't rescue it's reputation...
At no 9: the 1982 Vectex! Who needs sprites when you've got vector graphics! Plus you could add a coloured sheet to the weird shoebox monitor to give you 'colour' graphics. A brave attempt...
At no 8: the 1995 Nintendo Virtual Boy! What do you get if you cross a ViewMaster with a Game and Watch and put it on a tripod? The answer was a commercial flop. Another brave attempt at something new, at a time when VR was all the rage...
At no 7: the 1990 Amstrad GX4000! Amstrad made a console? Yes they did! Was it any good? Erm...
At no 6: the 1994 Sega Mega Jet! A portable version of the Mega Drive this was used on Japanese airlines as in-flight entertainment. Many privately owned ones are apparently from a shipment hijacked by Indonesian sea-pirates that later turned up on eBay...
At no 5: the 1977 Coleco Telstar Arcade! Probably the world's only triangular console it let you drive, shoot and play tennis - but not at the same time alas...
At no 4: the 1994 Atari Jaguar! "The world's first 64 bit console" was actually two 32 bit systems crammed into the same box. That's not cheating, is it? Buggy hardware and a lack of games led to its demise and Atari's exit from the console market...
At no 3: the 2004 Nokia N-Gage! Was it a phone? Was it a console? Was it a digital belt buckle? Nobody knew. What we did know was what killed it: the iPhone...
At no 2: the Apple Bandai Pippin! Apple made a console? With Bandai?? With a croissant for a controller??? Quietly buried by Steve Jobs in 1997 next to the Apple Newton. Send no flowers...
And the no 1 best forgotten games console is... the 1984 Yeno Super Lady Cassette Vision - a pink console for the lady gamer!
If it's any consolation the boy's version was equally as crap...
More pulp video games another time. Most will be PAL compatible...
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What are the pulp archetypes? Pulp novels are usually written quickly and rely on a formula, but do they use different archetypal characters to other fiction?
Let's take a look at a few...
The Outlaw is a classic pulp archetype: from Dick Turpin onwards lawbreakers have been a staple of the genre. Crime never pays, but it's exciting and trangressive!
Some pulp outlaws however are principled...
As Bob Dylan sang "to live outside the law you must be honest." Michel Gourdon's 1915 hero Dr Christopher Syn is a good example. A clergyman turned pirate and smuggler, he starts as a revenger but becomes the moral magistrate of the smuggling gangs of Romney Marsh.
Given the current heatwave, I feel obliged to ask my favourite question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.