So, there’s a new site on the web that offers a Java-based Speccy emulator and records your scores. You’ll be playing against ooh, just about everyone (including me!) and most likely getting your arse kicked by just about everyone (except me!).
Go and sign up here - it’s the best thing since World of Spectrum.
Popularity: 37% [?]
Helloooo! Having a lovely time! Wish you were here! How’s the weather? Say hello to the cat lady for me and make sure she has enough kit-e-kat to be going on with.
So I here I was wondering what on earth I could do as a first post to this new incarnation of YS3 when a rather large clap of thunder made the whole house shake. So much so, that an expertly piled collection of Radiohead and Decemberists CDs toppled over and darned near spilled my iced coffee. Lawkes. But anyway, this is me saying hello and waiting for the Editor to give me an article to write or something.
Popularity: 51% [?]
You know how we’re actually quite lucky that Codemasters don’t allow distribution of their games, so I can use it as an excuse not to review all their ‘Advanced Simulators’? Well, unfortunately the same thing didn’t happen with the word ‘alien’. There are, in fact, more than one or two such games. So go get some snacks, and a nice big glass of Fanta, because this is gonna be a long one. (Oo-er.)
Popularity: 97% [?]
Try to ignore your initial revulsion at the word Facebook - suggested slogan: ‘It’s crap ! (in an annoyingly addictive kind of way)’ - and read on. Yes, I know, this ’social networking’ site seems to be taking over the world but there are a few meritorious features, not least the ability to play Jetman all over again.
Recently I came across the Your Sinclair Preservation Society group. Ex-deputy ed. Pete Shaw is a member, but it will give you some idea of its current size when I mention that as I write, half of its membership has been on the staff of YS3. Not huge, then, but bigger than the entire YS3 readership for some issues.
Facebook members, take this call to arms, join the Your Sinclair Preservation Society and encourage everyone you know to do so as well, if necessary by singing ‘this is the YS preservation society’ at them repeatedly until they join it just to shut you up. The crappest mag ever lives on!
Popularity: 64% [?]
So, apparently my monitor isn’t broken and Earth Hour takes place today. We’re supposed to turn our lights off between 8 and 9pm wherever we are as a symbolic gesture towards solving the energy consumption/global warming palaver. Well, I’ve been doing my bit already - my lights are rarely on. I don’t need a hundred watts of cheap bulb light glaring off my screen while I’m trying to shoot complete strangers in the face in a virtual Vietnam, after all.
Of course, I’m using a big fat PC, with the graphics card alone running at 60° while all this is happening, and Google’s half a million PC server farm’ll be blazing away somewhere beyond the pond, but hey - our lights’ll be out, and that’s the important thing, eh?
Popularity: 58% [?]
I’ve been resisting the temptation to check just how many more games I’ve got to get through until now. In fact, I was starting to feel quite pleased with how far through the As I’d got. Then I realised that I while I’ve got fifty-six more As to get through on my computer, there are actually another six hundred and sixty two more As to get through on WoS. And in thirteen days I’ll have been at it for nearly a year. So, if I want to finish the first letter in the first year, then that’s six hundred and sixty two divided by thirteen… carry the nine… um… 50.9 games a day.
Alright then.
Popularity: 75% [?]