"...in all the sites, in all the world...
...you had to browse to this one..."
As seen on Google UK (eventually) & now Facebook!
"...in all the sites, in all the world...
...you had to browse to this one..."
As seen on Google UK (eventually) & now Facebook!
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This is where Chris Cooper, James Murray, Alan Green, Nick Sizer and Simon Hampton chuck their opinions (and their weight) about; with a lot of help from their friends.
We are in no way affiliated with http://www.monstaproductions.co.uk (though Carpet loves it, the tramp!); http://www.myspace.com/monstapro; or http://www.monsterproductions.co.uk. Please copy these links to your browser to be sent there.
Mr. Hobson's The Wolf, The Witch and The Dining Room Table is now at MonstaPro! We thank his patience...
Mr. Ghee's ponderous Sometimes do get what you ask for is now available...
In further publishing-type news, headway is finally being started with the arrival of Mr. Ghee's No Fear; Mr. Hobson's Ixatemit.com; Theresa Newbill's Residual Effect, The Cleansing & White Orchids; Kristian Cole's Western Blot & Rich Carroll's Destiny's Price...
Apologies for everyone having to wait so long! Carpet is soon retiring to the doghouse...
Good news! As promised the first on the list that has been finished is Phillip Ghee's seminal Big Fishing (remember: whooping cough is a desease, not an adjective) as well as his Strange Party.
Just a quick note to say Carpet's on the case with the backlog of stories that have been sent in, the vast majority of which are marvellous! It's very pleasing to see the guidelines have been followed to the letter! Any ambiguities or errors we find in the documents we will contact you authors directly about, to clarify the problem, otherwise it should be appearing here on the site soon!
Just a couple of news-items today: Total PC Gaming has a good old dig at the Games Industry by listing what they'd least like to see appearing in games of the future (TM); whilst also making sure that all you lot have heard of Online Gaming Distributor GameTap (as also used by the developers of MonstaPro favourites Sam 'n' Max) by listing some of the stuff you can get for free, that's gratis, from their site. Go check em out.
...and lastly, may we present, for drinkers everywhere, the Beer-launching fridge!
In sad-ish news today, MonstaPro has learnt that Dave Green was at the Supplement Gallery with a piece on Ventriloquism up until earlier this week. Hope it went well dude!
A story has also gone up today, care of Carpet's dextrous fingers. John Miller's Blue Scales of Tomorrow now graces MonstaPro's selection!
Yes, it has been over a month since our last shout-out, & Carpet is sorry, specially to the people who are still waiting to get stories published, but he's been busy! Unfortunately real-life (TM) had reared it's shiny lustrous head. Hey ho. Anyway:
News: in a saddening announcement, let it be known Arthur C. Clarke has died at his home, aged 90. The prolific writer and scientist was avid in his 1940's forecast that man would reach the moon; and a principal in production of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrik. See articles at Wired(1|2) and MSN; I'm sure there're many more.
To add to the melancholia, Carpet found this a little while ago, though then it was a few months old: Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers. On the upside, there is to be a TV adaptation of his book the Colour of Magic!
In a much more upbeat but no less ambivalent fashion, The Guardian looks at the possibility of targeted advertising doing away with pay-per-view services (amoungst other things) & a resurgence of the virtual reality goggles (now for watching telly)!
Entertainment: our very own host VirginMedia take a look at games releases coming up this Summer.
The Times have a Festival special & look at Nick Broomfield's new film.
Technology: Warner Bros. officially stick HD-DVD in the face.
Wired published an article about the Anonymity network Tor a while back, a technology that still raises issues regarding online security.
The man who effectively wrote the landmark game Doom John Carmack voices his fears about multi-core desktop environments.
For all you Astronomers out there, VirginMedia displays recent pictures from the Hubble Telescope.
First off, in a semi-surprise announcement (for Western presses at least) comes the third in the Bionic Commando series I thought was left long ago to the Emulator/ROM market; Capcom (creators of the original) are apparently out to prove me wrong with the help of Danish Developer Simon Viklund (who stars in his own vid-interview at Game Reactor & Bionic Commando.com). Team Xbox appear ahead of the game in echoing offical info that buying & finding unlockables in this latest title "BC:Rearmed" will "provide secret insight into characters and plot of the brand new Bionic Commando sequel coming later in 2008". Ooooo! For more vid goodness check out the Blog on IGN & for even more skinny on both games (trailer/screens/etc) hit Bionic Commando.com
Another character to get a restart in the modern market is Turok the Dinosaur Hunter. Except now he's "a super-hard US Commando called John Turok", & Acclaim have given up the franchise so Buena Vista can publish & Propaganda can develop. Both Team Xbox & SPOnG have the skinny on the new title, simply named Turok, originally out on the N64 waaaaaay back in 1997, & before that in comic books (more recently as half a tie-in with said game) going back to the 1950s. In a press release for the newest version, sources reveal that Ron "Hellboy" Perlman & Donnie Walhberg have both contributed voice-acting talent to the game, due out UK next weekend.
Japanese Kotaku-imprint & www-mag Famitsu sprung a new-look scan a couple of weeks ago with help of NEOGaf.com
This time IGN have spewed forth word that action-figures & statuettes have been succesfully licensed to Symbiote Studios, & lookin at the pics they looks tasty. However, more wallet-tingly sensations come in the form of speculation in said article of the S'n'M DVD being available in shops!
IGN also have word that the creator of the Micro Machines games together with an MMO-specific dev' house has - in our opinion - made an MMO of 80s adventuring flight-sim Elite! How bonkers! This Jumpgate will be unveiled at the Online Connect event for US peeps, reportedly available on 400+ machines! Due for release this winter...
Colin Farrell & Ralph Fiennes star in Martin McDonagh's new action-flick, set in Belgium, that is "world-premiering as the opening-night film of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival". Due out, therefore, 8th Feb.
More news-butchering today, this time from Edge Online v.2. This month's issue (#185) has run a Time Extend on Bethesda Software's Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Edge only has a slightly bleak but in-depth look at this "cliché - in both RPG and D&D flavors". I think MonstA's opinion would squarely disagree, however there are some very pretty pictures as well as a lot to read. Check it.
The good people responsible for making the fine game just mentioned as well as its recently doubly-expanded sequel, that is largely wow-ing critics & punters alike, are also in the reasonably enviable position of now making the newest edition of the Fallout franchise. Each game has its own site on Bethsoft.com, so check them out an' all!
Third & final item from this month's Edge, the cover-story is the "true sequel" for Ubisoft's guerilla shooter of a similar name released way back in late 2004, amidst a slew of console conversions & half sequels that were mostly rather good too. If the new game lives up to the technology being designed for it, as well as the expected graphical-detail of the end product, high-end PC owners should definitely be pleased. The text of the latest edition does initially contain a lot of hype, however there is no mention of it being held up! COme Summer I'm sure everyone will find out!
Making sure I spell this correctly & recently being written about in Total PC Gaming iss. #2's "Redux"; the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (gasp!) allows those of us with decidely "retro" gaming tastes to re-sample (pun NOT intented) the alleged genre-of-yester year, the point-n-click. Any & all piracy issues are firmly quashed in the FAQ as well as on the busy yet tech'-focussed forum by the development team, who firmly state that "ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their data files." Basically, this app' is NOT a ROM archive, so get to the bargain-bins you cheeky sods! What is does do however, much like the LucasArts CD-editions of the classics Full Throttle & Sam 'n' Max: Hit the Road (SnM being a former new-article on this very site), is take usually the original sometimes floppy-disk code & make the game instantly compatible with your operating system. Compatible OSs are now no longer limited to Windows; ports have been successfully made onto Fedoran Linux, the new iPhone & even the Nintendo DS!
Despite initial & separate difficulties with two of the three games I've VMd' many a quiet hour has been spent on the new XP-pro laptop in front of the telly next to the curious wife! The first two Monkey Island games & SnM:HtR run like a dream, bearing in mind this being the first time EVER I've been able to run the latter-most without subtitles! Anyone who does have to delve into the guts of configuring a game can be a little overwhelmed, though anyone else who got used to editing their AUTOEXEC.BAT etc files will find it a breeze. A plethora of options for graphical & audio properties are available as of version 11, there's even a Freeware game available for DL on their site. Providing you still have those all-important game-disks this app' gets a very big thumbs up. Check it.
The same mag' features very proudly on it's front cover more news & screen's of the newest of the Fallout series, as formerly featured here on MonstaPro. There's been a lot of new content put onto it since it was last mentioned, check it out to see for yourselves!
After checking out the up-and-coming PS3 game Haze (by the same people who did second & third of the Timesplitters series reviewed on this very site!) I bumped into a "remix" of part of the soundtrack to Portal, itself a part of Valve Software's best-Christmas-Present-ever (?) Orange Box. Check them all!
Amidst the flurry of recent content, hear is Blockbuster's pimp of 2008's movies & MSN's top turkies of the same. Enjoy!
Another story for your perusal you lucky people! Mr. Hobson has sent us his Survivors to see what could happen. Or has it?...
Season's greatness to you all! Due to popular request we have now created the MonstA Story Submission Guidelines for your perusal.
Ar thar be another one today, but nothing to do with pirates. Ewan Lawrie's Orwellian Bigger Brother hits the MonstA screens, for your viewing pleasure.
In the midst of all the updates I offer this, a more philosophical (and yet technological) piece: TV Links shut down for linking.
Apologies to our simpatico John "ShadowDancer" who's submitted his excellent Reclamation, & now we can even spell his name properly! Also we take great pleasure in welcoming Mr. Gareth Williams' Boots to our site! Enjoy!
Yesp, there's more: Mr. Paul Jennings sends us his bangin ode to old people: Lovely Dahlias.
