NSFW Best Thread Ever [No SJW-related posts allowed]

[Fedora Master]

are they erotica

Do you consider rape to be erotic?

 

[yes plz]

are they erotica

Do you consider rape to be erotic?

who doesn't?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

are they erotica

Do you consider rape to be erotic?

There's a fetish for that, you know.
Its like, a whole genre of porn.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Here we have possibly the only surviving backup tape of the source code to 30 year old historical game data being put into an oven and baked!

Why? Because old tape drives, that's why.

As for the data? Just the catalog for the old Magnetic Scrolls adventure games.

Reading about the restoration method is pretty fun.

And what was the result of that process?

You can now buy The Pawn to play on your phone.

 

[Infinitron]

Unkillable Cat Relevant to your interests: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-04-codemasters-covers

The bonkers box boasts of classic Codemasters covers
Absolutely brilliant.

For over a year now, I've been trying to collect every Codemasters game released for the ZX Spectrum. It's a bit of a weird hobby, yes, but it's something I attempted as a youngster and now, with a bit more disposable cash to play with, I thought it was about time that I finally completed my mission.

There are multiple reasons I wanted to collect all the Codemasters games back in the day, but the main one was Dizzy. As a massive fan of the happy little egg I became loyal to the Codies brand. So loyal in fact that I refused to spend my pocket money on games from other publishers.

It wasn't just Dizzy that gave me the collecting bug. I also loved the uniform box art given to all Codies games. The big yellow flashes that surrounded the text, the colourful front covers and the in-game screen shots on the back made the games feel unique and exciting. Most of all though, I liked the four digit product codes found on the spine of the covers. I used to order the games (and still do) according to those numbers, and I wanted nothing more than to display the full set, in numerical order, on my shelves.

Looking at these covers some 25 years later it's safe to say that most of the boasts made in the little text flashes look kind of quaint. Jet Bike Simulator for instance shouts about its 'SIMULTANEOUS TWO-PLAYER ACTION', whilst 3D Starfighter made a big whoop about its 'DIGITIZED VOICE SYNTHESIS'.

Not all the box boasts were as sensible as those examples. In fact some were just plain ridiculous. Here's 10 of my favourite bonkers box boasts from my collection of classic Codemasters games.

JUST LIKE THE REAL THING - Except nowadays the real thing costs a lot more than 10p a spin and you actually might get to win some real money.

MASSIVE GAME PLAY - Can gameplay really be quantified by size? If so I'll have two square metres and any loose cuttings you might have, ta.

MEGA SOUND - Considering most sounds on the Spectrum sounded like digitised farts, this one should be taken with a pinch of salt. Either way, you could only hear the mega sound of Grell and Fella if you owned a 128k machine.

LOADSA WEAPONS - No, this isn't a promo quote from a Borderlands game. I guess whoever designed the box art was a big Harry Enfield fan.

REAL GRAPHICS - Because you know to say no to fake graphics, right?

BONUS LEVEL - Nowadays that bonus level would be a platform exclusive paid DLC.

ACTUAL 3D JUMPING - I mean, I've played this game and it's not actual 3D at all, it's simulated 3D. And even then, it's crap.

BALL BOUNCING ACTION - There's no way they didn't realise what they were typing here.

FAST SMOOTH ACTION - Not sure if this quote is about a game, or a fancy new razor blade.

FANTASTIC MOUSE-ABILITY - They're just taking the piss now.

As for my collection, I only have two more games left to find until I achieve my childhood dream, so do hit me up on my Twitter account if you spot either DJ Puff (box code 2676) or Sergeant Sergeant Seymour Robot Cop (box code 2780) hidden away in your loft space. You'll be helping me complete my life's work.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I see your post and I raise you this:



Seriously, check out the titles they unearth from that pile.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Another masterpiece.

Todd Howard Pack.

 

[markec]

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Another masterpiece.

Todd Howard Pack.

Shit, they even reduced the Luger noise level.

 

[Mr. Pink]

 

[agentorange]

>choosing the Rothschild Ascension ending
I seriously hope you guys didn't do this

 

[markec]

 

[Max Stats]

Yes, it's based on that MLP mod. Yes, those are five books. Stuff you can read.

Not after it makes me shoot a bullet through my eyeholes first.

 

[Jigawatt]

I'm highly triggered by that crappy panorama stitching algorithm. FFS have some self respect devs.

 

[Infinitron]

This is nice: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-09-the-making-of-barbarian-the-ultimate-warrior

The making of Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior
Full metal bikini.

It's some time in the spring of 1988. Steve Brown, creator of the smash hit games Cauldron, Cauldron 2 and Barbarian, is holding a pair of pliers while in the midst of a dramatic photo shoot for Barbarian 2. "Maria would breathe in heavily and the pressure from her bosom would snap the thin chain joining the metal breast plates together," smiles the former Palace Software artist and designer. "I spent a fair amount of that day with those pliers, bending all the links back together." They were different times.

Palace Software had begun life several years earlier as an offshoot of The Video Palace, a popular video store on Kensington High Street, managed by Peter Stone, and owned by the Palace Group. Working as a sales assistant was Richard Leinfeller, and when the shop began selling video games, in store and by mail order, the pair saw something special happening. "Kids, young adults were coming into the store with cassettes full of games they'd written," recalls Stone. "So as things went on, Richard and I thought we could maybe publish some of them ourselves, or even make our own games to publish."

Barbarian's designer Steve Brown, flanked by Wolf and Maria.

With the new venture given the green light by Palace chief Nik Powell, the subject for Palace Software's first game was inevitably a licence owned by its parent company. "We made a game of the Evil Dead," winces Stone, recalling his and Leinfeller's first effort in the videogame market. "And it was a bit rubbish. But it showed us how not to do things." Despite Richard Leinfeller's coding experience, the pair realised they needed help, especially on the art side. The call was answered by Steve Brown, at that point inexperienced but recently qualified, and eager to tackle the new role. "Steve had never done a video game before," recalls Leinfeller. "One night down the pub he asked why there were platform games and scrolling games. I told him there was no reason why we couldn't mix the two, and Cauldron was conceived."

Cauldron and Cauldron 2 were massive hits and helped establish the new software house. "I studied illustration at Richmond college," explains Brown, "and just by chance came across an advert in Creative Review for an artist at Palace. They hired me to create some sprites for the Evil Dead and the cover art to a couple of simple games they had made." After the decision to go with the genre-mash up as suggested by Leinfeller, Brown became a freelance designer in addition to artist, and pitched a pumpkin-based game to Peter Stone. With the success of the Cauldron series ensuring reputations were established all round, Palace looked for new ideas from their creative director. "Steve was very soon into his stride, and after Cauldron 2, he didn't even need to pitch to me," recalls Stone. "He was working on different ideas all the time, although it was still a team effort." One idea that Brown settled on was heavily influenced by his love of that most famous of barbarians. "My artistic hero was Frank Frazetta," he explains, "who painted these incredible images of sword-wielding barbarians, leaping about, hacking up monsters while saving sultry maids from a fate worse than death. And Conan The Destroyer was the king of these muscled heroes." The plot devised by Brown was stereotypical fantasy fare, not that the game needed more. An evil sorcerer named Drax desires the exquisite princess Mariana for himself and will only free her from his nefarious clutches should a champion be able to defeat in combat all of his demonic minions. Guess what? That was where YOU came in.

Even by 1986, an elderly, if famous, one-on-one beat-'em-up was dominating the genre. "Way Of The Exploding Fist was probably the key influence," says Brown. "It was a fun game which had decent character animation, still rare at that time. But to be honest, my influences always came from other sources, and in Barbarian's case I was extrapolating the fun stuff from the second Conan movie."

Conan The Destroyer, produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company in 1984, informed one particularly crowd-pleasing element of Barbarian. "The best example of fighting with large barbarian-style swords was, for my money, in that film," explains Brown. "So I took what I considered to be the best attacking and defensive moves from the various fights in the movie and devised a logical system of how to incorporate them into the game."

The most memorable of these was a satisfying decapitation finish move that pre-dated Mortal Kombat by several years. "Most of my ideas come from asking myself the question: 'what can I come up with that would be really fun, a bit outrageous, and no-one has done before?'. If you can hit all three of those, you're on to a winner." The icing on the cake was a poor downtrodden goblin, whose job it was to remove the remains, kicking the stray bonce off-screen, complete with a maniacal cackle. "I hate loose ends and sloppy design, so wasn't keen on having the head just wink out," grins Brown. "The goblin appealed to my sense of humour, and the idea came to me on the train journey home after a beer with the other guys. Actually, I think I get all my best ideas on train journeys!"

Leinfeller himself was still involved in development at this point, assisting Palace's trainee coder Stan Schembri, and helping to write a bespoke sprite multiplexer to aid the animation of the rotoscoped sprites. "The game needed big sprites. That was a lot of work, and needed critical timing," explains Leinfeller, "and was very fiddly as both it and the audio ran on interrupts." However, the development of Barbarian ran smoothly, as Stone notes. "The three main leads, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad were developed more-or-less simultaneously, yet I think it was the fastest game we made. No problems at all."

But of course, mention Barbarian to most players of the era will bring back not only memories of goblins and detached heads, but also an advertising campaign that generated a considerable amount of controversy, and sales, for Palace.

Michael Van Wyk, AKA Wolf, which is amusingly how the former star of Gladiators signs his emails.

Most video game box art and adverts at this point in time were still hand-drawn, usually by very talented artists such as Bob Wakelin. Brown's cinematic influences led him to explore a different path. "I had it all visualised in my head," he reveals, "and knew it would look great if done properly, and generate some good publicity. Plus, being creative director on that kind of shoot was another of my ambitions - so it was win-win for me." Two models were required for the campaign: someone to play the butch, over-muscled hero, and another for the beautiful princess.

For the former, Palace secured the services of pre-Wolf bodybuilder Michael Van Wyk. "I then owned a gym in South East London," Van Wyk told me via email from his current home country of New Zealand. "And one of my members told me that I had the exact look that they were looking for in a poster for a new videogame. I must confess I have never been into games." Van Wyk took the job, not that it interrupted his busy schedule much. "I was training five days a week, so didn't have time to prepare. Anyway, I was just asked to turn up, and that all the costumes would be provided. I was already doing some TV and photo shoots and [Palace] were very professional in their handling of everything."

The second role, that of princess Mariana, was played by famous page three model Maria Whittaker. "Maria was initially a bit hesitant when I showed her the Frazetta painting of the Egyptian princess with a snake wrapped around her," grins Brown, "but I put her mind to rest to the extent that by Barbarian 2 she was happy for me to mould foil ashtrays to the shape of her breasts, which I then took back to my shed and used as a template for the finished fibreglass breast plates in the advert." For the original game, the model merely sported a purple bikini, more than she would usually wear for her newspaper appearances. "She was very nice to work with, very professional," Van Wyk told me, "and a very sweet lady, too."

Surprisingly, considering Whittaker's fame, her services were not prohibitively expensive, as Peter Stone recalls. "We contacted her agent, and the funny thing was, it wasn't that pricey. We discovered that, despite her fame, she had a set rate for doing different types of work. Her rate for a photo session was actually quite affordable. However, personal public appearances was a different story. I remember we wanted to do a launch event, but her price for that was way way more than for the photo shoot, so we couldn't get her for that." The moral outrage of featuring a page three model on the cover of a computer game (games were still firmly considered for kids in the mid-80s) wasn't the only controversy for Barbarian - its violence also incited a predictable furore. "To be honest, I've always created the games that I've wanted to play," notes Brown, "and luckily my taste was appealing to a lot of people. I used to receive a lot of hand-written fan mail for the games, many with drawings of the characters, usually much more bloodthirsty than anything I'd presented them with!" West Germany, as sensitive to the influence of videogames as ever, banned the game until Palace changed the blood to green and removed Whittaker from the cover. "I found it all incredibly amusing, to be honest," notes Brown, "and quite hypocritical, as it was all appropriate and in context - pretty much the opposite of page three of The Sun."

Barbarian and Barbarian 2, along with the Cauldron series, became the games that defined Palace Software as it struggled into the late-Eighties, post 8-bit era. With its parent company, The Palace Group, now involved in the money-pit of film production, the software division was sold to French publisher Titus in 1991. Steve Brown was working on a second sequel to the series as the sale went through. "It was a great shame as I had Barbarian 3 mostly planned out, including the publicity, which was going to feature my other favourite model of the time, Debee Ashby. I'd designed and had miniatures built of a giant tentacled monster, plus had a meeting with the monster makers at Pinewood Studios about constructing a full-sized animatronic tentacle that would lift Debee up in the photoshoot. It would have been awesome!"

Despite the abrupt ending for Palace, its place in videogame history had been assured by the violent and bloody-good-fun of Barbarian. "It put us on the map as a publisher," recalls Peter Stone, "and kept us going for quite a few years. But it was the peak of our success and we could never match it." Sadly, three of the team involved, Chris Stangroom, Stan Schembri and Richard Joseph are no longer with us. But the memories of them, and the great times on Barbarian remain for all involved. "It was long hours, stress and weekend working," says Brown. "But it was also the best time ever, and completely faithful to my vision. Most of all, I'm incredibly proud of it as a game, and that people are still talking about it 30 years later."

 

[Freddie]

This is nice: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-09-the-making-of-barbarian-the-ultimate-warrior

The making of Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior
Full metal bikini.

The Sun."

Barbarian and Barbarian 2, along with the Cauldron series, became the games that defined Palace Software as it struggled into the late-Eighties, post 8-bit era. With its parent company, The Palace Group, now involved in the money-pit of film production, the software division was sold to French publisher Titus in 1991. Steve Brown was working on a second sequel to the series as the sale went through. "It was a great shame as I had Barbarian 3 mostly planned out, including the publicity, which was going to feature my other favourite model of the time, Debee Ashby. I'd designed and had miniatures built of a giant tentacled monster, plus had a meeting with the monster makers at Pinewood Studios about constructing a full-sized animatronic tentacle that would lift Debee up in the photoshoot. It would have been awesome!"

Very nice find. Thanks for posting.

In general, Palace, for those who followed things, had already build good reputation with Cauldron and Cauldron II which were very liked among gamers on Commodore and Spectrum computers. That said, I don't actually recall Cauldron that well, but Cauldron II was one of my favourites and imagination, setting, map design and most importantly, how player controlled the pumpkin, that made it a hit.

What comes to Barbarian, that outrageous marketing, well, there was lot of bare skin there, but I think part of it's success wasn't necessarily bare skin, but that Palace had a good reputation and that marketing outrageousness was sort of value itself. Sword & Sorcery was also appealing. Game itself, I don't think people kept playing it like Exploding Fist and most importantly, what comes to it as fighting game, International Karate (1986) was the hot one. Also I can say for sure that Barbarian II didn't had anything on International Karate + (1987) even Barbarian II was released a year later.

Barbarian and Barbarian II left their mark in history of gaming, but I attribute it to marketing that was very well in tune with teens and it was more than beauty of Maria Whittaker, it was sort of rebel yell, though a bit tongue in cheek. As games, I recall 'playing through' Barbarian and with Barbarian II I resorted to trainer. The thing, at least how I experienced on C64, was animations mentioned in article. Sure they were great on standards of those days, but they were also slow unlike in International Karate, which was very snappy. The consequence was, that it was far more easier to memorise AI's attack pattern than play reactively. I don't fault those games for that, I think most Shoot 'em ups worked the same way, but as fighting games, it made Barbarian I & II perhaps a bit of novelty.

That said, they weren't bad games, just creations of their time and they have their place in history of gaming.

That said.

Despite the abrupt ending for Palace, its place in videogame history had been assured by the violent and bloody-good-fun of Barbarian. "It put us on the map as a publisher," recalls Peter Stone, "and kept us going for quite a few years. But it was the peak of our success and we could never match it." Sadly, three of the team involved, Chris Stangroom, Stan Schembri and Richard Joseph are no longer with us. But the memories of them, and the great times on Barbarian remain for all involved. "It was long hours, stress and weekend working," says Brown. "But it was also the best time ever, and completely faithful to my vision. Most of all, I'm incredibly proud of it as a game, and that people are still talking about it 30 years later."

So are we talking about some sort ancestor of certain thing here? How far back in gaming history this thing actually go?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I owned, played and beat both Barbarian games on the Amstrad CPC. As I was buying gaming magazines at the time (which I still own) I did not miss the advertsising campaigns for these games, and those were a huge deal in regards to the popularity of these games.

Beating the first Barbarian game in single-player was not that hard, as long as you could beat the sixth fighter (wearing all black) because for some reason the seventh one was a pushover. Drax himself needed a certain trick to be beat, just get close enough to be able to roll into him and you're done.

That said, the fun of Barbarian was in the 2-player mode - lots of laughs were had playing that, in a time where good 2-player "versus" games were in short supply. As Freddie pointed out, the only game to surpass Barbarian in this field was IK+.

Barbarian II, on the other hand, was an absolute pig to deal with. Instead of being a pure proto-Mortal Kombat game where your path to victory lay in the death of your opponent, the sequel decided to create levels that the player had to journey through via "screens", looking for the exit while also traversing the terrain and fighting off monsters. It was truly a time where Men were Men, Women were Women and Big Purple Dinosaurs were Really Bad News... unless you were lucky enough to pull off the "neck-chopper" move and seperate those small heads from those giant torsos. That was probably the one saving grace of the game - while traversing the Escher-esque map of each level, you'd encounter various monsters whom you'd have to fight in a one-on-one battle. The variety of moves and combat techniques of each monster made it fun to fight them, especially in the latter stages of the game. The most memorable one is the giant Neanderthal caveman on Level 3 (Barbarian II had 4 levels) which would laugh out loud if he either killed you or managed to knock you to the ground often enough. He was too tall to be decapitated, but instead you could cut out his heart and watch it plop on the ground for a while. The panther-esque monster on Level 2 was also a giant pain in the ass.

I remember beating Barbarian II and getting the message "Look out for Barbarian III" but it never did appear, which is one of the few regrets I have from the 8-bit era.

 

[Matalarata]

Barbarian II was the first game for my C64 that I've ever bought all by myself, by going alone to the counter while holding it proudly in my hands. My dad was just a short distance from me and I was, like, 8. Good times.

Never managed to finish stage one untill emulators came and I was, like, 27...

Spoiler

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Barbarian II was the first game for my C64 that I've ever bought all by myself, by going alone to the counter while holding it proudly in my hands. My dad was just a short distance from me and I was, like, 8. Good times.

Never managed to finish stage one untill emulators came and I was, like, 27...

Spoiler

I hear ya. It took me 17 years to complete Aliens: The Computer Game (the Electric Dreams release) because my disk copy of the game was corrupt and unbeatable.

Interesting fact I learned just last month: ALL the Amstrad disk versions of Aliens were corrupt and unbeatable. Only the cassette versions were intact, but with an 11-minute loading time I can understand people weren't thrilled about playing it.

 

[Matalarata]

Discovering that this:

Spoiler

...was actually unbeatable has been my most

+ moment ever. I wasted my childhood on that thing.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Interesting game. I like the concept of it, but all those enemies flying about can easily make people rage.

I'm guessing that this game wasn't released on the Amstrad because anything more than 3 enemies on-screen would make the poor computer break down and cry.

*checks*

I was right, no Amstrad release... but there's a Spectrum release, as well as a DOS one. Has anyone checked if those versions are broken as well?

 

[Matalarata]

Iirc only the C64 version is broken, the amiga one should work. But beating old games from the forgotten depths of my childhood was a cathartic trip I forced myself into some years ago. Once I did everything I could in Frightmare and I discovered there was no way to finish it, I felt like a weight was removed from my chest, I had no need to try the Amiga version.
I shit you not. I still consider it the game that scared me the most!

 

[Neanderthal]

Barbarian and Barbarian II left their mark in history of gaming, but I attribute it to marketing that was very well in tune with teens and it was more than beauty of Maria Whittaker.

Yes it was her massive tits, by gods holy trousers they don't make crumpet like that any more.

 

[markec]