Digitiser

When gaming funds were always being squeezed by the need to buy magazines for good info on new releases in the pre-internet era, Channel 4's Teletext programme Digitiser provided a wealth of gaming knowledge spliced with some bizarre rants from the likes of Fat Sow and Zombie Dave along with good use of snakes and ninja's as we seem to recall. The 'Reveal' button was used to show up answers to questions but sometimes just a picture of a rat. Off the wall, certainly. But very enjoyable and quite hard to recall in a way, such was the madness on tap on times. It was with some pride Genki got a snap of when our tip was published and we didn't have our eyes out by Biffo and co. Digitiser: we salute you!

They don't Make 'Em Like they Used to: Metal Slug

Metal Slug came during an era when a mighty polygon iceberg was ripping through the flat ice plains of 2D gaming. Most scrambled a bee line straight for the peaks of the polygon riding its icy faces to the warm mass market seas. Huge kudos to SNK who rolled eyes, cut a hole in the ice and landed the beauty that is Metal Slug. Few would have found too much to get excited about once the visual rush having more poly's than a tub of margarine in their games. So Metal Slug came as a breath of fresh air true to its 2D roots with just lashings and lashings of gameplay. The series still feels great today. Be it on the Saturn with a Ram Cart, On the Neo Geo CD with its load times (though the saving over the AES version shortens the feel of those times) or the full compilation of the PS2. Saving hostages who show their gratitude, looking at the sheer shock on faces as they get snuck up on by stealth, charging all guns blazing with a tidy power up.... Enough to make you well up with pride. Wearing its 2D tats with pride, Metal Slug: we salute you.