HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Street Hawk ...
Yup, it's 12 months exactly since this disastrous non-game was first advertised in Sinclair User.
In that time Ocean has collared numerous Scooby Awards for delayed programs - Supertest, Knight Rider, Frankie and more recently, Superbowl. Street Hawk, however, puts them all to shame, and we have great pleasure in awarding Ocean the special lifetime Scooby for services to pre-launch hype.
Accepting the award on behalf of Ocean's David Ward, a mildly hysterical Jennie Beattie says: "Ocean will be adopting a policy of not advertising the games at all. Green Beret is the hat to wear. Superbowl is on its way to you now."
STOP PRESS: Ocean's programming supremo Jon Woods is now known as The Fridge. Does this refer to his habit of sacking quarterbacks who try to get a rise out of him?
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Congratulations, too, to Headbangers Monthly, otherwise known as Your Sinclair. The slim publication carried the Microsphere ad for Sam Cruise - which you may have spotted in this rag as well.
The advertisement features a page from the classified ads of Chicago newspaper, and the reclusive Microsphere people actually made an expedition to the British Museum Library to find a real '40s newspaper to copy. Imagine their pique when they saw what the headbangers did to their lovingly assembled artwork. Instead of picking out the Sam Cruise line with a red ring, they managed to pinpoint an ad for a second-hand Studebaker.
Microsphere has already received several offers for this non-existent car and, having discovered how much they are really worth, is desperately trying to find some. Perhaps Melbourne House's Mugsy can help ...?
Spring fever seems to have hit the offices of Sinclair User with drastic results - about half the staff are leaving. First to go is old incorruptible Scolding himself, and not before time, reckons Gremlin. Four years he's been associated with the rag, and what times they were ... the gipsy cover of issue two, the infamous Clumsy Colin Action Biker review, those appalling long-winded Sinclairvoyance articles ... these are just some of the low points of Bill's career.
He has had the good grace to remove his grubby corduroys as far away as Cornwall, where he hopes to cash in on all the favours he's done software houses by persuading them to let him design cassette inserts. Given the fate of software already sporting Scolding designs - Mr Wong's Loopy Laundry, Aladdin's Cave - you can only admire his nerve ...
Also leaving is that paragon of good taste and courtesy, Chris 'Lunchbreaks' Bourne. During his stay on the paper he has set new standards for depravity and kept at least five pubs solvent all by himself. Being insulted in a Lunchbreaks review is like being dive-bombed by a flock of mangy pigeons with weak bowels.
Indeed, the sight of Lunchbreaks stuffing himself with a meat vindaloo, lager dribbling down his beard, while simultaneously lecturing his colleagues on the delights of Greek folk music is an experience which will linger in our memories for years. At least one member of staff is already undergoing psychiatric treatment after being trapped with Chris for 15 minutes.
Chris goes now to Micronet 800. Gremlin is sorry for the staff over there, but at least they're used to being bored witless by electronic deadheads ...
Many thanks to all who wrote in with suggestions for the first smutty computer game. Jonathan Knatt came up with a bestial number for the BBC called Pigman, and many people sent cuttings of ads for Cathouse Blues, Philly Flasher, Gigolo and others by Silver Fox. Gremlin was sad that nobody could enlighten him about Raquel's Game, ads for which appeared regularly in the classified section of Popular Computing Weekly.
The grubby fiver goes, though, to Steve Dickinson who takes us back to 1982 and the very first issue of Sinclair User. What do we find? Good old Automata and those horrible games Can of Worms, The Bible and Love and Death. Some of the 1K wonders included were Vasectomy, Smut, Sodom, Conception and Seduction. Gremlin cannot delve further into the actual content of these games, but Steve clearly has a memory like a sewer ...
News of three games which certainly wouldn't be eligible come in a press release from Hardsoft - Seal Cull, Aids Alert and Motorway Maniac. In the first you must 'club as many baby seals as possible' while avoiding Greenpeace. The second involves finding your way through a maze of public toilets, while the third is a tale of animated attacks on the hard shoulders of Britain's motorways.
The press release comes with three screenshots of blurred but highly offensive action.
If Chris Jenkins of Commode Horizons thinks Gremlin is going to fall for his little prank he can think again. The big question is, will Jenkins fall for Gremlin's? Better start checking all your stories again, boy ...
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In marginally better taste is Martech's latest ploy, the production of a strip poker game supported, if that's the right word, by the talents of Wapping Samantha Fox. Press releases burble on about the artificial intelligence routines with great pomposity.
In fact, it seems Martech had no idea who La Fox is. Another press release has been received with some nudge-nudge copy about expanded versions and how 'we didn't realise just how popular Samantha Fox was'.
Many have attempted to sell games before by utilising the alleged charm of naked women. What is, of course, ridiculous, is that you don't need to fork out nine quid to see pictures of Sammy's whammies ...
A press release of such earth-shattering importance that Gremlin really cannot ignore it has arrived. Tony Crowther returns to Alligata, it says. Alligata therefore wins instantly the Brazen Backslappers of the Month Award.
It's a short piece, but contains an absolute gem - 'Tony's most creative period was whilst with Alligata in 1983-4'. Gremlin always thought Tony's heyday, if it can be called that, was at Bug-Byte with programs like Twin Kingdom Valley. Unable to recall offhand what Alligata was up to in 1983, it becomes necessary to consult the oracle - John 'disgusting' Gilbert, whose memory for anything with the fabled Gilbert Factor attached is awesome.
"Alligata?" opines John. "They were so small an outfit I doubt if we even covered them." A million unsold copies of Son of Blagger - or a grubby fiver - to anyone who can name the first Tony Crowther game written for Alligata.
