20XX BULLETIN

Regular readers may have noticed that things have been a little quiet here at 20XX for the last few weeks. This radio silence was a result of a house move and the subsequent lack of internet access. 3G updates were considered but rejected on the grounds they would be a total ballache. Rest assured though that Neo Disaster Towers is plugged in and raring to go.

I have a couple of hand-written notes lying around that could be re-purposed into film reviews, as well as the site's annual favs lists on standby. I'm also considering another The Fast and the Furious (such a terrible shame about Paul Walker) / Godzilla style franchise review. I'm currently narrowing down my options. Suggestions are also welcome. Finally, in real person adult news, Miss Disaster has agreed to be my wife. The proposal involved me on bended knee, a pitch black driveway and some rapidly cooling Chinese food. It was more romantic than it sounds. Either way, I'm a very lucky man indeed. 

COMMUNIQUE

If you're wondering why 20XX output has dwindling to nought, it's because I'm deep into a feature length screenplay for my MA. Head's full of Macaroni masculinity and Sub-Roman skulduggery, so expect a few idea collage type posts. Not much different from regularly scheduled programming really.

1001

If my maths are correct, this will be the 1001st post on Disaster Year: 20XX. A big thanks to all noted patrons and readers! Here's to a thousand more. Hopefully, one day, I'll write something else as popular with Google smut searchers as my Caligula review.

Disaster Year Three

Disaster Year: 20XX is three today. Phew! That's the terrible twos over with. A big thank you to all the readers.

TheManFrowns vs Leisure Time

The Christmas holidays are nearly over for Disaster Year, so no more endless hours of aimless leisure time to fill, and consequently much less Black Ops gameplay clips to spam. I'm sure you're all GUTTED.

TheManFrowns vs Christmas

It's Christmas! Lots of kids got age inappropriate video games, and are now fumbling about playing online! What better way to welcome them to the gaming fold than to kill them over, and over again on Call of Duty: Black Ops? Merry Christmas ass butts!

TheManFrowns vs Gravity

Another quicky Black Ops capture. It's strange being able to reassess your gameplay after the fact. In game, even the faintest success can often feel like skillful table turning; cue it up in theatre mode and most of the time you view a stuttering mess of competing latency. The thirty second limit poses a problem too, it gives little wriggle room for a lead-in set-up, leaving you with airless punchlines. Still there's the odd snatch that makes you smile, embedded above is a demonstration of the lengths you sometimes have to go to to get that shotgun kill. Below, find a sneaky solution to emptying your FAMAS - creep up behind foes with Scavenger and stab them! Sometimes you even get enough breathing room to actually reload.



Lost to the ages is one solid minute of me panic knifing my way through a Wager Watch. I wish I'd saved that.

TheManFrowns: Black Ops

A nifty little feature in Call of Duty: Black Ops is the theatre mode. Players can browse full length recordings of recent games, and even edit a short highlight clip from their accumulated gameplay. Here's Disaster Year's contribution to this avalanche of wannabe superplay - 15 seconds of fraught alleyway shoot-outs and reloads, as I (ahem) expertly dismantle a flag runner and his second chance bodyguards with the Stakeout shotgun. I didn't get lucky with those hit markers coming off that lurchy twirl, no sir! Stick around for the end where I get blindsided by yet another spawn lurker. Curse and confound it all!

Twit

Fan of inane bleating? Why not follow me on Twitter! Oh look, here's my page thingy. I wouldn't expect much. Content tends to skew stream of consciousness witterings, usually concerned with whatever media product I'm currently gorging myself on. The current series of Junior Apprentice has exerted itself as a bit of a topic mainstay already. Hooray!

2 down, a million to go!

Disaster Year 20XX notched up its second full year on Friday. A big thank you to all the patrons, readers, and bizarre comment spammers. We wouldn't be here without you.

2000 - 2009

As we enter the last month of the decade, a look back on just the last year seemed inadequate. Instead, I've opted to select a few favourites from each year, getting a relevant embed or noodle up. Expect three categories: Film, Video Game and Music. Hopefully one of each for every appropriate year. Enjoy!

Involved In Creative Endeavours: Trespasser

Another short for your viewing pleasure. Trespasser is a dimension-hop, time travel mash-up puzzler specifically designed to leave your head wringing. Director Gary Ellison asked me to write a time shift slanted piece for his final Film and TV Production project, I fired back a brief slice of undo dead-ending, inspired by constant GTA4 restarting. Gotta get that mission perfect. And what if you met yourself coming back? Once again, it's an uncommon treat to see and hear scribbled bits and bobs spring to life. Gary did a fantastic job with zero financial backing, and uncooperative British weather.

A big thank you to everybody else involved in Trespasser's production. That'll be: Peter Shuff, Adam McCarthy, Giorgio Riolo, Nicola-Elizabeth Potts, Soraya Deria, Elizabeth Ellison, Malath Abbas, and George Ellison.

Trespasser Part 1
Trespasser Part 2

Trespasser HD Part 1
Trespasser HD Part 2

Hope you folks enjoy.

Many Disastrous Returns!

Hello. Disaster Year 20XX is one today. Thanks to all the readers!

100!

Well, more accurately it's 101 now. Yes, that previous post was my 100th. To celebrate, here's my favourite image from the first page of Google image results for "100". Slim pickings indeed. Who knew Scotland had a £100 note? Well, not me anyway.



Ta-daaa!

Thanks for reading.

Involved In Creative Endeavours - Short Film

Attention! I don't just write Blogs about After Burner you know, I have been known to hack out the odd script on occasion. I recently wrote a little piece based on a day-dream I had whilst passing my local park. How's that for self-mythicising? My good friend Mr Gary Ellison directed the piece for his degree course, and he absolutely nailed it. It's an extra special treat to have scribbles and words that started life in your head physically realised for all to see. Ta Gaz! Super duper thanks to the star and another pal: Richard Birkenhead too, it's like that Jeff chap peeled himself off the page and went about shouting. A big thank you to everybody else involved in the short, that's: Alex Tridimas, Mike Heath, Peter Schuff and Adam McCarthy. You all did a fantastic job!

Anyway, loveyness out the way, here it is! Watch it with John's Not Mad in mind, by way of Channel 5's brick subtle geek show exploitation documentaries. Hope you enjoy.

JEFF EXTREME!

A Handful Of Ways Master System After Burner Can Be Improved Immeasurably

Willing myself to sleep last night, I was hindered by a nagging little idea that just wouldn't go away. It is awful when that happens. You can lie there and peel it apart whilst remaining comfortable (but not asleep), or you can hideously but momentarily inconvenience yourself by getting up and scribbling it down in the hope it isn't a load of old shit and might have a relevance come morn'. I did the latter, the issue of relevance is for you to decide.

Master System After Burner is unplayable bollocks. It is. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It is. It's supremely pretty and so devoid of landscape ambition that it's lent a stark, waterworld wasteland vibe, but you die for no reason all the time. All the time. So! In a feat of some-decades-too-late anti-foresight I give you a handful of ways to make it super loads better:

1. Infinite Lives - but it breaks the game yet further you might moan! Quite right, but I'm going somewhere with this. Have faith. Infinite Lives for the player, so there is no chance they won't get through this game to the (alleged, but unseen by me) Big Flying Fortress Last Boss.

2. Have a United States Navy expenditure counter - the crux of my idea really. If you're going to find anything about this fun or amusing, it'll be happening now. Everytime you fire off a round from your M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling Gun, or launch an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile your Navy expenditure account will be credited. It'll be quite big and in the top right hand corner of the screen. F-14 fuel costs money, so it'll be constantly ticking up, nevermind when you actually do something fun like fire back. I can't seem to find a unit cost for Vulcan bullets (or rounds or whatever), but let's say around $20 each. That sounds vaguely plausible. Feel free to correct me. They'll be going all the time. All day. All infinite. A Marine Corps fact file website I just got off google reckons a Sidewinder costs about $83, 000. $83,000 everytime you fire at an enemy MIG. It better hit for that! Lets say you've got infinite of those and carte blanche to use 'em to end the Flying Fortress Menace. How are you meant to succeed without them?! The counters wheezing.

Deaths would total up too, wiki reckons an F-14 Tomcat will set you back around $38 million. So $38 million a pop every single time you die. With infinite lives and a complete lack of survival mechanic, that'll add up.

Just to add to the mounting stress, ally pilots will fly directly into your firing line every so often for no reason what-so-ever. You'll defo kill them dead too. So that's coin for the plane and a nice settlement for the family back home. REPARATIONS! might flash up on screen in big yellow hideous letters. Do it often enough and there might even be a Bonus Stage were you get to bomb the families house before they can put a claim in. Take that bereaved family!

3. Back Home Window Screen - This counter system does not end there. It's too dry and not funny so far. So we'll have a little window in the bottom right hand of the HUD. The window will be a picture into the lives of the average US citizen whilst Navy expenditure totals up. They'll start off all super Patriotic and happy, maybe shouting little speech bubble slogans and laughing everytime you crush a foreign fighter pilot. "Hooray!" they'll shout. It'll be a little family - Mum (or Mom), Dad, and two kids. They might even have a Dog. They'll have a nice big house too, with a flag. It'll be Sega sunny for sure. That's how it'll start. Then you'll fire off (far) too many rockets and it'll start look a bit shitty for Pop US.

The little window screen will display a short sequence of congress raising taxes to pay for your gallantly homicidal efforts. Immediate effect on our little window family? The youngest kid can't go to college. Too expensive I'll wager. The shortest figure will begin crying. It's a little girl. She won't stop.

Oh no! You died loads because you're rubbish! Congress will freeze wage increases. The little man is a spendthrift, he was counting on a raise to bail him out on the second mortgage he took out to pay off his mounting gambling debts. His wife is now shouting at him. They've lost the house and have now moved to crime alley! It's dangerous and crack-housey!

This sort of business will continue everytime your constant ballsing up reaches a significant monetary amount. Eventually the dog will run away, the son will be drafted into a pointless street gang and killed, the little girl will continue to cry. Mum and Dad'll split up, so wifey will depart. And so on, and so forth. By the time you've killed the Flying Fortress Final Boss, the Dad'll be smacked up living in a bin. But! You'll have saved the world. Good work soldier!

Your ending will therefore be based on whether or not you were total shit all the way through. If you hopped straight up to the corner and cheated your way through (good call), it's parades and peaches. Hooray! Your high-school sweetheart will put out for sure! But! If you attempted to play the game as was intended it's home to countless slums, desolation and baby-eating. Nice work dick-face!

Introduction.

Hello. I decided to create a blog, mainly because it seemed marginally more productive than checking how my Zombie / Wrestler / Band was getting on over at some Facebook algorithm race. I expect, in time, I'll do some reviews about comics, video-games, films, TV and such. With luck, you might even enjoy it.