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[VGMP] GAMESMASTER Host Admires our Restoration
Rory Joscelyne • 3 May 2021
EXCLUSIVE: Dominik Diamond Namechecked us on his Twitch Channel
DOMINIK DIAMOND'S SHOUTOUT
DOMINIK DIAMOND'S SHOUTOUT
For several months of the Covid-19 Pandemic, during the summer months of 2020, Dominik Diamond set up his own Twitch Livestream feed and fans of GamesMaster rejoiced.
During the 2000s, the Scottish legend took off from the isles of Blighty and made home in a Llama Farm in Canada. When his planned Llama Farming expertise turned out to be less than he imagined, he began to rebuild his career on Canadian radio - making a name for himself across Canadian airwaves. When his fans in Britain discovered this, he was soon flooded with fans who wanted to hear what he was up to now - much to the confusion of his Canadian friends. What is "GamesMaster"? "You did a TV Show!?"
With the pandemic closing off large amounts of human contact, Dominik set up his Twitch channel and found himself inundated with loyal viewers. Unsurprisingly, GamesMaster came up more than once. It was here that our restoration efforts were spread, jumping from a very small number of views to a far wider audience rapidly. Thankfully the community was kind enough to leave comments on the videos directing us to the Dominik Diamond, and we managed to catch his amazing hour-long show! A week later, he gave us a special shoutout, with open praise for how sharp and high resolution the transfer looks.
The video above includes a quick summary of the restoration work, the effort required to transfer a standard definition show (recorded on video tape, no less!) into an almost native-looking 4K presentation. We then have Dominik Diamond himself presenting the work. For a better look at the work, watch the video below (there will be extra artifacts added by his stream), but we couldn't help but spend the next few days beaming like the seventh season GamesMaster himself at our long-favourite presenter giving us a shoutout.
Blue Streak, speeds by... Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is Hollywood's first big blockbuster attempt to bring Sonic to the big screen. A much more popular effort than the 1996 anime movie, this one sees Sonic come into the "real world", but that doesn't mean that it isn't jam-packed full of Easter Eggs. And some of them are references to other Sega franchises.
First things first - DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Kung-Fu Master may have the licence for the game, and it may include a few scenes at Arcades, but the story is nothing to do with gaming - and the story it represents is a literal crime. A vile, vile crime. With that out of the way, there are some interesting arcade machines visible throughout this film - all of which are here. So you have been saved from having to watch this vile garbage - and saving you the criminal act of watching it.
We look into all the Easter Eggs in the Paramount+ series of Knuckles (2024)
Also known as Sonic the Movie, the Japanese OVA was actually a run at a possible series that never materialised, instead leaving us with two episodes hastily stitched into a "feature". And boy, did they push taste and decency for some of this. Other than Robotnik chasing underage skirt, it's largely inoffensive. But unfortunately that story angle wound up kick-starting a long running VGMP joke of Sonic adaptations having to reference breast milk (which the 2020 Sonic movie also references).
I love The Wizard. It's so bad. The first major disagreement between Rory and Jamie in VGMP, Rory fully recommended The Wizard as a movie, whereas Jamie fully rejected it. It's not hard to see why this movie caused such a rift of opinion - it genuinely tries to be a deeper and emotional story, but it's still a Nintendo marketing product (and an out of date one, at that). One thing The Wizard does have, is a lot of videogame references.
The House of the Dead movie brings together two major events in film. It's the first foray by Uwe Boll into video game adaptations - the start of a terrible career. And it was the last ever movie to use the turn-table technique for 360 degree shots, as it was too dangerous to keep using - much like allowing Uwe Boll to have a film career. This film doesn't have many proper references, instead lazily throwing in random micro-shorts from the first three House of the Dead games (in no particular order, for some reason).
The first appearance of Jon Gries in a video game culture movie, and he would return in Noobz (2012) to steal yet another movie. Joysticks is an awful comedy movie, attempting to cash in on cheap teen humour of the time with a big dose of objectifying women. But to it's credit, it does showcase a lot of great arcade cabinets from 1983, and all in fantastic condition too! These screengrabs are ripped from the limited-run Blu-Ray release of the movie, which represents the best this film has ever looked. However this was a relatively low budget feature of it's time, so don't expect prestine visuals.
Tron is an undisputed 1982 classic that had a major impact on 80's culture and gaming aesthetics as a whole. And yet, when we reviewed it, it turns out the movie itself is a big bag of style over substance. The main videogame the movie revolves around is Space Paranoids, and it is not a real game. Several videogames were later made of Tron, but none of those appear in this movie.
The Controller / Video Game Earth Force, is a terrible film from 2006 with graphics that make the PS1 look like Advent Children. Starring Bob Rue as William Fence, this film has become infamous within VGMP as it is the film that nearly caused Jamie to leave the show.
Gamebox 1.0 is an odd 2004 movie starring the guy who played Harvey in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. You could technically call it a dramatic horror, if any of it was dramatic or a horror. As you can see from the shot above, the details were so vital to this film that there's a guy at "work" just staring at a blank screen. Regardless of the low budget nature of the film, there are still a surprising number of references hidden in this movie.
