The Future

The Future is here...

It's the end of 2009 and 2010 is near, the beginning of a new age with new opportunities awaits. For my part the autumn semester of 2009 has been spent in Cork, Ireland studying in the Design Communication programme at CIT. But for the spring semester of 2010 I'll be handling my bachelor thesis, in which I'll either make a graphical novel or a game. But after that I'll graduate and I'll be "grown up"/unemployed, so what to do then?

The plan is to seek employment outside the borders of Sweden and the far east with a huge and interesting China is a very interesting place that I'd like to explore further.

Mr Skipzor of Fetro Retro will be going to China this Thursday for an awesome big sized adventure spanning the time of one whole month. When he get's back I'll demand that he'll put up a small recap of his newly acquired experinces here on Fetro Retro. And with Mr Skipzor going to China Im sure that it'll be some very interesting things to hear from him.

As you can hear there are many cool things going on for the "Fetro Retros"... So see you in the future! :)

Vinyl player achieved.. lvl up

I took home the old vinyl player that we used to have in the country house. It was corroded due to the moist and cold in wintertime. My dad handed it over to some professionals and I enjoy good old 12" in my home. Yay!

My best album must be Fancy with slice me nice. Then I listen a lot to the Beverly hills soundtrack. Check out the controller board, awesome buttons. And the display is lit as a red line through the hifi system.

Eurythmics - Sweet dreams

I havent had that retro feeling now for a long time. But recently after going up in the swedish mountains for a party/snowboard trip I got this one song on my mind. It was played in one of the best DJ mixes I've heard in a long time. Of course it was an old song but with new mixing. That just sets of the dancefloor. I've searched youtube for atleast 5 hours alltogether now and Im amazed of how many versions of SWEET DREAMS there actually are online. Thanks all you lousy DJ's for giving me hell of trying to find that one good mix. Actually I found another one thats really cool too.. a gypsy version. I'll put both here:

Gypsy version: here
Cool dancefloor version: here



I'll soon go and buy an LP player to try out my cool 2nd hand records. Yay!

International Karate

Yo!

In the 80s and 90s everyone wanted to learn karate. A friend of mine in the neighborhood had a bigger brother who was really good. He was the coolest kid in the block. He had a motorbike and he and his friends trained karate in the backyard. I was always amazed when they did flykicks on a big sack which one of them was holding up.


Anyways, back to the game. International Karate was so cool, because the movements of the players was so real. This was played on a commodore 64 so it was not usual to have a smooth flow that was similiar to reality. You could punch a guy in the belly and he dropped to the ground as if he lost the air out of his lungs. Trip the guy with low kick and knock your enemies with headbutts. The hardest move on Int karate 3 was the double kick. You could play against a friend and computer at the same time, so if you managed to coordinate your enemies it was possible to jump up in the air and splitkick both players in the head. Just like Jean Claude van Damme, but in the air!!

And as usual in the karate world, you have to break brick stones with your head.. which gained bonus points. Now to what I never understood until xbox brought this on.. why would you play for points when the only thing was to reach a highscore to show off for your friends? Today gaming has actually improved by giving rewards for points. Gears of war 2 and Rainbow six vegas shows this excellently by unlocking cool gadgets and videos/posters for finding secret items or killing enemies in special ways. That was totally unretro of me to say gaming has improved :P

Also, if you were spectating an int karate game you could search the horizon for a flying bird or watching a small spider climb down a tree. Nothing that adds to gaming experience, but totally cool!!

International Karate c64
International Karate+ c64
(There are so much more cool vids with music etc so just keep clicking on youtube)

Music 4/5
Gaming 5/5

The Fetro Retro Heroes! ;D

Rad

Just the expression is retro by itself. Radical - Rad! Something you dont hear that often nowadays. Its part of giving a high five and loving life in the moment. When you just finished your race at the Helltrack.. without crashing your awesome bmx bike.
This movie, Rad, takes place in awesome 80s america when bad and good was easy to differ. Cru Jones works as a paperboy and the paperboy scene itself is awesome. A bunch of cool kids race through morning surburbia and along with cool bmx stunts they deliver the newspaper with a smile! I wont tell you much more of the movie except its all about true love for a woman and bmx all at once. Keep practicing and you will achieve your goals!
There is awesome music and bmx stunts in this movie. Also a discoscene with bikes "dancing". I watched the intro/outro scenes over and over again cause its so RAD!

John Farnham - Break the ice
John Farnham - Thunder in your heart
Watch the intro of Rad and listen to both songs here

Real life - Send me an angel
Watch the disco scene and listen to the song here

This is one of the best 80s movies Ive seen so 5/5 all categories.

X-Com: Enemy Unknown

X-Com: Enemy Unknown for the Sony Playstation is in my opinion the ultimate tactical and strategical turn based squad-based video game ever! You take command of earth's anti alien terror forces against invading aliens who tries to infiltrate and eliminate the human race. The mood of the game is the best part along with the excellent strategy and tactical part where you try to out think and out gun your enemy. You are bound to lose over half of your squad on some missions and that really puts fear in you and your squad since some of soldiers might panic or even lose their minds out on the battlefield... You'll also have to research new equipment and weapons based on alien technology in order to meet up with the aliens technological superiority. This game was (and still is) one of the best games that I have ever played!

:)

A small note...

The Playstation version contains better sound quality and smoother graphics than the pc version.

:)

Fun: 5/5

Gameplay: 5/5

Replay value: 4/5

Cover art: 5/5

The way of mixing and merging the background with the foreground through the protruding alien and the two space ships gives both life and deepness in the picture while at the same time with its lilac brown/orange'ish colors tries to present something alien and not just through the image of the alien itself. Also, the way in which the soldiers in the background and how everything human (buildings, people, technology, soldiers) surronds the alien in the center is very cool because the threat has suddenly shown up in the middle of everything catching the humans off guard since you actually can see all the humans fleeing in fear and desperation. This cover art is so awesome that it would be cool to have it as a big poster on the wall... Something else that also would be very cool to have is a poster that is a collage of a couple of old Playstation titles, maybe only just 5-6 titles lined up on a horizontal poster with or without a frame.