The Other British Invasion of 1997-2003: A Culmination

Beatles and Stones out of the way

Take a look at some of the biggest games and entertainment products to release from 1997 to 2003, look at their country of origin, and count on your fingers how many of them are British. By my estimate, there’s a handful of the most famous ones that come straight to mind. Majority video games, but also film and TV. Regular readers and subscribers know what my go-to is and we’ll get to the video games in a moment, but let’s talk about British TV a little. The Brits reading this can name some of their favorites (excuse me, favourites), but let’s look at the one that successfully crossed over to the American TV world:

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Pioneering Imageboards and Early Internet Discourse

Took ages to iron out the kinks

This may be one of the more meta posts considering the title and the state of blogs and message/textboards from introduction to zenith to modern-day. Those of you who are reading this might have an idea of what blogs, messageboards, forums, etc. are or consist of. A diary/journal, an exploration of ideas, a photo/video/now-GIF album; the way I treat it is something of a critic’s corner, newsletter, and recommendation source for otherwise niche and unknown series across media with a strong animanga focus, but sometimes heading into mainstream series.

As one such example.

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Skyland… An Intro to Sci-Fi

Back to the obscure parts of my childhood

Yeah, this one is a day late, a doubloon short, and in debt to the Charon Syndicate thanks to the Needs of the Army (and my stubborn refusal to replace anything until it physically falls off my body, because I’m El Cheapo), but it’s no big deal. The only problem here is that the topic for this week’s blog hasn’t been well-researched, so forgive me if its connective tissue doesn’t have any industrial reinforcement.

I have come to introduce ye all to an obscure French-Canadian collaborated 3D animated series known only as: Skyland.

I look at this now after 20 years and think of how far CG has evolved from the ’80s to Reboot (1994-2001) to everything going on these days.

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Edginess and Deliberate Controversy

What was understood and what was lost over a decade

This is something of a long-time coming, a background project based largely on a series of video games that capture a now long-lost era of pop culture. An aesthetic that can best be described as urban neo-gothic horror. Video games that were edgy because they made use of what they lacked technologically, benefitting from sixth generation console limitations. Uglier graphics, standard definition resolution, subpar draw distances; video game developers and by extension many film and TV directors were between the word-of-mouth/magazine coverage era and the algorithm, ludicrous speed reactions. What am I getting at? Well, if you’re a regular subscriber or you tune in regularly to this blog you may or may not have an idea of the video games I’m about to bring up:

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Freelance Journalist VS Insane Asylum

You sure you’re a sane man?

A couple of times and long before I joined the Army, I watched and eventually bought and played the video game Outlast and its DLC: Whistleblower. A first-person view indie horror video game that markets an age-old, but classic trope of haunted abandoned asylum with a twist.

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