TnC Instrumental Highlights presents : Theme from Betty Blue by Gabriel Yared

There are not many movies that made a deep impression on me, like Betty Blue 

( or the original title 37,2 Degrees Le Mantin). 

It all started with a visit with a friend of mine at a shop called Expo, where you could buy posters and other movie related stuff. We looked at the posters hanging in the shop and there it was in a black and blue, Betty Blue (on the right). I was so swept of my feet, buying it without knowing what's the movie was all a bout. And so did my friend with another poster of Betty Blue (*). 

Then I searched for more, bought the movie on VHS, the soundtrack on CD, a T-shirt and 

a pocketbook of the movie (left).

Why ? Well the movie is about a young girl full of energy and a shy guy, but their relation going badly, cause she has major psychic problems, that are growing during the movie. I was really fond of actrice Beatrice Dalle and search for more French movies with her, but it seemed she could only repeat the Betty Blue role over and over again. 

The movie is kinda sad, you want that they are happy together and you just know it wont happen... 

Now the music, a saxofoon playing a sad riddle and a mouth-organ plays along, perfectly sad. The rest of the soundtrack contains some variations on this theme and an other theme (song 3) plus some more stuff. It fits in the movie so well. 

I checked some other stuff of Gabriel Yared and was disappointed.  Not the Betty Blue quality. The poster of Betty Blue had hung for years in my bedroom, until I moved out. 

(*) I'm not sure which poster it was, I think it's one of these 2 (left / right).

Here is a scene from the movie, if you like it, you will like the whole movie too.

112 MSX Basic Games presents : SUPERLA.GAM (94)

This is the first of a couple of listings made by Courbois Software. 
He made a lot of programs (mostly games) and sold them on tapes. 

They weren't cheap, so I bought a tape with some games and a tape full of text-adventures. After that never again.
Listings in MSX magazines I bought had more qualitiy than most Courbois games. 

It seems that Courbois Software wants to speed up the production of his games instead of creating games with more quality.

With qualliy I mean: nice graphics, more levels/difficulties, intro, instructions.

Back to the game SUPERLANDER.
I had to create some simple (faster) intro/instruction page, some translations, added an explosion soundeffect and controls for joysticks. 
 The name of the game is not very original, yeah, you have to land on something.

I choose the game because you have to land 2 parts of your spaceship,  there are different levels (planets) to land on, nice explosions and the landscape will change each level.   

However your landingspace is random, which makes the game easy or hard.
 
Your download is here: Gavitex / Mediafire

Gavitex Mediafire  

112 MSX Basic Games presents : DUCKSHOT.GAM (95)

No it's not a game about shooting ducks, 
it just a MSX Basic shooting gallery game, where you must shoot on balloons and duckheads. 

This listing came from a What MSX magazine from the UK, with lots of other great game listings.

Well, I just want in my 112 MSX Basic games list not another Pacman or Frogger clone, 
so I choose only this one.

I had not much to translate (lol), but I changed the controls so it worked also with joysticks.

The speed is amazing for a MSX Basic game and the graphics looked just like a real shooting gallery at a carnival
Don't know who made it, it's a great game. However it won't save your highscore, mine is usually around 85. If you have more, I think you have a highscore. 

This game shows how much you can do with VPOKE. Now get it at Gavitex / Mediafire.

112 MSX Basic Games presents : SLOPSLAP.GAM (96)

It's a strange name for a game, SLOPSLAP, although after you played it, you know why. 
You have to stop the slime dripping on the ground, by shooting exploding balls (?). 
I liked the idea of shooting slime from the ceiling instead of shooting another bunch of flying aliens.

Found the listing in a Dutch MCN Magazine and I am glad 
I typed it over. 
It's a simple but very playable action game with 2 difficulties (most MSX Basic game makers forgot that part). 
The game has even a wraparound for your spaceship (?)
Graphics are not bad either, I played it recently and loved it again. 

I changed almost nothing but the intro screen, cause the maker Marco Essers had already build in support for keyboard, joystick 1 and 2 (in a very clear way), and had already used the English language even for the introduction (a rather strange one, read it yourself..).

Now get your copy at Gavitex or Mediafire , SLOPSLAP is waiting for you !!!

112 MSX Basic games presents : Mosquito Invasion (97)

Mosquito Invasion was such a nice game, I just translate it 

and it was ready for posting...NOT. 

The original maker of the game had chosen the most common gametitle ever, Battle. That was very original ! 

So I decided it needed a better name, but I had no inspiration. 

I showed my son the game and he said the enemy looked like a Mosquito. And I changed the name into Mosquito Invasion.

Basicly it's another Space Invaders only it's 1 against 1, 

You have to shoot Mosquito more than once , before it hit the ground. Lucky for you, you have autofire, cause the Mosquito will avoid your bullets. 

Another simple action game completly made in MSX Basic, showing what can be done by 

a good programmer with a good idea.

I just dont know who made it or where it came from...

Gavitex or Mediafire are at your service !

112 MSX Basic games presents : Hexapion (98)

Hexapion is a mindgame, trickier than you think. You must get 1 of your 3 pions to tbe other 

and avoid the computer to do so. That is harder than you think, the computer learns very fast from its mistakes, so in the end the best result you can get is a draw, just like Tic Tac Toe. 

What makes Hexapion special is it's IQ. You can save or load it, I never seen it in any 

MSX Basic game until now.

Hexapion was 1 of the 2 games on the "Wegwijs op MSX" disk I got when I bought my first MSX -2 computer. And I had to admit, the cursus MSX Basic on that disk, made me start trying programming in Basic. Only the same tune at every part of the cursus made my blood boil. Well, let's play Hexapion and beat the MSX IQ, shall we ?

Oh sorry, you have to download it from Gavitex or Mediafire

 

112 MSX Basic Games presents : Dip-Shit (99)

Enough White Metal samples.

Let's go on with the MSX Basic games serie, because I had some more prepared for you. Like Dip-Shit, a short listing from the Dutch MS(X)Dos Computer Magazine (more famous as MCCM).

The game idea is simple, avoid everything !!!

You have to guide your spaceship through the endless maze to get the highest score. 

Well I liked the game, cause it let you show the maze before you can play and you need quick reflexes to survive, 

Dip-Shit is a very fast game without any machinecode to speed up. Impressive how AK put so much gameplay in such a short listjng. 

In this game I randomized the colour of the spaceship  and the background, so no easy difficulty here ;-)

You could download it at Gavitex and Mediafire, or you could type it in

The Music Module sample disks - part 3 - Time's End

Last part, part #3.
I became a big fan of Saint after I heard just a few notes from the opener "In The Night" of the album "Time's End".  

I like the cover too, with the 2 seamonsters on the front and back. So I sampled a lot of songs, but I couldnt sample the great intro of "Time's End" itself, cause it was too long. 

On this part #3 you will find a longer version of "Steel Killer" and the sample of "Steel Killer" I used in the Metal Demo II. 
Sorry, I liked the instrumental part a lot.


These are songs I sampled 1 or more times:

* Phantom of the Galaxy
* Space Cruiser
* Steel Killer (long version)
* In The Night
* Island Prisoner
* Primed and Ready
* Steel Killer

On the album "Phantom of the Galaxy" and "Steel Killer" are just 1 track, but it's clear where "Phantom"ends and "Steel Killer"begins, the tempo slows down.

And I'm sure the guitarist John Maham plays the first notes out of sync after the drumroll in "Space Cruiser", but in the reviews I read so far, nobody noticed. 

 If you play the album "Time's End" twice you will notice, that some tracks sound just like others,
and it seemed that at the last track "Phantom / Steel" they run out of ideas.
Never the less it was and is very enjoyable album, so later I bought the CD 
(without the live tracks).

Part #3 can be downloaded from Gavitex and Mediafire  
  

MSX demo: Music Module sample disks - part 2 - Others

This is part #2 of the Music Module sample disks and this time not 
1 White Metal band, but 4 of them. Some very unfamous like Martyr and Chariot,  some more famous like Saint and Whitecross. 
So I will tell you something about every band below.

I had a tape from Martyr, "Death is dead" and there was only one good song on it "Golgotha".
Well, some parts of it were really trashy (in a good way).
Sadly I cant remember how I got it, but some YouTuber uploaded the whole tape, so you can listen to more songs as well.

Chariot was a band I completly forgot until I listened to the sample I took from the song "The Truth". I think I had it on tape. Well I found the song NOT on Youtube, but somewhere else.

What can I tell about Saint, these samples came from their first album "Warriors of the Son", which I bought after "Time's End" (2nd album). It had the Saint sound from "Time's End" but the songs were not all so catchy like the next album. Some were still good enough to sample anyway.
* Abyss
* Vicars of Fate
* Warriors of the Son









Whitecross was famous because of their guitarist Rex Caroll and vocalist Scott Wenzel, but I had always my doubts about the leadsinger, I found it painfull the listen an whole album to him.
But Rex really knew how the play hardrock music. 
I sampled 2 songs of "Hammer and Nail", their 2nd album, because I thought there were only 2 good songs. I had also
 the first album, and I liked only the last song of that album, 
so I wasnt a major fan and bought never again an album 
of Whitecross.

* Livin On The Edge
* Because of Jesus
 live

Here are the links to disk #2 with these samples.
at Gavitex and Mediafire


 

The Music Module sample disks - part 1 - A Coming Storm

This is the first of the 3 disks full of Heavy Metal samples of Whilte Metal bands and just from 
1 sample I made a real demo, the Metal Demo II. The rest of the samples were not bad, but I had no fresh ideas left are my hard work to get the Metal Demo II finished.

So here is part 1, with sample of a White Metal band called Tempest. 

I can say a lot about the band and the "A Coming Storm", which I sampled, I think it better to be short. The guitarwork was really heavy and slow, the vocalist  was not capable to sound like a hardrock singer should.

I made a lot of samples, sometimes more than 1 per track. There were many great guitar-riffs to be found. 

So on the disk #1 you wil find the following tracks 
of "A Coming Storm" of Tempest:

* Games With God
* Golgotha
* Rock On
* God's Will Be Done
* Kid's Gonna Rock
* Tell Me

On "A Comng Storm" there was the best heavy metal intro I ever heard, I could not sample it, cause it was too long, but boy I wanted that intro so bad as a ringtone on my breakdown service mobile phone. If you listen to "Metal Mission" you will know why...

Well, the band Tempest made only 3 albums, I had the first 2 of them. The core members, 
the vocalist and guitarman, joined others bands with success. 

Almost forgotten, here is the disk #1 with the samples at Gavitex and Mediafire