Exclusive Ram Raider Interview

In a time which celebrates fame, success, stupidity, convenience and noise, here is the perfect antidote, The Ram Raider, an anonymous blogger enraged by the vacuity of ‘new games journalism’ and the industry in general. The Ram Raider is ‘a gaming journalist looking from the inside out, wondering why all the joy has been replaced by bollocks'. His ‘quaint little rant site’ was set up in March 2005 as a means to vent his spleen ‘about the games industry, and all that is evil and ridiculous within it.’ Some will argue that all his adolescent anger and sweary angst is simply too easy, too shallow and too dull to warrant attention.

But they’d be wrong. Scratch the surface and you’ll find that beneath all the amusing profanity and creative harassment is a blog with relevance, humour and, yes, at times, the word ‘cunt’. The Ram Raider is a crusader, a man who likes nothing more than to puncture the inflated ego of pretentious journalism:

New Games Journalism is little more than an excuse for the writer to talk about themselves first, and let everything and everyone else be damned…if you write about yourself, you’ll alienate your readers and end up as one of the bunch of self-deluded pricks who waffle on about fuck-all in shite like Edge.

And that’s him being nice. God help those poor, feckless berks who really push his buttons. Because once the Ram gets Raiding, you’d better take cover...

Digital Gigolo: Before we begin is there anything you’d like to get off your chest? Anyone in particular who’s been making your blood itch?
RAM Raider: There’s not enough room on the net to list half of what makes my cock weep blood. The worst of it gets spurted across my Twitter feed.

Digital Gigolo: ‘Ram Raiding’ is defined by Wikipedia as ‘a variation on burglary in which a van, SUV, car, or other heavy vehicle is driven through the windows or doors of a closed shop, usually a department store or jewellers shop, to allow the perpetrators to loot it’. Your pseudonym suggests a ‘fuck you’ approach to who you criticise and damn the consequences. Is that a fair description?
RAM Raider: It’s a fair description of my style, as one of its objectives is to lay down some honest criticism without any blowback. But the real reason I chose that pseudonym is less interesting. It’s a slightly weak play on Random Access Memory (hence why I always capitalise the RAM part) which probably made perfect sense at the time I came up with it. Trouble is, I have little memory of that occasion.

Digital Gigolo: The cuddly world of Pokemon is a far cry from the acerbic rants of The Ram Raider. So why on earth have you chosen the protagonist of Pokemon Snap on the N64 as your avatar?
RAM Raider: Like the name, it wasn’t premeditated – I made a quick choice when the blog registration process asked for a picture. I have a soft spot for the sunshiney idealised world of Pokemon (less so for Nintendo flogging the shit out of it by re-releasing slight tweaks of the same game for over a decade rather than rewarding the faithful with something new), and the photographer lurking around in the turdy undergrowth seemed appropriate without being too recognisable a character. It’s worked out well, as people seem to associate that picture with me more so now than with Pokemon Snap.

Digital Gigolo: Pretentious journalism is clearly a bugbear. When did you first feel the rage surface? Can you pinpoint the article/magazine/journalist that finally caused you to snap and give birth to The Ram Raider?
RAM Raider: The blog was sired by a plethora of hateful events, such as getting severely bollocked for mentioning that I wasn’t impressed by a game that the mag I was on was paid to feature on its cover, but there’s one period in particular that sticks out in my memory. I’d been commissioned to write a massive preview for one of the major mags, and had been given something like a week to research and turn around about fifteen pages full of new releases. I had to source exclusive screenshots and quotes for each title I was covering (God forbid I should actually be sent to play any code) – considering it was one of those pissy supplements where you have to squeeze three or four games into a page, it was a fucking nightmare.

At least it would have been a mere fucking nightmare, rather than the raging shitstorm it turned into, had the PR scum I had to liaise with to get the assets from been able to do the unthinkable: their jobs. A few of them were great, and were more than happy to secure free positive coverage (thou shalt not speak ill of a game in a preview – it’s the law) for whatever they were hawking in a major mag with (then) excellent circulation figures in exchange for nothing more than a screenshot.

But this was obviously far too much of an ask for the majority of the screaming pricks who either ignored me, or lied directly to my fucking face about getting the assets to me. My editor really didn’t want to use screenshots from GamesPress, so a load of the pieces I wrote were spiked and I got paid about half of what I should have got. All because these anus faces couldn’t deviate from whatever fucking spreadsheet they’d been given that month, or what the fuck ever. Cunts.

Digital Gigolo: You seem to hold a particularly persistent grudge against Future Publishing who are routinely hectored and always on the receiving end of your nastier bouts of criticism. Edge, in particular, really takes a battering. Do you think Future is to blame for the decline in the quality of videogame journalism? You did, after all, award Nintendo Official Magazine (a Future Publication) the ‘Worst Magazine 2008’.
RAM Raider: Not all the blame’s on Future, but they take a pretty large portion of it. Things were better when Dennis were still in the industry and there was healthy competition in the shape of CVG v GamesMaster and PC Zone v PC Gamer, but now Future’s too much of a monopoly. The distribution of “exclusives” has become too artificial, and is there to principally serve advertisers. Readers are barely an afterthought now, which is probably why they’re all fucking off to the internet. There’s a lot more to it than that of course, such as issues of standards, but that’s for another day.

Digital Gigolo: Do you work for Future?
RAM Raider: They feature heavily on my CV.

Digital Gigolo: Are videogame magazines a dying format?
RAM Raider: The death of mags has been predicted for years now, but it’s still not happened. Nor is it happening as quickly as most people think. The truth is that, my personal gripes about the old boys’ network aside, mags do attract the best writers. The combination of their heritage and the way in which they’re put together means you’re far more likely to find a higher standard of writing when you open a mag than browsing around GameSpot and its ilk. Look at the journos with the most respect, and you’ll see that they mostly have a heavy mag background in common (a few notable exceptions aside, such as EG’s Tom Bramwell).

Add in the fact that you can’t beat a good shit with the latest issue of your favourite mag resting on your lap, and it’s hard to argue against them being around for a fair old while yet.

Digital Gigolo: Is the internet, as opposed to the traditional magazine, now the authority on videogames?
RAM Raider: In terms of pure information about the games, yes. Although the mags are still privy to the best exclusives and early hands-on previews because of their advertising clout, the fact that mags get scanned and info gets leaked by embargo-haters means the net has the upper hand.

Digital Gigolo: People you hate: Ngai Croal (writes for – shock! – Edge), Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw (Zero Puntuation), Dan Whitehead (Eurogamer). Who, if anyone, do you like? There must be at least one lonesome soul out there who inspires you?
RAM Raider: There’s a distinction between hating someone’s writing, and disliking them personally. Of the three you mentioned, I only actually hate Croal. He’ll never apologise to the Capcom Resi Evil devs for accusing them of using racist imagery, despite bringing the credibility of the games industry into disrepute and devaluing the cause against racism for his own self-love and promotion. He’s incredibly still flogging articles off the back of it to Edge right at this very moment. The sooner that cunt’s out of journalism, the better.

Whitehead went overboard with the bullshit in a review, so I took the piss out of him for it – I’ve got nothing against him personally. As for Croshaw, he sometimes gets a little ahead of himself.

As for who I like, there are a few out there. I’ve already mentioned Bramwell – he’s as solid as a rock and totally unpretentious. Jon Blyth injects so much humour into his work, which you don’t see much of these days thanks to over-paranoid editing (another reason I started the blog, incidentally). I still enjoy reading what Campbell has to say, for all his often misjudged bluster, and Gillen crafts some good stuff on those rare occasions when his flies are done up.

Digital Gigolo: Is The Ram Raider a single entity or a network of cynical and jaded journos? I only ask because you mention your ‘band of merry cohorts’ in one of your posts.
RAM Raider: The blog would sometimes include rants suggested by the few who knew my filthy secret, and Anonymous Knights would sometimes contribute to keep their identities hidden.

Digital Gigolo: Do you remain anonymous for fear of losing your job as a videogame journalist or to prove the point that your blog was created solely to air your genuine disgruntlement with the games industry and not just as a push for personal recognition?
RAM Raider: Anonymity serves both purposes. Many people accused me of starting the blog for self-promotion to begin with, but they were too feebleminded to realise how self-defeating that would be. By staying anonymous and never accepting advertising, I’ve been able to say exactly what I think without any outside influence. It means I can’t personally reap the glory from I’ve written as RR, but I’m truly not that fussed about that side of things.

Digital Gigolo: Has anyone correctly guessed your true identity?
RAM Raider: No comment…

Digital Gigolo: Apologies but it’s time for the obligatory ‘What is your favourite videogame mag/blog/ website/journalist?’ question.
RAM Raider: It always turns my stomach when I see interviewees sucking up to their interviewer for these kinds of question, so I’ll exclude NGamer and anything else you write for in this answer. It’s no secret that my favourite past mag is Amiga Power, and Arcade was fun for awhile. Keeping it current, I’ve got a soft spot for GamesTM. You could count the number of decent gaming sites out there on your bollocks, but I always read Patrick Garratt’s VG247. It throws in some occasionally frank opinion amongst the news, although I think Pat holds back a lot because of the advertising. As for journalists, I’ve already mentioned them: Blyth, Bramwell, Campbell and Gillen.

Digital Gigolo: When was the last time you were shocked by something?
RAM Raider: When I glanced in the mirror this morning. The games industry disgusts me more or less weekly, but I’m never shocked anymore.

Digital Gigolo: You have a facebook fan page, a twitter account and a blog that used to attract over a thousand hits per day? You clearly have an audience. So why did you retire your blog?
RAM Raider: It felt like the right time for several reasons, not least because I felt that it was demanding more of my time than I could afford to give it if the quality levels weren’t to start dribbling away down its own arse like so many mags I could mention. There’s also a limit to how much you can blow the whistle before you realise that most people would rather it didn’t pierce the delusory bubble they’re labouring inside. I don’t regret it, and I’ve kept an online presence for the hardcore. I love them dearly – fuck everyone else.

Digital Gigolo: On a scale of one to ten, how angry are you on a daily basis?
RAM Raider: On a good day, with breathing exercises I can bring it down to a nine. The day I stop being angry about the games industry being ejaculated over the dog’s back is the day I stop caring about it.

Digital Gigolo: What lightens your mood?
RAM Raider: Watching people I hate fail. (I’m joking, of course. Well, maybe half and half…)

Digital Gigolo: And finally, will you, once you retire, let your identity be known?
RAM Raider: I’m sure it’ll happen eventually, but not until I’m good and ready. And when nobody else gives a shit anymore.

Assassin's Creed 2 Review

Roof hopping wop stabs his way around Renaissance Italy. That’s all you need to know about the plot. The finer details of the storyline simply distract from the fun. If you want to ponder the existential implications of prolonged exposure to virtual worlds then go watch The Matrix.

Assassin’s Creed 2, stripped of its confusing narrative, is simply a big old climbing frame. The whole of Italy is your parkour-friendly playground upon which you are encouraged to free-run until the soles of your feet bleed. Every last square inch of concrete can be clambered up, swung from, and jumped off. You see that eagle soaring above that impossibly high cathedral tower? You can go and stroke him if you fancy it.

And while you’re up there why not take in the view. The town stretches out for miles in all directions, a boxy maze of rooftops and sky. The hectic hustle and bustle of the streets below are muted by the whooshing of the wind in your ears. You can spend hours without your feet ever touching the ground, simply watching the world go by. It’s intoxicating stuff. But it's the violence where Assassin's Creed 2 really shines.

Bloody murder is woven into every thread of the game. From the brutal intimacy of a hidden-blade gut-stab to the epic frenzy of warring factions, Assassin’s Creed 2 spills claret by the gallon. Murdered parents, horribly botched assassination attempts, religious genocide – it’s all here. Nothing censored, nothing hidden. And I can’t recall any other video game in history that shows the public execution of a young boy. The last video game taboo – the killing of children – has now been broken. How the Daily Mail missed that one I’ll never know.

It’s ambitious then, in both scale and subject matter. Possibly the most ambitious game of its generation. And it rarely places a foot wrong. The transition from balletic urban athlete to deadly assassin is seamless. You’re never impeded by poor level design or muddled controls. Canny visual cues - pigeons indicate jump off points for those stunning leaps of faith, while anything draped in a white sheet signifies the starting spot for a free-run – mean you never have to stop and think about which button to push next. It’s natural, free flowing and awesomely empowering.

For all its intuitive brilliance though, Assassins Creed 2 does have its faults. Missions where you shadow a specific target can be extremely slow-paced and tedious. Towards the end of the game you’ll have accumulated a huge mountain of cash. Having already purchased everything you'll ever need a fair while back, your accrued wealth is now entirely useless. It just keeps on piling up - a grotesque parody of our bank accounts in the real world. And it’s just a tad on the easy side too. Yes, it’ll take you a good solid week to complete, triple that time if you decide to collect all the feathers, treasure chests and hieroglyphs, but you’ll rarely find yourself suffering a fatal blow from a guard’s sword. But, again, maybe that’s just down to the solid controls.

The biggest bugbear for many however will be the game’s lethargic start. Indeed AC2 takes its own sweet time to get going. You can blame the devs for the slow pacing. In their desire for the player to spend more time with Ezio as a carefree adolescent, they’ve created an intro devoid of incident. The action hungry gamer is left champing at the bit in frustration – 'JUST GET ON WITH IT FOR FUCK’S SAKE!'

Not me though. Some of our best loved games have been slow burners. Take Ocarina Of Time. It took a fair old while for our hero Link to leave Kokiri Village and face the epic splendour of Hyrule Field. In many ways AC2 is the spiritual successor to the Ocarina Of Time: Galloping over vast green fields on a tireless stallion; locking onto enemies before clashing swords; plundering loot from beautifully designed dungeons, or simply watching the rising sun burn the morning mist away – AC2 ticks many of the boxes that made Miyamoto’s offering an instant classic.

So then, game of the year? For me, yes. In fact I’d go so far as to say Assassin’s Creed 2 is the best single player experience of this generation. Go buy. Now.

And, yes, that sarky English twat is indeed Danny Wallace.

Andy Mcnab Vs Modern Warfare 2

"I sometimes play the last Call Of Duty with my godson, who wipes the floor with me, and I was already impressed. But this new game takes it to a new level. The movement of the characters is spot on. The way a trained soldier holds and fires a gun is very specific – and they’ve got the movement right, down to the last detail."

"Even the blood spatter and impact of a bullet on a human is correct. Some maps in particular are very close to the real thing. In the opening level you are fighting insurgents through rat runs, in and out of back alleys, mosques and markets in a city. That is exactly the sort of conditions our troops were fighting under in Basra, Iraq".

"The game really gets across the frantic chaos of a firefight. I’m sure this game will be on the receiving end of some stick – but its biggest defence is its realism. It isn’t glorifying war, it’s bringing it into living rooms and simulating it as closely as possible".

New Super Mario Bros Wii Review.

Nope, ‘fraid not chaps. There’s nowt here to rival the brain melting riot of originality that burst on to the SNES twenty years ago in the form of Super Mario World. Twenty long years - a cavernous period of time that has seen Nintendo release the N64, Gamecube and Wii - and we are STILL waiting for a 2D platformer to topple SMW from its lofty perch in the clouds.

New Super Mario Bros Wii is by no means a disaster. How could it be? It’s the spiritual sequel to the best 2D platformer ever made. Yes, it lacks the traditional Mario charm and, yes, it’s too easy (okay, not the tear inducing 9-7), but you’ll enjoy it nonetheless, more so if you block out the giddy delights of its SNES forbear.

Unsurprisingly it’s the newest addition to the game that proves the most fun. Multiplayer, a mode I usually shun, got a thoroughly good seeing to this time round - a testament to Mario's universal appeal. Roping in a couple of playmates is never a problem when you mention the ubiquitous Italian chubster. Faces light up and eyes mist over with childhood nostalgia. That mystical Mario allure has yet to wane after all these years. And, yes, bouncing around the Mushroom Kingdom with a few friends in tow is as fun as it sounds. An air of happy cooperation illuminates the first 30 mins of playtime together. Sharing power ups, boosting a chum to reach a Star Coin, piggybacking a weaker player over tricky terrain - all these wonderful moments of teamwork are integral to the happy, shiny, let's-be-friends feel.

Inevitably the love does not last long. Mischievous tom-foolery soon takes over. Every tactic used in the spirit of collaboration is quickly turned on its head. Stop a pal from pinching a preferred power up by lobbing him into some lava, or force him to play catch up by zooming on ahead. Yes indeedy, there are plenty of ways to ruin it for everyone else and you'll try every single one of them.

Multiplayer is fun, no doubt. But without a few chums to share in the high jinks the levels feel soulless and empty. To truly appreciate the potential for mutliplayer mayhem take a peek inside Princess Peach's Castle. The jaw dropping 'super skills' locked within showcase the astounding tricks and acrobatics that four hardcore platform fans can pull off. Some of the stunts are truly mind blowing. Same goes for the 'endless one ups'. There are some ingenious ways to clock up extra lives, feats of digit crippling dexterity you'd simply never have thought of yourself. Watching these videos is like searching youtube for all those quirky 'look what I can do' clips posted by the public. They also draw attention to the meticulously planned level design and reveal a depth to the gameplay that might have otherwise been overlooked.

Some welcome additions then but nothing like the ground pounding triumph we've been waiting so long for. Me thinks a little context is in order here, a peek into the past to put this game in to perspective.

It took a decade for Nintendo to better Mario 64, but Galaxy was worth the wait. And after 12 years we’re finally due a Zelda that’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the mighty Ocarina Of Time.

The Big N is renowned for lavishing its most cherished franchises with generous periods of development time. It’s why their end products are often modern day masterpieces. Bum numbing delays are tolerable if, at the end of it all, we have a Galaxy to gawp at. But twenty years? For this? Fuck me, no. Too little, too late.

Interesting NSMBW fact

Matthew Castle Interview (kind of...)

 Digital Gigolo had an exclusive interview planned for its Christmas Special. Unfortunately my interviewee – Matthew Castle – has declined to take part. Not because he’s a meanie or anything, it’s just that he prefers to keep his personal opinions, well, personal. Completely understandable. And besides, he turned me down in the sweetest possible way.

Hi Alan,

I’ve read your questions – and it’s certainly a quirky interview – but I don’t think I can answer them.

You’ve been here and know what its like, but Future business has to remain Future business and I’m just not comfortable releasing personal opinions about other mags(Edge, etc) and what it is we do. Truth is, I kind of like to keep my background away from the readers, too. Fact is, I applied for a job and got one. Not the best of stories!

I’m sorry if this disappoints – I really dig the intro to the questions and the tone it sets – but I like to keep my cards close to my chest. That said, I respect your continued efforts and am dead chuffed you would even want to hear my ramblings in the first place.

Maybe, and I’d have to ask Nick (Editor of NGamer), we could do a more general NGamer interview – about the mag, some of its workings, etc. That could work out…
Again, sorry if this puts me in your ‘Jerk Book’ (we all have one, right?)

Thanks,

Matthew

Matthew, you'll be happy to know that my ‘jerk book’ remains blank. In a time which celebrates convenience, stupidity, noise and fame for fame’s sake, I rather admire Mr Castle’s wish to remain free from self promotion and hype. Nonetheless, I know my readership are a curious bunch and I think they’d like a peek at the questions that I pitched to Matthew.

So here they are in the interview that will never be:

Matthew Castle is not an easy man to get hold of. I’ve been pestering him all year for this interview. It’s not that he’s shy. It’s just that he finds the whole ‘journalists as celebrity’ thing a little creepy.

‘I think I may appear a little pompous to allow myself to be subject to an interview’, he told me when I initially proposed the idea. ‘It would feel a little self-indulgent on my part - the mag is where I do my talking’.

Indeed. And besides, he’s a busy man. Matthew is the Games Editor for Ngamer and contributes regularly to Xbox World 360, PSM3 and Edge. He simply hasn’t got the time to indulge the nagging demands of an overenthusiastic blogger.

And yet here he is.

You see, as well as being acutely modest, he’s also a very nice chap. But I’ve got to be carfeul about pouring on the compliments too thick. Matthew agreed to this interview on one condition – that it didn’t degenerate into a sycophantic ode to his omnipotent greatness.

So then, let’s start with something a little tounge-in-cheek instead…

C’mon Matthew, it’s time you came clean. That Red Steel review – do you still stand by it? Be honest now…

Were you surprised by peoples’ reaction? Does anyone still give you shit about it?

As a games journalist who regularly writes for both NGamer and Edge, you are uniquely placed to comment on the magazines’ considerable clash in both style and tone. For the sake of convenience let’s compare the magazines’ Red Steel reviews:

NGamer – 90%
It's liquid movement... A massive improvement on previous console FPS control... Not only making excellent use of the Wii's controllers, this is huge fun in its own right. For a launch title to get so much right is an indicator of great things to come.

Edge – 5/10
It's easy to over-rate launch titles thanks to the shock of the new, doubly so when the control scheme is as interesting as this one, but at its heart Red Steel is just another lever-pulling trawl through big rooms and S-shaped corridors.

How would you explain the glaring disparity in these two reviews?

I’m looking forward to your Red Steel 2 review…

How do you feel when someone like Charlie Brooker mocks Edge for its ‘turgid school-essay house style’, which he finds ‘300 times snootier than the Royal family’?

Do you ever feel frustrated by Edge’s strict adherence to anonymity? Are you, for example, ever miffed that you’re never directly credited for your reviews? Or does this free you to safely savage a game under the comforting cloak of secrecy?

Right, let’s rewind a few years. A fresh faced young Matthew graduates from Oxford University with a 1st in English Literature - can you talk us through your path from student to staff writer?

Were you a fan of Super Play, N64 and NGC before you started writing for NGamer?
If you weren’t a games journo what would you be?

Whatever happened to Mark Green? He seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet…

Did you ever have a ‘Eureka’ moment, an exact point in your life when you thought ‘I’m going to be a Videogames Journalist’?

What advice would you give to those people who want to write for a games magazine?

Which authors do you admire and which single person has had the biggest influence on you as a writer?

Which game provides the best single player experience of this generation?

And multiplayer?

Best new IP?

Best franchise?

Which console has the best controller?

What questions did you hate answering in this interview?

Can we expect to see you in the role of Editor at some point in the future?

The Descent Of Mags

Print is not dead.

But it is dying. I love our British videogame magazines. They are the best in the world. But I understand that the humble print publication has fallen victim to the way we now consume information - its decline follows the Darwinian Theory that only the fittest survive, its extinction, therefore, inevitable.

But what rattles me more than our moribund magazine sales is the unconcerned reaction from the gaming public. A typical response:

“It’s just a sign of the times. Get over it. Move on or shut up. What can you read in a magazine that's not already on the internet?”

Can you think of anything on the ‘net that’s as good as N64 magazine was? Not just the writing, but the focus on reader interaction, the sense of humour, the passion. The internet is probably a very unsafe guide to popular taste because there is absolutely no control on what is published, which means it is not obliged to study its public at all closely. Mags like NGamer, 360 and Retrogamer only exist because there is a definite demand for them, and they reflect the minds of their readers as the internet with its user base of billions cannot possibly do.

What a terrible loss it shall be when the great British video game mag goes the way of the dodo.

Do We Still Care About Mario?

Why does anyone care about Mario?

That kind of question is never easy to answer. As a rule, an aesthetic preference is usually something inexplicable. In Mario’s case the complicating factor is familiarity. He happens to have starred in the ‘seminal games’ we all played in our childhood. It’s this comforting familiarity that generates such fierce loyalty.

For instance, nearly everyone feels a sneaking affection for the cartoons they watched as a child, ‘Cities of Gold’, ‘Ulysses 31’, ‘Thundercats’ and so forth. As an adult, what one enjoys is not so much the cartoons themselves as the memories they call up. And with Mario the same forces of association are at work. A thing that is absorbed so early on in life does not often come up against any critical judgement. And when one thinks of this, one thinks of all that is bad and silly in Mario games – the futile circularity of the ‘plot’ (save the princess, again), the static simplicity of the 2D platforming, the refusal to grow and mature with its fans. And then the thought arises, when I say I like Mario, do I simply mean that I like thinking about my childhood? Is Mario merely an institution?

If so, he is an institution that there is no getting away from. How often one really thinks about any game, even a game one really cares for, is a difficult thing to decide; but I should doubt whether anyone who has actually played a Mario game can't help but remember it in one context or another. It’s not so much a series of games, it is more like a world. Bowser’s Castle! The Mushroom Kingdom! Goomba! Boo! Bullet Bill! Yoshi! Princess Peach! Toad! Rainbow Road! Lakitu! Birdo! Chain Chomp! Shy guy! Thwomp! Wiggler! Whomp! – and so it goes on and on. To a surprising extent all this has entered into the minds of people who do not care about it. A stand up comedian can go on stage and tell a Mario related joke with a fair certainty of being understood, although not one in twenty of that audience would have ever played a Mario game.

But it would be screamingly unfair to base Mario’s popularity on familiarity alone. The outstanding, unmistakable mark of a Mario game is the riot of originality, the fertility of inventiveness that simply cannot be imitated. When one plays any strongly individual game, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the pixels. In this case the face is unmistakably that of Shigeru Miyamoto. And what people always demand of a popular games developer like Shigsy is that he shall make the same game over and over again.

No grown-up person can play a Mario game without feeling its limitations, and yet there remains a native intimacy and a spark of magic, which act as a kind of anchor and keeps the ubiquitous Italian chubster where he belongs. It is probably the central secret of his popularity.

Is The Gamecube Nintendo's Worst Home Console?

The Gamecube is the weakest link in Nintendo's chain of home consoles, demonstrating that even the mighty Shigsy is fallible. Mediocre at best, Nintendo's purple cube failed to deliver anything near as revolutionary or innovative as its predecessors (or its motion controlled successor).

Yes, the Gamecube offered us some genuine flourishes of excellence. Pikmin was an enchanted oddity and a game that, undeservedly, went largely unnoticed by the public, buried beneath the usual batch of mainstream mediocrity. It was a rose among the weeds but not the rich assorted topiary of creativity we have come to expect from Nintendo. It was simply not enough.

Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine, despite both being solid accomplished games, were the weakest in their franchise. The FLUDD? What was Shigsy thinking? Yoshi aside, Mario is a solo performer capable of bouncing on bonces and bashing bricks unaided. The FLUDD seemed to diminish him somehow. Another gripe: his surroundings were based in reality.

"A strange plane has brought him from his home, an escapist, jolly nonsense-land where the hills have eyes to a world very much more like our own" - EDGE magazine.

Mario belongs in the Mushroom Kingdom or at least in a world that is not weighed down by the baggage of reality. And the tedious boating excursions in the Wind Waker were a cheap and tedious stunt to prolong the life of the game.

And consider this: the Gamecube was the first Nintendo console for which the 'killer app' was not a game made by Nintendo, but instead came from third party developer Capcom in the form of Resident Evil 4.

If you need more persuasion simply pick up a copy of any NGamer and cast your eyes over their Top Ten Gamecube Games Ever Made. Resi 4 clearly holds the top spot. This is utterly unprecedented and speaks absolute volumes about the Gamecube's output and creativity during this period. And Super Mario Sunshine, Nintendo’s follow up to the revolutionary Super Mario 64, is no where to be seen! A top ten bereft of a traditional Mario platformer? Unheard of.

Compelling evidence, don’t you think?

Nintendo’s biggest crime was the failure to deliver upon their unique selling point: the promise of the ‘Nintendo Difference’. The difference in this instance was the lack of a truly memorable Nintendo game.

I agree that Resident Evil 4 was sublime, a game that made the GameCube an essential purchase, but it’s a worrying sign when a third party trumps anything Nintendo produced in the course of its console's life. I’m not dismissing the GameCube as an absolute failure but this was the first time that my hunger for gaming had not been satisfied by the Big N. I found myself looking elsewhere, and I can safely say that not one game on the GameCube could rival the brain melting brilliance of Halo: Comabt Evolved on the XBox.

The GameCube was the only Nintendo console that I sold on (yet I still have my Dreamcast). And the glut of GameCubes’s clogging up the window of every CEX I walk past shows that I’m not the only one who took this step. In fact, and this is truly offensive, I even stopped buying NGC for a small while (my favourite ever Nintendo Magazine), disillusioned as I was by the multitude of mediocrity filling Nintendo’s shelf space.

When the most influential Nintendo Magazine has Mario Party 4 as its front cover (check out issue 75 of NGC) times must be very desperate indeed.

Remember - No Russian

A defining moment in video game history. Modern Warfare’s unflinching depiction of civilian slaughter, brutal, uncensored and so very real, ranks alongside Stephen Spielberg’s Munich and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant as a stark reminder of the terror and mayhem that a few guns in the wrong hands can wreak.

There’s no cartoon violence here to mitigate the horror. Death is violent and bloody. The wounded drag their broken bodies away from the gunfire, smearing the clinically white airport floor with their glistening innards. A pretty blonde props her bullet torn body against a wall, helpless, entirely at the mercy of the approaching terrorists. The woefully inadequate security guards manage to squeeze off a few shots before crumpling under a hail of machine gun fire. And the slaughter continues, relentlessly, at snails pace, forcing you to witness every atrocity in a dreamlike stupor. To progress you simply must collude in the carnage. There is no way to avoid it. Yes, you can choose to spare the few civilians who survive the initial volley of bullets. But the shielded riot squad must be killed if you want to continue. It’s a moral Catch-22.

Think back a year. Grand Theft Auto IV. Early in the game you’re given a decision to make – a choice to assassinate either Playboy X or Dwayne. Who did you kill? Did you make the right choice? It’s exactly this uncertainty, prompted by your decision, that created the illusion of a profound turning point in the game. Deciding who to kill was distinctly harder than the actual act of killing.

An interesting fact: Jesse Stern, scriptwriter for MW2, said, ‘every single person in testing opened fire on the crowd’. The overwhelming majority of us, when given the choice between active participant and mute bystander, chose to pull the trigger. No biggie, just pull the trigger. The police, after all, are armed - kill or be killed. Besides, it was part of their job description – protect the public. But the civilian with his hands held high in that naked gesture of utter helplessness was a guilty pleasure. Destroying the innocent. Total empowerment.

It’s at this point that I started to feel a little sullied by the whole experience, a bit dirty.

I had a choice and I chose to kill.

That a first person shooter can provoke such profound emotion, can deal with such weighty world issues without resorting to adolescent absolutes, is a turning point. Modern Warfare 2 is the first video game that seriously attempts to understand a post 9/11 world. It’s a game that stands shoulder to shoulder with United 93 and The Second Plane as a chillingly effective exploration of terror in the 21st century.

Jesse Stern sums it up nicely when he says, ‘I never really knew you could elicit such a deep feeling from a video game’.

Well you can Jessie me old son. And you did.

Jesse Stern's full interview at Gamepro

The Madness Of Modern Warfare

It’s hard to make out through the mucus and froth the exact cause of his intense fury, but one thing is clear: Modern Warfare 2 is to blame.

I don’t mean to come across all Daily Mail but there’s something unsettling about the unadulterated furore surrounding Modern Warfare 2. It feels like a turning point for videogames. I just can’t quite put my finger on why that might be.

Maybe it’s the genuinely staggering facts and figures attached to the game’s release date. Modern Warfare 2 managed to shift 4.7 million units in the US and UK within 24 hours of launching. It generated $310 million which prompted Activision to declare MW2 as the “biggest entertainment launch in history”.

Or perhaps it’s the announcement, per a tweet by Major Nelson that, thanks to Modern Warfare 2, Xbox Live has set a new record with more than 2 million gamers being connected at once. A population twice the size of Cyprus unified by their love for a shoot em up. Staggering.

And it’s not just the industry pundits who are taking an interest. MW2 has attracted attention from a considerable number of high profile public figures. Andy McNab, SAS hero and author of Bravo Two Zero, said the game 'is so realistic it's scary'. Quite the endorsement. Even Russell Brand took some time out of Katy Perry’s panties to comment: ‘Modern Warfare 2 sounds like it might be trivialising the horror of war on remembrance day. What's next? Paedophile boxing 3? For Christmas?’

And Brand wasn’t the only one to pick up on the game’s ‘insensitive’ launch date. Sainsbury’s was forced to apologise to customers after MW2 was advertised over its in-store Tannoy on Armistice Day.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to capitalize on public outrage, MPs' attacked the game for its ‘realistic depiction of civilian slaughter’. Fox news ran a whole feature on it. This in turn caused Heavy Rain producer Guillaume de Fondaumiere to wade into the debate. His take on the controversy was simple: ‘I don’t see any reason why video games should be treated differently than movies, for instance. I think that we should leave game creators free of expressing their vision as they see fit. I think the guys at Infinity Ward had something very precise in mind when they did this scene’.

A week after its release and Modern Warfare 2 is still sitting pretty in Twitter’s trending topics. A quick glance at Metacritic’s top ten reveals MW2 riding high at number 4 with the original Modern Warfare not far behind at number 7.

And all this from a first person shooter. How gloriously barmy.

There was only one way I could conclude this article: a micro interview with the angry kid in the youtube vid, GuitarJono1170:

Digital Gigolo: Why so angry dude?

GuitarJono1170: well i don't enjoy playing single player and i keep lossing and missing shots on people i prefer call of duty 5 with the zombies and nice place to go

Indeed.

Red Faction Guerrilla Review

If this Youtube video gives you the horn, I’d suggest purchasing Red Faction Guerrilla.

Standing knee-deep in rubble as the world collapses around your ears – this, dear reader, is the definition of balls-out masculinity. Forget Master Chief. All Alec Mason needs to save the day is a sledgehammer and a pair of bollocks the size of wrecking balls.

Any criticisms about the hackneyed plot fade in to insignificance once you’ve levelled your first chimney stack. Five well-placed blows from your sledgehammer – surely the most satisfying and tactile tool in the history of gaming – and down it comes. Destruction is the name of the game. And it’s destruction on a vast, unending scale, with an increasingly devastating arsenal of weapons at your disposal.

Verdict
At long last! The question that’s been puzzling scientists and pop stars alike can finally be answered: YES, there IS life on Mars. And thankfully, Mars is a fucking hoot. To save your planet, you have to blow it up! How gloriously barmy.

How To Be A Games Journalist

Below are some tips on how to penetrate that prude maiden known as Games Journalism. Follow this advice and you’ll have no trouble landing your dream job.

Probably.

1) Read anything and everything, from Trainspotting to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Bury yourself beneath a mountain of videogame mags and don’t emerge until their wisdom has seeped into your soul. At one point I was devouring everything I could get my hands on: NGamer, EDGE, Games tm, Wired. Yes, it’s an expensive hobby but it will prove invaluable as an aid to developing your writing style and, crucially, keeping it fresh. There is nothing worse than stale and clichéd writing. “All the video game experience in the world doesn't mean jack if you can't put a decent sentence together” (random games journalist). This is probably the most valuable advice anyone will ever give you so I’ll say it again. READ ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING.


2) Practice your writing skills on videogame forums. And then brace yourself for the inevitable bombardment of blunt feedback you’ll receive. Veteran forumites, those faceless souls that live in cyberspace, are often well-informed and never afraid to point out your short-comings. Use these forums as a training camp to hone your skills. If you can survive, as a respected member of the community, amongst hardened gamers, you’re that smidgeon closer to your dream.

Almost all videogame mags now support an online forum that allows direct contact with the Editor and Staff Writers. Use this to your advantage and try to build a rapport with them. Note: this does NOT involve stalking, irritating or pestering them with incessant begging letters. Instead, suggest new ideas for the magazine. Offer to contribute articles you have written. If you’re lucky, as I was, you may find them receptive to your ideas and willing to use them. This is how I got my first official writing credit.


3) Create your own blog. Once you’ve survived the proving grounds of a specialist videogame forum you may wish to graduate to Blogging. Blogging is an excellent way of relieving the chaotic tangle of ideas that swell your brain. Any time a game-related thought pops into your head, jot it down in your Blog. What may have seemed like a trivial and inane point at the time could develop and blossom into a fully-fledged article. It also creates an easily accessible database of your work that you can show to any possible future employers. If you’re new to blogging and need some ideas I suggest giving ‘A Rough Guide To Blogging – Jonathan Yang’ a try.

Sexy Videogameland is a good example of how to blog about videogames.


4) Passion. You must have a genuine, unwavering passion for games and a determined self-belief that you can do this with the best of them. I had been reading NGamer for 14 years before I felt confident enough to write into them. And when I did I enjoyed a very rewarding period of success. The three letters I sent were all printed, one even getting ‘Star Letter’. Seeing your name and your words printed in your favourite magazine and knowing that thousands of likeminded enthusiasts are reading those very words is a massive buzz and will give you the confidence to continue.

Good luck!

Five Lessons In Games Journalism

Kirsten Kearney - editor of gaming blog Ready Up - has turned school mistress. Today's lesson? Games journalism. So take that gum out your mouth and pay attention.

Lesson 1 - Worship the Pen(n)
Lesson 2 - The secret password is one of your own making
Lesson 3 - To thine own self be true
Lesson 4 - There is no substiture for hard work
Lesson 5 - Hope springs eternal

Borderlands Review

This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Guns. Millions of guns. Thunder spewing sniper rifles. Scoped shotties. Explosive SMGs. Borderlands is a first person shooter devoted entirely to the quest for the perfect boom stick. Every plundered weapons cache represents the infinite potential for superior fire power. Each slaughtered outlaw gives birth to yet more torso shredding artillery. This is hardcore gun porn to sate even the lustiest firearm nut.

With such a staggering choice of randomly generated weaponry, 17,750,000 at the last count, comes the monumental chore of stat comparison; armpit burning frustation as you evaluate yet another Assault Rifle. Lost in a mess of maps, missions, stats and upgrades, the gunplay, so utterly crucial to the game, often takes a back seat. Slowly, but surely, you’ll acclimatise. By level 20, you’ll know at a glance which guns to keep and which to discard or sell. And then you can concentrate on killing.

And, cor blimey, is there a lot of killing. Borderlands is a vast, lawless junkyard of bondage-clad bandits and vicious beasties. The plot, trite in the extreme (but who cares!), is to find a sacred vault, believed to contain unfathomable wealth. Along the way you’ll be inundated with side quests, sometimes 8 at a time, by the grotesque inhabitants of Pandora. 160 side quests in all and every single one of them a kill, fetch or find expedition. All of them! Without exception. But it’s cool, no sweat. You’ve got your guns to keep you company.

Guns. Millions of guns. With such cool names. Pestilent Defiler. Brutal Viper. Bloody Equalizer. Cruel Repeater. Each gun a unique metal snowflake with more character and emotional appeal than Pandora’s entire human population. The Sentinal, for example, a beautifully striped red and black Assault Rifle, like Dennis the Menace, complete with awesome scope sight, stunning accuracy and battery acid bullets. You’ll be loathe to part with some of your guns. But, eventually, you will relinquish them in favour of the next metal minx that flashes her ample stats in your direction.

The Mouth Responds

Hi, I’m The Mouth’s unsightly cold sore.

Let me explain. In an earlier blog entry I accused The Mouth – 360 Magazine's anonymous gaming curmudgeon – of being nothing more than a hack. I cited his inflammatory dig at Shigeru Miyamoto as a tiresome attempt at forced controversy. In doing so I had, unwittingly, planted a seed that would blossom into The Mouth’s latest column. Check out this excerpt from his article:

Welcome to the world of forced controversy. Each month I hurl one of these ill conceived and offensively constructed pages over the water, but I’ve never listened for the splash before. This is because even if comments existed (which ideally they should if I’m mouthy enough), it would be either applause or jeering and I could happily write amoral comments for both camps. I’ve only just personally realised that anyone was paying attention and I did that by Googling something totally unrelated only to find a page where I, or rather 'Mouth', was the pinata, which was most flattering, as Miyamoto would say. I want to be that British guy in Australia who does the funny binary hate flicks about everything that’s shit in a game, apparently, or the ‘industry’ Blogger who writes about the relationship between PR’s and the media.

Yep, I took the bait, hook, line, sinker, and copy of Angling Times. The Mouth is nothing more than a purveyor of forced controversy. So what exactly does that make me?

Answer: oral herpes.

Videogame Shame

I have a dark and dreadful secret. I play videogames.

This is an embarrassing confession for an adult to make. In their idle hours Winston Churchill and Noel Coward painted. For fun and relaxation Albert Einstein played the violin. Hemingway hunted, Agatha Christie gardened and James Joyce sang arias. But videogames?

I have a friend who drums in the attic (yes, real drums, not the plastic atrocities packaged with Guitar Hero), another who has been building a boat for years. A teacher I know runs an amateur dramatics society. Britain is a nation of hobbyists – eccentric amateurs, talented part-timers and dedicated autodidacts in every field of human endeavour. But videogames?

An adolescent boy can play his Xbox with guiltless abandon. If he’s not fumbling with his dinkle, scarlet cheeks aglow, in front of Youporn, he is playing Horde. Or Firefight. It’s what young boys do. At a pinch an adult may allow himself the guilty pleasure of a quick tumble with Cammy in Street Fighter IV. But that’s it. Any more forays into the world of videogames and you release the beast that lurks within every adult gamer’s heart – and the name of the beast is Embarrassment.

The privileged minority who work within the games industry are immune. A games journo, for example, will feel not one iota of embarrassment when asked his profession. ‘Games Journalist’, he will proudly proclaim before striding away, head held high, to roll a Katamari that’ll please the King of the Cosmos. Journos are immune because it is their job to play games. They get paid for it. Money makes palatable even the most rotten mocking. And besides, they inhabit a world where playing games is not only acceptable but essential. What’s more, game journos socialise with other game journos. Discussing the infuriating scarcity of caps in Fallout 3 over a few pints after work is – gasp! – totally normal. Try explaining to the average layman that it took you over two hours to clock up 200,000 points in Firefight in order to unlock a 20G achievement in ODST. After wiping the vomit from his lips, he’ll abruptly turn on his heels and leave, never to speak to you again.

Those of us without an official job title to lend our hobby any semblance of credibility are forced on to forums to share our passionate musings. And it’s always anonymously, under a silly alias like Digital Gigolo. Just in case someone recognises us.

All this talk about gaming losing its badge of shame is quite simply bollocks. The beast of embarrassment prowls on. Certainly for us oldies anyway. 

Oh fuck it, I’m off to play Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon, with the shades drawn.

Halo 3 ODST: Trick Or Treat?

Forget Derren Brown and his monumentally abysmal attempts at hoodwinking the general public. If you really want a master class in misdirection you need look no further than Halo 3: ODST.

The visor is pointless, a total ruse. Accidentally equipping it in a well lit arena will plunge you into an eyeball searing world of blinding white light. Used as intended, to illuminate the terminally miserable hub world, it soon becomes clear that the visor is nothing more than a superfluous pair of night vision goggles. They are perhaps the most gratuitous addition to the halo universe. So why include them? Without the gimmick of a shiny new visor, Halo ODST has absolutely nothing new to offer the dedicated campaign player.

The absence of Master Chief neither enhances nor detracts from the overall experience. His exclusion is a non event. To the untrained eye you may as well be playing as a Spartan. The superficial tweaks that are meant to promote a sense of human frailty are nothing but an acute irritation. Hunting for medipacks is a nuisance.

But it’s the incessant, nagging bleeping and the lingering red mist that descends when your life force is low that really tires the soul. The diminished jump and the weakened melee attack, although frustrating, are forgivable. They help focus the player’s attention on the weapons. And, yes, the modified pistol is a joy.

The hub world is a gloomy distillation of everything we’ve grown to dislike about Halo, namely the uninspired labyrinths of identical corridors. Without the vivid alien vistas that made Halo 3 so pleasing to the eye, ODST’s hub is just a forgettable sandbox of concrete blocks. The visor, a necessity unless you want to explore the streets of Mombassa in darkness, transforms the industrial murk into an abstract world of glowing neon contours. Yes, it’s pretty, but it feels lazy, an excuse to churn out the same indistinguishable streets and buildings.

And so it falls to Firefight to save the day. If ODST’s hub world is the embodiment of everything that made Halo a chore, Firefight is the exact opposite. Enclosed in arenas of varying size, Firefight spawns an endless supply of Covenant and an endless supply of weapons with which to kill them. Until you finally succumb. It’s the most pleasant war of attrition you’ll ever experience. Firefight achieves, with great success, what the campaign promised but failed to deliver: a feeling of comradeship with your fellow ODST’s.

Without the option to Firefight into infinity and beyond, Halo ODST is nothing more than a stunning sleight of hand.

FEAR 2: Project Origin Review

It’s pretty obvious what you’re letting yourself in for. The game is called FEAR – the developer's intentions are crystal clear: they want to scare you. And the box art is dominated by an ethereal little girl - Alma - who looks suspiciously like that freaky Japanese lass from The Ring.

The biggest tell, however, comes before you’ve even started playing. Whenever a game prompts you to “adjust the brightness until the onscreen symbol is barely visible”, you just know that the next 6-8 hours will be spent bracing yourself for the next cheap scare in a dimly lit corridor. That’s not to say it isn’t fun though.

Becket, the protagonist you control, is introduced via a lurid hallucination which sees him following the flickering ghost of Alma through a ruined city. You wake from this sepia-drenched nightmare surrounded by your squad. You’re all in an armoured combat vehicle, trundling towards your first mission - investigating a Penthouse for supernatural activity.

As with all the interior settings in FEAR, the Penthouse is a sprawling complex of meticulously detailed rooms and corridors. You’ll find yourself pushing open door after door, never knowing quite what you’ll find behind each of them. You might stumble upon an empty bathroom complete with tiny, complimentary bars of soap. Or you might uncover a blood spattered laundry room and a severed head bouncing around in one of the washing machines. It’s the pornographic attention to detail that evokes a real ‘lived-in’ quality to your surroundings. Which makes tearing them with up your machine gun all the more satisfying.

With a control set-up pilfered directly from COD 4, carving up the enemy is never a chore. Hold L1 to stare down the barrel of your gun and R1 to pump out the rounds – simple. The D-Pad is fully utilised with each direction performing a crucial function: UP – torch, RIGHT – toggle weapons, DOWN – Medikit, LEFT – toggle grenades. It all works well and after half an hour feels pretty intuitive. You’ll stick to the weapons you know and love, namely the machine guns, shotguns and sniper rifles. The Rocket Launcher is cumbersome and the futuristic lasers are ineffective and no fun to use. As are the grenades – it’s simply too hard to judge where they're going to land.

The games biggest weakness, however, is the tiny cast of enemies. You’re either shooting an identikit soldier or dodging a mutated freak. There’s no real sense of character, like the brutes in Halo 3 who constantly shift their group dynamic, call out to each other and try everything in their power to flush you out. Okay, the occasional soldier may upend a table for cover and robotically bleat out a phrase like, ‘he’s behind the crates’, but that’s about the extent of their limited repertoire. The only characters worth noting are, unsurprisingly, the freaky supernatural ones.

Replica Assassins are small ninja-like soldiers – very fast and extremely agile. You’ll only notice them when their cloaking device temporarily distorts the space around them. Happily, you have just the thing needed to catch them out. A quick tap of Y initiates your ‘reflex’ skill – this is essentially a device that slows down time. Once activated you’ll be able to see these deadly little assassins in all their balletic grace and beauty – more importantly you’ll now be able to blast them in the face.

Scarier still are the Remnants. Protruding from their bloated bodies are glowing red tentacles which they use as strings to puppeteer nearby corpses into attacking you. Watching these horrific marionettes dance to the tune of their malevolent master is quite a sight. Just make sure you keep your distance.

FEAR can be characterised by its painfully long segments of quiet exploration and its sudden, chaotic bouts of supernatural horror. The schizophrenic back and forth between lengthy spells of silence and short bursts of terror really jangle the nerves. In one sweat-inducing set-piece you’ll find yourself armed only with a torch - a cruel imposition and no mistake. Hardcore veterans of the FPS genre will feel especially vulnerable without the comforting sight of a shotgun barrel in front of them. It’s a nice twist to an established formula. Any game that strips you of your weapons and forces you down a corpse-strewn corridor with just a failing torch for protection knows exactly how to elicit those atavistic feelings of fear we’d simply rather not experience.

All of FEAR’s locations seem to blur seamlessly into one another. It feels like you’re trapped inside a labyrinthine underground complex, and after a while it all becomes a little oppressive and overbearing. Think Fallout 3, specifically those deserted underground subways, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. When you’ve spent 8 hours searching yet another empty room by the light of your torch, you start to feel the clammy hand of claustrophobia clawing at your throat - not pleasant. But perhaps FEAR’s dev team would argue that this crushing oppressiveness has precisely the intended effect.

Verdict
Best approached with the lights off and the sound up. As a £5.95 rental from blockbusters, FEAR 2 is an absolute bargain.

Exclusive Jes Bickham Interview

If you listen carefully you can hear the dark, prophetic mumblings of doom. The videogame magazine is a dying format, a dusty antique from a bygone era. Unable to compete with the instantaneous information fix provided by the internet, the traditional paper publication is fast losing its reputation as the ultimate source of gaming fact.

Twitter, podcasts, blogs, fan sites, forums and hourly news updates, provide the hardcore videogame fan with an unprecedented wealth of ways in which to satisfy their every gaming fetish. The magazine is simply the victim of an evolution in the way we consume information, its decline the natural result of the Darwinian Theory that only the fittest survive, its extinction, therefore, inevitable.

Rubbish.

The humble videogame magazine will live forever. And how do I know this? Because I’ve just finished interviewing the man responsible for one of the greatest videogame reviews of all time. And as long as he, and others of his kind, continues to write for our beloved gaming mags, the format will escape the fate of the dodo.

When Jes Bickham agreed to speak to DIGITAL GIGOLO I was genuinely excited. It was, after all, this very man that directly influenced my ambition to become a games journalist. After reading his groundbreaking Zelda: Ocarina Of Time review in N64 Magazine, way back in 1999, I knew that videogames were on the verge of greatness, soon to become as important and influential as film and music. Mr Bickham, you see, introduced me to the concept of videogames as credible forms of art. And I wanted to be part of this revolution, to change the way people perceived videogames.

Jes Bickham’s big break came when he sent Jonathan Davies (then Editor of PC Gamer) a Mario Kart 64 review (which, unfortunately, Jes informs me, has since been lost to ‘the mists of time’). Impressed with Bickham’s unique style, Davies gave him freelance work starting with issue 7 of N64 Magazine. From there Jes became a staff writer for PC Gamer, before moving to N64 Magazine as a full time reviews editor. Since then Jes has contributed, in various roles, to NGC, NGamer, Official Nintendo Magazine, Games Master and PlayStation 2 Max. He was also the Nintendo Channel Editor for the Daily Radar Website, the precursor to Games Radar.

A long, illustrious career then, with some of the most respected and cherished gaming mags of our time. Please step forward, Mr Jes Bickham…

Digital Gigolo: Ok Jes, let’s start with that epic Ocarina Of Time review. I dug out my old copies of N64 magazine and was astounded to find that the review is in fact a staggering 23 pages long and split over two issues (issues 23 and 24). That’s got to be some kind of record for longest review of all time, no?
Bickham: It’s a long one, isn’t it? And actually, Wil Overton, our art editor at the time, did the ‘preview’ review – he had to fly to Germany for a day to play the game in the company of Nintendo. But I digress. I recall that I had, I think, about two weeks to play the game to completion *and* write the review. It was a fantastic fortnight, if a hectic one. You know, half the office were crowded around the telly just to see what would happen next, while the others didn’t want it spoiled. Poor old Wil was one of the latter, but he had to lay the review out. Sorry, Wil.

Digital Gigolo: You memorably ended your OOT review with this Paragraph:

An American Journalist has already described Ocarina Of Time as “the Gone With the Wind” of videogames. It is not only that, but also the Guernica, the War and Peace, the Citizen Kane. Think of Super Mario 64 – as toweringly brilliant as it is – as a mere sketch, a character study; this is the completed picture, a portrait so exquisite it will be puzzled over, studied and, most of all, enjoyed for years. Nothing comes close. Game of the century? Believe it.

Almost ten years have passed since you wrote that review. In light of the phenomenal changes videogames have undergone in that time do you think your ‘Game of the Century’ statement still rings true today?
Bickham: Well, I think there may have been an element of youthful enthusiasm and hyperbole there, but I do believe it’s still one of the best games ever made. As much as I loved Twilight Princess – and even though that game can’t help but feel familiar, I still think it absolutely wonderful – there’s something about Ocarina, some wonderful sense of world-building and adventure that helps the player suspend disbelief and look beyond the mechanics of the game. I still boot it up just to gallop across Hyrule field and watch the sun rise. And I do the same in Twilight Princess, actually – go to the top of the tower over Lake Hylia and watch the rising sun burn the morning mist away. Magic!

Digital Gigolo: I absolutely loved the fact that you compare OOT to Guernica (a monumental painting by Pablo Picasso) but weren’t you worried that many readers might perhaps miss the significance of this reference?
Bickham: Actually, I can’t believe I said that. It makes me cringe a bit! I’m very proud of the review, and very touched that people – even now! – tell me that they loved it, but I think to compare Ocarina of Time to Guernica was perhaps a silly thing to do, given the painting’s provenance. But the sentiment – that these are all cultural masterpieces, and that a game can stand tall as a piece of culture in its own right – still rings true, I think. Also, I just assumed people would know what Guernica was – and if they didn’t hopefully they made an attempt to find out. But anyway, I’m glad you liked the comparison, so perhaps it wasn’t as silly as I think!

Digital Gigolo: In your review you also say that the term ‘Game’ simply does not suffice when describing such a groundbreaking creation. You go on to say “Nor will RPG, or 3D action-adventure, or any number of neatly pigeonholed descriptions and genres. This is a masterpiece, full stop”. Do you think that OOT was the first videogame that truly blurred the boundaries between what we traditionally think of as ‘art’ and games?
Bickham: Ah, the old ‘art’ question. I don’t think OOT was the first to game to say “Look! Games can be much more than repetitively shooting aliens”, or whatever – I mean, look at Super Mario 64, that knocked the wind out of my sails when I first played it, and I think is as close to a ‘pure’ gaming experience, all about the use of and play within 3D space, as is possible – but I think it was certainly an important milestone in showing what games can be. And I think it’s telling that nothing – not Twilight Princess, not even Capcom’s Okami – has managed to top it yet.
Obviously there’s the whole world-building aspect I mentioned earlier, and the beautiful style of the thing, the grandeur and the epic quest nature of the game, not to mention the sheer imagination on display. It throws a new thing at you every five minutes and then throws it away for something bigger and better. (Writing this makes me want to play it all over again!). But it’s also in the tiny, quiet things it does. The lovely goodbye between Link and Saria, the moment when Link returns, as a man, and simply stares wordlessly at the tree stump Saria used to sit on… Ocarina of Time is a wonderfully emotional game, and it’s mostly contextual – Link, like Gordon Freeman of Half-Life, I suppose, doesn’t talk and is a blank slate for you to fill.
But back to the ‘art’ thing. As I’ve gotten older, I’m actually no clearer in my head to winnowing down a good definition of what art is. And I’m not entirely convinced that games *can* be art. But, I suppose, if we were to suggest that a fundamental function of art is to hold a mirror up to the human condition, to reflect and affect, then I’ll contradict myself by saying that, in places, Ocarina of Time does indeed strive towards something more than press A to do this, press B to do that. It’s just a big, grand old adventure, isn’t it? Exciting, funny, emotional, resonant, full of derring-do and hard choices… it’s got it all, hasn’t it?
(Sorry – that’s all a bit long and rambling, isn’t it? But it’s Sunday and my brain’s dribbling out of my ears.)

Digital Gigolo: Has any other game since OOT had such a similarly profound effect on you?
Bickham: Since OOT, there’s been a handful of games I’ve truly loved, all for different reasons – Metroid Prime, Soul Calibur 2, Twilight Princess, Halo 3, to name four – but the one thing that actually gave me a profound emotional tug was Shadow of the Colossus. I think it’s a sterling, A-grade piece of work. And I think that’s down to what I said above, about blank slates – its world is gloriously empty. There’s nothing to collect (aside from fruit and lizard tails, and then only if you want) – and that makes it all the richer. It makes you appreciate the stunning environment for what it is – a stunning environment, at once dead and devoid of life and incredibly lush. (It’s the same thing as riding across Hyrule field just to watch the sun rise). The whole game is a joyous voyage of discovery.
And then there’s the story of the main character. And what I love is that, to again echo something I said above, context is all here – he’s killing these terrible, beautiful titans to resurrect his girlfriend, and when I felled the first colossus I felt both exhilaration and profound regret. It was both a triumph and a terrible thing to do – like killing an elephant, or something. And you don’t find out ‘til the end about what you’re doing is justified, or evil, or just tragically misguided and borne out of terrible loss. You know, what are these things? Are they wicked, or just lumbering great innocents? I truly love that game; it’s a terrific spectacle that doesn’t tell you what it is until the end, leaving you to *think*.

Digital Gigolo: The publications and websites you’ve worked for would suggest an inclination towards Nintendo. The Mario Kart 64 review that, ultimately, kick started your career as a games journalist was, after all, the archetypal Nintendo game. What is it about the Big N that inspires you?
Bickham: They follow their own star, don’t they? Their sense of design, of how to lead a player through their games, of simply knowing what makes something fun… they just get it right. They have their own ethos, and there’s an innocence to their games that you just don’t get elsewhere.

Digital Gigolo: Did you ever have a ‘Eureka’ moment, an exact point in your life when you thought ‘I’m going to be a Videogames Journalist’?
Bickham: Yeah, I did actually. It was from reading N64 Magazine, wondering what on Earth I was doing with an English degree and working in a restaurant, and simply putting pen to paper and writing about something that inspired me. And I can pinpoint the writing that led me to that – Zy Nicholson’s Super Mario 64 review, Jonathan Davies Mario Kart 64 review, John Smith’s Blast Corps review and Jonathan Nash’s Starfox 64 review. Just brilliant, brilliant games writing.

Digital Gigolo: What did you do before you became a videogames journalist?
Bickham: Not a lot! Basically, after my A levels I went to art college for a couple of years, then on to University – and for around a year after graduating I worked as a manager at Pizza Hut, before getting the break to write for N64 Magazine.

Digital Gigolo: What consoles do you currently own and which is getting the most play time?
Bickham: I’ve got a Wii and a 360. Currently the 360 is getting the most playtime, mostly for Soul Calibur IV and Sunday night Halo 3 and Gears of War gaming sessions I have with my old school friends from back in Essex. I need to get Smash Bros Brawl though. And Boom Blox looks fun.

Digital Gigolo: Do you own a favourite bit of videogame memorabilia?
Bickham: Do you know, I don’t. I never really collected much games memorabilia (apart from the cuddly Snorlax I bought when I went to Japan to cover Spaceworld one year). I suppose the closest thing would be the fake cover of N64 Magazine that the team made for me when I left the mag. It’s on the wall in my study, and reminds me that I used to be fatter. Oh, and I had my picture taken with Shigsy once – but as with so much digital imagery, it’s lost to the wilds of the internet now. Wish I still had that.

Digital Gigolo: Which current authors do you admire and which single person has had the biggest influence on you as a writer?
Bickham: I don’t think actually influenced my style, such as it modestly may be, but Harlan Ellison is just about as good as it gets. I read ‘Deathbird Stories’ as a teenager and it blew the top of my head off. The guy is just an incredible writer – and I got to interview him last year, which was a small dream come true. He’s known for his short stories, and they’re astonishing.

Digital Gigolo: Are you particularly excited by the quality of videogames we are seeing at the moment?
Bickham: Oh yes, everything’s incredibly polished, and looks amazing. That said, I’m struggling to think of much that’s truly innovative, but then I don’t think everything has to be. I’m intrigued by where Nintendo’s current path is leading – I find it hysterical to read the rantings on the ‘net about how Wii Fit is killing gaming. What Nintendo are doing now is splendid.

Digital Gigolo: What do you think of Ben ‘Yahztzee’ Croshaw’s Zero Punctuation Reviews?
Bickham: Oh, he’s very good, isn’t he? Very funny. I suspect a million other people have already called him the Charlie Brooker of the gaming world, but that’s kind of what he is, isn’t he? Mind you, Charlie Brooker is actually the Charlie Brooker of the gaming world, as he used to work on PC Zone. FACT.

Digital Gigolo: Do you agree that the traditional videogame magazine is under threat from the Internet?
Bickham: Of course, magazine sales are declining all the time. But magazines will always be around because you just don’t get the quality of writing on the ‘net that you get from the best mags. I used to buy N64 before I started writing for it, and that’s a great example – can you think of anything on the ‘net that’s as good as N64 was? Not just the writing, but the focus on reader interaction, the sense of humour, the passion. That’s what I took from it when I was a reader, and you just can’t get that from the ‘net. At least, I’ve not seen anything to make me think differently.

Digital Gigolo: What magazines do you buy?
Bickham: Not a lot, truth be told. I still keep up with the videogames mags (I get friends who still work at Future Publishing to steal them for me, so that’s not technically buying) but I’ll otherwise sporadically pick up things like Empire.

Digital Gigolo: You’ve been reviewing games for over 11 years now. Is it possible for you to simply play a game for the fun of it, without automatically critiquing it?
Bickham: Yes, it is, I think, although you need a bit of space in order to do so. I’ve not worked on games mags for a couple of years now, so have learnt simply play a game for the fun of it – but of course at the same time you’re seeing what the game’s doing. It’s like The Wizard of Oz; you know what levers the little man behind the curtain is throwing.

Digital Gigolo: What advice would you give to those people who want to review video games for a living?
Bickham: Find something else that pays better! No, seriously, if you love it and are passionate about it, then do it. Learn your craft, get your stuff out there on the ‘net and improve the quality of games journalism – because there’s an awful lot of rubbish out there. I think as time goes on and circulations shrink, there’s less and less opportunity to actually work on game magazines, though. Which is a shame – but if you’re passionate, and you’re good, and it’s what you want to do, then talent will out.

Digital Gigolo: When was the last time you were shocked by something?
Bickham: It was the Joker’s disappearing pencil in The Dark Knight. Or any one of a number of things in the news every day. Actually, to give a non-facetious answer, I saw a little girl of about nine smoking the other day. That’s just appalling.

Digital Gigolo: What does the future hold for Jes Bickham?
Bickham: I have absolutely no idea! I’ve never had a game plan, just bumbled my way through life and taken whatever opportunities arose. Just like most people, I suppose. So we’ll see. It’s all a bit of an adventure, isn’t it? I think I can see a beer in my immediate future, though.