The quotes continue, man...
"We had a dream the other night in which the PS2 had a cloth top - like the front of a stereo speaker."
Re: 'My wife wouldn't understand, either': "Why? Did you buy her on import?"
Le Chef: "Le pompt du Bell le angry goon." - [That's me!]
"A big mess up and a real achievment. Well done."
"We appreciate that there's a social stigma attached to roleplaying that's akin to marrying a sheep..."
"...and tons of areas that aren't essential to the ongoing plot - but are worth an explore nonetheless. Just like toilets."
"But for all that, we loved it. In a big way. In a really big way, daddy."
On MS and their X-Box: "It even tried to get Sega aboard before Sega blew off in its face."
"...and thanks to the Walkman its brand was cooler than, say, Pedigree Chum. Except among posh dogs."
"Imagine a man who has all the right elements in place - arms, legs, hat etc. - but lacks any sort of discernible personality or character. UEFA Champions League is the football game equivalent of that man. And it isn't even wearing a hat!"
"Apparently, Sega struggled to strike a deal with a suitable Internet service provider, but eventually settled on one run by a cyborg kangaroo called 'Herr Krisp'."
"We wish we lived in Jimmy White's house. With Jimmy White."
"Actually, that's not entirely true. Biffo doesn't dislike snooker, he just can't play it. Give him a cue and tell him to aim at the ball, and he starts hitting the floor with it, or trying to poke it in his eyes.
"But now, at last, Biffo can shame himself in private. Again"
"Shut up."
"On the other hand, the seemingly lobotomised staff of most theme parks are unable to cope once you start toying with their pre-programmed list of potential situations. 'Can I look on the ride for your sunglasess? Does... not... com... pute!
"Ha ha! Robots are funneee..."
"And the gadgets? Gadget-me-doooo!"
"'Stop it! Stop stamping on it! You're spraying the rest of us!'
"Anyway, the bladder is now cowskin, the players less likely to be sewage-covered peasants, and the game is played on a pitch, and not in the open streets. More's the pity."
"There were all the mags, their faces waxy with tears of joy, bodies wracked with sobbing as they caressed the silky flanks of the original Ridge Racer."
"However, not all Star Trek technology is so great. Those Next Generation phasers are rubbish. Guns are shaped like guns for a reason. Guns are not practical when shaped like TV remote controls. And we should know.
"However, you can, at least always rely upon Star Trek for the quality of its ships. Apart from the rubbish ones."
"...it nevertheless is a hot-poker-in-the-ear of a game."
"N64 owners with a hankerin' for some driverin' will need to bust the guts of Mr PG Bank."
"Yes, it really could do with three times the courses, but that's Ridge Racer for you. Stupid, lazy game."
"Fair enough, but we miss being able to swing from our prehensile tails. Then again... it's unlikely that monkeys get served in off-licences. Darwin rocks!
"Anyway, human evolution supposedly occured over several million years ago, or something, and even now we're evolving into higher life-forms. We just hope we're evolving into off-licence-friendly monkeys."
"Can they do it, Dimmy?"
"But heck, you have to cater for idiots like us sometimes."
Adopting new and shocking characteristics: "And by that we don't mean wearing black lipstick and nail varnish and listening to Marilyn Manson."
"The complexity is pitched just right for stupids."
"The plot cannibalised from only the freshest space operas..."
"We're sure we harbour some sort of subconscious fantasy about being really little guys..."
"Apparently, in space not even really big stuff, like cars and alsatians weighs anything. If that's true then why don't planets float around and bump into each other? These space scientists haven't thought it through properly.
"Colony Wars: Red Sun has no truck with such made-up physics."
Re: 'Seganet sounds great. I just hope it works': "Well, yes. But it would be funny if it didn't!"
"It still remains to be seen whether the Dreamcast can handle the thingy necessary to do the thing."
"The 3D interpretations of the characters don't so much resemble the Rugrats, as resemble effigies of the Rugrats constructed out of toilet roll tubes by a dying marmoset."
"...while the bosses offer no more challenge than a doped shrew."
"Yet as the pig said to the hound: 'Can you smell the but?'"
"...the highlight of what is otherwise a 'skank's disco'."
"So, Euro 2000. Another opportunity for us normal people to drink in pubs in peace while all you freaks sit at home with your stupid faces glued to the screen until such time as you are snapped back to reality with England's inevitable knock-out."
"Heck, our brains struggle to decipher most spherical objects. Yes - even those ones."
"We really hope it's not a real dolphin. That would be 'The Skank of the Year'."
Game of Castaway 2000: "Keep tensions high on your Castaway island by forcing filthy, alcoholic, working class builders to work alongside handsome, middle-class, clean-living media types, while 'accidentally' dropping islanders' luggage into the sea from helicopters."
If the islanders are getting on well: "Reverse this trend by triggering extreme weather conditions, and plagues of tabloid journalists."
"You know... devolving John Williams' classic Star Wars score into a wash of squealing electric guitar is tantamount to sticking a photograph of Shane Ritchie on top of the Mona Lisa."
"We've been on LucasArts' case a fair bit already this week, but we're sorry to report that the case-squatting hasn't ended yet."
"It's like they couldn't hit a barn door with a bolas, even if the bolas was already glued to the barn door."
Jedi Power Battles: "Oh man. Ohhhhh maaaaaan. The LucasArts badness machine simply refuses to cease production."
"Alas, the adventure game genre is all but dead, hit over the head by an angry man carrying a sawn-off shotgun. His name? Frank Nukem-Quakey-Doom."
"Unfortunately, we can't remember it, which is probably just as well given that we don't recall it being particularly funny.
"Anyway... tanks. They're basically sort of 'space cars', with big pipes on top that fire rockets, right? There are plenty of them in Battletanx: Global Assault. And they're all awful!"
"But! No! The tide of chaos is rising!"
"...and a couple of mags who think they're Digitiser. Does that sound big-headed? No. We're a cultural phenomenon, daddy!"
"Games like this shouldn't still be being released. THIS IS 2000AD, PEOPLE."
YOU ARE IN A HORRIBLE CITY.
> Go north.
YOU ARE IN A HORRIBLE CITY.
> Kill self.
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SELF.
> Kill self. Quit. Abort. Quit. Quit."
"Modern game designers are idiots."
"But hold; the veil of secrecy has been lifted by its producer, Hideous Kojak-man (Hideo Kojima)."
"The PlayStation 2 follow-up to the 32-bit espionage-me-do could well define the genre for next generation systems, with a similar blend of creeping around, throttling people, and crawling around with a cardboard box over your head."
"This could be the first PS2 title to realise Sony's dream of it playing host to games that break new ground. Or maybe it'll just be rubbish."
"And you know what? We didn't even speak to anyone at Eidos or Core, or so much look at an early copy of the game to bring you the preview. Well, we didn't need to, did we, daddy? Do you see?"
"It will star Disney favourites including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Cecil Crow, Oskar von Octopus and Morris Marsupial."
"It failed in spectacular fashion - like a guy standing at the top of the white cliffs of Dover and saying: 'I promise to fly across the Channel to France,' and then leaping to his death."
"All that setting taxes, and making sure the trains run on time… Let's face it; ordered civilisation is on the brink of collapse, so being the mayor of a capital city is a hiding to nothing.
"Unless, of course, you build a big wall around it, with gun turrets and searchlights, and a big moat filled with genetically-engineered alligator/whale/lion things.
"You know; alligators the size of a whale, but with lion's legs so they can run really, really fast after people trying to escape the city… and… Where were we?"
Sea Monkeys: "Admittedly, it was very clever the way they 'magically' came back to life, but we had been expecting them to be at least three feet tall, and sit around talking to us in a curious, lilting tongue."
"On this basis, we've taken to selling out of date prawn cocktails as 'Space Gorillas'."
"Which animal has the right idea: a dog, who chases his tail around and eats whatever you give it, or a lemming, who appreciates the bleak futility of existence, and chooses - with all his mates - to end it all by leaping off a cliff? Whatever the case, we ourselves are too stupid to care."
"Click this, and you can nuke every Lemming on the screen. Why? Because nuking Lemmings is fun."
"This process has opened his eyes to a few things, such as the fact that if you put the handbrake on without pressing the button, the instructor shouts at you, and that if you swear at other learner drivers, the instructor shouts at you."
Sim City 3000: World Edition: "It truly is a mayor sim among ponces."
"But some of the 100-odd levels will take hours, in the process making your face swell up, turn purple, make a hissing sound, and implode."
"...much the same game, only with a few bits tacked on. You know, like glueing the mummified hand of Beethoven the composer to the stomach of Beethoven the movie dog, and pretending he's a Highland cow."
"Ricky Martin has a lot to answer for. Would Infogrames have signed Ronaldo to endorse its V-Football game if the music charts weren't awash with Latino rythmns by the likes of Martin, Carlos Santana and Herberto Bandito-Cactus? We don't know."
"Yes, the crushing of individuality is truly excellent... NO ONE WILL TELL US WHAT TO DO WHEN WE RULE THE WORLD! NO ONE WILL LAUGH AT US WHEN WE CONTROL THE MILITARY AND SERVICE INDUSTRIES!
"...So, anyway. The Sim City series. When will it end? Not just yet. Not while there's still verve pumping through the legs of the old horse."
"Indeed, the storyline has all the complexity of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, so it's a bit like making an 18-rated film starring The Chuckle Brothers as a pair of Slapstick DIY men who murder their clients."
"You know what mice are like... always running around, trying to get into space rockets, avoiding cats, and that. In fact, it's a miracle it's taken so long for anyone to come up with a game where mice behaviour is so accurately simulated. Except: they haven't."
"Not completely awful, just mostly awful."
"WE don't NEED to SEE naked cartoon FAIRIES, jerky."
"...the hero has to go around 'swording people up'."
"You do love to write, Hardy."
Re: 'Oh, man! Super Page 58 is the best thing ever!': "Yes, but the man who runs the site, 'Bell', is too lazy to update." - [See how I Chinese burn Biffo's knees, dear...]
"Quake co-creator Jon Romero has spent over three years developing Daikatana from within a cloud of hype - a cloud that has broken into a torrential downpour of inescapable badness. And now look - Jon Romero is soaked, and he's wearing a tight white T-shirt."
Street Fighter Ex2 Plus: "Look at that stupid title. If Capcom had invented Coca-Cola they'd have called it 'Super Brown Wonder Drink Fizzy Edition 12'.They never call a spade a 'spade' when they can call it a 'Dynamic Ground Tool Turbo FX'."
"See us yawn."
"...and hats off for trying something different and that, but just because a wheel has a klaxon built into it, it isn't necessarily a better wheel."
"Yes, it's classic gameplay, but like a CD of Beatles songs over which a series of guttural snorts have been dubbed, it's not necessarily a classic game."
"There was one word that described Ecco The Dolphin's Mega Drive games, and that word was 'semprini'."
"You see if, like us, you've never been a dolphin, or the Man From Atlantis, those Ecco games were the best way to enjoy swimming around in the ocean depths eating fish and stuff."
"As cynical as we often are, we still think games are the second best thing ever, man. They make us feel saucy!"
"While mostly playable, the Misadventures Of Tron Bonne does hit a few hurdles, bruising its knees."
"...when Capcom offer up something completely original, our faceslight up and our ears start spinning."
"John Cord is your archetypal James Bond type, were James Bond the sort of secret agent who gets captured and beaten up in a sink."
"We refuse to believe that this game has ever been playtested. If it was, it was playtested by gibbons... REAL GIBBONS."
"Q: Why did the Cluckston eat Rolf? A: Hen-me-do!"
Zombie Dave: "Jrrrmz Brrrrnd rrrrz rrrr wrrrrngrrrr."
"When you drive over a hedgehog, Hardy, do you dismiss it with a wave of your hand and say 'Oh, it'll be alright...'?"
"Sample exchange of dialogue: BIFFO: 'What's a corndog?' CORNDOG VENDOR: 'It's a what?'"
"...the difficulty level will skank your day to bits."
"If you trace your family tree back far enough, you'll find you are related to the Common Cold, Ear Infections and The Runs. In which case, pharmaceutical firms are using antibiotics to MURDER YOUR RELATIVES.
"Mercifully, the RPG known as 'Evolution' has precisely this much to do with such concepts: nothing."
"In Evolution, you play some little guy with a giant Swiss Army Knife on your back. As you play through the game's tale of mostly pointless adventuring, you'll be joined by other characters, all with their own back-knives."
"If the role-playing game industry were the animal kingdom, every animal on earth would be a shrew."
"We'd love to say that Alundra 2 broke the mould, but it doesn't. We're in shrew country again, kiddies."
Icewind Dale: "We were real disappointed when we discovered that this wasn't a game about Dale Winton eating frozen baked beans (do you see?)..."
"Though we've put those halcyon days of orcs and multi-sided dice behind us, we always find rolling-up characters to be something of a guilty - nay, 'dirty' - pleasure. Icewind Dale is so traditional that we were guiltily pleasured to the max."
"You've seen it all before maybe, but rarely have you seen it so... swollen."
"The most stupid war of all was the Cold War. It was stupid, and paranoid, and nothing really happened. It was like two women in a nightclub bitching at each other through friends, and never actually getting around to pulling each others' hair."
"The freedom to have fights is one of our basic human rights. However, unlike, say, the right to dance, having a fight can result in a hurt face."
"The most fightsome of all the games consoles is the Dreamcast. If it were a man his name would be 'Fightin' John'."
"That said, just because a horse is born with wheels instead of hooves, doesn't mean it's automatically a better horse."
"It looks nice enough, but we imagine so would a horse with wheels."
"As meaty bet 'em ups go, Dead Or Alive 2 is not so much a steak and kidney pie, as a raw horse with a bit of pie crust balanced on its head."
"We loved this game more than our own parents."
"Looks nice at times, and then at other times it looks less nice."
"...but Dead Or Alive 2 is close behind. Punching it in the backs of the knees, probably."
"'Flint stains, They've got flint stains, All down their modern stonewash jeans. Further, to your question, They bought them from the BBC... And so the song went on: 'Fred's got, A very funny face, He keeps it, in a special place. Something something, stay out for the night, They'll have a gay old time!'"
"Looks gorgeous. Also features the most... appealing women characters of any game."
"It makes a change from the usual zombies, but at least zombies eat peoples' faces."
Zombie Dave: on Star Wars: "Rrrrv grrrt rrr prrprrl lrrtsrrbrr."
Re: 'Would I be making sense?': "As much as this sentence: 'I am a duck, don't call me bad boy.'"
"We also dream of a tall, thin robot with a grill in his chest. His name is Stern Thomas, and when you press a button on his neck, multi-purpose foam begins pulsing weakly from his grill."
"Right now you're either weeping or frothing."
"We will presume it was a pair of Neolithic men who, chancing upon the rotting carcass of a brachiosaur, proceeded to wallop its walnut-sized, putrefying brain back and forth across its rib cage, using the jawbone of a giant sloth.
"Either that, or it was a bunch of Victorian dandies, who'd overdone it one afternoon on the Pimms and the poppy seeds."
"Matt Hoffman Pro BMX?!?"
"You do this because you have a deficit of personality and want people to perceive you as a wacky guy, or you think having Scooby on your tie automatically makes it a better tie.
"It doesn't. The tie could be made out of frozen cow sick, and the presence of Scoob' wouldn't improve it any. Do you see where we're coming from, love?
"South Park Rally is the proverbial cow-sick necktie, with an image of Scooby Doo woven into it."
"If you're lucky you may find them funny more than once."
"Were the X-Men real, rather than Magneto, Cyclops, Wolverine and Beast, we'd more likely get Captain Degenerative Bone Tissue, The Weeping Sore, Slow-Death, and Unsightly Bodily Growth Man.
"Their fighting prowess would be matched only by their ability to lie in a bed while nurses replaced their intravenous drips and spoon-fed them porridge."
"You don't need this kind of badness, son."
South Park Rally: "Oh my God, they killed any chance of a good review etc."
"Oh, now look - we're crying like babies!"
"We'd love to comment on your letter, but unfortunately we can't be bothered."
"Alas, next to Sony's whale-sized marketing budget, Sgea is but plankton."
"Fifteen years ago people might have enjoyed button-smashing gameplay, but 15 years ago most people thought that Spandau Ballet were a pretty neat band."
"If only all urban construction was so much fun - maybe all of us would want to become butt-cheek-exposed navvies!"
"Landmaker's influence are about as subtle as streaking through Tesco's frozen food aisle, hiding your modesty with a live rat."
"Years ago, rather than go there to swim or get fit, we used to attend our local leisure centre purely to play the Track and Field game they had installed in the foyer. We believe this to be the most ironic story of all time."
"We don't know why Konami has never sued the countless clones, but then we don't know why the scientists keep us in this giant centrifuge..."
"Nintendo continues to squeeze the udders of its Pokémon cash cow, and feast manically upon its rich milk."
"...though it remains to be seen whether the Dreamcast's palsied modem can handle it."
"In fact, Majestic is so spohisticated that it will even break free of its digital realm, and 'phone-you-up'!"
"Details of the title are currently shrouded in 'mystic drizzle'."
Re: Pete Taylor (Diamond Geezer): "Is 'Diamond Geezer' your job title?"
"...then the DC risks being labelled a 'cheapy scuzz-console' by 'the kids'."
"Anyway, there was this advert for them in which - we can't remember why - some fisherman proclaims in a deep comedy Cornish accent: 'Baaaarrrrskets?'."
Zombie Dave on photography: "Rrr lrrk frrtrrz frfv mrr rrrrrrrrrrz."
Zombie Dave on Nintendo's new console: "Thrr shrrd crrrrl rrt Shrrrdcrrrnd."
"Virtua Athlete 2K doesn't stand a hedgehog's chance at a truckers' convention."
"But wait - it isn't all bad! Oh... oh, actually it is."
"Also, it looks really lovely, with some truly horrible creatures. We were especially taken with the 40-foot tall guy with the flamethrower for a larynx. Hang on... that's our dad!"
"We didn't want to be a part of sports day. We wanted to sit on the field and throw handfuls of grass at our friends. Virtua Athlete 2K made us feel that way again."
"As it stands, it's back to the grass-throwing for us."
"Who wouldn't want to control the lives of their neighbours? Heaven knows we've tried often enough with our neighbour The Miserable Benson. However - lacking as we are in ingenuity - our efforts extended to little more than stealing his apples and pouring wine through his letterbox."
"There's no denying that it takes the original game and injects it with illegal growth hormones."
The objective of The Sims: "Or maybe it's just about waiting for them to go to bed and then building a wall around the bed."
"But heck - The Sims has a fanatical following who'll lap this up like deranged, milk-addicted cats."