Bored Gamers: Greg Marshall on trains, tendencies and time constraints
Going places
Though there is a good-to-middling chance I will alienate some of this week’s readers, and in direct contravention of the beliefs
held by our Green overlords, I must confess – I bloody hate buses.It’s not so much the vehicle itself, rather the tendencies of other people using it. I realise there is no feasible way of preventing this from sounding terribly elitist and snobbish, I just like my car. In my car I can choose to listen to whatever music I wish, or not, if the mood dictates. On the bus this basic human right is ripped from my being by whichever ‘yoof’ is playing drum and bass at a ridiculously ear-drum-perforating volume. In the sanctity of my vehicle, though often faced with dull expanses of grey road, I am safe in the knowledge that I will never have to stare into the void of a person chewing food or gum with such pantomime exaggeration that I see their tonsils on every jaw rotation, accompanied by a sound so horrifying that I am tempted to perforate my own ear-drums via the ‘yoof’s’ drum and bass. If I had the political clout, I would back the immediate and complete ban of public mastication.
Trains on the other hand, I am indifferent to. I guess, subconsciously, I am aware that if I jump on a train, it is only because I am travelling to somewhere that I don’t desire to drive to, often central London.
This was the case recently, when I travelled to film for the show. But it turned out there were no trains running from Brighton towards London. The gods had once again smited me; laughing from their fluffy boughs, they delighted in the offering of – you guessed it – a replacement bus service! Do you think I could convince the TV company to supply a private helicopter for future excursions? Worth a try …
Add to our travel woes the pacey style we’ve adopted for the show, and you’ve usually got just four or five minutes to showcase a game. Which begs the question: how do you do justice to a game in just five minutes?
I would back the immediate ban of public mastication
There are two main strategies: we try to break down all the key elements and present them as an elaborate set of bullet points while interjecting a bit of personal (often silly) commentary. Or, when there’s simply too much content to adopt the previous method, we employ the ‘against-the-clock’ challenge, which we used for our Gamescom coverage. This is essentially about taking what you’ve got and deciding whether to make a serious or humorous statement in relation to it.
Within the sheltered confines of my home, I can indulge my games as much or as little as I like. However, when I’m presenting the same games on television, the most important thing is not gameplay, story, graphics, sound, control mechanics or bonus content. It’s being as entertaining as possible while we attempt to do justice to a game. That may not sound ideal to a hard-core player, but that’s the nature of the beast, baby …
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