So it may cost you a phone – who cares? Toga! Toga!

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Mario Party 4 (2002) NOTX

I spend most of my time trying to be superior, the best out there at everything, especially the petty things. I was looking down at the missus’s phone, for example, and I was surprised to learn that there was a screen there, underneath the spider’s web of cracks and severe chunks that had been blown clean out of the protective glass. “Ah, I just keep dropping it,” she says offhandedly.

Now, this came at great risk to my testicular health. But here I had the chance to be superior and lord it over her about two things – firstly, I have never shattered my phone screen, because I’m so great and all that. I’ve even dropped my phones a few dozen times on hard floors over the years, and that’s without any of those cases you see the boomers using. I don’t need a case either, I just don’t bother dropping my phone so much, and it’s fine as a result.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 24)

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Welcome to Unova, featuring the fifth Generation of Pokémon, a New York City ripoff and probably the last Pokémon region truly worth visiting, if you really want my opinion. You won’t catch many Pidgeys and Rattatas on your journeys through the Unovan Routes, oh no. It’s a whole new batch of Pokémon to get you immersed in the new world, not a single Pokémon related to earlier Generations to be found here.

Of course, you know that Game Freak wouldn’t have changed things that drastically. You still have your Water, Fire and Grass starters. You still have generic birds and rodents, and a bug or two. Or twelve. Certainly it’ll be a while until we get to the robo-insect WMD and the dragon with heads for hands. As a general rule of thumb, with the exception of your starter Pokémon, you should always pick your team from the latter half of the Regional Dex.

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Just you try running from Marathon to Athens with eagles pecking out your guts

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The Battle of Olympus (1991) NOTX

It’s one of those moments that I wished I’d recorded, or even better, wished I wasn’t too prosaic to convey to you what it was like, but please let me try and picture the scene for you. You can just lie back and doze really, because that’s exactly what I was doing in a beautifully air-conditioned hotel room in Greece when suddenly I was awoken and told by my missus to come to the window, quickly.

I was straight over, of course – sure, this was the middle of the night, but I thought it had to be some kind of spectacle that wasn’t to be missed. Someone had drunkenly fallen in the pool, for example, or a Mythos beer truck had turned over and was spilling its beautiful local beer everywhere.

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A tiny bit of snow, and Irish society goes racing downhill

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1080° Avalanche (2003)

Let me tell you, there’s nowhere in the world more unprepared for snow than Ireland. I do mean that, because can you name a country that could be worse for extreme weather? If we go around the houses – Canada and to a lesser extent the United States expect snow to occur.

Perhaps the southern States get blindsided by a blizzard, but let’s face it, they’re not prepared for the wild winds that’ll uproot their entire houses, either. If it snowed in Central or South America, it’d melt pretty quickly. And just because some penguins abound the tips of South Africa, it doesn’t mean any of the continent ever becomes draped in white baize.

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Hanging out in the fields with Arceus and the rest of the legends

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Pokémon Legends: Arceus (2022)

It’s pretty self-inflicted I know, but sometimes I’m sad about the fact that I don’t go outside anymore. Unfortunately, street corners, fields and roadside kerbs just aren’t places for men in their thirties to be hanging around. Who could have pinpointed the last time you and a group of your mates were sat around on the grass, talking nonsense, watching the sun set slowly? Irishers have a bit of an extended adolescence in this regard, given our national proclivity for knacker drinking.

Nowadays, if I’m out and about, it’s only ever for a boringly practical purpose. It’s usually the commute (dear God), the shopping (Christ almighty), or if I’m really feeling defiant against my rapidly declining metabolism, I’m going running (Lords above). It’s all done with purpose, see? I’m not just going out for a quick, impromptu game of ball with my mates anymore. Or better still, a game of IRA. Not a very politically correct set of formative years, eh?

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Who says Wario can’t last more than five seconds?!

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WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (2003)

All of us shut-in dweebs have entertained the idea of making our own video game. All that time spent not socialising has to go into some form of creative endeavour, right? After all, even the most lazy of teenagers need to recharge from masturbation eventually. And because we regard book authors as old and grey, not ones to emulate, and because we’re too ugly for film and TV, even on our own heavily filtered phones, our only creative avenue left is video game design.

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Kirby spares us the embarrassment – he may be officially cool now

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Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022)

It’s a cringe-inducing sight, the type of cringe that makes your entire face fold in on itself as you purse your lips, blow out hard and then grimace. You just cannot believe what you’re seeing, that this embarrassing sight could be allowed to unfold and indeed that nobody stopped this person before now.

You’re desperate to say something, anything, that might alleviate the tension, but you know that it will only make things worse. So all you can do is try to ignore it, pretend it’s not happening, while simultaneously not being able to keep your eyes off the whole grisly affair. I tried to hold my head at a 90 degree angle, glaring directly at the pavement, but still my eyes got drawn upwards and there it was, the source of so much public discomfort – a gentleman walking his cat.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 23)

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 23)

It doesn’t come as a surprise anymore that the Legendary Pokémon are so numerous that I have to divide them up into two separate parts. As I’ve said before, if every Pokémon is legendary, then none of them are, although you at least make sure to catch the one that appears on your version’s box art. That’s usually the easiest way of making yourself a battling god.

And speaking of god, if you’re a very talented trainer, by which I mean you’re either able to time travel back to 2007 when Nintendo events were being held, or if you had a flash cart and were good at hacking, then you could quite literally catch god, as you will see below. No, not the god of application forms or interior design or anything small-time like that, we’re talking about the god of everything. How overpowered is that?

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A Classic Irishman takes his time to sus things out right

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Among Us (2018)

I had problems with the Among Us game from the start. It’s a fully online game you see, and you know what that means – rooms upon rooms full of cretins, or children, which are practically the same thing. Have you ever wandered into a classroom and found yourself confronted by a room full of the dumbest looking Patrick Starfishes ever, all gawping back at you? Well, that’s what your typical Among Us room looks like.

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All aboard the Zelda train! Next stop: the anorak masonry

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009)

I want to bring you, Henry Hill style, into a murky underworld. Don’t worry though, you won’t be an accomplice in anything, nobody’s getting whacked here. Still, there’s plenty of wiseguys having to look over their shoulder all the time, because they’re only minutes away from getting embroiled in it all. Welcome to the dark and seedy world of model trains.

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