A parting nuclear blast from the man who trolled the world

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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

Witnessing the barbarism of March 2020, with people suplexing one another to secure toilet roll for themselves, a steadfast refusal to wear a facemask and a whole load of misinformation spreading even faster than the Coronavirus itself, it really brings home to me the chilling thought that mankind isn’t quite as adept at combating world-ending threats as American disaster movies have always told us.

Now let’s imagine for a moment that the circumstances were far more immediate and severe – it’s the US president’s last day in office, and his legacy hasn’t yet been cemented in his own mind. So he presses the nuclear button against, oh, let’s say Russia for old time’s sake. Putin, who’s seen it all before in his 50 year stint as President, dismounts from his trusty bear at once and immediately retaliates. That’s USA and USSR, ah, the Russian Federation, out of the picture already.

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This is the next generation, Mega, so get your arse in gear

Mega Man 11 (2018)

Never mind your Top Gears or your Fifth Wheels or your Grand Hoors, I’ve got the only bit of car advice you need – make your next car purchase an automatic. You’ll probably want to make it an electric or hybrid motor too, or at least something that doesn’t completely cackle at the polar ice caps like an evil vaudeville villain tying the dainty demure dame down to the train tracks. If your car doesn’t run on tofu then somewhere, somehow, there’ll be a Green Party policy there to thwart you. I’m all for environmental concern, but I’d rather the holes go in the ozone layer than in my pocket, know what I mean?

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Last one to play Minecraft is a square!

Minecraft (2011)

Well, I’ve finally done it. It took almost 30 years, and when you multiply that by 365 it equals an awful lot of Mammy dinners, but I’ve finally moved out. I must now survive on my own, do things on my own, and accept the consequences of things I’ve done. These consequences which generally extends to me getting fatter from the snacks I’ve bought all by myself and the portion sizes I give myself. I can’t blame anyone else for anything that goes wrong. Well, strictly speaking that’s not true – it ain’t my fault when the Wi-Fi goes south.

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How to know your audience, and sell them a game they could well do without

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Battletoads (TBD)

It mightn’t exactly be best practice to analyse a product before it comes out, but that doesn’t stop the legions of fans out there writing things off, way before they ever come to pass. We all knew the Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons would be a disaster, for example. But we couldn’t know that before we watched it, right? Actually, we could, because it really isn’t that hard to read your audience and give them something they want – and not something you think they want. And this is where I, if I happened to run some godawful consultancy firm, would propose millions of job redundancies worldwide.

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It doesn’t matter if I fire blanks, I’ll still miss

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Doom (1993)

Up until now, I’ve always felt somewhat unqualified to talk about shooter games. Yes, I was able to write about Perfect Dark, but that was moreso because the protagonist is a lady. And I know quite a bit about ladies, having tipped my fedora towards many in my time. I’ve also gotten up to some other pretty manly pursuits, like flying planes and bombing it around in go-karts and doing arts and crafts. What I had never done before, however, was fire a gun.

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“And it’s lights out, and they’re at a standstill since 2019…”

F1 2019 Proper

F1 2019 (2019)

You’d have thought I left this one a little too late, but as it turns out, the 2019 F1 season is the last selection of top-class racing we’re gonna see for quite some time. Mind you, I wouldn’t have been all that gutted about it, if the second half of the 2019 season had mirrored the first half. Five Mercedes one-twos, an unprecedented run. And I’m telling you, it was getting as tiresome as the bad old days of 19 other lads turning up on the weekend to follow Michael Schumacher around – the only times I’d ever turn a Grand Prix off.

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“Now Lara, take aim, and fire this vaccination arrow through the heart of coronavirus…”

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Tomb Raider (2013)

Well, quite a start to the decade we’ve had, eh? Hindsight on 2020 isn’t going to be very fun. Right from the start of the year there was trouble. Sure, some of it was a holdover from 2019, but I’m waiting for some positive news for 2020 here and I just ain’t getting any. First, the Australian forest fires really started to reach, well, I better not say boiling point. But even the poor old koalas, not normally given to movement if they can avoid it, started to run for cover perhaps as a form of lazy protest.

Then there was more silly buggers between the United States and Iran, with the Land of the Free killing a top Iranian general by drone. To add a nice bit of further unrest to your already depressing January, a commercial plane was shot down in Iran the week after, but nobody seems to want to talk about that anymore.

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It’s like downing a bottle of whiskey, but a hundred times as tedious

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Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

I was half-watching this Western film on the telly the other day – apologies, I never got the name of it – and in it the well-hung main cowboy strolls on in to the saloon, orders a full bottle of whiskey and downs the whole thing in one, right there and then. And they say films these days are too unrealistic. He grabs plenty of attention with this stunt of course, and the net result of it all is the usual step outside, guns drawn, bury me with my money type of affair. And I’m thinking, God, how cheap was life back then?

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If the FBI are watching me, they should have burst through the door by now

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Watch Dogs 2 (2016)

It was the new big fear of the 80s and 90s – hacking. What is it? How is it done? Probably not a single film or TV programme has gotten it right. I’m sure they nailed some of the details – half-Scottish half-Russian turbonerd Boris Grishenko from GoldenEye had the annoying, smug attitude down to a tee, up to and including having the effrontery to give back chat to a scarred and heavily deranged Sean Bean. He also typed like the wind as well; we were treated to several close ups of his furiously whizzing hands when we probably should have been seeing Bond throw a few remote mines and descend into near-madness trying to keep Natalya safe. For all of his self-serving chat, poor old Boris couldn’t do the business when it mattered and ultimately died a death befitting a weasel, when he was frozen in place amidst an exploding enemy base. Not so invincible after all.

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Budget is my least favourite word in the dictionary

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Yooka-Laylee (2017)

You don’t need to know me particularly well to gather that I’m almost allergic to spending money. The way I see it, every little penny that I’ve tricked people into giving me is a hard-earned penny indeed. I’ll squeeze dosh from any man’s coffers – government, ignorant employers, family, the lot. I’ve even eyed up beggars’ cups on occasion – that’s how far I’ll go for a few quid.

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