Mini reviews of Television seasons old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional bunnies.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

When Games Attack (2004–05)

I was excited to see Dominick Diamond in another video games review show, because GamesMaster (1992-98) had been so good, but the excitement was short-lived. When Games Attack was a bit of a turd. If it was a gaming peripheral it would be a Virtual Boy or a Nintendo Power Glove—a used one!

It was a Gamer.tv production for the cable/satellite channel Bravo. Bravo was a kind of schizophrenic entity; it had a large roster of quality series from yesteryear that I could watch all day long, but its original content was made up of shows that seemed to have an alternative universe King Midas handling them, turning them not to gold but to shit. What's worse is that much of their output was targeted primarily at the kind of people that would routinely browse the top shelf of a magazine rack but leave instead with a copy of FHM or Loaded. If you have friends like that get them to seek help, forthwith.

It stuck to a rigid formula each week. Dom, rounder of face and paunchier, much like myself, indulged his passion for all things football by having a large portion of each episode dedicated to an ongoing footy game tournament. I'm not a fan of the sport in any form, so could skip that part without remorse.

'Behind the Game’ did what it claimed, giving information on the inspiration, development and release of a specific game, both retro and modern.

A weekly Top 5, such as Most Pathetic Games or Crappiest Game Plot, seemingly researched by juggling ducks, was stretched out over the running time.

Queeny and Cugly, a parody of Sooty and Sweep style puppets, would pit two similar games against each other. It was a disaster.

Perhaps the worst feature of all was a semi-regular rhythm game section where glamour models, I'm guessing on loan from the likes of the aforementioned magazines, bounced around amateurishly while lecherous commentary made the fiasco even more unbearable, if that's possible.

And finally, although sometimes outside the games-related remit, the on-location features hosted by either Dom or Caroline Flack were occasionally fun.

20 episodes, approx 25 mins each.

2½ letters of dubious origin out of 5

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