magreviewdraft1.doc

PROPOSED SCRIPT FOR GAMES MAGAZINE REVIEW ROUND-UP - FIRST DRAFT

Hey! Good afternoon. It's beautiful to see you all, thanks for coming to read our magazine. What a beautiful audience! Man... so nice to see you here.

Wow, so Tokyo Jungle is here. Have you heard about this thing? It's a game where you control animals. Listen, if it's a game where an ape can take control of a city, why didn't they just name it Boris Johnson Simulator 2012? Apparently, in the game, you can dress your animal in some of the most ridiculous hats and clothes. And then, I expect, send it to work in new media somewhere in Shoreditch.

There will be midnight openings at game stores across the nation this week for the release of the new FIFA game. Outrageously, I've heard that "midnight openings" is the term footballers use for women they meet in nightclubs. Seriously, it's insane that people attend these things. Maybe if they want people to actually turn out to vote at the next election, they should make it happen at midnight and give every voter a free copy of Clegg & Cable: Coalition Carnage, a game where Nick Clegg and Vince Cable run amok through Westminster with chainsaws, while lamenting the fact that their spinelessness made it more difficult for the NHS to sew any heads back on.

Dead or Alive 5. Have you seen this thing? Apparently this game is known for its simulation of the bounce of women's breasts. The guys who make this trash call it "Boob Physics", which sounds like a 15-year-old's dream of an ideal class on his new school timetable. Can you believe that human progress has led us here? We killed our fellow man in a thousand wars, we sent dogs into space, and we split the atom - all so that one day we could see a weird, glassy-eyed cartoon's breast jiggle in real-time. The only time a guy who buys this game will ever see some breasts bounce in the real world is right after he sees his mother kick her own stool away with a noose around her neck because she saw this game on the shelf.

Yeah, so what else is going down? Ah yeah. The Wii U is coming soon. When they told me that it's coming with a pad, I assumed they meant some kind of pantyliner for the weird wet-the-beds who'll be buying it. What kind of name is Wii U anyway? It sounds like a German fetish magazine. Apparently a big feature of the Wii U will be wildly asymmetrical gameplay, which is perfect, because most of those weird Nintendo fans have wildly asymmetrical faces.

So, Peter Molyneux's new project is about gamers chipping away at a giant mysterious cube to try to find out what's inside. It's a really clever idea to make a game about the audience's struggle to lose their virginity. For real, though - wouldn't it be cool if the thing on the inside of the cube was a Polaroid photo of Peter Molyneux drinking cocktails on a beach, flipping the bird at the camera? I expect that on the day of his death Molyneux will announce that he himself was a living game that we were all playing, and that we've all just reached the end. That's when he'll transform into a baby and challenge us all to try again at a harder difficulty level.

Shigeru Miyamoto recently explained the Bowser family tree. It felt like watching an episode of Who Do You Think You Are while on hallucinogenic drugs. "Hey, did you see that Jeremy Clarkson episode of Who Do You Think You Are? It turns out his grandmother was a Boo and his great-grandfather was Dr Robotnik." We all love Miyamoto, but let's be honest... If he was just a postal worker in Bolton we would have had him sectioned under the Mental Health Act years ago.

• Hi, man. A few concerns here with the material. It all seems really quite dark and negative. There are a lot of attacks on gamers, and since the review will be playing to a gamer audience, I don't think that will really fly. Can we soften some of the "weirdo" and "virgin" stuff? Also, the general tone is pretty bleak overall. Suicides, chainsaw rampages, drugs, fetishes... I don't think it's really necessary to push it in that direction. Thanks. M.
• Got your notes. I appreciate your concern, but not being a gamer myself, I'm just trying to work up these gags from the stuff I'm seeing out there in front of me. I spent the whole of the last week checking out gaming forums and websites, and following gamers on Twitter. So, in truth, I'm just reflecting the TONE that is out there. Adding to the conversation, as it were. Thanks. J.
• J, I can't go out there with a review with a tone like this. I'm not a gamer either, but from what I know of gamers they'd probably enjoy a more silly "kiddy" take on some gags. Nothing too complex. Just some nice puns with lots of references. It's not a hugely sophisticated audience, so I don't think we need to add to any "conversation", or whatever it was you said there. Thanks. M.
• M, with respect, I think you have a dated view on what the audience for your review is. Looking at the actual evidence, which I DID (again, I'm not a gamer myself, so research was my friend here), I can see a landscape steeped in violence and sexism and cynicism. Certainly not this fun, "kiddy" thing you're talking about. But I dunno, man. It's your gig. I'm just the writer.
• J, I appreciate that. But can we just have some jokes about joysticks waggling and stuff? You know the drill. Some of that [That's Enough - Ed] stuff would be really funny too. M.
• Sure, man. You're paying the day rate. Whatever you want. J.