Feature Type: The OJ Borg Column

Check out the pixels on that!

Many weighty things have been written about the the sexualisation of computer games, of the negative role models portrayed in them and much more words like that. Charlie Brooker and others on the leather-clad, murderous sex nuns in Hitman: Absolution is one of the outrages that springs to mind.

Unfortunately I’m not that intelligent nor erudite, so instead I thought I would lend my leery comment to the many lists already out there on who is the hottest computer game character. This list involves both hunk and hunkettes for the simple reason that this column is an equal opportunities ogler.

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HOLD ME: Horror in video-games

Fear is a funny thing. Growing up I was surrounded by school friends who bragged about the amount of times they had seen Nightmare on Elm Street. How they knew the words to Hellraiser. How they had done Ouija boards, summoned ghosts and punched them in the dick. They didn’t seem to show any sense of being scared by these movies.

I, on the other hand, have always been a massive wuss when it comes to horror, and in particular being scared. I’m still, at 33.9 years old, slightly perturbed by Ghostbusters. I’m not just saying this as a comedy thing. Zuul scares me. (Unlike Gozer the Gozerian who I just think is fit; I mean she’s just so limber).

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The Joy of Sound FX

Video-game music. Something that I’ve always found is essential to the whole experience. Most of the all-time greatest games have a tune or sonic trademark that sticks in your mind, giving you an emotional response when you hear them, either when playing the game or not.

It’s also become something of a fad, with the appearance of numerous concerts featuring high-class orchestras very seriously playing the entire Halo soundtrack. I went. It sucked. Even my brother who at the time was a nerdy teenager and smelt of wet dog (I can confirm this has changed; he now smells of clean dog), thought it wasn’t the best.

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I miss people: The demise of the High Street

GAME. Hamstrung. HMV. Fatally wounded. Blockbusters. Holed below the plimsole line. Cash Generator. Smells slightly (and who buys games from there anyway? I merely couldn’t think of another store still trading).

It was always going to happen and it’s your fault. Well, not all your fault, as the mismanagement of these high street goliaths combined with an inability to move with the times has brought these previously big sellers of video-games crashing down to the ground. This is put forward in this awesome insiders article from HMV’s former advertising guy here.

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Look at that little face!

Playing the new, totally fabulous and life-consuming Far Cry 3, I have come to a strange conclusion about me and my values. I can butcher humans in a variety of interesting, entertaining and masochistic ways, but I find killing digital animals morally wrong.

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Goodbye youth

When Sony announced this week that it’s time for the PlayStation 2 to take the well trodden console route to Dignitas, I realised that even though I hadn’t played on one in years (the last one I even saw was in a hotel room in Edinburgh a couple of years ago, I’d sneered at it), most of my favourite gaming memories are centred around that black rectangle of joy.

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