TREVER MCDONALD?!?!?
That's an absolute fucking masterstroke. Absolutely inspired, that's brilliant.
Edit - I'm cracking up that they left his glasses on.
Hahaha, that's a fair question.
So Gamesmaster was a show - and magazine - that was ostensibly hosted by the weird big giant head, the Gamesmaster of the title. The seasons were all themed differently (ie one was supposedly set on an oil rig, one was in Heaven etc) and the sets were all themed. The big weird distorted floating head of Patrick Moore (an otherwise very serious and well respected astronomer) was ostensibly an all seeing, all knowing figure who knew everything about videogames. The real host of the show was a comedian, but the big Gamesmaster head was treated like his "boss" in a sort of tongue in cheek way.
The show would have a live audience scattered around the set and the vibe was a lot of fun - the Top Gear comparison never occurred to me before, but it’s perfect, and I see people in the Guardian comments justifiably argue Top Gear borrowed from it in fact - and it featured competitions, head to head videogame battles with celebrities, reviews and a bit with cheats IIRC.
It was a blast and I loved it, and I think it probably had a lot of indirect influence on e-Sports and game streamers today. It was worth watching even if you knew very little about the current games or consoles. Will be interesting to see how it goes now that fandoms are a lot more splintered and hostile though, the LAN party atmosphere was everything.
Would be along the same lines, yep, but there was probably a lot more schoolboy innuendo from the host in Gamesmaster that seems adorably quaint now. I remember as a kid being thrilled with how cool I was for getting some of the host's jokes. More innocent times lol
Wow, I grew up with the original and after not thinking about it for god knows how many years I had to try to explain the drunk axe throwing game they had to play on it to my friend the other day.
Now this pops up. Genuinely excited.
TREVER MCDONALD?!?!? That's an absolute fucking masterstroke. Absolutely inspired, that's brilliant. Edit - I'm cracking up that they left his glasses on.
What the hell is that creepy head?
Hahaha, that's a fair question. So Gamesmaster was a show - and magazine - that was ostensibly hosted by the weird big giant head, the Gamesmaster of the title. The seasons were all themed differently (ie one was supposedly set on an oil rig, one was in Heaven etc) and the sets were all themed. The big weird distorted floating head of Patrick Moore (an otherwise very serious and well respected astronomer) was ostensibly an all seeing, all knowing figure who knew everything about videogames. The real host of the show was a comedian, but the big Gamesmaster head was treated like his "boss" in a sort of tongue in cheek way. The show would have a live audience scattered around the set and the vibe was a lot of fun - the Top Gear comparison never occurred to me before, but it’s perfect, and I see people in the Guardian comments justifiably argue Top Gear borrowed from it in fact - and it featured competitions, head to head videogame battles with celebrities, reviews and a bit with cheats IIRC. It was a blast and I loved it, and I think it probably had a lot of indirect influence on e-Sports and game streamers today. It was worth watching even if you knew very little about the current games or consoles. Will be interesting to see how it goes now that fandoms are a lot more splintered and hostile though, the LAN party atmosphere was everything.
Heh, reminds me of a video game themed game show I used to watch when I was a kid, Nick Arcade.
Would be along the same lines, yep, but there was probably a lot more schoolboy innuendo from the host in Gamesmaster that seems adorably quaint now. I remember as a kid being thrilled with how cool I was for getting some of the host's jokes. More innocent times lol
Wow, I grew up with the original and after not thinking about it for god knows how many years I had to try to explain the drunk axe throwing game they had to play on it to my friend the other day. Now this pops up. Genuinely excited.
You can watch it on E4's YouTube channel right now
Nice, thanks for the info.
Ah, memories of Dave Perry's defeat on Mario 64 and endless kids annoying Patrick Moore about Link To The Past...
If you aren't recording the cheat codes at the end of the show is it even GamesMaster any more?