Another video game title screen parody, another part of this website that's not necessarily about video games. Sigh.

Q: WHAT ARE YOU?!?
A: I'm Batman.

Q: You're not Batman. Don't lie, you fiend.
A: OK, I'm not Batman. I just wish I was. In truth, I have no name, but on the internet, they call me...

Q: Oh, cut that internet pseudonym bullshit right out. REAL name, please. And give us the facts!
A: Oh, alright, if you insist. My real name is Ant Cooke, and I'm an aspiring writer who's still trying to figure out where it all went wrong. That's all the info you're getting out of me. Unlike a lot of people on the internet, I don't suffer from that dreaded thing called unwarranted self-importance, so I'm not going to bore you with my vital statistics, my favourite plants, or how many cats I own. All you've got to go on is this page, and there's a few unsubtle references to some of my favourite books and movies in the articles themselves. Spot them all and win a prize!

What I will tell you, however, is that despite my extremely disdainful tone throughout this site, I genuinely love video games. Aside from writing, they're my main hobby. I've been playing since I learned how to injure people in the NES port of Double Dragon, and while I love the usual suspects (Super Mario, Metal Slug, Bubble Bobble, etc.) there's nothing more fascinating to me than obscure shit that no-one's ever heard of. And so, we have this website.

Q: So, you think you're a writer, do you? Ever been published, or are you just a shyster?
Well, I hate to brag love to talk about my literary accomplishments, so if you insist... As well as my own site, my unique brand of bodaciousness has appeared on Way of the Rodent, Unseen64, Socks Make People Sexy, the Retrobates section of Retro Gamer's site, and a couple of actual print issues of Retro Gamer itself (although, er, I only managed to get into the older ones, contributing to their Arcade Hunt series). And, if we want to go further back in time, I once got some poetry published in a...

Q: Poetry? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Seriously?
A: Yeah, I know, laugh it up. I was very young at the time, and that's my excuse. I still can't even remember how I got in the book, but apparently I was 'talented'. Ha!

Q: Er, to get back on track, is it just you, or do you employ a team of monkeys to write this tripe?
A: There is no team of monkeys. There is I, and I alone. I do everything myself- write the articles, grab the screenshots, rip the sound effects and music, create the extra content... Well, OK, I can't take all the credit. I get a little assistance from the enigmatic and long-suffering editor, affectionately called Ed, who occasionally writes the Editor's Notes. He's usually to be found behind his desk, sobbing into his safety blanket.

[That'd be me. I actually do a lot more than just writing the Editor's Notes, you know. Sure, the writing guy does a fair amount of work (although he's paid far too much for it) but when he's got all the relavent material for me, it ends up on my desk, and I have to deal with it. I'm the poor bastard who has to proof-read this claptrap, make the images the right size, do some of the trickier HTML coding, and even maintain the hilariously inept YouTube channel and what do I get? No salary, no overtime pay, no holiday leave, and the sole perk of the job is getting to boss around my writer subordinate. Sometimes I interject in this tiny font. Truly, I hate my job, and one day, I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. Oh, and I'm not real, you fucking idiots! My existence is just a running joke.
- Ed]

Q: So... Why did you make this site? Why old crappy video games, you nerd?!
A: To become an internet celebrity and get drunk with power. Since that doesn't seem to be happening, this website is the home of Britain's daring, highly-trained old-school video games expert. His purpose: To defend human freedom against shitty games. In all honesty, though, this site is just another video games website, but one with a very specific purpose in mind; as well as entertaining the masses, I like to think the objective of this site is to educate. As such, it's more like a museum of obscure video game history... Even in the most uncommon video games, there is something to take from it about the history of games. Be warned, there's an air of self-parody pervading the whole thing, so when I'm not talking specifically about video games, don't believe a word I say. Er, unless it's on this page. And even then...

Q: This site looks like shit!
A: That's not a question, but an astute observation nonetheless. I'll admit it- every page in this website is done in Notepad++. There are no style sheets, there are no bells, there are no whistles, and a grand total of two Java scripts (one's used on the first Sailor Moon review and the other is on the main page) and that's as far as it goes. Anything more than that and I simply wouldn't be able to handle it, and I fear the site would get too cluttered. Besides, I like to think that this site is a bit of a throwback to the days of Web 1.0 in the early 2000s, when everyone had an Angelfire account and didn't give a shit about 'content' and 'aesthetics' or any other namby-pamby Web 2.0 crap. Simplicity is the key, really.

Q: How do you pick the games to cover? Is there some sort of system, or do you just pull it out of your ass?
A: A little from Column A, a little from Column B. There's three principles I keep in mind when picking a game to cover here:

#1: Is this game historically noteworthy- is it really good, really bad, or is there anything interesting about it?
#2: How well-known is the game- has everyone on the internet talked about it, or is it a little obscure?
#3: Does it have a funny title?

The most important rule is probably the second- because of that rule, I've excluded many of the really big targets, such as Battletoads, Action 52, Altered Beast, Custer's Revenge, Peek-a-Boo Poker... All games you've heard of, I'm sure. They're just over-done, and there's only so much you can say about them. What you're left with, after this extensive selection process, is the sort of game that's obscure and under-appreciated... And in some cases, absolutely dire. Every now and then, of course, the first rule takes precedent and I'll cover whatever I want, solely because it's interesting.

Q: Sailor Moon. Seriously, come on, why do you play these games? Have you no dignity?!
A: To cut a long story short, the title of the arcade game made me giggle when I first played it a few years ago, then I decided that the game was perfect for this site. When I went looking to see if anyone else had covered the game, I found sailorvgame.org, which you'd think is the go-to site for this sort of thing. If you're a fan of this crap, it is, because they detail exactly which uber kawaii senshi appear in which games, and finer details like that. If you want to find out what the games actually play like, you're shit outta luck- they just don't talk about it. I don't blame them, really, but this essentially means I'm trying to out-Sailor-Moon the Sailor Moon experts, which is sad on several different levels.

By the way, the anime series itself- judging from the sole episode I watched for 'research purposes'- is absolutely horrible. Never ever watch it.

Q: Same question as above, just replace 'Sailor Moon' with 'The Touhou Project'.
A: I really, really, really like DoDonPachi. I mean, seriously. I can't even get to the fourth stage, but I just lap that shit up. I played, like, 5 minutes of it in MAME, then made it my mission to get a console port. I love it that much. Anyway, with the Focus ability, the Touhou shooters are very reminiscent of this wonderful game, and that is why I play them. I also find the characters charming in an awful 'gosh-they're-so-silly' kind-of way. Sadly, most of the fans on the internet- in my limited experience- are a bit nutty over the characters, to the point where some of them don't even play the games. I find that unfathomably sad. So, I wanted to write articles that focused on the gameplay with a few jokes about the characters, rather than gushing over them completely. And here we are!

Q: Who's the guy with the red and blue hat on the Odds n' Ends/About page?
A: That's me! Or, at least, a very poor charicature. The only thing that's remotely true to life about him is the fact that he constantly has a befuddled expression- just like me. He was the mascot for one of my older websites, and although he's terribly drawn, I thought I'd bring him back here. He doesn't appear as much as the actual site mascot, though.

Q: This site has a mascot?!
A: That's right. It's the strange girl with the microphone on the Odds n' Ends page. All my old sites had a mascot of some description- the first had Mr. Saturn (Earthbound), the second had the aforementioned self-charicature, and the third had Awesome Possum. For this one, I decided to create my own mascot, and that's how we ended up with that strange-looking girl- she's got absolutely nothing to do with video games, but she looks silly, has a daft name (Sarah Sowertty) and she's fun to draw. Also: she is the least appropriate mascot for this site, and as such, had to be used.

Q: You know, I don't think there's a reason for this page to exist. You're just answering questions no-one asked to boost your ego.
A: Well, Sparky, if that's true, then you don't exist.

Q: Huh? What are you... Oh shi-
A: This interview is over.

Well, that was a waste of my time. Back to the main page!