Year of the Wrath

While perusing this and various competing magazines - including a few that had fallen through a wormhole from a slightly different dimension - at my local newsagency, the boots and I came to the realisation that most game mag covers are now pretty much a sea of numbers.

“Sequels,” said the Guerrilla Gamer, appearing at my elbow in that really irritating and slightly smelly way he does. “The curse of modern gaming.”

The newsagent with the horn-rimmed glasses who looked ironically just like a librarian despite working six days a week standing next to a sign that said “THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY”, frowned at us. I hurriedly put down the copy of PC Gamester I’d been idly thumbing.

“Explain,” I challenged the Guerrilla Gamer.

“Sure thing. Look at all these mags. Not a single one of them has a game on the front cover that isn’t a sequel. See. Dawn of War 2. Command & Conquer 3. Grand Theft Auto 4. Syncromesh Slaughter 2… hey I didn’t know that was coming out.”

He grabbed the copy of PC Articulate! and started flipping.

“There’s this mag. It doesn’t have any sequels on the cover,” said Victor Ninox, my crazy ex-third flatmate, appearing over the magazine rack from the opposite side.

“Vic, that’s Modern Bride magazine,” I said wearily.

Vic looked at the mag again with an expression of quite genuine surprise.

“Hey yeah,” he said. “I should have realised when I saw this chick on the cover isn’t holding a machine gun. Plus you can hardly see her boobs.”

“Oh this is bullshit,” spat the Guerrilla Gamer, throwing down PC Articulate! “There’s no screenshots or anything about Syncromesh Slaughter 2 in here, it’s just William Liability issuing an open invitation for someone to develop it for him. Plus a double-page-spread of an abattoir.”

I leant in.

“Says you get a free bucket of cow livers if you send in a design doc,” I observed.

“How big a bucket?” asked Vic.

The man behind the counter who looked like a librarian tapped first his watch, and then the sign that said “THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY”.

“And another thing,” said the Guerrilla Gamer, ignoring him and trying to peel the CD off the cover of PC Reboot to see if there were any other interesting coverlines hidden underneath. “What is the deal with all the Wrath?”

I glanced down at the boots. The boots gave me that particular look which was their equivalent of shrugging.

“What Wrath?”

“In games. It’s like 2008 is going to be all about the Wrath. You’ve got C&C3 Kane’s Wrath out now, and then later you’ve got World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King.”

“Hey,” admonished Vic, “Vivendi made it clear we’re not to imply in the magazine, on our website or even in casual conversation where someone might hear, that Wrath of the Lich King could possibly ever be released at any time between now and the heat-death of the universe. It’ll be done when it’s done, okay?”

I blinked, then turned back to the Guerrilla Gamer.

“Now you’ve drawn my attention,” I said. “It does seem like quite a lot of Wrath.”

“And that’s before you factor in all the Blind Drunk titles William Liability just announced. There’s Barbarian Axe Wrath 3D, Wrathful Avengers of Space, Space Wrath, Dungeon Wrath, and Wrath of the Space Dungeon.”

“How awesome does WOSD look though?” asked Vic. “There’s this bit where the body is floating in anti-gravity and the globules of blood are just coming out and floating off and that’s when the developer thought, yeah, they have something really special.”

We stared at him.

“There was a video on YouTube,” he said. “They were talking about how they wanted to make it really violent. You guys should check out YouTube. It’s awesome.” He adjusted his YouTube T-shirt so the logo showed more prominently.

“Vic,” I said, “I’m not sure product placement really works in a back-page humour column.”

“Doesn’t matter, I get paid anyway,” said Vic. “Excuse me, there’s a call coming in on my Nokia 6100 Navigator. It’s probably my friend Slug with directions for the awesome party I have to go to tonight except I don’t know the way. Fortunately, as my phone is equipped with GPS, I can simply…”

The boots and I tuned him out and turned back to the Guerrilla Gamer. He was reading a PlayStation 3 magazine that, because the masthead was only three letters long and had both a skull-and-crossbones and also an exclamation mark worked into it, I presumed wasn’t an official title.

“Says here Grand Theft Auto IV is going to let you hire male prostitutes,” he said. “I think that might be a joke on the part of the writer though.”

The newsagent who looked like a librarian worked a complicated latch on his counter, folded a panel aside, and stepped out. He plucked the sign that said “THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY” from the wall, and marched quickly up the aisle where Vic was leafing through a copy of National Geographic and giggling at the anthropological photographs. The newsagent rolled the sign that said “THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY” into a tube, then beat Vic senseless with it. Without a word, he turned on his heel and marched back to his counter, fixed the sign to the wall again, and slumped on his stool, giving the Guerrilla Gamer and me what can only be described as the evil eye.

The Guerrilla Gamer had his hand outstretched to lift a copy of PC Migraine out of the rack, but reconsidered and turned to me instead.

“Fancy a beer?” he asked.

The boots and I could only concur.