Why YOU Must Be the Monopoly Guy!

I need a place to rant and rave in order to protect the people I respect around me from the anguish I cause from my daily outbursts. Lucky them.

The first of many ranty raves is about games. I adore games...but nope, I’m not talking about the hip new smart ‘happening’ games played on the high tech PS3s or xbox, heaven no, I'm talking about those old games where you actually have to pick up piece, roll dice and socialise with other people even though you're in a super strop because you’re blatantly losing the game in hand. Yeah you know the scoundrels I’m on about, Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk, Trivial Pursuit... the fights I've had with my family - how do the Parker brothers sleep at night? Oh right yeah, as they’re dead, I guess quite easily. Oh how very convenient for them to not have to witness the tantrums, behold the upset that accompanies these games.

Due to this ridiculous obsession with playing board games (that I still wait to grow out of) I am incapable of seeing the pleasures of these super duper trendy games - they threaten me with there incredible good looks, and powerful configurations and smug cleverness. The computer is so much better then YOU! In a board game it’s other players that outwit you (or get lucky). The board game itself is a fragile piece of cardboard that easily bruises at the edges and fails to keep score of anything or anyone. If I scratch a disc my console refuses to play it. Now and again, for no clear reason, my console even chooses to crash or causes glitches to surface. My computer has no right in messing with my game playing like that. Whilst with a board game, yeah you lose a few playing pieces, but effortlessly you can replace the candlestick with some kinder-egg toy or sure some of the money has gone missing buts that’s cool too because you can just print off/draw more money. And my board game will be fine with this makeshift fix, whilst my console made loud angry noises if it gets so much a bit of dust inside it. Bloody diva.

What’s worse, my unfashionable desire for moving the thimble or questioning suspects in the conservatory, can't be kept a little secret I do in my spare time. Of course not. Because board games demand at least one other player to share in this outdated past time. Hence I have to beg and plead with my friends and family to join in on the 'fun'. Sometimes my friends and family (even my younger sister and brother) are far too mature to humour me. That’s when I’m so desperate for a fix, I seriously think about asking that tramp with the dog that plays music near my local greggs, but then I remember he plays Oasis songs, and not even a tempting game of Escape Atlantis would compel me to listen to Oasis. My ears are far too precious.

There’s more.

I'm so ludicrously behind the times that the only games I do quite frequently play on the pc (because I have not owned a game console since the master system – which reminds me to do a rant on the no save option for alex kidd) have been a series of various modest small games by a little known game maker called Sean O'Connor. It must quickly be said that good old Seany is not a fancy game maker. He lacks creative design and originality. So what does he do I hear you question? Well he makes board games into computer games, a simple 8 bit version I admit. And oh crikey, how did this happen?! God knows why, but I love them. Slay, Conquest, Rats...and I'm amazing at them! It would seem I have the most uncoolest talent in the world - being great at the crappiest graphic games ever. These games make pacman (I wont get started on that little love of mine) look like the freshest coolest game ever.

If you want to see just how bad they are go to www.windowsgames.co.uk. Go on, just play Slay, give it a shot, but word of advice: watch out for those frickin trees!