Six years ago we were watching Dave Perry on Games Master, getting angry at the programme's producers for using too many PlayStation games in its challenges when it was clear they should be using the superior Sega Saturn range of software instead. In fact, it was the "Is Dave Perry A Wanker?" vote spawned by a particular Dave/Games Master incident which made UKR popular in its day, therefore everything we are now is directly down to Dave. Join with us, as we celebrate the life and career of Dave "Unstoppable Games Animal" Perry. |
Hilarious
"What thing are you?" quiz! Join in the hilarity, as we ask the hilarious question: What photocopier model number are you??! Chris in accounts was a Hewlett Packard PC-101!!! LOL!! While Mark from human resources turned out to be a Canon JP-2000! ROFL!!! It's blinking crazy! |
Dave
Perry -- The interview! UKR: How did your nickname "Games Animal" come about? Dave "Unstoppable Games Animal" Perry: I felt the games industry lacked a 'character' other than just the usual animated rodents, robots and evangelistical programmers. Someone a bit larger than life, very crass and 'in everyone's face'. I decided to go with the moniker 'The Unstoppable Games Animal', after hearing Chuck D describe himself as an 'Unstoppable Rhyme Animal' on Public Enemy's 'Bring The Noise'. It seemed so completely over the top and sure to offend the prissy, scared-of-change, faction within the industry that I immediately went with it. It was also memorable. You imagine the first day you walk into work and proclaim yourself to be 'The Unstoppable Games Animal.' It took a lot of conviction to make work, but it did. UKR: What sort of animal is the Games Animal? We imagine it to be a tame urban fox... DP: Yeah, that's
right. You keep thinking that... DP:
You don't get away with calling yourself 'The Games Animal' unless
you are sure you can take all comers. Through the years, I have played
in countless challenges and competitions all over the country, never turning
down an opponent. I used to challenge games company experts on their own
games every
UKR: Which one game could you beat anyone at? DP: What have you got? UKR: Are your reflexes slowing with age? Ours are. DP:
Definitely. In my prime I used to go into an almost trance like state
and look 'through' the screen, letting my reflexes respond without the
slowing down effect that thought has on reaction time. These days I watch
and calculate everything. I rely more on guile and experience. DP:
You know, I filmed over 300 shows for various shows on various channels,
and yet this one moment still keeps coming up. Which I guess shows what
a landmark it was for people to see me 'beaten'. Yes it was a set-up.
A lot of the challenges on GameMaster were set-up. It's funny that people
still think that a show like GamesMaster was for real. UKR: When did you last speak to Dominik Diamond? DP: Don't remember.
Probably the last time somebody paid me to do so. DP: Oh me definitely,
by a good two inches! UKR: Do you mind being hated by most people in the games industry? DP: I've always
thought that any reaction is better than no reaction. The people who hate
me generally mean nothing to me, and the more they bitch the more they
add to my notoriety. Which is fine by me. I've certainly never been so
insecure that being 'liked' would ever influence my actions or decision
making process.
DP: Because
I can. I like to push buttons. Some people just ask for it. DP: I think
that is part of it. I stand up and do what many people aspire to because
I don't care about other people's reactions. Nice guys always come second.
Me? I scream and shout and step over people. I'll never be happy to perform
in a mirror, I always want as big an audience as possible. UKR: Would games be as popular today without your input on the industy throughout the 90s? DP: They certainly could have been bigger if people would have just followed my lead instead of sniping. What the games industry has always needed is spokespeople. Media friendly personalities. Without them it will always be vulnerable to the disbelievers and nay sayers. That is why we don't have decent games television shows or regular new slots on shows or in the tabloids. The people who control mainstream media don't 'get' games and don't believe in them. As a result, what we do get is so sanitised and diluted that it doesn't work, which means we keep getting locked into a vicious circle of mediocrity. And who's going to put them straight? Spyro the Dragon? Mario? Get real. Small mindedness and petty personal picket fencing has kept this hobby small. Only a new generation of 'Games Animals' could take this hobby to the next level. UKR: What has been you career highlight so far? DP: Being asked on a date by Denise Van Outen, being voted in the UK's Top 50 Bachelors by Company magazine, sharing a dressing room with the Angels on Series 5 of GamesMaster (oh yes), being asked to appear on Richard and Judy and turning it down. UKR: We saw you on shopping channel QVC a while back. Did you sell many stereos? DP: Ha, ha!
Yeah I did actually, or they wouldn't have asked me back. I decided to
do QVC for one reason -- the money was absolutely phenomenal. In one show
I would get more than I did for a whole series of GamesMaster (although
I shouldn't say that because many people didn't get paid for their UKR: Did you try it on with any of the girls from the make-up shows? DP: Listen,
everybody wants a little bit of Animal in them! And who am I to deny them
that? DP: No. But
I held out for as long as I could. DP: Yes I did,
at Rapide Publishing in Exeter. How do you know her? I could tell you
some stories... Once in the back of a hired coach after a magazine party
in London... DP: The Game
Brain.
DP: Bleached
peroxide yellow and spikey all over. A bit like the bastard offspring
of Rod Stewart and Johnny Rotten. UKR: Why was the bandana a Stars & Stripes one? Surely a Union Flag would've been better? DP: I had over
70 different bandanas, but the stars and stripes one was the most memorable.
I did wear a Union Jack one too, in fact the whole of Series 3 of GamesMaster
saw me wearing a Union Jack bandana, and the caricature produced of me
by the Rise of the Robots programmers, that adorns my new website, also
has me in a Union Jack bandana. You are right, the best games player in
the world was British, and I should have pushed that more. DP: Blondes. UKR: Do you get recognised in the streets of Exeter much? DP: I get recognised about two or three times a week still. Which is amazing, seeing as I have deliberately stepped out of the games industry limelight for the past three years. Just wait until the new website gets going. UKR: When's your GamesAnimal.com site going to appear? DP: November
1st. DP: I don't
want people to just read it, I want people to get involved. I am constantly
looking for content, opinion and humour. I don't want this to be a site
just about me preaching and boasting, I want it to be full of thousands
of people preaching and boasting. I want Gamesanimal.com
to be a soapbox for games players. A place to display gaming knowledge,
writing talent and give an opinion. I'll provide the publicity and marketing,
every one else can just use it to get published and communicate. I want
all the UKR: Will you get some new photos taken for it? That one of you wearing the bandana and leather jacket is ancient... DP: Fuck yeah. I look so much better now. I will have to get some new ones done. But the image you are talking about is so iconic. It is everything I love about being The Animal, and everything everybody else hates. UKR: Finally, do you have a message for your fans at UK Resistance? DP: Slick marketing
by major corporate players may have made gaming feel like a commodity
that has become controlled and packaged in recent years, but it will always
be your industry. Without you, the large corporations can't function.
They need your money. You control your money. So ultimately you |
GOOD THINGS ABOUT
LIVING ALONE: #1 |
REVIEW SCORES FOR
SALE Simply email us the quote you'd like us to say and we'll incorporate it into a review, then upload it to the site in a 'reviews' section for you to 'discover', circulate and quote on adverts in MCV. Quite similar to the scheme one games magazine publisher has been running for some years, in fact. |
Shit things about
the internet: #6: Popbitch Which man is GAY? Which famous woman likes HAVING SEX? Which once-interesting web site is now so full of lies that there's no point reading it any more, unless you've sent in some lies yourself and just want to see if they've uploaded them as fact? |
Employee of the
Week Cheer up! This is a fun web site, not a regional self-help branch of the Samaritans. Would this help? |
Fun with the Fujitsu-Siemens
promotional photo archive! |
UNSPEAKABLY SHIT PHOTOSHOP JOKE OF THE WEEK FOR YOU TO EMAIL ROUND ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS LIKE YOU'RE SOME BIG FUCKING COMEDY GENIUS WHO ALWAYS FINDS EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET FIRST:
|
Other things that
aren't funny any more. #6 Train journeys But nowadays every other motherfucker has got Mission: Impossible as a ring tone, while each carriage contains at least three groups of braying university students talking TOO FUCKING LOUDLY about what banal things their crazy friend Dean did last night while drunk on three pints of stout. And the "mobile-free" carriage simply replaces the annoyance of novelty phone rings with the louder complaints of people whining to the ticket inspector about someone nine rows behind them reading a text message. |
As-yet
unproven claims by Michael Moore
![]() |
Parts
of women we really like. #2: |
Frozen
in time! NOTE: This youth used to hassle us endlessly for mentions/links on the old UKR. How ironic that his dream finally comes true as we are now mocking his site's death. |
SUBmissions/DOMain
THIS WEEK'S BEST
SUBMISSION: FIRST
RUNNER UP : THIS
WEEK'S BIGGEST SUBMISSION:
CLEVEREST REFERENCE:
WITH MERIT : HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED : HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
: LEFTOVER
SHE-YIT: IN
OFF-SITE NEWS... Dan Thompson
sent us a link to here
-- mental men dressed like Sonic and Shen Mue characters. And you could do it too. Submit to us and we'll upload it. Although we're thinking of initiating some sort of quality control from now on, now that all the good people seem to have sent stuff in. |
Richard Jacques
Update |
PICTURES
WE JUST FOUND ON THE INTERNET, CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING TO DO WITH, BUT
REALLY WANT TO PUT UP ANYWAY: It's
amazing what you innocently stumble across while |
Your task for the
next two weeks... |
UK Resistance. For "hilarious" read "shite".