It’s fair to say that the true star of the Official Top 50 Games Journalists (And Industry People) 2008 this summer was its partner feature, Things Cunts Say. We’re toddling off for a couple of weeks before we open up the voting for the RAM Raider Awards, so we thought we’d leave you with the complete run down of the diabolically cunty things rattled out by journos who believe their own hype, even when they don’t have any. Memorise this list, because we’re going to be waving it over the heads of all like a turd on a shovel.
Don’t forget to add your own entries in the comments thread at the bottom. But before you do, here’s a brand new entry:
“Here’s something cunts say – anything said by RAM Raider.”
The Anonymous Knight who originally suggested this was quick off the mark. Well done, Anonymous Knight. However, the seven thousand people who suggested it afterwards are bereft of imagination, wit, originality, and – yes – are all cunts.
Now, for the rest of the list:
“… will make you grin.”
Fuck off. We never, EVER, “grin” when playing games. Ever. If you “grin” when you play games, then you need professional help. If you think a game will make your readers “grin”, then you can fuck right off, because you’re a cunt.
“… is a near-religious experience.”
The times we’ve read this in a review reaches into double figures, but it never fails to make us vomit wildly. Religion is where people believe in one or more gods, and involves praying from time to time. Games are things you play and enjoy. THERE IS NO COMMON GROUND BETWEEN THE TWO. If you think there is, then well done, you’re a fucking cunt.
“If you don’t like [insert game title or facet here], then you have no soul.”
This is, without doubt, the cheapest cop out in journalistic history. If the reader doesn’t like the game that you’re so blinkered about you can’t comprehend that other people might not like it, then it means you’ve fucked up the review. It also means that you’re a cunt.
“Teh interweb.”
In a parallel universe, referring to the internet, the net, the web, or the world wide web as the “interweb” is considered to be the height of wit and a demonstration of the writer’s mental aptitude. Likewise, the deliberate misspelling of “the” as “teh” leaves the reader gasping at the braveness of the writer in having the guts to transpose a joke which was never that funny on internet forums into a journalistic piece of writing. However, in the universe we live in, it means you’re an absolute fucking arseholing cunt.
“Here in the office, [worthless anecdote about one of the writer’s colleagues].”
Writer sits at keyboard. Writer can’t think of anything prescient to say about the game he’s supposed to be telling you about. Writer crowbars in an anecdote about another writer on the magazine. Writer sits back and smiles smugly, satisfied that his comments will be appreciated. And they will be appreciated – by the person in the anecdote, the seven other people in the office with him, and the three readers that are so hardcore they cut out the staff photos and stick them to their bedroom walls so they don’t have to bother rolling over when they’re knocking out a sweaty half-hearted wank. To the thousands of other readers who don’t know or care who writes for the mag, the writer will be correctly considered to be an indulgent cunt.
“If you don’t like [game that reviewer has been paid to like, but there’s a remotely slender chance that other people might fucking not], then you just don’t get it.”
Guess what – we don’t like you. Not because we don’t get “it”, but because you’re a cunt.
“I”
Have a look through that pile of paperwork on the floor. Underneath your contract and your commissions, there’s a style guide. What does it say? Does it instruct you to write something witty and informative about the game you’re dealing with? Yes. Does it instruct you to tell the reader about your boring, crappy, shitty life? Does it fuck. So don’t. Because, guess what? That’s right – nobody gives a fuck, because they’re buying a magazine to read about games, not your fucking autobiography. Save it for your blog that nobody reads, or your angsty diary you keep by your bed whilst harbouring delusions that one day it’ll be published. It won’t be published, because nobody cares about your life. Because you’re a cunt.
“Meh.”
One of the privileges of serving the mighty cause of games journalism is being able to write colloquially and getting away with it. Exasperated? Then render that tutting sound you would usually make as a “tsk”. Need to express your incredulity as you would in conversation? Then you may use “pah”. But how about if you’re not really that bothered about the subject of the piece you’re writing? Then perhaps you should justify to the reader why they have to sit through an account of something you’re not interested in. Explain to them why it is that you feel the subject needs to be mentioned, but should be treated with apathy. If it makes you tired just thinking about it, pick from “yawn” or “zzz”. But who within the wide expanses of this fucking miserable arsehole of a planet has ever opened their mouth and said “meh”? Who? That’s right – nobody. Nobody ever says “meh”. So why write it? Oh, that’s right – because you’re a fucking thick cunt.
“Games are art.”
Here we FUCKING go. Games are things that you play and enjoy. Sometimes they can invoke other feelings, such as excitement if you’re blowing the fuck out of everything with your cock hanging out of your trousers, or screaming rage if you’re playing Alone In The Dark, or, if you’re a particular breed of “enthusiast”, arousal whenever the protagonist in the latest Final Fantasy or some hardcore “JRPG” appears on the screen looking like a half-dressed teenage androgynous boy. When you’re in the Barbican or the Science Museum at one of those games exhibitions, the only emotions evoked in relatively sane and normal people are frustration because the fucking pads don’t work, apathy because the game’s shit even if the pads do work, or bewilderment at the guy standing next to you with both hands bunched up in his pockets as he’s drawing out a hefty sweat in front of Rival Schools. So this is a long-winded way of saying that games are games that are there to be played and enjoyed or wanked over. If you think they’re art, then step up to the line and take a proud bow, because very well done – you’re a cunt.
“The first rule of [something fucking tenuously linked to Fight Club] is, you do not talk about [something fucking tenuously linked to Fight Club]”
Can’t think of anything funny or original to say? Then how about bastardising one of the wittiest lines from one of the best films of the 20th century? Because that’s not been done before in the near-fucking decade it’s been out, has it? And seeing as you’ve already shown your readership what an utter cunt you are, how about mentioning the cake is a fucking lie?
“…will remind you why you like gaming.”
Have you ever spent five years alone in your flat staring blankly at the wall because you’ve forgotten why you like watching TV? Have you ever spent a month feeling peculiarly frustrated and suffering random erections, the likes of which you’ve not seen since you were a teenager, because you’ve forgotten why you like wanking? Have you ever collapsed in a heap on the floor, clutching your throat and turning blue because you’ve forgotten why you like breathing? No? Then you’re hardly fucking likely to forget why you like gaming, then. Cunt.
And now, our guest contributions.
Anonymous Knight:
“No pun intended.”
Yes, you mean the pun to be intended. Fuck off.
Naïve Student Journo:
"Hello this is [PR dickhead] at [soulless publishers]. I'm currently out of the office until [a date that was three weeks ago], please feel free to leave a message after the tone."
Just calling around to try and scrape up some shitty review code, and I've had the above message from the last four numbers. It seems publishing city has turned into a ghost town of never ending summer breaks. With practically no games to promote, where the fuck is everybody?
We’d like to add that it’s not only during the summer that the PR cocks are failing to do their mind-implodingly simple jobs. Try putting together a new-year preview for a mag in early November (and, seeing as it’s a mag, they’ll give you slightly less than a day to produce six pages of copy), and you’ll find out that even at the busiest time of the year for games releases, the useless fucknuts still piss off out of the office so they’re unreachable for weeks.
Us: “Hello, I work for [games mag that used to be popular], and we really need some assets so we can advertise your game for free.”
PR Cunt’s Secretary: “Well, [useless PR cunt whose sole purpose in their miserable fucking life is to promote that game] is away for two weeks.”
Us: “But my deadline’s tomorrow, and he said he’d get the assets to me a week ago. Is there anyone else who can help me?”
PR Cunt’s Secretary: “No. Fuck off.”
And yes, Codemasters, and yes, THQ, and yes, Ubisoft, we’re looking at you, you hateful incompetent fucking wankers.
Keza:
"Insert pun/joke about X here."
No. No I shall not. You are a fucking WRITER. It is YOUR job to think up passably amusing puns, not the reader's. Presenting the reader with the constituent parts of a POTENTIAL joke is not the same as actually being funny, you lazy tosser. I understand that a staffie job can wear one down to the point where even thinking of jokes becomes a joyless, tiring experience, but have some pride.
Anonymous Knight:
"We [insert activity here] so you don't have to."
The single most asinine, faux-chummy cop-out available to lazy writers/subs.
DX:
"As I type this…"
Going on, of course, to insinuate that they are engaged in some ‘cool’ activity, rather than simply staring cunt-eyed into a monitor, marvelling at the inane shit pouring from their fingers, the sole purpose of which being to convince themselves that they're not better off dead.
DX:
"As in some other magazines I could mention."
Yes, but you never fucking do, do you? Instead, you're quite happy to rest on the laurels that at least half the retarded chavs reading your mag will clench anally in rapturous self-satisfaction, as they briefly believe that what they're reading is the best of the bunch, despite the fact that they've never read anything other than whatever arse-towel they're holding while delighting in the scent of their own morning gravy.
DX:
"Gaming has never been more popular."
Particularly cunty when opening an editorial, and usually from the pen of a journalist who's made editor after ten years of giving up his social life, his marriage, his kids, his integrity, his ability to tell the truth, his ability to tell the difference between good, bad, or cunty, his ability to get a hard-on, his means to keep his eyelids anything higher than half mast and most importantly, the means to take another career path now that he's painted himself into this filthy shit-smelling corner. But that's okay. Because games have never been more popular.
Anonymous Knight:
"War-hunnh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"
Every shitty preview of a war FPS has contained this innocuous, arse-standard lyric over the past 20 years. Surely the true sign of a proper cunt?
But Anonymous Knight 2 disagrees:
That's more the sign of the first time someone's ever written about a war game. The true sign of a cunt is:
"War - what is it good for? Well, the developers of this game, actually!"
At least people who do the vanilla lyrics don't think they're fucking clever.
Anonymous Knight:
“Eye popping”
The amount of sub-eds who let this through in national newspapers, magazines and even TV scripts is mind-boggling. What an absolute fuckbag of a phrase. Whose eyes actually pop?
But Sinister Agent says:
It's not as bad as “mind-blowing”. The instant I see that in any piece, I stop reading before I'm overwhelmed by the urge to hunt down the writer and show them a far more effective way of blowing out their feeble mind.
Finally, another Anonymous Knight weighs in with this:
“Whose eyes actually pop?”
Probably the same people whose minds boggle, you dozy cunt.
