Bad Influence {Tv Show}

Myrddin

I suspect most here will remember this, Atavan won't...he was missing half his chromosomes while this was showing...but I remember it very fondly. Violet Berlin & Andy Crane presented it, & I remember watching it religiously

I've also just discovered, the entire four seasons is available to stream or download here - http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Abad-influence&sort=-publicdate&page=1 :eek: I'm up as far as Season 1 Ep 5 & its nostalgia city

The tech segments in the middle of the show are obviously completely irrelevant today, but the reviews & previews etc are all just how I remember them!

pdbhp

Yahey Bad Influence totally forgot about that show.
Just watched episode one, the VR helmet is amazing I remember praying something like that would be available someday.

Great nostalgia trip, just a pity about the quality

Myrddin

pdbhp wrote: »

just a pity about the quality

The subsequent episodes are better quality, damned VHS recordings! Anyway, I guess we're just lucky they were preserved at all

CiDeRmAn

I have to say, I never got into the show at all.
Always thought Crane was a numpty anyway.
I was working at the time so most of my gaming info came from mags and late night Cybernator, well that and buying the consoles and games themselves.
Movies, Games and Videos used to be on late night too.

I don't think the shows really imparted much that was useful and informative, given we had plenty of mags to do the same, and better.
Not to mention the looser return policies and game rentals meaning we could try before committing and return them if they truly sucked.

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I have to say, I never got into the show at all.
Always thought Crane was a numpty anyway.
I was working at the time so most of my gaming info came from mags and late night Cybernator, well that and buying the consoles and games themselves.
Movies, Games and Videos used to be on late night too.

I don't think the shows really imparted much that was useful and informative, given we had plenty of mags to do the same, and better.
Not to mention the looser return policies and game rentals meaning we could try before committing and return them if they truly sucked.

Yeah but you'd have been well into your fourties when this show was airing, I'm not sure how much an adult would get outta the show :D

To a 12 year old budding gamer though, with no internet in existence, & no money to buy fancy games magazines Bad Influence & Gamesmaster were my absolute favourite shows back then.

Links234

oooh, I remember this!

I had a crush on Violet

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

I'm not sure how much an adult would get outta the show :D

The very first game mentioned in episode one is Streets of Rage II - So we can all guess why Ciderdude wasn't too fond of it. :pac:

Atavan-Halen

Excuse you I do remember it! Only because I watched the whole 4 series on YouTube a couple of months ago.

Myrddin

atavan-halen wrote: »

Excuse you I do remember it! Only because I watched the whole 4 series on YouTube a couple of months ago.

What did you make of it, given your looking back at a twenty year old show?

Atavan-Halen

Was good! Obviously the tech was outdated, but advanced back then, but very good format for a show. Gave me lots of suggestions for retro games to buy also.

Myrddin

atavan-halen wrote: »

Gave me lots of suggestions for retro games to buy also.

Same here, even watching it today I it reminds me about games I want/use to own that I want again.

The tech segments are certainly outdated, I tend to skip through those

Atavan-Halen

I didn't care much for z wright. He was a bit annoying I thought.

Myrddin

atavan-halen wrote: »

I didn't care much for z wright. He was a bit annoying I thought.

Ugh, agreed. Then again, I don't care much for any American stereotypes

Atavan-Halen

EnterNow wrote: »

Ugh, agreed. Then again, I don't care much for any American stereotypes

I hear you're a racist now Enternow.

Myrddin

atavan-halen wrote: »

I hear you're a racist now Enternow.

o1s1n

I tell you what though, Nam Rood is no Game's Guru

Atavan-Halen

o1s1n wrote: »

I tell you what though, Nam Rood is no Game's Guru

I'd give thiz pozt 5G'z yo!

Atavan-Halen

I did used to watch gamezville though, in the wee hours of the morning on sky one.

o1s1n

Gamesville will be 10 years old in 2013 - how crazy is that?

I used to watch it on those days where I felt too lazy to go into college.

Retr0gamer

o1s1n wrote: »

I used to watch it on those days where I felt too lazy to go into college.

God damn everyone that didn't do science in college. Never got a chance to experience the horror of gamesville because I was expected to be to in 10 am -5 pm at the very least in college. In other words if you want to have loads of free days and get a job after college don't do science. More work, less liklihood of employment. Homer was right

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

God damn everyone that didn't do science in college. Never got a chance to experience the horror of gamesville because I was expected to be to in 10 am -5 pm at the very least in college. In other words if you want to have loads of free days and get a job after college don't do science. More work, less liklihood of employment. Homer was right :'(

I failed first year in college. Had to spend a whole summer working to save up four and a half grand to repeat. Even then I was short and had to get a loan from family.

Fcuk you, Gamesville!

s8n

What was the name of the shows which sky one ran around the same time - there was two iirc - first one was daily featuring big boy Barry and the second was about ten years ago !!

CiDeRmAn

Gamezville, is there any end to it's crimes.

1- Killed the english language with the insertion of extra z's at every opportunity.

2- Prezented by two glorified clothes hangerz who knew nothing about gamez.

3- Patronized a bunch of young, unwashed gamerz.

4- Introduced the worst most arbitrary game scoring system ever, the now infamous "G" scale..... the horror, THE HORROR!!!

5- Had that dumb moron in a hoodie reading from the cheat pages of C&VG, assuming the role of "Gamez Guru", why someone didn't put a rifle bullet in his irritating noggin is beyond me.

6- Had a bunch on minions, who actually knew what they were talking about, relegated to glorified "Nerd Herd" further alienating and partonising the target audience of the show.

Wood

s8n wrote: »

What was the name of the shows which sky one ran around the same time - there was two iirc - first one was daily featuring big boy Barry and the second was about ten years ago !!

Big boy Barry was in GameswWorld with the lovely games mistress

Retr0gamer

Anyone remember the awful Irish version of gamesmaster, Gamezone I think?

Myrddin

Wood wrote: »

with the lovely games mistress

Now we're talking

LoGiE

Just rewatched a few episodes. Interesting looking at the Atari Falcon and the 3DO and the hype surrounding them at the time. Next big thing you say...

The original series of Gamesworld with a different show on every evening wasn't too bad (Except Mondays Challenge show). It just got worse from as it went. The last one with those two 'clownz' is probably used as a form of torture along with water boarding in certain parts of the world.

Myrddin

LoGiE wrote: »

Just rewatched a few episodes. Interesting looking at the Atari Falcon and the 3DO and the hype surrounding them at the time. Next big thing you say..

Yeah I seen mention of the Atari Falcon on it alright, was that ever released? I don't recall ever hearing about it before

You should see the one with the hype about the Mega Cd

Retr0gamer

The atari falcon was released. Only really popular in the music industry because of the midi ports. I think the jaguar is based on it?

CiDeRmAn

I used to watch an 80's computer show on the BBC, Micro Live.
Unfortunately it was largely based around the BBC computer, built by Acorn and was, all in all, a very dry show indeed.
This is also the programme in which one of the presenters, Ian McNaughton, declared there was no future in videogames!
But, back in '83, there was precious little choice for programmes on the subject, so it had to do!

And the hospital where I trained, back in 90-93, used BBC B computers exclusively with the clients there, using rather expensive pressure switches and toggles to control the machine.
After a couple of years, just before I was chucked out into the real world, they replaced the BBC B's with... Archimedes computers!
What a great choice, back in '93!
Better off with an Amiga or a PC, but an Acorn Archimedes!! What were they going to play? Virus?

penev10

I don't remember any of the games shows being any good. The novelty of Gamesmaster was immense at the time but none of the other shows really progressed the format.

I remember the Irish one, Gamezone. It was a competition based show. I remember being 16 and wanting to enter but it was only open to 15 and below!

Surprised no one mentioned Bits with Alex thingy who writes (badly) for the Guardian. Tried to be all "mature" with sexual references every 8 seconds making use of it's late night airtime.

Myrddin

penev10 wrote: »

The novelty of Gamesmaster was immense at the time

Is that not the important bit, at the time? I highly doubt they were aiming to write for & be remembered for the next 20 years...yet we do.

penev10

EnterNow wrote: »

Is that not the important bit, at the time? I highly doubt they were aiming to write for & be remembered for the next 20 years...yet we do.

The only reason we remember the games shows is because there were so few of them. The novelty with Gamesmaster was that it was the first of its kind and will therefore always be remembered. It's just a shame no one took that early games show format and really got it to work. If the format had developed and become as mainstream as the medium of Video Games is now then the early laughable attempts would've been forgotten years ago.

At the time I (and my peers) thought Bad Influence, Gamezone, Bits etc. were cringe-worthy and dreamed of a programme that would adequately cover our hobby in a professional and relevant way. Unfortunately that dream is still yet to be realised.

Myrddin

penev10 wrote: »

At the time I (and my peers) thought Bad Influence, Gamezone, Bits etc. were cringe-worthy and dreamed of a programme that would adequately cover our hobby in a professional and relevant way. Unfortunately that dream is still yet to be realised.

Well I suppose it depends on how old you were at the time, being a young gamer myself when the shows were airing, I couldn't have enjoyed them more. I don't really know how they were going to appeal to the target audience, & do it in a 'professional' way tbh, to kids, professional = boring.

CiDeRmAn

penev10 wrote: »

The only reason we remember the games shows is because there were so few of them. The novelty with Gamesmaster was that it was the first of its kind and will therefore always be remembered. It's just a shame no one took that early games show format and really got it to work. If the format had developed and become as mainstream as the medium of Video Games is now then the early laughable attempts would've been forgotten years ago.

At the time I (and my peers) thought Bad Influence, Gamezone, Bits etc. were cringe-worthy and dreamed of a programme that would adequately cover our hobby in a professional and relevant way. Unfortunately that dream is still yet to be realised.

Yeah, I'm with you brother.
I've been waiting for the perfect game related show and it has yet to be made, at least to coincide with my interest.
Since the rich man let us use his internet I find the tv medium being less and less relevant, preferring Zero Punctuation and the rest of the games sites out there to give me both summinck to read and videos to watch.
Why watch a "youf" 20 mins dedicated to the kind of sh1te that kidz buy, so lots of COD, Fifa and the like, not sure Under Defeat HD or Braid would make it.

Mr.Saturn

There is, or was, probably, a decent relatively modern game show, called Playr, buried deep in the recesses of the Sky Digital guide, that dedicated as much time to the under-the-radar titles like Enslaved, Majin and Mirror's Edge as they did to the FPS-du-jour, I vaguely recall, then split the second half of the show with Guru Larry's Retro Corner (the preferable guru in TV game-journalism, I imagine). It was on a station called Information/Showcase TV, I believe.

Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe is about as close as we've gotten to a proper, spiffed gaming show, but that was a one-off. He's doing Weekly-Wipe next year, which the brief included video games in its list of topics, but I imagine with him splitting the format between his News/Screenwipe stuff, we're only going to get more prominent titles covered.

CiDeRmAn

I remember coming across that one alright, seemed irregular though.
As said before, I check into the Escapist, Edge, QJ.net and whatever you guys link to, I don't seem to be short of any important news of current gaming.

Retr0gamer

Bring back consolevania.

Mr.Saturn

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I remember coming across that one alright, seemed irregular though.

My brother had one of those Sky+ thingies, so I just did a series link so there'd be a load of stuff for whenever I'd visit. I recall it was mostly a 4am thing, if you wanted to watch it on broadcast.

Cybernet was still going 'til 2010 too, I think, though condemned to a damp, squalid pocket of the digital schedule in its later years. I watched their 'Best of the 90s' show recently, and their first entry was an ill-informed account on the history of Street Fighter, so much so I figured my entire childhood to be an uncited, waffling mess.

penev10

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

As said before, I check into the Escapist, Edge, QJ.net and whatever you guys link to, I don't seem to be short of any important news of current gaming.

Extra Credits on Penny Arcade is worth a look too for a more developer-centric, theoretical based look at things.

CiDeRmAn

penev10 wrote: »

Extra Credits on Penny Arcade is worth a look too for a more developer-centric, theoretical based look at things.

Edge keeps the serious end of game creation in my purview.

Aside from consolevania they all seem to be either trailer compilations like Cybernet or aiming for the lowest (dumbest) common denominator, hence all the rest.

I give video game shows 1Gz!

kitakyushu

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Gamezville, is there any end to it's crimes.

1- Killed the english language with the insertion of extra z's at every opportunity.

2- Prezented by two glorified clothes hangerz who knew nothing about gamez.

3- Patronized a bunch of young, unwashed gamerz.

4- Introduced the worst most arbitrary game scoring system ever, the now infamous "G" scale..... the horror, THE HORROR!!!

5- Had that dumb moron in a hoodie reading from the cheat pages of C&VG, assuming the role of "Gamez Guru", why someone didn't put a rifle bullet in his irritating noggin is beyond me.

6- Had a bunch on minions, who actually knew what they were talking about, relegated to glorified "Nerd Herd" further alienating and partonising the target audience of the show.

In GameSville's defense I do recall it did have this gorgeous blonde games reviewer working on it. I think her name was Sarah or Susan or something? (began with S anyay). I think that was the only reason I ever stayed tuned anyway.

But yes, As a show tho it was no Gamesmaster. The two bruvvaz just oozed insincerity. By comparison Dominik Diamond appeared to make no real claim of being a gamer or fond of the pursuit and was just there to have a laugh and take the p out of Dave Perry. Classic show!

deathrider

Just watched an episode there on youtube featuring Comix Zone, Beavis & Butthead, and a sneak peek at Virtua Cop. Also, a who's-website-is-better between Oasis and Blur. Certainly a sign of the times there, lol. I never really watched Bad Infuence back in the day though, because my sister pretty much had control of the TV whenever she wanted. I remember throwing a world class hissy fit back in the day because the final ever episode of Gamesmaster was on, and she was watching Home & Away. Times were harder back then, I tells ya!