The other day I walked past someone. Someone who, without any sense of hyperbole, is a true icon of modern civilisation. A cultural demi-god who challenged an entire generation. Challenged them to collect rings and coins in a limited amount of time. Yes, I walked past host of Gamesmaster, Dominik Diamond.
Lord - I loved Gamesmaster on TV.
When it first aired on Channel 4, the bawdy terrace rock of Oasis which made boys think they were somehow displaying emotion by caterwauling "WaunderWa-ee-aulll" in packs at thin girls drinking vodka's and coke at all parties was still 3 years away. The female TV show equivalent of Gamesmaster - Ally McBeal - was still even farther off on the horizon [history would tell eventually that TV producers would streamline all sense of the women having some sort of equal intellectual footing with men and do away with the structure of female career empowerment and independent sufficiency on Ally McBeal and call it Sex and the City instead].
Now grown fat on a diet of his own self-satisfaction, his red t-shirt emblazoned with the ATARI logo stretched round his mid-life gut, Dominik Diamond was once a fresh faced, 90's floppy hair styled, leader of men. And those men were boys. Boys who enjoyed sitting alone in bedrooms throughout the country, wildly jiggling their computer joystick and pressing seemingly random button configurations just to make a little blocky man animate a jump onto a mushroom with a face on.
Gamesmaster was the perfect programme for this group of marginalised computer gamers in playground's everywhere. It made gaming cool, exciting and a conversation topic. Suddenly all these bedroom bound loners found that maybe they could be loners, somehow, together. For a short time Dominik Diamond made the geeks believe they were inheriting the earth. Or at least let them feel less ashamed of their asthma and talk of computer diskettes.
Set on, if I can recall, a Gothic oil rig [already - brilliant] Dominik Diamond invited total non-entities of posh young teenage boys who were completely unremarkable to a fault to take up challenges on computer games in order to win the respect of their peers and lay claim to a "Golden Joystick" for completing the challenge successfully. And I was a comparable non-entity of a young teenage boy who may well have the same game that I could then also configure up for a similar challenge in my bedroom - and in this way validate myself to my peers.
The show also also featured geek-chic computer journalist blokes who would either be found wearing bandannas co-commentating on the challenge action with Dominik Diamond and getting excited about a collection of polygons gaining the invincibility token in a hidden chamber, or, reviewing the latest 5 tone graphic, slow frame-rate, poorly coded and executed game that these days you would probably struggle to find free in a cereal box, using a rating system that meant nothing and saying nonsense about like how it's "Smart. With a capital S."
Gamesmaster also had celebrity challenges where perhaps a sportsman would get to see that their lifetime of honing skills would soon be made redundant in this neo-world by playing as all the team on a computer monitor. Of course, the celebrity section also made it possible that a woman might be invited along. Women like Jet from Gladiators. [Wow - corking women playing video games. In a studio that must have been dripping off the ceiling in teenage male hormones. Jet must have been really wanting to win a Golden Joystick to put up with the smell alone, I would think]
What gave it the killer concept was that of Gamesmaster himself. Played by a seemingly perpetually bemused Patrick Moore and looking like a proto Borg, Gamesmaster would not only dish out the challenges but also condescendingly help out viewers who were "beamed in" to the virtual reality stage asking for hints and cheat modes on various platformers and shoot-'em ups.
"Gamesmaster" frail little jumper wearing, sickle-cell problem looking boys would say, "How do I defeat the boss character on level 4 of Jimmy Pockets 2?"
Gamesmaster would harrumph, "You can't get passed level 4? Oh well, if you must know, the boss character repeats his super flame punch 3 times and then rests for 2 seconds on his executive chair. Wait until he sits down and attack him. You won't have trouble after that. Until level 5. Now, be off with you!"
And I would think - like everyone else watching - on how I have that game, Jimmy Pockets 2, and that if I ever got to level 4 then that boss is toast.
All too soon, I got over my feelings for Gamesmaster. I think it was when Dominik Diamond was replaced by that overtly aggressive American bloke from Press Gang - who confusingly turned out to be a cockney. But that just was a push to an already falling man. In truth, I had already grown out of it and found the comfort of deep and meaningfulTM chats with girls... and the X-Files over on BBC2.
Of course, there is always the thought that someone of a certain vintage may revive the Gamesmaster show. They should not do this. Dominik Diamond should be preserved as the cheeky youthful presenter giving false hope to teenage boys that being good at arcade games can get you hot women models. Times have changed. Loner gamers in bedrooms have networked games these days and are connected to 100's of other gamers simultaneously. No one knows what a joystick is. Essentially, though, Gamesmaster should never be brought back because the games themselves have changed. It is one thing asking a child to free the frogs held by General Toad without losing a life and quite another thing having Sir Patrick Moore saying to a child: "Now for this challenge I am thinking we will see how you get on in Dead Beat 3. You must a kill a pimp by any means to hand and, after, have rough sex with his hooker all within the 2 minute time limit - extra points will be awarded if you drag her to a church first and pay her from the collection plate. Oh, and you might want to keep your car running - if the police catch you the challenge is over. Good luck!"
For Dominik Diamond and all those who thought we would rule the world with Atari and Amiga home computers and a copy of The New Zealand Story game as our weapons, I dedicate this to you all.
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