Bad Influence Vs Gamesmaster

During the early to mid 90s and unless you were a spoiled little rich bastard who only managed to get any friends because  of what you had rather than who you were. You only really had a choice of two TV shows about gaming to choose from.

They were in no particular order Gamesmaster and Bad Influence. Gamesmaster was a Channel 4 production hosted once a week by scottish twat Dominic o'Brian (later hosted by Dexter Fletcher) and co hosted by astronomer and xylophone player  Sir Patrick Moore as the Gamesmaster himself.

Bad Influence on the other hand was a CITV production that was co hosted by ex BBC broom cupboard childrens presenter Andy Crane' (some bitch you ain't never heard of) Violet Berlin and some tosspot called Nam Rood . Both shows for their time were enjoyable enough and had both news' reviews and gaming tips and cheats. Whereas Bad Influence focused on upcoming games and hardware as well as reviews of the latest games Gamesmaster held contests which would put the games playing public (usually kids) against each other for the chance to win the much coveted (for its time) golden joystick. At the time i preferred Bad Influence with its news and reviews that always kept things light hearted and informative as opposed to the sarky bastard remarks and thinly veiled innuendo and double entendre of dominic's presenting style. The best word of presenting advice to take away from both shows at the time however is to never let the kids themselves review the games (or indeed speak at all) the amount of gormless monotoned kids with their blank expressionless faces trying to think of something funny or witty to say on camera was cringeworthy  to say the least. looking back on both these shows (and i have) its plain to see that none of the kids on either show had the slightest fucking clue what they were going on about. At times it seemed (at least for Bad Influence) that neither did any of the presenters. Both Andy and Violet seemed to be reading what gaming experts wrote for them on cue cards. I later learned that dominic was an avid gamer himself and as i got older learned to appreciate his sarky bastard comments that were directed mainly at sad little fanboys like me.

The challengers in the Gamesmaster competitions really did take the whole thing way too seriously for them to come across with even the slightest shred of dignity upon losing or winning and were far to excited over what was essentially a shitty ten quid joystick that some low payed gimp sprayed gold and later in the series mounted  in a plexiglass shield to protect its shimmering magnificence from the harsh environment of a teenagers shitty bedroom.

From time to time Gamesmaster would have celebrity matches from the likes of John Fashanu or celebrity boxers would compete on punching games like Sonic Blastman completely humiliating self proclaimed arcade champions who considering were adults should really have known better than to come on a show specifically aimed at kids (tossers)

Looking back on both series i've gained a great deal more respect for Gamesmaster than i did as a kid (mainly due to actually getting dominics sarcasm) but still prefer Bad Influence even today not as much so as a kid but back then as i was unlikely to get the epic stiffy watching Patrick Moore or Domanic present as i was watching Violet  review games with her obvious dyke hairdo (if only there were dance mat games back then).

I rarely post links here but if you would like to see either Gamesmaster or Bad Influence then check out dynamiteheddy's channel on youtube. The guy has been systematically uploading every episode of both series as well as having episodes of Knightmare and the Crystal Maze.