I suck at general knowledge, I suck at geography, I suck at history and politics but my brain will never fail to memorise video games. Recalling the history of Shaz’s gaming here’s a smeg of the Windows 95/98 stage. The part of my PC gaming followed many products of Microsoft Kids (usually led by the scary purple character, McZee), Dorling Kindersley, Magic School Bus and the like.

I suppose I did learn a few things from Microsoft Encarta 95 & the DK Childrens Encyclopedia but I ‘played’ more than ‘learned’. See although they cater the whole give the child a lollipop because they know what six times seven is, the bad thing about it was I became more attentive to collect awards than actually appreciating the education software itself. Hence today I have not really remembered anything that those games were meant to have taught me. Don’t phone me if you’re on Who Wants To Be A Millionare!

Now the software came free with our first PC, okay I say ‘our’ but it was more of my brothers machine. I was the annoying little sister that would stumble into the room and wrap around the Monitor like a starfish. At times I guess he’d be pretty hesitant to try pulling ‘tiny’ Shaz away from the computer when I’m at my all time high, ruling over Age of Empires.

A large chunk windows gaming may have shaped my teenage years. Microsoft 3D Movie Maker and the Simpsons Cartoon Studio enabled me to develop scripting, recording, animation and editing at a young age, perhaps this was the underlying influence to my interest in BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts. Recently I purchased ‘You’re in the Movies’ which has become another new excuse for me to behave silly in front of a camera.

The Ejay series opened creativity in the music field, I dug up my old album back from when my alternate name at 14 years old was Razmatazz Shaz (cute huh?). In fact I’ve done the pleasure to upload some tracks of oh-so-stunning hits here (cringes and cackles.) The inspirations of Ejay got me involved in using music production software e.g Fruity Loops & Cubase, studying music GCSE, self teaching the guitar, piano, singing and the experience of gigging with two bands. Nowadays I enjoy occasionally jamming on the guitar and heck I plead guilty to playing Lips or Singstar by myself.

So a portion of the past explains a bit of what makes me today. I believe that the Win95/98 games have somewhat led me to tune in with developing certain skills. Movie maker gaming led to performing arts and creative writing which here I am, writing on Ready Up. The music and singing? Well my dreams crumbled as I’ll never compare to Kirsten.

I now know what most of the population over the age of about 50 feel like. The world is moving on and they are just not. Somehow they have spent years accumulating things of good quality that work well and fit into their lives perfectly only to be bombarded by ‘better’ stuff by the media. Now I guess I do have a lot of up to date things and I am a bit young to say that technology is passing me by but there are some places where I seem to have come to stand still.

My DS is one of those places. Now that the DSi is fast approaching I haven’t got a chance of ever going out in public with my DS again. I could just about hold of the odd looks on the tube when I was only one model behind the rest of the world. But now I will be two behind, and soon who knows, I will be traveling around with another stone age piece of junk like my sad excuse of a mobile phone.

May I ask why in God’s name do we need to have a camera on everything that we own? Surely there must be people out there with four or five cameras in their hand bag without even knowing it. Do people make a conscious decision whether to have a picture on their iPod, camera, work mobile, or personal mobile. Are we now going to start pulling out DSis to snap our mates with? I guess I may be over reacting since it only has a 0.3 mega pixel camera, but it will let you draw all over the resulting picture, and that will surely be fun for at least six minutes.

Oh, another camera, just what we need.

I will not be buying one. My DS (fat and old style) works amazingly, as long as I am not out in direct sunlight, and I have no urge to slim down and fit in. If anything is adding to the crisis of anorexia it’s technology and I for one won’t be part of it. I say go fat and be happy. Save your hard earned cash to buy cream buns and boycott the evil progressive technology! Who’s with me?!? Oh no-one… *cough* Errr, ok I’ll just head back under the covers to play my DS in all it’s glory whilst listening to my almost polyphonic ring-tone on my super phone.

You know you’re jealous.

Once upon a time there lived a magical gaming pixie who loved nothing more than to challenge those who dwelt in the land of Forumania to great feats of skill and perserverance. The pixie herself was a formidable opponent, topping every leaderboard as far as the eye could see.

In the castle of “Chitchat Thread” lived a princess who learned of the pixie’s challenge from the royal court jester who had actually managed to best some of the pixie’s scores. Inspired by the lowly jester’s efforts the princess, fed up of waiting for her handsome prince to arrive, decided that she would venture out into the dangerous realm of Xbox LIVE to take on the pixie’s challenge. After days of gruelling torment, the princess finally clawed her way to the top of the Hexic HD leaderboard. So proud was she of her triumph she raced back to the castle and informed everyone there of her success.

The jester smiled and congratulated the princess, seemingly unperturbed by his defeat. But, unbeknown to the inhabitants of Forumania, something sinister was brewing inside the jester’s soul, something so evil that it would shake the land for all time.

A few days later, while the princess was amusing herself by shooting peasants in one of the castle’s three arenas shaped like halos she recieved a message of apology from the jester. She knew instantly what had happened and raced to the Hexic scoreboard only to find that the jester had summoned the power of not one, not three but six enchanted black pearls completely destroying her lead.

“Pooh!” “Bah!” exclaimed the princess and would have carried on exclaiming such things had it not been for the appearance of a dark knight. The bold and brave dark knight boastfully challenged the jester to a display of speed, a race to the very tip of the highest mountain in the kingdom, Mount Mumbo. The dark knight let it be known to all that he would “Bring the PAIN!”

For days the two dueled as the people looked on, anxiously awaiting any news. The dark knight was confident to say the least as he claimed victory time and time again until, suddenly, quite unexpectedly, the dark knight fell. “Get up!!!” the crowds roared but the dark knight could not go on, vanquished was he for the jester had achieved what had been believed by the dark knight to be unachievable, a time below 8 minutes, the true number of the beast – 7:55

As the jester laughed and mockingly played on his banjo the dark knight could not contain his fury, angrily warning the jester that the battle was far from over. The fighting escalated. The people caught up in the hysteria spilled out onto the streets, becoming some kind of “Street Fighters”. Distraught the Princess cried out to the King and Queen to stop the madness but they did not. The King used the strife for his own profit, using his forging knowledge to create powerful fighting sticks imbued with Dark Hadou and the Queen could not help as she was about to embark on a perilous journey through the vast wastelands of Forumania. No one cared anymore who fought who. Friends and strangers turned on each other, harnessing the powers of evil to wield the elements and perfect flamboyant acrobactic movements, each hoping for the glory and honour of victory.

The dark knight and the jester have yet to face each other again. Many will fall at the hands of the two foes but the day is approaching when their paths will cross. Only time will tell who will emerge unscathed from the experience and claim the title of “Ready Up Street Fighter Champion”.

Amidst the chaos, one may spot a familiar face. With a smile, small but cheeky, watching the events unfold. Under the wise tutilage of a Street Fighting guru the magic gaming pixie is honing her talents. It is rumoured that she may be the one, the one to defeat the jester, to silence the dark knight and restore order to the once peaceful land of Forumania.

Cards adapted from the works of the excellent Jessica Peffer