The idea for this blog formed in my mind as I watched a towering, bald, Irish man re-creating Solid Snake. That man was Dara O’Briain, comedian and fellow gamer. He ranted and ran around stage, explaining how he kept toggling between maps, mission briefs and feeding Snake rations, all the time making FOXHOUND wonder why this was their top man!
Celebrities are people just like you and I, only with more money and less privacy. Like us mere mortals, celebrities do play computer games in their spare time to get away from the glitz and glamour. They also feature in computer games, be it in voice and/or pixel form. Actors like Nathan Fillion and the male cast of Firefly gave us Halo ODST, Simon Pegg, Stephen Fry and John Cleese helped out with Fable 3 and Hollywood A-listers Gary Oldman and Ed Harris voice act in the recently released Black Ops. I guess we can also count the Rock Band games, The Beatles and Green Day. They still feature celebs, musicians in this case and we are given the opportunity to take on their roles. Even Dara himself admitted to owning Rock Band in order to play as the Beastie Boys, but wasn’t too happy that he had to play through 83 different songs before he got his moment as a fellow Beastie Boy. I love listening to celebrities talking about their gaming experiences, from Patrick Stewart enjoying Brain Training on the DS, to Jodie Foster playing Guitar Hero with her family! Even Daniel Craig has admitted to being addicted to video games.
But also there are the celebrities who release their own games to the public. Yes, Im talking about the dreaded money hungry celeb whom probably hasn’t really played a computer game in their life. The Imagine game series that was helped along by Holly Willoughby and annoying sidekick Fearne Cotton is a good example. They helped push the mind numbing games onto girls aged 10 and up by making babysitting and teaching look so much fun when it’s with your best friend… pass the puke bucket please. And now Mel B, formerly known as “Scary Spice” thought she would jump onto the bandwagon and is planning to release a fitness game known as “Get Fit with Mel B” specially for the Wii. I wonder if any of her “hits” will be featured in game to sweat it out to? Let’s face it, it can’t be worse than Britney Spears’ PlayStation 2 disaster, “Britney’s Dance Beat”. Can it? I for one don’t want to find out! From movies and magazines, music to TV shows, celebrities are everywhere. It appears the gaming industry has become the new and more exciting port of call for them and their talents. Games seem to need at least one star in their casting list in order to help push the game and get people to sit up and take notice. I myself don’t mind celebs appearing in the gaming industry, to them it’s another job. To me, it can make the game more fun and maybe more exciting. Or just a complete waste of time. I’ll let you be the judge. And all I can say is… “I’M A COMPUTER GAMER! GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
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