Meet the Reader: Colinbarr66

A long time member, and former staff dude, in the form of yet another Scot sadly not called Scott. If he was, then he’d be Scott the Scot, which I feel is possibly a missed opportunity. Instead, he’s called Colin.

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Hiya!

Is it text chat?

Yeah. Text chat. Transcribing audio is a total and utter pain in the bottom.

Aww, then you’re missing out on my Scottishness. I’ll make my text more Scottish by typing “Ah ya wee bastard” every now and again

Haha, do it! In fact, we could try and do the entire thing in a kind of written out Scottish accent.

We could, but no-one would understand it. I’m not that Scottish, anyway. About a 6/10, if I had to score it. Lets just keep to English.

Oh alright then. It’s the usual trio of questions to start. Who are you, how old are you and where do you come from?

I am Colin Barr, I’m 18 years old and come from Falkirk.

Now in Scots: Who aaare yeh? How auld aare yeh? Whur do yeh come from?!

Cawlin Barrrrrr, eighteen and fae Fa’kirk. Use the English one!

I can use both! Oh, great, another Scot! I’m only kidding, of course. I do always ask people where their TSA ID and PSN ID come from, and in your case, I reckon it’s a fairly simple tale, but how did you come up with your usernames?

I’m a fairly unimaginative person so I was stuck for a username when I signed up to PSN with my PSP, so I stuck my first and last name together and added my favourite/lucky number 6 at the end. Colinbarr6 sounded stupid so I added another, giving birth to the legendary name Colinbarr66. When I signed up to TSA I had the same problem so I decided to use that name everywhere.

I regret that decision now as it is possibly the worst username ever created, but I seem to be stuck with it.

Oh! You could get your real name changed by deed poll, to make your web IDs a lot more alternative. A kind of self referential twist on proceedings. If you had to change your name, what would you go for?

CM Punk, but I think someone has already taken that.

A quick google of CM Punk leads me onto a question that was bound to happen at some point… So… Wrestling?

Yes, wrestling. What do you want to know?

I honestly don’t know much of anything about it. Who’s your favourite wrestler of all time?

That would be The Rock. He was the main guy when I started watching and iss hilarious on the mic and excellent in the ring. At the time he was going up against Triple H and Vince McMahon’s Corporation which made him so easy to love. Now, isn’t this a games website?

Yes, but one last question on wrestling. Do you see WWF adverts about saving snow leopards and pandas and think of wrestling?

Yes I do, and I get angry. Because of those silly pandas the World Wrestling Federation had to change their name to World Wrestling Entertainment. WWF was a much better name than WWE.

I do too. Anyway. Games! When did you first get into gaming?

I’ve always played games. I’ve been told my Dad sat me on his knee while he played the Sega Megadrive when I was little. Both my parents and my grandparents had consoles so I was always playing games when I grew up.

So, after the successful indoctrination by your entire family, it seems, what was the first console and game you really started playing, and remember?

I never played a single console when I was growing up as I spent a lot of time at my grandparents. At home we had an Amiga so I would play that, then at my grandparents they had an Atari 2600 and then a Commodore and also bought me and my sister Gameboys while they were on holiday. So I don’t really remember what the first console I played was, as I grew up with a few. The first home console that was actually mines was the SNES, which I got as a Christmas present one year.

I loved playing that with my sister and games like Mario Kart and Super Mario really stick in my mind. I’d still be playing my SNES if I could just find the power cable.

That’s awesome. Are you still a fan of Nintendo’s games and consoles?

No, not really. I had a Gameboy Advance, but that was replaced by a PSP and bought a DS Lite earlier this year just for Pokémon. As I grew up I found myself liking more adult games like Metal Gear Solid and True Crime which Nintendo don’t really cater for.

I don’t really understand the massive amounts of love that Nintendo get, if I’m totally honest. The games that are released on their consoles today seem to be the same games that I played on the SNES when I was 7. They were great at the time, but they don’t appeal to me in the same way any more.

So you saw yourself jumping ship to the PlatyStation brand with the (I’m guessing) PS2? Has there been a place for Xboxes under your TV too?

It was the PS1 that got me. I got that for Christmas in ’99 or 2000, and I’ve stuck with Sony ever since. I still remember playing Road Rash 3D as my first game on the PS1 and I was hooked ever since. I then got the PS2, PSP and then eventually the PS3.

I was never really interested in getting the original Xbox as there was nothing on that console that I wanted. When the 360 came out it was the same story (I was a bit of a Sony fanboy back then). However games like Left 4 Dead and Forza caught my attention and earlier this year I bought a 360 Arcade from my friend Murdo. I played it for a bit, bought a few games and it hasn’t been plugged in since the start of Summer. Paying for online play is still a huge turn-off for me.

It’s quite a huge gaming lineage you have, so I’m curious what franchises have managed to stick out from the rest for you, across it all.

Metal Gear Solid is by far my favourite. I can only describe it as perfection. Something about that story clicked with me and I’ve loved every game in the series (I still haven’t played MGS3 though). Other favourites would be True Crime on the PS2, the yearly WWE games, Killzone and now Uncharted on PS3.

You skipped MGS3, but have played all the others? Including MGS4?

Yeah. I own MGS3, I bought it while shopping for a mother’s day present a few years ago (sorry Mum!) but I’ve never got round to playing it. MGS4 is my all time favourite game, there is absolutely nothing I would change about it. That game is the ultimate for me and the one that I compare every other game to. Nothing has matched up to, or come close to it yet.

How have you taken the Metal Gear Rising news from the VGA awards a few days ago?

I stopped watching the VGA’s before and Metal Gear stuff was shown, it was an awful show. What was the news? I’ve never been fond of the Rising concept since it was announced and I wish they would have just left the entire franchise after MGS4, or even Peace Walker.

Platinum, of Bayonetta and Vanquish fame, are now developing it. It’s set after MGS4 and has dropped the ‘Solid’ from the name, but added the frankly ridiculous merged up word “Revengeance”. It’s now Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

I liked Vanquish but that doesn’t make sense to me setting it after MGS4 and the initial “Cut” trailer looked pretty poor. If they were going to make a spin off with Raiden it makes more sense to me to set it in between MGS2 and MGS4 as there is an interesting story to be told then. If you’ve finished MGS4 and have read up a little on the backstory you might understand why I think that.

I assume they’re saving that kind of prequel material for the 3rd MGR. Well, we’ve pretty thoroughly covered your favourite game, but I like to always ask if there’s any absolute stinkers that you’re thoroughly embarrassed to have played? Perhaps something of a guilty pleasure for you?

From this generation I’d say that Terminator Salvation was pretty bad and GTAIV was incredibly boring, those are two I wish I’d never touched. When I was younger I used to enjoy the Dance Stage games on the PS1, those things were brilliant fun. I guess you could call those a guilty pleasure but I don’t feel bad about playing those at all, they were awesome!

I think it was Stephen Fry who once said something along the lines that you should never feel guilty about taking pleasure in something…

Exactly!

I’m not sure if that includes cannibalism, or that kind of thing, though.

Or watching TNA Impact Wrestling.

Is that really bad?

TNA is absolutely awful. Around 2005, it was excellent to watch as a WWE alternative. Now though…

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17 Comments

  1. Hey Colin!

  2. Nice to meet you dude. I knew that some point the words CM Punk would worm their way into the interview knowing how big a fan you are.

  3. God these meet the reader features make me feel old ;-)

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