Meet the Reader: Baconsarnie

Our first interviewee of the year is the, still in the country, Baconsarnie. So, everyone wave like the Queen in his direction!

We start off the New Year with the same old trio of questions: Who are you? How old are you? Where do you come from?

I’m James Stevens, 26 and from sunny Southend-on-Sea!

Now, you have a rather delicious username on TSA and PSN, where did it come from?

It is awesome! Many moons ago when I was a young whippersnapper I was trying to think of what to have for my first email address. My nickname at school was Bacon because I apparently have bacon shaped ears. It just evolved from that and my love of bacon sarnies, so it seemed to fit perfectly.

I’ve used it for pretty much all my online IDs ever since!

Are we talking American style bacon (horrendous and streaky), or UK style (Ear shaped, I guess)?

Out of those two, I’m hoping the UK shaped bacon. I’ve never done a side by side comparison though!

Well, the US tends to get side bacon, which is long and streaky, whilst the UK knows what’s good and has back bacon. However, I’m sure the burning question many TSAgents are wondering right now is whether you’re talking white or brown bread?

White bread, although possibly somewhat controversial I think its much nice with the bread toasted rather than just buttered.

Interesting choice, definitely buttered? What about ketchup, brown sauce, even barbecue sauce? Are there onions in the mix?

Definitely buttered, I can never decide between ketchup and brown sauce, depends on my mood normally. Have never tried with BBQ sauce, think this needs exploring. Homemade Chilli Ketchup is also great with it.

I don’t think BBQ sauce would really work too well. Anyway, enough food talk, or we might need to take an early break in the interview! How did you first get into gaming?

I am getting pretty hungry!

Well we’d best move on before you try and eat your hands, like a Peperami!

My earliest gaming memory is when I was pretty young playing Bubble Bobble on the Atari ST and loving it.

From there, I had a MasterSystem and then went halves with my older brother on a PS1. A friend got me hooked on Goldeneye and Diddy Kong Racing so then I had to buy a N64, and since then just had a PS2 and a PS3.

I had spent ages saving up doing a paper-round to be able to afford my half with a few games and then it was a battle as to who would play it!

You have an older brother too? I only knew of your younger one…

Yes, there are three of us lurking in different parts of Essex!

Clearly I wasn’t paying attention when I interviewed Spoofer…

To be fair I try to not pay attention to him either!

Great minds, am I right? Was there much brotherly rivalry going on in the house?

Not too much really, there was the typical Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye battles with them and friends that were pretty close. My older brother was into the Final Fantasy series a lot but now he doesn’t really game much at all. Spoofer and I still have some battles on the PS3 though. I still maintain that I taught him everything he knows on Killzone 2, as well!

What, like how to be a total shotgun noob?

Yep! I was the one who introduced him to TSA as well so sorry about that.

We’ll be bringing you up on charges for that one. Crimes against TSA, or something. Who’s winning out of the two of you?

It varies on the games normally, he’s much better than me on F1 and Dirt but I have the edge on a few others. I kind of stopped playing KZ2 as much as he was getting into the game, otherwise we would have had some pretty close battles on there! We don’t actually play against each other online too much though, normally because when I buy a new games he comes round a steals it off me!

[I should probably explain at this point that both of us had Gran Turismo 5 B-Spec races going on… Hence the tangent!]

Oh wow, the other guy just came out of the pits right along side me on the last lap. Skidding all over the place.

He’s on fresh tyres?

Fresh, but cold, and also Hards which are pretty marginal in these conditions… Going to be an exceedingly close finish, this one. Haha, or not. The two chasing cars just drove straight into the gravel.

My guy just seems to refuse to slipstream the cars in front, it’s really infuriating. I’m in 2nd but struggling to catch a Zonda LM, took 5 seconds off him that lap though. 9 seconds behind with 3 laps to go!

Ah, you’ll be fine, I reckon. Just keep pushing the buttons.

Only 2.8 seconds now, should be OK.

I can take it that you’re a fan of racing games. Do you have a favourite genre? Or do you basically just play whatever takes your fancy?

I don’t really have a favourite genre, I play a mix mostly. It used to be mostly FPS games but now as long as the game is good I’ll normally play it. There are some I don’t really like though, never been interested in fighting games at all, for example.

Fighting games aren’t really my bag either. If you had to pick a favourite game of all time, what would it be?

Thats really tough! Can I choose one per system?

Oh, alright then.

My favourite series of games across all platforms is the Uncharted games, easily. But I love Goldeneye, C&C, and Gran Turismo as well.

If I had to choose one game it would probably be Uncharted 3, although that may be because I haven’t played 2 for a while and is not as fresh in my mind!

That’s an interesting choice. Many people feel (myself included) that Uncharted 2 came together that bit better. It’s still an utterly fantastic game, just didn’t feel as big a step up, and had a few rougher edges…

They are pretty much neck and neck for me, I probably need to go back and play 2 again after finishing 3 to decide for sure, though.

Every time I type or say ‘for sure’ reminds me of the F1 drivers, they seem to start every sentence with it!

I dislike that phrase a huge amount. Just say ‘certainly’ or something…

For sure it does get irritating after a while.

OK, please stop now.

Certainly.

Are there any truly awful games that you’ve played? Maybe even count them as guilty pleasures?

I did, I’m ashamed to say, play Terminator: Salvation. I did get Eat Lead from Lovefilm which was awful as well, only played a couple of levels and sent it back as it was almost unplayable!

To the Platinum?

I got the Platinum for Terminator, feel sorry for anyone who spent money on that game.