Meet the Reader: Heedbaw

Whilst hunting around for a reader to meet this week, a wild Heedbaw appeared! That’s quite a rare appearance these days, so I broke out my Master Ball, captured him and made him sit down for a bit of a chat.

[drop2]

Right, whenever you’re ready, we can crack on.

I’m good. Coffee and a fag in hand means I’m ready.

But how will you type?

Nose.

Pecking the keyboard like a chicken. Cunning.

Or one of those mad little pecky things, can’t remember their name.

Woodpecker? Alright, so we’ll kick things off with the usual trio of questions: Who the heck are you, how old are you and where on Earth do you come from?

I’m Alan at about 33 and I come from Cumbernauld. Another of the A.U.G, after R1MJAW.

The A.U.G? Is that the Awesome Unicycle Gang?

That’s almost better. The Abronhil Urban Guerrillas. Was what the gang was when I was younger and it sticks.

Getting rid of the gang tattoos is damned expensive. That’s before you even get started with the prison tats!

Nah, never went that far. Tattoos have never been something I was into, and no prison tats neither. Tankfully I’ve never been caught.

If you keep up this spelling, I’ll report you myself! “Tankfully”? Haha.

Indeed and have. I’m smoking and drinking. One handed typing sucks.

Unless that was the most awesome pun based of a certain escapade involving the theft of a tank and an attempted invasion of Disneyland Paris!

That wasn’t me. Though I did see that many years ago in the US. Guy stole the tank and went on a rampage. It was brilliant.

Ooh. That does sound pretty amazing! Disappointed you glossed over the little Spaced reference, but not everyone can be perfect.

Ah, you’ll find I might miss a few of those. My memory isn’t the best. Spaced was awesome, as well.

Spaced is very awesome! OK, you’re in my good books again, for now. How did you come up with that rather distinctive user ID of yours?

It’s something a mate of mine used to call me, and it stuck. A bit of a double edged sword, as a ‘heed’ the ‘baw’ is a bit of an idiot in Scotland, and also because I have a fat face and had a bit of a bowl cut at the time.

Aaaah, I never thought it’d be a jokey insult. I’m now hoping you’ll have one of those bowl cut photos for the top of this interview…

I’m a camera shy type, and struggled to find a photo. I do have a mop head one somewhere.

The sillier or more embarrassing the better, as far as I’m concerned! How did you first get into gaming?

I don’t remember when, exactly, but I have vague recollections of playing the original light gun games. You know the kind that had a projection of a picture on a wall and the occasional bird would fly across.

Duck Hunt? Or something in the arcades?

It was an arcade game, this would be sometime about 1981. The first console we had was an Atari 2600, which is still kicking about somewhere. The game I can remember playing pretty regularly for the first time was River Raid, and a bit of Vanguard.

I’m having to look these up as we go along. A bit before my time.

Ah, Vanguard was released as an SNK game on PSN not long ago, if memory serves correctly.

The retro stuff is very hip these days. Do you still break out the old gubbins every once in a while?

Occasionally. I’ve been playing the Gamecube a fair bit recently. Mostly Ikaruga and F-Zero GX. Still have my N64 too, a SNES, and a non-working NES.

I’ve always wanted to play Ikaruga at some point. It’s quite rare, though, isn’t it?

I’m not sure on that! Maybe the original Dreamcast version, but it’s available on XBOX Arcade.

I’ve got a Dreamcast and a Gamecube, just not the game, and I don’t have a 360, where it’s readily available!

Ah, I did have a 360 for a while. But it got the cold shoulder once the PS3 got a bit cheaper.

So you’ve got what looks like a full set of Nintendo, ditched a 360 for a PS3, but what comes between those? Did you also go through PS1, PS2 and Xbox?

I’ve never owned any of those but there’s always been one around. My brother had a PS1 and still does, and when it came to PS2 R1MJAW would regularly bring his around to play on. The PS1 was brilliant. At the time we had it on Happy Vision almost every night at my brother’s house.

I have no idea what Happy Vision is, but it sounds trippy.

Happy Vision was an old projector from a bingo hall my dad brought home one day. Was a massive bit of kit.

Still sounds very trippy.

Well, there was a fair bit of substance abuse going on around that time, somewhere in the 90s.

Haha, your seedy gang lifestyle past reemerges! I think we’ve roughly covered how you got from the beginning of your gaming to where we are now, but what is your favourite game of all time?

That’s a damn tough one to answer.

I have been known to let some people pick 3 games, or one from each generation…

Haha, do I get to pick one from each generation I’ve had?

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Just because it’s you…. no, but you can pick 3, if you like?

Hmm, I’ll say River Raid. I can remember many countless hours blasting through that. Then probably Super Mario World as it’s the dogs wotsits, no matter how old it gets. Finally Super Mario Kart, another game that had many, many great sessions with mates.

Probably see a slight Nintendo bias in there, but they have always produced some top notch games, just a pity the Wii ended up with tons of shovel-ware.

Yeah, but we’ll see how the WiiU does in this regard. Do newer games from PS2, PS3 etc. not stand up to snuff?

Not particularly that they don’t stand up compared to the older stuff. Think it’s more that I’ve got a lot more cynical as each generation has passed.

Haha, so with that in mind, I’m rather curious what the absolute worst, most embarrassing game you’ve played is? Maybe it’s something of a guilty pleasure?

Gods, I’ll have to rack the pits of my brain for that one, anything embarrassing will be well bricked up

We have to go deeper. Did I get that quote right?

Possibly? I’m definitely no good with quotes.

It was meant to be Inception. We’re doing this interview in a dream, so that it doesn’t take me as long.

Ah, shouldn’t we be in the dream within the dream within the dream so it finishes before we start?

Yeah, something like that. Oh wait, I’ve still got loads of questions to ask you! Starting with a repeat of what your most embarrassing game is?

Sweet! I’ll plump for CoD:MW. The only reason I got it was because I fell for the hype. Damn embarrassing that is.

Haha. that’s awful. How could you fall for it?

I’m a bit too gullible sometimes, and peer pressure doesn’t help. Was a couple of guys I worked with that were rinsing it and they enthused about how brilliant it was, so I thought I’d take the plunge.

What peer pressure are you planning to cave into this year? Blops 2? Medal of Honor: Warfighter?

I hope I’ve got over that, the only thing on my radar is Bioshock Infinite.

Just that? Well that’s fair enough. I’ve often thought there wasn’t much happening this year.

I think it comes back to the cynicism thing, seen it all before so nothing really piques my curiosity

You old cynic, you!