In the hot seat this week we have Kamokazi-UK. Not to be confused with KAMIKAZI-UK, who is a completely different person. That, or one of these is the evil doppelgänger of the other.
[drop2]We’ll start with the usual trio of questions: who are you, how old are you and where do you come from?
My name is Mark, I’m 34 and I’m from Hereford. Known for cider and chickens. Hereford, that is, and not me.
C’est Cidre? That’s totally going to date this interview, now.
Nope, proper cider. Scrumpy.
The stuff that’ll rot your guts?
Oh yeah. Only the good stuff.
The kind of stuff that smells a bit like ham?
Dunno about that one.
That is if you can still smell after you’ve sniffed it.
Namely stuff by Bulmers or Westerns. So Stongbow or Stowford press. That’s stuff from around my way.
Aaaah. Now, did all this cider have any relation to how you came up with your PSN and TSA ID?
Not really no. Back in the day when we had only 33.3 modems I couldn’t spell bery well. Played a lot of Doom and Q-Test (Quake Beta) at the time.
Well, you’re a spelling mistake away from another TSA member, Kamikaze-UK.
Well I’ve used that name for about 20 years, on and off, but due to a spelling error it kinda stuck.
Doom and Quake sound like you were quite heavily involved with some of the early days of modern PC gaming. How did you get to that point?
I’ve always been a bit of a computer nut, spending time with the PC’s at school. Started playing Lemmings and Space Quest at school after the end of the day, or one of the very, very early consoles at home. It was one of the ones that used replacement covers on the controllers, can’t remember what that was though, I just remember playing some sort of battle chess on it. That’s going back even further in time, back in the early 80s before the crash.
So PC gaming was your first real love?
Definitely. That’s all there was for me at the time. We didn’t have that much money at the time and things were expensive, but I did have an Amstrad at home in my primary school days to keep me occupied.
A kind of peace offering from your parents to keep you quiet?
Yeah… I still remember that Christmas…
I was promised a telescope.
So the Amstrad was a total disappointment, then?
At the time, yeah! Waiting 10 mins for that tape to load and paying £1.99 for a game that lasted months to finish.
Haha. Video games ruined the young career of a budding astrologist. That’s your Daily Mail article right there.
Well I’m sure my parallel universe me is making up for it.
Nah, he probably used the telescope to look at girls.
Well that’s what I would be doing as well!
Hahaha. Now, you’re most likely on TSA because you have a PS3. How did you decide to make the jump from PCs to consoles? What machines do you have these days?
Well I’ve kind of stuck with the old Amstrad until my mates started with the old Master System and the Atari 2600. I eventually picked up a 2nd hand SNES and moved through to the Nintendo camp until the I got a 2nd hand PlayStation. Then I kind of left out the 16bit home computer era and skipped to consoles, as I got frustrated with loading times.
My first actual purchase was the Pokémon branded N64.
I actually wanted that, I think.
Oh, I loved Pokémon back in the day. Still do, really. I’ve got the Game Boy Colour and the first six cartridges.
It’s alright. After the first title I didn’t like the larger world and even more ridiculous number of Pokémon to collect. So I packed it in quite quickly. Still feel they missed a trick not having the series have full titles on home consoles.
Very true. They did have Pokémon Colosseum on the Gamecube. That had a full-on RPG bit.
More of that, please, Nintendo. I’m infering that you had a series of Nintendo consoles, and presumably also the PS1, PS2, PS3 progression. Has Microsoft ever had a look in for you?
Well last year I did take the plunge and got a 360. Originally I said I wouldn’t touch one with a barge pole, but I had quite a bit of money on a Game store card and bought one for the exclusives. Got all the Halo and Gears of War games in one hit!
Was it worth it?
Yeah, me and a mate had fun going co-op on them, and he also has the PS3/360 combo. He came to the PS3 late, but now sticks to that thanks to me.
Haha. Converted!
Aye. Like me prefers the feel of the system for watching streamed video from the PC. The Xbox interface for watching DVDs and videos is terrible.
Have you kept up PC gaming of late, in addition? Or have you let that slide a bit.
Well, I do Minecraft and potter around on Steam, but apart from that its not really used for much gaming, no. Shame really, its got a kick ass gaming case to it.
Is it something you think you might get back into at some point?
Yeah, I need to get into this new tech. It’s still got an AGP graphics card, which was top of the line at the time.
Oh wow. Now that is old. Lets see… Nvidia 6600 or 7800 was pretty popular then, if I remember correctly!
7800 GS.
Check me out with my geeky knowledge!
Golden Sample according to the box.
That just means someone peed on it.
Yeah, a Japanese lady… She was on the box as well.
Haha. I think we’re all up to date on your gaming history, so now it’s time to look at your favourites. What’s your favourite title of all time?
Hmm. Tough one. Being an oldie.
I tell you what, I’ll let you pick 3. I’m nice like that.
Well, back in the Home Computer days it would have to be Treasure Island Dizzy, the first game I completed. The Nintendo Days would have to be The Secret of Mana on the SNES. Then for the PlayStaion era would have to be Final Fantasy VIII, the first one I finished! Put almost 150 hours into that one!
Not Final Fantasy VII?
I never finished FF7. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved it.
Just 8 holds a slightly more special place in your memories. That’s perfectly understandable.
I bought them all again for the PSP, too.
They’re like printing money these days.
element666
A good read! Nice to meet you :)
Kamokazi-UK
Cheers..
Deathbrin
Kudos for having an AGP card, i only switched from AGP last year. :)
Kamokazi-UK
I’m probably gonn be sticking with this rig for another year or so before upgrading…hell is still runs Portal 2 and Half-Life.
Deathbrin
Funny thing Half-Life is what i’m playing regardless. :)
Deathbrin
Also, editing an interviewee like that is mean.
teflon
Hmm?
Deathbrin
I meant Calls of Duty.
colmshan1990
Tef, I told you on Twitter yesterday- it’s “Call of Duty”s!
Call of Duty is the title, so it’s one word!
teflon
Calls of Duty sounds better, though. :P
Kamokazi-UK
Nope, that’s how it went actually.
Shakugan
Finally i get to know you! Nice to meet you Kamokazi-UK! PS: Xenozer
Kamokazi-UK
Ah…. one of my PSN Friends!
zb100
I’ll do my best to miss it, thank you!
zb100
That was a reply to the now disappeared spam btw.
To Kamo, nice to bump into another zimmer-jockey.
Kamokazi-UK
Kewl. 34 going on 18. Reliving my yoof now the tech can meet my expectations!
zb100
Still a young ‘un in my books! :)
KAMIKAZE-UK
Sorry, but this guy isn’t doing a very good job impersonating me – he cant even spell my name right.
I jest, it was a nice read and i also enjoy the odd knob gag (Bottom). You should definitely come along to a Monday night GT5 meet, it’s already confusing with Cam and myself, you’ll make even harder for us.
freezebug2
Haha, we used to have CarboyCam and Camdaz in the meets. So with two Kam’s and two Cam’s, it’d be a commentators nightmare! :P
teflon
Like commentating a Welsh Rugby match!
“Jones passes to Jones, tackled by Jones…” :P
freezebug2
Indeed, also not forgetting the Davies and Evans boys :P
Kamokazi-UK
Don’t have GT5 any more..i’m kinda crap with racing Sim’s more of a Ridge Racer fan.
freezebug2
These guys play with traction control and most other aids turned off, you’d swear that you were doing a Ridge Racer fastlap slide in some of those shuffle cars lol
aerobes
How rude. The Amstrad was, is and will always be a truly revolutionary and epic piece of gaming and computing history.
Well it was better than hitting rocks with sticks. On every other weekday. If it was raining. ;)
Kamokazi-UK
I wish I still had the CPC 464 i had that xmas, trouble was..the frequency that Channel 5 did use screwed it up. Now we’ve gone digital it probably would have worked
aerobes
That’s interesting. I had no idea it suffered from such an affliction. In truth, it was the machine which spawned my gaming interest and holds a special place in my heart. It lives in my parents attic now alongside boxes full of games on cassette and still works! :)