GamesMaster To Reboot On E4 Later This Year

I thought I'd seen some breaking news when Nintendo Life published an article about it earlier today, but apparently I haven't - Channel 4 announced it themselves a week ago.

I loved the arse off GamesMaster back in the day, going back twenty-three years ago when computer games still felt like an underground subculture and when it seemed like it was only the monthly magazines that were covering it. I'm unsure what GamesMaster will offer folk nowadays though, especially when there's so much gaming coverage and when literally every dick has their own gaming YouTube show. Still, I'm interested to see where this GamesMaster reboot goes.

Wonder who the new GamesMaster will be...?

I want to be good, but I feel it be hey we got these celebs, and it's Lee from Steps VS. footballer Jack Wilshere at Madden NFL 22 this week.

Aye, that's my fear as well, Mas. There's been attempts at capturing the magic of GamesMaster in the past and they've mostly been shite - anyone remember Gamezville? - which means I'm not exactly optimistic for this reboot.

Still, I'll give it a shot. I know the likes of Charlie Brooker and Dara O'Briain are into their video games, but I think there was something about having a man who probably couldn't have given a toss about video games like Patrick Moore as the mighty GamesMaster that really worked, so I wonder who they could have fill his shoes.

I never watched much Gamesmaster, but I'll check this out.

I thought it had been announced ages ago, but I guess those were just rumours.

My shouts for new GM:
Patrick Stewart.
Roy Keene.
Ben Kingsley.
Gordon Brown.

As a Channel 4 production you’d have to assume that all the guests will be riddies from Hollyoaks and First Dates, the GamesMaster will be the oldest person possible from Gogglebox and the host will be that walloper who put the whisk in his mouth on Come Dine With Me.

Digitiser: The Show was what I hope this new GamesMaster reboot becomes:

Wow, that Digitiser show had me rolling! Had no idea it was still a thing. Mr Biffo's random rants and them acerbic responses to letters/emails were a part of my morning ritual, checking Teletext every morning before school to read their reviews and there were some good music pages too. I want to say Mr Biffo still writes for Retro Gamer.

I enjoyed the Bad Influence watchalongs that Scullion did last year, and I'm sure I watched Gamesmaster at the time but have no real emotional connection to it. The whole format of watching children play videogames does nothing for me - it's why Gamezville was a pile of tosh (awful presenters aside).

Doesn't Channel 4 have Taskmaster now? Greg Davies makes sense as a Gamesmaster surely.

It’s still very much a thing, and Digitiser are about to launch a Kickstarter for a second series of that show. It’s a really strange one: Mr. Biffo has made it really clear loads of times that he doesn’t want to just talk about computer games, but at the same time he’s obviously misreading what his audience want from him. They’ve been putting out non-gaming videos every week on YouTube but it’s been to diminishing returns, and they’re overall very missable. Since Digitiser made it’s full return a few years back, that six-episode videogame-focused series is by far the best thing they’ve done.

I had no past with Bad Influence, I didn’t know it was a thing until years after it finished. I vaguely remember Games World on Sky One, that was quite good fun. Everything else that’s followed it (VideoGaiden, Dara Goes 8-Bit, etc) has really failed to capture my imagination and hold my attention for more than one or two episodes. Gamezville was honking though.

I think the choice of presenters is going to be really important. Pick the wrong folk, and this GamesMaster reboot could very feasibly go the way of Bullseye when they got Jerry St. Clair from Phoenix Nights to present it.

I enjoyed Video Game Nation on Challenge when that was on - most of those are on Youtube now. There was a period in the N64 era where shows like Games Republic (with Trevor and Simon) and Game Over didn't know whether to be laddish, child-friendly or somewhere in-between. The humour they shoehorned in was rarely worth it either but you got to see early Charlie Brooker and Matt Berry. I liked Game Over when Matt Cuttle took over - then they threw him in to Gamezville Then there was that period where Matt and Violet Berlin would have shows throughout the 2000s (GamePad, GameSpot, G@mers - anything with game in basically) and stuff like Gamer.tv, Playr and Cybernet were regular things I'd cycle through Sky for. There are bits and pieces online but it's a shame most of this period is lost to time.

Some dated attempts at humour in this, but I liked seeing Twelve Tales in there.

...this is going to be very embarrassing, guys. The original was very try-hard-y after a short while. Or: it's not going to be for us grown-ups, and we'll have to accept it.
I really wished they hadn't promised it to "retain the spirit of the original" or whatever the quote was. Channel 4 have done a good job of being the "good guys" of mainstream TV, and it feels like this should be something else.


Unless

gjones wrote:

Greg Davies makes sense as a Gamesmaster surely.

That though

Greg Davies is a great shout.

.....and now I have to post this absolute belter of a stand up routine.

Haha, that was pretty good! I should have seen the end coming but it was great

Ah man, Greg Davis just does nothing for me, but I really can't stand We are Klang I like Taskmaster in spite of him, although he isn't so bad on that because he does the disappointed teacher gimmick fairly well.

Muss wrote:

Ah man, Greg Davis just does nothing for me, but I really can't stand We are Klang I like Taskmaster in spite of him, although he isn't so bad on that because he does the disappointed teacher gimmick fairly well.

I'm the opposite, I enjoy his panel show and sitcom stuff but just never found Taskmaster funny. The great thing about comedy is that it's subjective and different strokes for different folks. Except Mrs Brown's Boys which should be outlawed.

I mean Taskmaster is much more of an Alex Horne thing than a Greg Davies thing I would say, so both of the above opinions make sense to me, though I enjoy both, so it's a big win.

gjones wrote:

Except Mrs Brown's Boys which should be outlawed.

This is the take [/quote]

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/channel_4s_gamesmaster_reboot_has_found_its_presenter

Now that is a great fucking start as Rab Florence knows his video game stuff and is genuinely funny.

Muss wrote:

gjones wrote:

Except Mrs Brown's Boys which should be outlawed.

This is the take

[/quote]

In a world where The Catherine Tate show was allowed to run for three series, Mrs. Browns Boys gets a pass. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules (I do make the rules).

The_Jaster wrote:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/09/channel_4s_gamesmaster_reboot_has_found_its_presenter

Now that is a great fucking start as Rab Florence knows his video game stuff and is genuinely funny.

Rab Florence as the new Dominik Diamond is fair enough. In among dozens of dreadworthy options, I think he’ll be a good fit.

He’s supposedly the lead creative director for the reboot as well, which I’ve got mixed feelings about. I feel that the shows where he’s been heavily involved as a writer and/or producer tend to have a style that just launches everything at the wall in the hope that something funny sticks. Jaster is right, Rab Florence can be genuinely funny…but you’ve got to admit, his latest BBC Scotland sitcom looks about as appealing as a jobby piece.

With there being just three sixty-minute episodes that they're promising a lot mixed into, I can see this new Gamemaster being pretty hard going.

I'm not super familiar with Rab, but the little bit of his games stuff that I've seen has generally been alright. I'm definitely more up for giving this a go than if it was, say, a Dara O'brien.

I don’t know what freshness Dara O’Briain could have brought to something like Gamesmaster. He’s been tried as the host for so many things now – as well as being synonymous with Mock The Week, I’m remembering The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, Robot Wars and Blockbusters off the top of my head. You really know what you’re getting with Dara O’Briain (or Alex Horne, or any of that same loop of fifteen-ish UK-based comedians who seem like they’re on everything).

Rab Florence is well-known in Scotland, but I think other audiences will find him pretty unique and enthusiastic at the very least. Whether his style of humour always translates outside of Scotland and hits it’s landing will remain to be seen, but I agree, folk should be more up for giving his a go with someone like him as the lead presenter. This probably isn’t just another paid job for Rab Florence, he’ll definitely want to make a success of this and he’ll definitely put the effort in.

If this Gamesmaster reboot flops, at least there’s a second series of Digitiser: The Show to look forward to. That Kickstarter achieved it’s goal a couple of hours after it went live, and it’s more than doubled its funding target since.

Yeah I agree, Rab Florence is a good choice for this, not least because I like any Scottish person's take on gaming because I grew up playing games in Scotland innit. (That's why I value Cappa, Jay, and Jas's views more than anybody else's.)

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I don’t know what freshness Dara O’Briain could have brought to something like Gamesmaster. He’s been tried as the host for so many things now – as well as being synonymous with Mock The Week, I’m remembering The Apprentice: You’re Fired!, Robot Wars and Blockbusters off the top of my head. You really know what you’re getting with Dara O’Briain.

Aye, I think for an untested property he's a great host, but for something like GamesMaster where capturing some of that feel of the original show to some degree is important, I'm not sure if it'd work as well. I checked out the first series of the Robot Wars reboot and whilst it was perfectly fine, it definitely felt somewhat sterile compared to how Craig Charles presented it back in the original run.

Why am I Rafael Scheidt though?

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Rum wrote:

(That's why I value Cappa, Jay, and Jas's views more than anybody else's.)

Deserves to be framed, that.