''When Games Attack'' is a British television show, that originally aired on
Bravo
Bravo(s) or The Bravo(s) may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Groups and labels
* Bravo (band), a Russian rock band
* Bravo (Spanish group), represented Spain at Eurovision 1984
* Bravo Music, an American concert band music publishing compa ...
from 2004 to 2005. The show is presented by
Dominik Diamond
Dominik Paul Diamond (born 31 December 1969) is a Scottish television, radio presenter and newspaper columnist. He is best known as the original presenter of Channel 4's video gaming programme ''GamesMaster'', as host of ''The Dominik Diamond B ...
and created by Jonny Ffinch with whom he had previously worked on
GamesMaster
''GamesMaster'' was a British television programme which originally aired on Channel 4 from 1992 to 1998. In 2021, it returned for a new series on YouTube and E4. It was the first UK television programme dedicated to video games.
Dominik Di ...
. Its focus was
video games
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
.
Stage
''When Games Attack'' was not based in a studio, instead, it was filmed in a different location for each episode with the locations usually dictating the sort of humour and jokes Diamond used in each 30 second link between segments.
Examples of locations:
* A Fruit & Veg stall (Dominik ends the episode claiming he will go home with "A banana for the wife")
* Outside
Celtic Football Club
The Celtic Football Club, commonly known as Celtic (), is a professional Association football, football club in Glasgow, Scotland. The team competes in the Scottish Premiership, the top division of Scottish football league system, Scottish ...
's stadium.
* Dominiks fishing trip (again, he makes a sexual innuendo saying something similar to "The times when you sit alone with a rod in your hand are the best moments of your life")
* A bus stop (In this episode, Dominik claims he laughs at tourists trying to figure out UK bus timetables, saying we all know they are as accurate as your average weapons dossier. This was during the claims about
Weapons of Mass Destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a Biological agent, biological, chemical weapon, chemical, Radiological weapon, radiological, nuclear weapon, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great dam ...
in
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
.)
*
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
(Dominik gets "arrested" for speeding but warns the officer he "Knows
Richard and Judy
Richard and Judy is a term used to refer to British television presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, who are married. They co-hosted the ITV programme '' This Morning'' from 1988 to 2001 and later presented the chat show ''Richard & ...
", minor British celebrities.)
* Council estate. (Dominik ends the episode telling the viewers he is going to hang around street corners looking "hard" until his mother calls him in for tea. This is poking fun at
Neds
Ned directly translates to “Non Educated Delinquent” but can mean “Hooligan”.
Show structure
Each 30-minute show featured several sections such as:
"I'm Famous, Give Me My Joypad!"
Eight Premiership and
Championship
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
Championship systems
Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
Title match system
In this sys ...
football players took part in a head-to-head tournament playing
Pro Evolution Soccer
''eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer'' (''eFootball PES''), known as in Japan, is a series of association football List of association football video games, simulation video games developed by Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. and published ...
. Alternately, it featured a dancing contest with five
glamour models
Glamour photography is a genre of photography in which the subjects are portrayed in attractive poses ranging from fully clothed to nude, and often erotic. Photographers use a combination of cosmetics, lighting and airbrushing techniques to prod ...
. The girl would usually wear clothing that was not suitable to dance in and compete at
Dance Dance Revolution
(''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance ...
or DDR for short. Before and after the girls danced, Dominik would often flirt with them, only to be shot down every time.
Behind the Game
A history of certain games ranging from
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...
to ''
Grand Theft Auto
''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is an action-adventure video game series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is prima ...
''. Viewers would be told the story of how the game was created, where the ideas came from and what impact it had on the world as footage of the game played with small facts scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
Head to Head
This section starred Dominik and two mute teddy bear puppets: a rusty-coloured one with a cream-coloured face and ears called Cugly and a white one with pink ears and paws called Queeny. For comedy purposes, Diamond and the two bears would appear to have been caught in the act of something (often illegal) such as a seedy chat line and selling uranium on the black market.
Each puppet would pick one of two video games that were similar such as ''
Tekken
is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting games developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (formerly Namco). The franchise also includes film and print adaptations.
The main games in the series follow the events ...
'' vs. ''
Virtua Fighter
is a series of fighting games created by Sega AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original ''Virtua Fighter (video game), Virtua Fighter'' was released in December 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential ...
'' or ''Grand Theft Auto'' vs. '' True Crime: Streets of LA''. Dominik would then rate each game on graphics, gameplay and so forth with the losing puppet doing a "forfeit" which was usually either bizarre or very violent. The segment closed with a corny joke, such as after losing, Cugly is stuffed into a washing machine as Dominik exclaims "Don't worry, Cugly! It's all good clean fun!"
On Location
Dominik travels to locations around the United Kingdom and America ostensibly to review events such as the San Diego Comicon, however these sections would more often present a thinly-veiled excuse for him to make fun of the people and places he visited.
When Flack Attacks
Caroline Flack
Caroline Louise Flack (9 November 1979 – 15 February 2020) was an English television presenter and actress. Flack grew up in Norfolk and took an interest in dancing and theatre while at school. She began her professional career as an actress, ...
hosts a brief segment in which she travels around Japan looking at weird, wonderful and bizarre things such as giant robots, cosplay and how an anime is made. Frequently Flack makes note of how different eastern culture is from western culture. When she attended a cosplay convention, as grown men queued to take photographs of a presumably young girl in costume, Caroline pointed out that had they been in Britain they all would be arrested by now.
Bunch of Five
A chart that runs throughout the show. Often unique topics such as "The 5 worst abuses of women in videogame", "The 5 most disappointing endings", or "The 5 best videogame deaths".