Hello, and you're welcome to the first of my regular monthly deputisations for V Berlin, whose famously weak wrists are no longer up to the strenuous type-o-tasks demanded by weekly commitment.

Do you see?

I'll be fulfilling a sort of free-form shouting role on this page, so by way of illustration, here are the kinds of people I'll be swinging the rusty scythe of Justice at over the coming months, as I both pose and answer this question here: Who's Stupid?

WHO'S STUPID?

NO.1: Lazy PC programmers. As the obsolete-by date of PCs falls to six months after purchase, so blame falls on chip makers, for 'doing' faster CPUs all the time. BUT THIS IS STUPID. Most Pentuim-only games could easily run on a 486, if coded and optimised properly.

But while once coders had to improve their code if a game was slow/duff, now they just up the minimum specs, hugely speeding the obsolescence of YOUR PC, and costing YOU a fortune in upgrades.

THE USELESS, CRETINOUS MORONS.

MENSA REJECT

No.2: Retro backlashers. As remakes of vintage video games become ever more popular (especially in Japan, where they know what makes a truly great video game - CLUE: NOT FMV SEQUENCES), so a counter-culture has sprung up in a flash saying all old games are made of poo, and all new ones smell of nice fruit. BUT THIS IS STUPID.

Games are either good or bad - YOU KNOW THIS. Age? So what? THEY say: all new = good. I say: Criticom. THEY lose.

THE CLUELESS, DIM-WITTED BUFFOONS.

40-WATT BULB

No.3: Everyone who voted for Worms as Most Original Game at the ECTS Awards.

Maybe you like Worms. In which case, YOU ARE WRONG. But that's okay.

But Worms is, in fact, EXACTLY THE SAME GAME as Artillery Duel on the Coleco Vision in 1983, or a £1.99 Mastertronic Spectrum game from 1986, or any of 20 Amiga PD games with 'Tank' in their name. Except with power-ups in it.

It's about as "original" as FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS AND THEN CRYING.

SHARP AS A WHALE

No.4: All Americans. Everybody hates "interactive movies". But American software companies keep making them. "No, wait, this time it's got gameplay in it", they LIE. This, in itself, is ONLY A BIT STUPID.

But then stupid American game players, encouraged by stupid American games magazines, GO OUT AND BUY THEM. In their MILLIONS. Enabling Wing Commander 5 (say) to come out a year later, twice as expensive and TWICE AS RUBBISH.

THE DIM-WITTED, CHUMP-FACED IMBECILES.

SEBASTIAN COE

There. I've said it. But if you're wondering who I am to decide who's stupid and who isn't, know this:

I discovered video games when I won a Pong console nearly 20 years ago in A COMPETITION I DIDN'T ENTER held in A PLACE I NEVER VISITED. (True). Clearly, SOME HIGHER POWER intended that I should be sent here to deliver THE TRUTH. Mess with me and you're messing with A HIGHER POWER. Think about it.