WWF is for girls. But anyway. That PS2, eh?

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Now, first things first. Let’s get it clear – the PS2 is the astoundingly-ugliest video games console ever created by the hand of man or beast. With its jumbo-cord-style front it looks like the CDTV’s uncool uncle.

But it’s not just the fact that the PS2 was obviously developed in conjunction with MFI (so that everybody who bought one would also have to buy a new cupboard for under the TV to hide it in) that’s worrying. What’s worrying is that the PS2 design is just part of a wider and much more sinister trend.

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And the more sinister trend that the PS2’s design is a part of is this:

The Return Of The Spods.

Y’see, for the last few years, video games have been pretty cool. (Or at the least, the coolest they’ve ever been.) Sony’s marketing of the PlayStation to the hip "lifestyle" market lifted gaming away from its anorak image and into the realms of "proper" culture.

(And invented the Casual Gamer, but let’s not go there again.)

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For most of the 90s, all the spods (you know who I mean – think the comic-shop guy in The Simpsons) were safely penned up in the PC ghetto along with their bad music and Tolkien books, while consoles were the preserve of the groovy young people with their bright clothes and funky dancing and stuff.

But lately, like a horrible disease that just won’t go away, the fat sweaty geek freaks have been forcing their hairy-palmed way back to the forefront.

You want proof with that? Can do.

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In fact, to demonstrate the resurgence of the Spods, all you have to do is take a look at the console charts.

The PC charts have always been stuffed full of Spod Games – footy management, flight sims, awful "fantasy" drivel featuring busty women with enormous swords and tiny leather bikinis called things like "Orc Master: Legend Of Xarpsthoth", you know the score.

(Handy, never-fails rule for spotting them, by the way - if there’s a colon in the title, it’s a Spod Game.)

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But now, Spod Games are taking over the console charts too. Right now, the much-hyped, TV-advertised, hiply-soundtracked Wipeout 3 is taking a beating in the PS listings. From what?

Fantasy toss like Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver, that’s what. And what else is selling big on consoles right now? Spod football (FA Manager). Spod horror (Shadowman). Spod racing (Formula 1, GT). Spod Goldeneye (Quake 2). And of course, Star Wars (Spod Central).

Um Jammer Lammy can’t come soon enough.

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And it’s not just the home front that the Spods are invading. Even arcades - once dark, seductive, neon-lit palaces of fear - are succumbing to Spod Games.

The biggest thing in coin-ops at the moment is Sega’s Ferrari F355, a "sim"-style racer that looks like an Amiga game from 1994 and is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most shatteringly dull (and spoddy) arcade game ever invented.

(It even prints you out a little paper driving-test slip after your go telling you how "neatly" you played. Ooh.)

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The PS2’s look appeals to the kind of insecure losers who sneer at consoles as being "for kids", people so scared of seeming "childish" (so why play games at all?) they’d rather buy Tomb Raider than Mario 64 because it doesn’t have the embarrassing bright colours.

The 1983 stylings of the machine will attract all the people who regard black brick-like electronic equipment as a stylish item of furniture in its own right, rather than a tool to do a job.