Here at PC Gamer, we like to think that we strike a mature, yet still entertaining, balance between facts and fun in our game reviews, disseminating the essential truth to you, our readers, while still providing a useful and informative service of constructive criticism which software publishers will hopefully find useful. However, our efforts have been somewhat undermined of late by the actions of one of our own writers, whose negative and hectoring style has caused us no end of unpleasantness. We demanded that Stuart Campbell tell us whose side he was on.

PCG: Come off it, Stuart - what on earth are you trying to prove with these petulantly critical reviews of yours?

SC: I'm trying to prove that the games are crap. Obviously.

PCG: But in nearly every case, everybody else likes them. You're just trying to be controversial.

SC: I can't help it if everybody else is stupid.

PCG: Ah, right. Everyone's out of step except you, yes?

SC: Exactly. Look, everyone said Isaac Newton was wrong, but that didn't stop apples falling on their heads. Sometimes someone's just got to point out that the Emperor is naked.

PCG: And that's you, is it? Some kind of superhero, protecting the public from the evil software publishers? We can see it now - "Phew, and I'd nearly bought that copy of Primal Rage, too. Thank heavens you got here in time, Mighty Consumer Watchdog Boy!" It's just a big ego trip, isn't it?

SC: No it isn't. I'd much rather be an anonymous figure, lost in a gigantic mass of honest, reliable, uncorrupt reviewers. But if all the other ones are soft, or corrupt, or easily intimidated by threats of advertising withdrawal, or lining up a career as a producer, or just plain stupid, it's not my fault if I stand out a bit.

PCG: Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. You're not trying to protect game buyers at all, you're trying to build a name for yourself so that you can set up, for example, a game evaluation consultancy and sell your opinions to those same poor software companies for pots of cash. It's a bit like blackmail - employ my company to evaluate your games, or you might 'coincidentally' get bad reviews like these. You're not a reviewer, you're a gangster, running a protection racket.

SC: Rubbish. I've been in this industry for years, and always saying the same things - gameplay is important, everything else is secondary. My company is just trying to tell that to software houses, before it's too late to do anything about it. I'm trying to help them make better games, which is what everybody wants - magazines, shops, publishers AND gamesplayers.

PCG: But most people think the games you slag off are already good enough - we got a load of letters about Magic Carpet 2. You lost Bullfrog's phone poll on that by about 2 to 1, as well.

SC: Yeah, but nobody actually bought it, did they? It was in the charts one month and straight out the next. When it came to money-where-your-mouth-is-time, the game buyers agreed with me. Primal Rage stiffed as well, so did Alien Odyssey, and we'll see how Worms does after the hype dies down too. Right now it's dropping down the charts after only three weeks.

PCG: Okay then, but if you're so great and you're always right about everything all the time, how come nobody likes you?

SC: Eh?

PCG: How come nobody ever goes, "Ooh, that Stuart, he really knows his stuff, we'll listen to him"? How come they're actually always taking out adverts in Computer Trade Weekly to say how crap you are, or sending out lawsuits?

SC: Plenty of people like me! I've got lots of friends.

PCG: Name one.

SC: Er... L.. um... well, there's... no, not them...Oh dear.