Sunday is to realize that these are speeder races. No, no Podracing. You are not yet competent enough for this. You need to get your reps involved to be the best of the best on the slopes of the galaxy far, far away. You must beat Ary Quill, Griff Halloran, Soren Zaks, Katja Mox and the others. But it’s useless. Because you won’t beat a single little crocodile-shaped creature. YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT BIDDY BLAS. HE WILL PASS YOU BY IN A BLAZ OF GLORY, WELL YOU GOODBYE AS HE PASSES BY. HE IS THE GREATEST RUNNER WHOEVER LIVED. HE’S THE STAR WARS: GALACTIC RACER, AND THE STRENGTH SHINES FROM HIS BIDDY BACKGROUND.
Oh, you challenge him to a race? I prefer to be BIDDYLASTED INTO FORGIVION.
From the start, Biddy BIDDYLAST fought her way to first place aboard her trusty speeder bike. You go after him in your landspeeder. Your ramjet boost finally warms up as you zigzag around the looming rocks. You activate it. Immediately, a wall of text is thrown into your eyeballs. You say a name. Connor Makar. SO Eurogamer tinted blue a vision of a face worthy of a Smashmouth video.
Suddenly, there he was: a small man with bright red eyes and green hair, his belly sticking out from his stocky legs; a different type of hero. I rolled up my sleeves and started to get tricky: I made his jaw flat and angular, his mouth wide like a blobfish. I changed her hair to the most irregular option I could find and laughed at my ridiculous and beautiful creation.
The burst of speed propels you a little closer to Biddy as the road winds through a labyrinthine cave complex. Seeing he’s in range, but look for your ion bolt. He shoots, but the jolt of energy looking for a runner somehow misses as Biddy disappears at the edge of a jump. You realize too late that you are about to hit a mine he dropped. As it vibrates your craft, shards of words are thrown into your eyeballs. You make out the word Respec and realize that you have received some sort of Awareness on the current state of gaming media.
“With Respec, we’re lucky: we can take our time and slowly build this startup because its overhead is covered by the profit margins of a long-established company with a defensive budget.
“But what worries me is that a lot of talented people and institutional knowledge are lost among those who don’t have that option and need a new job tomorrow.”
You recover just in time to see Biddy emerge from the caves and head towards a series of narrow hairpins. By pinning your afterburner boost, you try to continue it. Luckily, he struggles on corner exits and your sharp drift soon has you breathing down his neck again. You will overshoot using the short boost offered by your surge ability. You and Biddy run side by side. He suddenly transforms into your ship, causing you to slide sideways towards a wall formed from the hull of a beached Star Destroyer. As you head towards doom, you see more words scrawled on the sanded sheet metal. We read Impossible to win. Next to it, there is something about the American Top 40 charts and monoculture.
Music is as fundamental a unifying force in the universe as gravity. In my mind, there was real value for music fans listening to something like the AT40. I understand that the music industry, like the whole world, is completely different now, but I suspect that even the music that artists make has changed because of the individualized way we relate to it now. As our society continues to move further apart, the lack of a collective way to experience pop music is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it seems significant when I drive at night and listen to the radio.
You recover before crashing into the ruined ship and catching up with Biddy. The finish line is in sight. You dig deep. Blas engages his ramjet. And you too. It’s a drag race to the finish line. As you press the boost harder and harder, you search for inspiration to push you forward the few inches you’ll need. You find it in a few words last week on the sudden death of Geordie wrestler Benjamin Satterley by Lewis Howse for Addicted to Worship.
I saw firsthand how seriously he took his craft after our match at the Neon Club in Jarrow in November 2008. It wasn’t a great match, as the crowd was smaller and less responsive, but it wasn’t a complete disaster or anything. Ben, however, was visibly upset about it afterwards, believing we had a better game in us. I remember at the time wondering why he cared so much, since he would be off to Japan or God knows where in no time, wrestling in front of thousands of people, on TV and pay-per-view.
But he cared. He cared a lot, because he knew how good he was and set certain standards for himself, no matter who he was plying his trade for on any given night. It was heartening to see that, about five months later, we played a significantly better match in front of a much larger and more enthusiastic crowd. He was thrilled with that one and I was thrilled that he was thrilled.
You beat Biddy by the nose. He shouts that you must cheat. Then he runs towards you and tries to snatch your helmet. He pulls away and is appalled by what lies beneath.
“What were you waiting for?” Biddy can’t believe it. Defeated by Jar Jar Binks.
He screams and grabs his head. You approach and snatch his bonce. Adrian Edmondson looks at you, disbelief still beaming in his eyes. “Now it’s a speeder race,” you tell him, as Duel of the Fates explosions in the background.
