2018 in silly back page jokes

April 2018: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Phil: Me and Andy wrote this, but it's art editor John who did the business by designing an authentic-looking game box. This one is… pretty good? I've lost all sense of perspective. I remember it took a while for us to lock down the tone, because Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its historical accuracy (or not) had become a discourse. I think we just about managed to sidestep that by making jokes about horse shit.

Samuel: Ooh, this one is actually good. I laughed at 'horse shit everywhere', because I am a mature person.

Pip: I really like this one and am annoyed I can’t take any credit. I wonder if anyone read the small print and actually made the game?

May 2018: Kerbal Space Program

Phil: An Elon Musk joke delivered through the medium of Kerbal Space Program's mission creation tool. If we'd waited until the end of the year to do this one, the page would have been about three times as dense.

Samuel: I think it's a good job you published this when you did. It would be unbearable to read a late 2018 version of this. Not bad. 

Pip: We should do more flow charts! I love a flow chart. Especially one where I don’t need to make any choices whatsoever.

June 2018: Far Cry 5

Samuel: Ah, the fake magazine cover. A classic and easy format for All Overs, although the WC Gamer one we did about toilets a few years ago beats this, in my biased opinion. 

Phil: Listen, Roberts, just because you don't have to make these anymore doesn't mean I've forgotten that 2015's XCOM lightbulb back page happened on your watch. (That said the only thing that makes me laugh here is that there's an interview with a dog.) 

Samuel: That was a Chris Thursten joint. I was too busy working on a redesign and a bookazine at the same time to question if that was even a joke, Phil. Summer 2015 broke my brain. Now let us never mention the lightbulb again (Andy liked it).

Andy: I will defend Chris’s lightbulb gag to the death.

Pip: I think I like the lightbulb gag. I’m worried that means I don’t get it.

Phil: Pip, no!

Samuel Roberts
Former PC Gamer EIC Samuel has been writing about games since he was 18. He's a generalist, because life is surely about playing as many games as possible before you're put in the cold ground.