Issue 098
February 2013
UFC welterweight striker Che Mills reveals his double decades as a game geek
Where did it all begin then, Che? What’s your first memory of video gaming?
“It was a good friend of mine actually who had a Commodore 64 when we were kids. That was the one with the keyboard and the tape deck, right?”
Yeah that’s the one.
“I remember playing a few games on that. That was my first experience of gaming but I think the first one I had myself was the Super Nintendo.”
Now you’re talking.
“Yeah the Super Nintendo was a great machine and I had a Sega Mega Drive as well which was good but I definitely played more on the Nintendo at the time. It just had a bigger selection of good titles.”
We’ve heard you quite like playing football games at the minute. Did you have the early FIFA games in the ‘90s?
“I’ve always been a big football fan and, you know what, I never actually played FIFA until fairly recently. I remember refusing to play it for years just thinking it’s not real, it’s just a computer game.
“I started playing in 2007, though, and I was terrible at it. Everyone had been playing it for years and I was getting to grips with it. I was pretty much awful for the whole of 2007. I’m better at it now though!”
That’s good to hear you’ve stuck at it. What are you playing it on these days?
“PS3 at the moment. It’s the first PlayStation that I’ve had. I’ve had an Xbox before but at the minute it’s a PlayStation 3 and I play a bit of Call of Duty and some FIFA mostly. I like first-person shooters and, now I’m better at them, I enjoy a good game of football.”
Do you venture online at all then? Do you get any banter from fans?
“I don’t get any to be honest with you but I’ve not taken a Gamer ID that makes it obvious who I am. It’s a lot less hassle that way!”
CHE MILLS QUICKFIRE
Sega or Nintendo?
Nintendo
PlayStation or Xbox?
Playstation
Sonic or Mario?
Mario
Three games on a desert island?
“Call of Duty, FIFA, Black Ops.”
Video Game History of MMA: Chronic Crossovers
Who can ever forget the UFC debut of James Toney? The former boxing world champion stuttered his way into the Octagon, bragging about his side check kicks on his way, before he ran into Randy Couture. Toney’s gold belt in grappling didn’t help him one bit though, as he was trounced faster than the new kid in the TapouT rash guard at BJJ.
It’s a pity that ‘Lights Out’ wasn’t familiar with the video gaming scene, however, as he could have avoided all of the unnecessary drama of his crossover debut with a quick game of Shaq-Fu.
The infamous Shaq-Fu starred ‘90s basketball star Shaquille O’Neill who stumbled into a kung fu dojo while heading to a charity basketball game in Tokyo. It’d be nice if this was as ridiculous as the game got, but the lanky O’Neill was quickly transported to another dimension where he had to rescue a young boy from an evil mummy.
Shaq-Fu was so ridiculed by the gaming community at the time that a website exists to this day (shaqfu.com if you’re curious) with the sole purpose of destroying every copy of the game on the face of the earth.
It may have been a colossal flop but it’s amazing to think that a basketball player fighting aliens in another dimension is still more logical than a 42-year-old boxer thinking he could stuff a Randy Couture takedown.
LAUZON’S BEST BITS
Geek and UFC 155lb contender Joe Lauzon shares morsels from his life in video games...
Lauzon on the brick wall learning curve
“Older games were way more difficult. There was a Silver Surfer game on the NES and it was the most impossible piece of crap game ever. It didn’t explain anything, the graphics were terrible and you didn’t know if you were collecting a power up or something that was going to kill you. It was tough as hell but it built character, all of those old games did.”
SEPARATED AT BIRTH
Wanderlei Silva & Baraka
There was arguably no more feared assassin in the heyday of Pride FC than ’The Axe Murderer’ himself, Wanderlei Silva. A decade previous, though, his video game doppelganger, Baraka, had been hacking and slashing his way through a similarly cataclysmic tournament and decimating all in his wake. The two share a common love of decapitating metallic weaponry and neither, it seems, gets paid for their craft by the hour.
