When celebs try to game

Leona Lewes: The facade of gaming continues, or rather not in Leonas case, as having one of her numbers crowbarred into Final Fantasy XIII, the SquareEnix/Leona PR dullards decided that it would be a good idea to stick her down in front of the game to highlight just how little she knows what she’s doing.

Foregoing the fact that the gameplay segment (the open world of Cocoon) they get her to ply her hand at is not even reachable until around 30 hours into the game, Leona doesn’t really fill the enemies roaming the land with any sense of menace. Haplessly having Lightning meander around with no concept of objective, Leona states, ‘I could run around all day!’. Yes. Yes you could. But that’s not the point of the game. And if you’d invested the heavy price of enduring Final Fantasy XIII for the required hours to get this far, I doubt the first thing on your mind would be to aimlessly run across the landscape for the rest of the day. Still, at least she didn’t attempt to mask the fact she didn’t know what she was doing, and is still a more convincing gamer than Andy Crane when presenting Bad Influence.

Mila Kunis: Now I don’t really know or care who Mila Kunis is, but I am aware that she is an actress whose name gets bandied about more than the average and she is apparently attractive. Hmm. I’d still prefer Teri Hatcher. And that’s Teri Hatcher 2014 too. But anyhoo, allegedly the aforementioned Ms Kunis is something of a dab hand at World of Warcraft.

Apparently this is her. Better not be laughing at us, that’s all I can say. Smile all you like Kunis. If you read The Grigs criminal record you’d be running, not smiling. Getting off topic again… back to WoW. Now while not being my cup of tea in any regard whatsoever, I am certainly aware of the frenzied and dedicated following this game has. I once worked with a chap who was very, VERY into this game, and he was certainly a… character. In fact, he’s the only person on earth with whom you could have the conversation about ‘if you were a superhero, what power would you have?’, and literally have it destroyed as he equates the powers to WoW stats and levels of magic, intricately going into how each ability would be used and at what cost to your MP. Sufficed to say, it was not a subject I dared venture again, along with any other topic of conversation. Could Kunis really be gaming alongside gentlemen of this nature? Quizzed while appearing on Jonathan Ross, also an alleged WoW player himself, there seemed at least a flicker of acknowledgement and understanding when quizzed about the game. We’ll believe you for now Kunis, but the Grig will be watching you.

Jessica Alba: Now I don’t know if she’s just playing the ‘i’m a gamer’ card to try and get her face on the Grig, and frankly, I can’t be bothered to look up whether she’s made claims to this effect either, but this shot has something very ‘Andy Crane’ about it. Yes, him again. The epitome of a gaming fraud. Remember? When he used to writhe and contort in a frenzy of blurred buffoonery whilst holding a pad pretending to play a video game on that skid mark of a show, Bad Influence? This has the distinct hallmarks of such a ruse.

The exaggerated lean, the feigned look of concentration, and the lack of proper finger placement with the left index finger lazy hanging away from the shoulder button. It all screams fake. Course it is the a-typical pose for any novice racing game player. One can only dream she’s hanging a perfect power slide round the final corner of Dinosaur Canyon before thundering over the line to glory. Not that Daytona is on the PS2 mind you. Still, she’s a mighty fine specimen.

Carmen Electra: Former Grig favorite, Electra was certainly a desirable lass back in the 90’s. Somehow still adorning the covers of magazines, Carmens years must be pushing close to triple figures, her well positioned locks in our picture no doubt concealing well etched crows feet. But careth not do we here at Grig! For check out her gaming prowess! She has made a Mii that definitely wasn’t done by the photographer and handed to her just prior to this shot being taken! To be honest, it bears enough of a dissimilarity to her to be her own work, but still, this isn’t really gaming. And unless she later fired up Super SFIV blitzing the online community with several Ultra finishes and double perfects before a Street Fighting showdown with undoubted gaming heavy weight Erika Eleniak, we’d have to reason there’s work to be done. More effort needed Electra.

Megan Fox: Apparently, the Transformer actress, before being mercifully culled from being part of inflicting any more atrocious Michael Bay robots-not-so-in-disguise films on the world, is (or was) an avid Halo: Reach player. Blurting about how the unkempt ruffians of the Halo-playing community found it particularly amusing that the person handing out lashings of kickings upon them was in fact a girl, Fox likes to talk herself up in the realm of ‘lo. And handing out a clue to her online identity, she also reports she has an amusing gamertag, which apparently everyone online also finds funny. Seriously, the Halo community should get themselves a pack of Christmas crackers with the things they laugh at. The jokes found within would keep them going for years. Anyway, whoever finds out said tag wins ten Grig points. And that’s currency worth more than all the money of the world put together. Probably.

Snapped here playing some iteration of a guitar hero-esque game which almost amounts to non-gaming. Still, the only picture evidence we have. Speaking of which…

Katy Perry: Whilst no claims of gamery have ever notably been uttered by the lips of Perry, we chanced upon… this. Wiimote in hand, the big K-Dog appears to be promoting some music based shovel-ware crap that once gestated on Nintendo’s über popular exercise machine. Looking slightly deranged as she tries her hand at said game, she at least seems to have made some effort to dress for the occasion, cosplaying as what I can only describe as a sectioned Princess Peach. I dare venture a guess that one of her musical-misdemeanours doth grace the soundtrack lest she would undoubtedly fail to be attending such a gathering of the great unwashed. Although maybe the shackles of shame she was potentially enduring at the time with her foolhardy tethering to comedy’s version of a more insane Grigori Rasputin, Russell Brand, made such an occasion seem infinitely preferable.

Selena Gomez: Another of the next-gen women that I neither know about or have any desire to find out about. Although i do recall seeing a music video of her once. It sucked. But what she lacks in relevance to the Griggish Empire, she more than makes up for in retro street cred as she is playing none other than a Daytona USA coin-op.

Closer inspection undermines her somewhat, what with her appearing to be playing the role of backseat driver to the little girl on her lap. I’m guessing that her heated and narked expression is not related to explaining the intricacies and precise timing of the boost-start. Chances are she’s being confused by the flashing lights prompting the pair to choose their view, the colourful buttons flashing on screen possibly leading her to wonder if she’s having some kind of close encounter of the third kind. The truth is out there… and in this case, the Grig smells buh of the highest order. Still, we gotta give credit where credits due. Daytona is awesome.

Tiffany Thiessen: Or, the artist formerly known as Tiffany Amber Thiessen. We finish on a high with the early 90’s dream girl above all others. Except maybe Teri Hatcher, but she doesn’t appear to game in any capacity. Super-buh! Here, Tiffany is snapped DS in hand, a tell tale tether securing the units safety clearly visible incase the Tiff-meister tries to make off with it, thus suggesting Thiessens possible turn to a life of crime in her later years. Still, she is lovely. Age doesn’t seem to have weathered her yet beyond the point of hotness. She’s like your friends lovely Mum. Or something. Her concentration and involvement in the first shot is highly commendable. Potentially, and highly probably, ripping Ganondorf several new ring pieces as we watch.

Here you can see straight through the veil of a falsified smile where she is clearly aggrieved at the photographers nerve of disturbing her mid-game. You can already tell by the look in her eye she’s plotting a mass rep-negging to the swines Xbox Live profile the second she gets home, make no mistake about it. Ah, lovely Tiffany Amber Thiessen. She’s just… very nice, and more than welcome at Grig Towers any day, especially now the restraining order has long since expired. Please? PLEASE!!!!!!!

So there you have it. Not much to get our teeth into, but we will endeavour to soldier on and believe that one day soon, Yasmine Bleeth will return from her public exile to clean up in the Ultra SFIV category at Evo and give gamers all over the world hope.

And just to ensure that we don’t get tarred by the sexist brush…

Here we see Tupac Shakur having a punt at Sonic 2 multiplayer. I don’t know much about rap influenced turf wars and gang warfare, but if it’s anything like the early conflicts between Sega and Nintendo fanboys, Tupac was a brave man nailing his colours to the mast. Apparently a rogue faction of extremist SNES supporters were initially implicated in his demise, until their Mums all confirmed they were home playing Mario Kart on that particular evening.

Dr Dre, Snoop Dog, and… some other people. Clearly playing a round of winner stays on on Alpha 3. Dre looks a bit annoyed. Probably wishes he had imported the arcade perfect Saturn version rather than the terminally hampered crock that was the PS1 conversion. Either that or Snoops been handing him his ayne all night, barely giving him a sniff of the game. Snoop Hoggy Hog Dre calls him. Don’t worry Dre. On top of the atrocious port, the Playstation pad was a bunch of buh anyway. You’re not missing out on much.

Speaking of Snoop, here he is with a personalised PS3. Sony must really like him…

Or did at least before he stabbed them in the back and started playing XBox. Enjoy laying in your pieces of silver, Mr.Dog. Although to be fair, it had the better multi-platform conversions all gen.

It’s Dr. Dre sporting some type of personalised gaming headphones he tries to flog. And I thought Doctors were well paid. Must be a side project when he’s not at the surgery. Although I’d be interested to see his PhD, or in fact, any evidence of his right to practise.