Games World: 1993 - 1998

Another offspring of GamesMaster, this one, but more directly this time. It was actually made by the same production company responsible for GM, this time for broadcast on the Sky One satellite channel. Going out five days a week, the show filled two editions with competitive challenges, the winners of which went on to compete for prizes on Friday's show.

Rather than have them play off against each other, the episode at the end of the week would pit the gamers against Games World's 'Videators', a cast of stylised characters played by gaming-trained actors. The Videators ranged wildly in appearance and personality, taking in cyborgs (Electric Eddie), cowboys (Colin The Console Cowboy) and fat blokes (Big Boy Barry). The idea was a tad on the comic book side for some viewers, but the show was good enough on the whole to take it.

The remaining week's episodes were taken up by themed editions of the show, such The Peep Parlour, in which gamers would appeal to 'Madam Pixel' for tips and cheats, and "House Of Games", the previews and reviews round up. In later series, The Peep Parlour - now featuring the more teenage boy friendly Games Mistress - was incorporated into a new format, BTV. This show was a blend of features and sketch-based sitcom featuring Big Boy Barry, who had by that point become the most popular Videator. As repellant an idea as it sounds, BTV wasn't actually that bad at all, and was helped a great deal by having an early appearance of Little Britain's David Walliams in the regular cast.

On the whole, Games World was a nice companion piece to GamesMaster, whose content really benefitted from the extra broadcast time each week. It still had it's feet very much planted in kids' TV territory though, and by now gamers needed something more mature.