GameStarz: The Pogues' Spider Stacey

It’s the return of celebrity gaming feature GameStarz – SPOnG’s regular attempt to break through the barrier walls of PRs and agents who prowl the streets of London’s Soho and the glitzy West End like packs of celeb-obsessed wolverines. Well, kind of.

More accurately, it’s where we manage by hook or by crook to bag a top showbiz celebrity gamer and ask them a few probing questions about their gaming habits.

This week on GameStarz we managed to collar none other than The Pogues’ Spider Stacy, who, as you will see, is quite fond of the odd game of Pro Evo now and then. Who isn’t!


SPOnG: What are your favourite games of the last year or two?

Spider: I'll start as I mean to continue. For the last six or seven years the only games I have played have been the Pro Evolution series. They have a depth and subtlety that become more and more apparent over time, and you have to work to get the most out of them. Having said that, I'm not without criticism; I feel that, in Pro Evo 5, Konami has placed far too much emphasis on defence, with the result that, on the higher settings, the computer plays like Uruguay circa 1970, albeit without the cynicism. This can be dispiriting, to say the least.


SPOnG: What are your top three favourite games of all time?

Spider: Each succeeding version of Pro Evo has been sufficiently tweaked over its predecessor to more than compensate for such irritants as the packed, robotically drilled defences that make Chelsea look like East Stirlingshire and, as for memories, anyone who has ever scored a dream of a goal after a sweeping, coruscating move that's been initiated in their own goalmouth, after eating a couple of, er, Lebanese pastries, will know exactly what I'm talking about. Like I say, I've not played anything other than Pro Evo for a few years now, but I really liked Civilization and Gran Turismo. Ridge Racer on PSP was a laugh, too. Oh, and Tomb Raider!


SPOnG: What’s your earliest memory of playing video games?

Spider: I suppose my earliest memory of video games would be playing that ping-pong game, the one with the two white paddles and the little white dot, in an amusement arcade in Leicester Square some time around the summer of '73. This is the way the future will be, I thought, we'll all be playing games like this in our Moon Cities, dressed to kill in our silver suits and all stuffed full of little Space Pills.


SPOnG: Xbox, PlayStation, PC or Gamecube? Any preferences, and if so can you say why?

Spider: PlayStation, but only because I've never played any of the others, apart from an abortive attempt at Tiberian Sun on PC. I think I stretched my computer to the edge of a breakdown when I loaded the game. At any rate, it never seemed to work properly. Still, if anyone wants to send me an Xbox 360, I won't complain!


SPOnG: Will you buy a next-generation console?

Spider: See above, I'll be buying a PS3.


SPOnG: When you are buying a new game how do you make the decision what to buy?

Spider: As I say, I'm addicted to Pro Evolution and feeding this addiction takes up more than enough time already!


SPOnG: Do you play games alone, online with others or multiplayer with your partner, family and/or friends?

Spider: Alone, late at night with the aforementioned Lebanese pastries, and the dull rumble of the Seven Sisters road in the background.


SPOnG: If you were given carte blanche to design the game of your dreams, what would it be?

Spider: I could give you chapter and verse on the improvements - maybe 'changes' is a better word – I’d like to see in Pro Evo, but I guess I'll just have hope to that Konami will, one day, see the light. Though less impenetrable computer defences on the 3 star setting would be a start. They seem to have got rid of scripting (which I understand they deny ever having had in the first place), though I wouldn't put money on it.


SPOnG: We read somewhere – it may even have been on your blog - that playing Pro Evo helped you stop boozing too much! Is this true? If so can you tell us a bit about this? SPOnG likes stories whereby videogames are good for you!

Spider: It's probably pretty obvious by now that I am, indeed, a huge Pro Evolution fan, notwithstanding the niggles. As for the rest, it’s always good to have outside interests, isn't it? Seriously, though, anything that helps divert your attention away from whatever it may need to be diverted from has got to be a good thing. You've still got to do the spadework, though.


SPOnG: What movie licenses would you like to see videogame versions of?

Spider: I don't know about movies, but there is plenty of scope for adaptation in the field of comics/graphic novels. The Watchmen, or the Sandman series, for instance. They could be pretty interesting.


Well, thanks for that Spider. Those Lebanese pastries sure sound tasty! For those who want to know more about what Spider and The Pogues are up to in the near future you should check out Spider’s website.

Peter ‘Spider’ Stacy was originally involved in London's punk scene with The Millwall Chainsaws and helped form The Pogues with Shane MacGowan, Jem Finer and James Fearnley, and is credited with naming the band.

Initially serving as a vocal foil to MacGowan (best evidenced in songs like "Waxie's Dargle" and "Down In The Ground Where The Dead Men Go"), Spider also learned to play the tin whistle. After MacGowan's untimely departure from the Pogues years later, he sang for the Pogues through two more albums before they disbanded.

Spider founded the Vendettas in March of 1999 and has been gigging in England and France ever since. The Pogues themselves reunited in 2001 for a handful of hugely successful gigs in England and Ireland and later in the December of 2004. The band also tends to pop up every Christmas for a right old knees up down the Brixton Academy. Every year we're assuerd it’s the last, and every year the band returns. The Pogues’ gig has now become one of London’s finest modern Christmas traditions.