The Devil and Freestlye Peripheral Destruction Derby

Of all the malicious odours I’ve encountered in hell, the smell of a melting Playstation joypad still ranks as one of the most offensive. I had to admit though; it was fun to watch the little bugger smoking and jerking as it sank into the magma. I was extra pleased with the way I’d managed to get it to spin in the air as it flew towards the lake of fire, and catching the edge of that stalactite had been something of a masterstroke. Of course, I knew without even looking that the judging panel of the damned would rate my effort no higher than a six. But what else could I expect, when my opponent in this Freestyle Peripheral Destruction Derby was none other than the ruler of hell himself?

The logic of the game had occurred to us, as many of the best ideas did, after a few drinks. I can’t remember what game we were playing at the time, but what I do remember was that Satan was losing pretty badly, and grew so frustrated that he threw his joypad at the nearest wall. Nine times out of ten, such a rash action would have yielded little more than some dented plasterwork, but on this occasion we got lucky. With a mighty crack, the joypad literally exploded into its component parts, showering us with a plethora of shiny doohickeys. We both laughed, and shared a moment of realisation – that destroying things in the real world is almost always preferable to destroying things in the virtual world. Plus, the devil generally sucked at video games, but was pretty good at breaking stuff and ruining things, and so only too keen to turn our new discovery into a competitive sport. Thus, Freestyle Peripheral Destruction Derby had been born. The rules were simple – get a shopping trolley full of plastic gaming accessories, find a fixed point to hurl them from, and then get awarded marks depending on how stylish your acts of destruction were. Obviously hell, with its wide variety of natural hazards, leant itself well to the game. As well as the obvious pools of lava and jagged bits of rock, there was always the chance your peripheral would find the jaws of some kind of hellspawn, or perhaps become entangled in whatever fiendish torture device was nearby. The latter was slightly frowned upon by the residents of hell, because if you’re in the middle of torturing some damned soul and you get hit in the face by a Wiimote, it tends to put you off a little. Still, the devil reasoned that if he couldn’t have a little fun at work then what was the point of being the boss in the first place? To reflect this decision, the judging panel had actually started awarding higher marks for hitting torture devices, although of course we’d both stand around looking nonchalant should anyone complain about it. Sometimes the judges would also award bonus points for a particularly convincing ‘who, me?’ expression.