PeteProdge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 8:37 am
I've not heard of Dane McLellan and can't find anything on Google about that name and a connection to any gaming magazine, but I'm reminded of the irony (well, alright, hypocrisy) surrounding the writer 'Robert Galbraith'.
What I
do remember is: this was around 1994, and Total! was under the editorship of Frank O'Connor, who'd shelved the cartoony drawings of the writing staff in favour of actual photographs, some of which were full body shots. So I remember what Dane looked like - short(ish), blonde, wearing an ankle-length skirt in one of the pictures, and obviously quite desirable for a 15-year-old of the time... and one time, her picture was replaced with that of a desk littered with nine heavily stained coffee mugs that needed two runs through the dishwasher.
Who knows - maybe this was a false name with reviews attributed to anonymous freelancers and the blonde woman in the pictures was neither a game reviewer nor Scottish, and she was actually one of the admin staff who'd been cajoled into posing as a reviewer. But there's always a part of me that will think of the Total! offices resounding with a female voice shouting "AYE YE WEE SCUNNER* I'LL KICK YER HEED IN!" in an accent heavier than Rab C. Nesbitt and that leaves the rest of the staff needing subtitles, and those who were unaware thinking that an ambulance might be involved, only to look further and see Dane with a SNES controller in her hand, playing whatever iteration of Street Fighter II was released at the time, possibly the one with Cammy in it.
* ...or something stronger that wont get past the Wholesome Safety Filter. Decide for yourselves what should go in here.
