Reality TV dominates the schedules these days, with the lives of the rich and the famous, the not-so-rich-and-famous, and the charmingly racist and outdoorsy being beamed into our living rooms on a regular basis. It wasn't always this way, though. It just feels like it. The current breed of reality tele has moved slightly away from its original form of the reality sort-of-game show that began with Survivor in 2000, but that's still visible in the likes of Big Brother and The Bachelor. So for argument's sake, we'll put 2000 down as the year that reality shows began to rule our lives in a big bad way. In which case arcade game Smash TV was ahead of the curve by a good decade, since it hit the market in 1990. The gameplay was pretty much identical to Williams' previous title, Robotron: 2084, but Smash TV introduced a unique backstory for the run-and-gun action: your characters were taking part in a sort of extreme game show where they fight for their lives, and millions of viewers watch at home, totally hooked, in a sort of dystopian future that's essentially identical to ours.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
