“News Team Dare to Dream

The News Team finally succumbed to the overwhelming public clamour to do a no-holds barred exposé on videogames, how they might be corrupting the nation's youth and so forth. A forward-thinking controller decided the best way to do this was for the Team to go deep inside an arcade machine and interview the characters directly. He also figured this would help soften the upcoming blow that the network had spent the entirity of the programming budget on somehow getting people inside arcade machines.

"Okay Team, we know our orders", barked Crunchfight who had apparently decided he was a sergeant or something, "Get in, get the scoop, and get out. Sissons, if you see any brightly-coloured fruit, DO NOT EAT IT. And whatever you do, do not look at the top left to see exactly how many lives you have left. I'm pretty sure that violates some law of casuality and the controller is a big fan of free will"

There were some special effects far too elaborate to describe here, and the team found themselves inside the machine. "Hey, this isn't like Tron. I was told it would be like Tron", muttered Burnalot not quite under his breath, earning himself a Crunchfight glare.

"SHH!", hissed Crunchfight, "they are coming!"

"How can you tell"

"I can hear the theme music!"

And now he mentioned it, they heard it too, a discordant symphony of midi tracks, bleeps and buzzes. It was getting louder...

#dun dadadun ba-BAH! ba BAH baba BAAH!#

From every corner of the lurid landscape, the creatures emerged, bouncing and running and punching and doing so with the speed of the fastest button masher. What had been pixels mere moments ago had enlarged to, like, eight pixels, which meant they were closing fast.

"Okay, don't stop til we get that scoop", muttered Crunchfight, "we got this..."

There was nothing for it. They posed as a News Team, microphones at the ready, noddies pre-recorded, quips pre-prepared. It was interview time!

(I didn't feel like I had much of a chance coming into this and played like it, Purp was ridiculously unlucky to not get something out of the first half and then I was trying not to be stupid and hope for overtime. Second time in two games, I get to receive, and roll approximately three thousand dice to win it. Purp was an excellent, indefatigable opponent, despite his dice. FORWARDS TO ROUND FIVE.)”