I’m a big fan of GFW Radio from back in the day. In case you don’t know, GFW Radio was a PC gaming podcast produced by staff at 1UP.com. Despite the PC branding, discussions on the show were wide ranging, encompassing the state of the games industry, games journalism and wider nerd culture. One of their regular features was the Hero of the Web, basically a dramatic reading of weird, gaming-related material posted on internet forums.

If you’ve followed Very Very Gaming for any length of time you might have noticed that I am mildly obsessive when it comes to voice acting. With that in mind I think Shawn Elliot, the guy who voices the words of these internet “heroes”, deserves to be a professional voice actor, he’s that good. Shawn’s voice serves as an excellent accompaniment to the bizarre tale that is the search for the real-life inspiration for Marin in Link’s Awakening. I can’t say I’m familiar with the concept of falling in love with a videogame character, but does it strike anyone else as odd that this person would fall in love with Marin, of all characters? It seems weird because I don’t recall Marin being an especially fully formed character in Link’s Awakening.

Anyway, if you’re not feeling sufficiently weirded out yet by how some people relate to videogames, you might want to check out some more Heroes of the Web segments which tread similar ground. Whether it’s pondering Master Chief’s virginity, dumping a girlfriend because of Guitar Hero, or marrying Sonic the Hedgehog, there’s plenty more weird and wonderful out there.