Web Video / Ahoy

Stuart Brown, known as Ahoy (formerly XboxAhoy), is a gaming YouTuber focused primarily on creating documentary-style videos on video games and gaming culture. Originally known for creating multiplayer weapon guides for the Call of Duty series, he is today primarily known for his series detailing the real life and in-game history of various firearms (Iconic Arms), as well as videos on other more general topics, such as A Brief History of Graphics, and more famously, Polybius: The Video Game That Doesn't Exist.

He also discusses the history of certain classic games and game series in his RetroAhoy series.

Ahoy provides examples of:

• A.K.A.-47: Discussed in several of his Iconic Arms videos, and how different guns will commonly or uncommonly get this treatment. For example, in his video about the AK-47, he specifically mentions that only the most cautious and conservative game developers will invoke this trope with this gun. He cites Goldeneye and Counter-Strike as examples, where the weapon is called the KF-7 Soviet and CV-47 respectively.
• Arbitrary Gun Power: Brought up in Magnum Revolver., since video games often have them deal more damage with the same bullets for gameplay balance, as well as Arctic Warfare., since the sniper rifle, along with other bolt-action rifles, is almost universally portrayed as doing more damage than other weapons of the same caliber.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Several Iconic Arms videos mention relatively primitive weapons being used in modern or futuristic settings, whether in Real Life or fiction, such as the bow and arrow, the revolver, and the double barrel shotgun.
• Awesome, yet Impractical: On some of his Iconic Arms videos he does comment on how unbelievably impractical some weapons are and how they basically only got their fame through their appearance or word of mouth.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Notes in his Polybius video that Sinneslöschen, the name of the supposed creators of Polybius, is very poor German, which is part of why he believes Cyberyogi's denial of being behind the legend: Cyberyogi is German, so it is unlikely he would use such a poor translation (and probably wouldn't have used German at all if he didn't want to be caught).
• Boring, but Practical: Likewise, he also comments on such weapons. His description of the AK is the current page quote, but the conclusion of the Glock video sums this trope up quite succintly:
  "Sometimes boring is exactly what you need."
• BFG: Minigun. points out that it's such a large weapon it'd be impractical at best to be carried by a human, before reminding us why media does it anyway.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Stu being outwardly comedic is rare in his videos, but this particular example in his X-COM video, when talking about the terror missions, stands out:
  Ahoy: Every so often, the aliens go out of their way to wreak havoc in cities, slaughtering their inhabitants - and worse, threatening your performance score.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: Zombies.
  "The trouble with zombies is that they keep coming back. Shoot 'em, maim 'em... doesn't matter. Unless you destroy the head, they'll just keep coming. The living dead saturate cinema, television and games- a cultural phenomenon that seems impossible to stop. An unholy congregation with limitless appetite. It's not a matter of if they'll get you, but when."
• Gun Porn: Iconic Arms is built around this trope. The show documents notable firearms, their history, and their appearances and roles in popular culture, all while showing footage showing the gun being fired or how it works.
• Guns Akimbo: "Which Video Game Introduced Dual Wielding?
• Hurricane of Puns: Released a compilation video of all the Black Ops II weapon guide puns.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: The Magnum Revolvers video has a particularly funny moment where Stuart is quoting the famous "Five shots or six" line from Dirty Harry... as he reloads the revolver from Bulletstorm, which holds eight rounds.
• Implausible Deniability: Throughout his research on the history of Polybius, Stuart confronts suspected hoaxers with very strong evidence of their misdeeds, only for them to promptly deny it without even attempting to refute it. "Steven Roach" refuses to admit he's a fraud even though there is IP evidence that he is a Sock Puppet for someone else; Kurt Koller insists that the coinop.org page for Polybius was added in 1998 even though the Wayback Machine provides irrefutable evidence that it was added in early 2000.
• Irony: In A Brief History of Piracy, Stuart points out the mild irony of a very early pirate video game starting with a message discouraging digital piracy.
• More Dakka: Minigun.
  Ahoy: It turns out, there's a practical limit to the rate of fire in a single barreled weapon. The good news is, you can always add more!
• Pungeon Master: Stuart is a fan of making puns, and would usually end each of his weapon guides with one. The puns are usually related to the weapon too.
• Red Herring: He calls out "Steven Roach," a "Welshman" who "worked as a programmer in 1980s Czechoslovakia," as this, due to the many inaccuracies in the latter's claim about having created Polybius, such as "being consulted by a South American company," "moving to Communist Czechia to do business" and having based his claims entirely on the established Polybius myth, not to mention sharing the name with an American ex-policeman who ran a scandalous troubled-youth camp in that country around the same time.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Magnum Revolver. goes into this, and mostly attributes it to Simple, yet Awesome design, Competitive Balance in video games, and Rule of Cool.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Analyzed in Double-Barreled Shotgun., going into the Simple, yet Awesome design and raw stopping power.
• Signature Style: His vector-based outline-less graphics and poetic monologues.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Often points this out as an important feature of a weapon over more Awesome, but Impractical designs. Examples include the double-barreled shotgun and AK-47.
• Stylistic Suck: "The First Video Game" plays out as a series of black-and-white microfilm images, moved in and out of shot by a white gloved hand.
• Take That!: Whilst infrequent, owing to Stu's professional tone, there has been the occasional potshot:
  • Stu dryly mocks The War on Terror near the end of Nuclear Fruit:
    "With two monuments to America toppled, after the shock subsided, a collective lust for revenge emerged. As one war ended, another began: This time, a 'War on Terror'. And if you thought nuclear war was futile, try fighting an abstract concept."
  • The ending poem for "POLYBIUS - The Video Game That Doesn't Exist" refers to the titular game as "an essential inclusion" for "low-effort listicles". The line is paired with a screenshot of a Cracked listicle which mentions the game.
  • In Explosive Barrels., "Barrels O' Fun" is referred to as "more of an exercise in not blowing yourself up".
  • Flamethrower. has Stu describing flamethrowers as a weapon likely to be seen wielded by "[...] a fictional supervillain, like Hank Scorpio or Elon Musk".
• That Liar Lies:
  • Stuart flat-out calls "PRG017," a Japanese "ex-Sega employee," as a fraud, due to having also based his claims of creating Polybius on the established myth.
  • He later refers to "Steven Roach" as a "red herring" whose claims are "entirely fabricated". He even learns the true identity of the individual purporting to be Roach, though out of courtesy he does not identify this person explicitly.

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"Until next time... farewell."

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