Dorothy's Teenage Mutant Ninja Gamer

Our resident gaming geek, Jim (designer of our new Game Map) gives us a little insight into the highs (and lows) of being a teenage mutant ninja gamer in his youth.

"From a ZX Spectrum to an Amiga then through a selection of PlayStations and now to my phone I’ve invested way too many hours / days / years into gaming than I dare think about. But do I regret it? No way, I love the feeling of being immersed in an imaginary world, and that’s sort of the inspiration behind the Game Map, creating an imaginary location constructed of game references. So here’s a few of the games that defined (drained) my early years:

Sensible World of Soccer

From (pretty much) the moment SWOS came out the majority of my spare time went into managing various Tranmere Rovers teams up through the divisions. While all my school friends were starting to get into going out and drinking I was quite happy staying in trying to loft curved shots from the halfway line passed the stranded computer GK to make it 14-0. And the immense disappointment if the opposition dared to score… It was around this point I realised I had to stop playing.

Shadow of the Beast 2

Those pan-pipes. The Roger Dean cover. The parallax scrolling. It blew my 12 year old mind. I never got to finish Shadow of the Beast 1 as the last disk hadn’t copied properly, ah life. I was such a huge fan of the Liverpool based Psygnosis, the games they made were just something else; the cover art, the intro animations, they were amazing. Every game that came out was such an event. I miss them. 

Metal Gear Solid

When you figure how to beat Psycho Mantis. Amazing. After he’s moved your controller around the floor. The way the game extended out of the screen and into your room was incredible.

Championship Manager / Football Manager

Cherno Samba. Tonton Zola Moukoko. Ibrahima Bakayako. Freddy Adu. Kennedy Bakircioglu. Andri Sigþórsson. Kim Kallstrom. Et al. Many Champions League triumphs with Tranmere, quite often achieved with a bit of exiting without saving…. Played so often I really feel it should be on my CV. 

GoldenEye 007

I’m not even sure I remember playing the main game, just no end of death-match games. Zooming in with a sniper rifle, picking-off unsuspecting victims….

Speedball 2: Brutal Delux

Ice cream! 'Nough said!"

- James Quail, age 36 

On the advice of doctors Jim was forced to retire from gaming in his early 20's. He is currently in 'recovery' and lives a sedate life tending his cabbage patch and stroking his cat.