Over the years I’ve interviewed quite a few interesting people, but often the chats are heavily edited for the finished article. So I thought I’d put up a few of the transcripts here. They’re pretty long, but if you want something to get stuck into over lunch, they’re perfect.

This interview was a chat with David Braben, the man who, with Ian Bell, created the space trading game Elite – kicking off the sandbox gaming genre that would eventually spawn your Grand Theft Autos and such. This chat was done in 2007, for an article on sandbox gaming in Official Xbox 360 magazine, and he talked, I think for the first time, about the physical, rather than just spiritual, links between his game and Rockstar’s crime sims. (more…)

If you’ve ever met me, you’ll probably know I’m not very good with money. In fact, I’m so bad with money, when I put my Visa card in an ATM, the display doesn’t even ask for me PIN number, it just prints “Seriously?” on the screen. But last week, a post in the off-topic section of Rllmuk alerted me to a fun new social media game that was floating around, Empire Avenue, and I thought I’d give it a bash. Surprisingly, I quickly found myself addicted. Essentially, you create an account, complete with a NASDAQ-style share offering name (my shares are listed as JONCYBERNET), plug in all your social media connections, and then watch your share price rise as you go about your day doing the sort of things you enjoy doing – facebooking, adding pictures to flickr, and stalking late 90’s popstars on Twitter.

You can try it yourself – just plug in your Twitter ID here (scroll down to where it says: ‘What’s your price on the Twiter index?’) and see what your account would be worth on Empire Avenue. More info and 10 great starter tips from the leader of one of the top Community groups after the jump! (more…)

Over the last decade, I’ve written many, many words about videogames. Some of them were good, most of them were a bit wonky. In those 10 years, I’ve been flown all around the world, met celebrities, been wined and dined and have had various incidents with actual real guns. But this morning, I was chatting with fellow writers @GriddleOctopus, @richardcobbett and @SimonParkin about videogame journalism and it’s ethics. And we decided – it’s time to make a stand… (more…)

You can't really tell, but the shelves are full of pies.

Ok, so I’ve been rubbish. More than a bit rubbish in fact – I haven’t blogged for 5 months. So what have I been doing? Basically, eating pies. (more…)

Say What You See: Music Fest in all its glory

After a few busy weeks, I haven’t been posting much. How naughty. But I can at least now reveal what I’ve been up to. Check it out… (more…)

The Brighton Blues line up...

Yesterday I traveled to Brighton to try out a British Military Fitness class by the sea. And what a refreshing change it was! (more…)

WARNING. THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGERY. FRANKLY YOU SHOULD PROBABLY JUST TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER AND WALK AWAY – YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNSEE WHAT LIES ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS MORE BUTTON. (more…)

So today’s post was supposed to be about getting back into classes after  a week off. Yeah, so that didn’t happen. (more…)

Suda 51 Meets My Big Fat Geek Running

In an attempt to avoid turning this blog into a series of endless voyages into my own navel, I’m going to be featuring interviews with awesome people every Friday. First up is Suda 51, the Quentin Tarantino of videogames. (more…)