Background: I’m an amateur writer/director and comedian. I adore film but at the same time I love to play, dissect and look at the absurdities of games.

A Favourite Game: Deus Ex, an easy and popular answer I know. I love Deus Ex because, while it’s dated in level design and visuals, it has an incredible amount of ‘guided freedom’. It’s not a sandbox, but within the levels you get the feeling of being able to experiment and play around. Ultimately you craft individual stories that you share with friends, while the names and places are the same the events can shift in impressive or hilarious ways.

A Highly Regarded Game You Dislike: Diablo (any). To speak ill of a Blizzard game isn’t a common choice but I find that Diablo, and the whole loot-hoarder genre, just doesn’t work for me. The progression may be satisfying for many and it’s a perfectly designed system of continually increasing power, but I am left cold by mechanics. It’s far from a bad game but I personally just cannot stand it.

Favourite Video Game Quote: By far one of my favourite moments of character stupidity comes in the original House of the Dead (though only when playing with 2 people AND going through the front door rather than the sewers).

At this early point they have battled zombies, horror dogs with wings, mutant killer frogs, engorged maggots, giant barrel-chucking megazombies and watched the wife of one character get snatched up by a giant talking bat. You reach the front door and they say:

“Shall we go in?”

“Sure! Why not?”

Wonderful reasoning guys. No wonder the entire world was destroyed by part 3.