John grew up swapping floppy disks and reading Amiga Power cover to cover. Now an IT manager in Manchester, he writes about the glory days of British computer gaming—Sensible Soccer, Speedball 2, and why the Amiga deserved more love than it ever got.
The first time I witnessed proper blood splatter across my Sega Mega Drive in Splatterhouse 3, I genuinely thought something had gone wrong with the PAL conversion. There I was, probably twelve years old, sitting on our grotty brown carpet that always left those weird fibrous bits on your school trousers, when Rick absolutely leathered some demonic creature and its head exploded like a watermelon dropped from a motorway bridge. Mum was clattering about in…
If there’s one 16‑bit game that absolutely earns the word “masterpiece”, it’s Phantasy Star IV on the Sega Mega Drive.…
Right, so there I was Saturday afternoon, elbow-deep in cables again because I’d finally caved and bought one of those…
You know that moment when you’re digging through boxes in the loft and find your old N64, cartridges still wedged…
Right, so there I was three weeks ago, up in my parents’ loft helping clear out decades of accumulated rubbish,…
My mate Dave called me up last week, practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. “You need to get round…
Water in games used to be absolute rubbish. Proper rubbish. You’d jump in and either die instantly or swim through…
Right, let me tell you something about Diddy Kong Racing – this game completely did my head in when I…
The smell hits you first, doesn’t it? That peculiar cocktail of stale carpet, burnt cheese from whatever questionable food they…
Proper embarrassing moment last Saturday – I’m round at my mate Dave’s house helping him clear out his loft when…
