Neil began his videogaming career as a producer at Activision back in the early '80s and spent 'some time' designing games on a freelance basis before being lured to write about games for ST Format (that was for the Atari ST, remember that?) and then Amiga Format. The desire to design games never left him though, and after a spell at Argonaut Software as general manager, Neil joined Bath-based developers Binary Asylum as a games designer. He's currently working on their forthcoming PC game Star Trek: New Worlds.

What games are tickling your fancy at the moment?
WWF Warzone and Turok 2 on the N64. Warzone because it’s hugely fun in multiplayer with a gang of mates, a tube of Pringles and several exotic forms of asthma inhaler. I thought “Lay the smack down” was part of the Federal Drug Adminstration’s “Just say no” campaign, 'til I discovered Warzone. Turok 2, again in multiplayer, is one of the grossest, searingly gut-wrenching gore-fests I’ve ever played. Deciding which of your pals is going to be the unarmed frag-tag monkey, and who’s going to grab the Cerebral Bore and do a bit of DIY trapanning is always the toughest call of the weekend...

What was the first computer game you ever played?
Probably Meteor Storm or the Space Invaders clone (which I can’t remember the name of) both made by Quiksilva for the Spectrum, back in the day. By the standards then, they were great. Today, however, they’d be considered utter shite, but that wouldn’t stop publishers charging fifty quid for them...

Any particular favourites from yesteryear?
Ooh, ahh, er, yes. Manic Miner (cos it was “eccentric”, as well as being a ground-breaking title that went on to spawn a whole generation of platform games). System 3’s Last Ninja, which was truly a thing of beauty on the C64. And Irem’s R-Type, 'cos I produced it for Activision in the '80s, and people have still heard of it today, and that makes me feel good.