Darran Thomas was most recently lead artist on Bullfrog's upcoming Theme Park 2. In his four and half years at Bullfrog he also worked on Magic Carpet 2, Dungeon Keeper and Populous 3. He is now working on a project for new codeshop The Lost Toys.

What games are tickling your fancy at the moment?
I’m playing X-Wing Alliance at the moment and thoroughly enjoying it. It has superb sound with the John Williams soundtrack and the missions are quite diverse. It's a real evolution from the original X-Wing.

What was the first computer game you ever played?
I think it was Hangman on the Commodore Pet or maybe a game called The Deep on the ZX81, both of which were pretty primitive.

Any particular favourites from yesteryear?
There are quite a few games from the past that I really loved, like Knightlore on the Spectrum which still is a really cool idea for a game. Also Donkey Kong Jr which I still sometimes play on an emulator.

What has been the biggest videogaming let-down for you last year?
Probably the Dreamcast, there have been some really shoddy production values on the games released so far. I really hope Sega turn things around, but I can’t see it happening - publishers and developers don’t seem to have much confidence in the Dreamcast.

Any titles you're really looking forward to in the near future?
TA Kingdoms - I loved Total Annihilation and I hope the sequel is just as good as there was many an hour lost playing multiplayer TA over the network at Bullfrog. Also Theme Park 2 from Bullfrog which I worked on before I left, which has the potential to be a great game. Urban Choas from Mucky Foot was looking rather tasty last time I had a peek.

When all's said and done, what's your favourite game ever?
I haven’t really got an out-and-out favourite, there are dozens that I really like but some that spring to mind straight away are Doom, Warcraft 2, Soul Blade and Ridge Racer. All had really high production values for their time and were enjoyable to play.