Living, as we are, in the fag end of the Twentieth Century, where rows over the unsavory content of certain games erupt in the mass media on a regular basis, it is easy to imagine that 'violent games' are a recent innovation brought on by increasingly sophisticated graphic capabilities. In truth, gratuitous violence has been a part of computer games ever since the early days but, of course, less notice was taken of them then. This week 15 years ago, for instance, the BBC Micro was treated to a new release by Beau Jolly, which would command front pages on many of today's tabloids, but first some background detail...

The Liverpool of the early 80s appeared to share much with the Liverpool of the early 60s. Instead of the lovable mop-tops, and their many imitators, ruling the airwaves there was a whole bunch of Liverpool-based computer companies dominating the still rather small interactive entertainment industry. The UK's first ever computer shop was based in Liverpool and from this a whole Merseybyte culture emerged as 'the talent' left to form their own companies, employing more talent who then split to form their own companies etc. Software houses included Bug Byte (famous for releasing Manic Miner and the first ever martial arts game on a computer, Spectrum Kung Fu), Software Projects and, the darlings (if not the Darlings) of the day, Imagine.

Imagine were different. Their games were good but their advertising was out of this world. Full-colour airbrushed graphics that promised a whole new gaming experience. Most advertising of the day was rather amateurish but Imagine's just screamed 'professionalism'.