Dear Future Gamer

First of all, in reply to Stuart Hough's letter (FG60), I don't feel that Future Gamer has a US bias. Future Gamer may be a British-based magazine, but that doesn't mean it should ignore the rest of the world. After all, Japan is the home of consoles and the PC is an American creation.

Britain was a hotbed of creative talent through the '80s and early '90s, but with a few exceptions the developers have disappeared. I think this is partly due to the large publishers buying out the small developers and thereby restricting them to what is likely to sell millions; i.e. sequels to already successful games. One example would be Team 17. When the Amiga was out they were producing games of high quality like Alien Breed, but now they just seem to be milking Worms for all it is worth.

Occasionally Britain does produce innovative games, though. Despite gathering a lot of criticism because of its sequels, the original Tomb Raider was a modern classic, and no-one can say they had seen anything of its kind before. This was the kind of game which probably increased the presence of PlayStation around the UK, if not the world. I hope that Sensible Software can breathe new life back into the British games market after their acquisition by Codemasters.

John Tweedie

FG: Though we might moan about the lack of innovation because small, independent, developers are few and far between, there are still new outfits pushing the boundaries - witness Slitherine Software and their Tyrannosaurus Tex game.