He also made Father Ted.
You can't have watched the IT Crowd without noticing that it gets its game references spot on. It's almost as if it's being written by a gamer and that they care about gaming's portrayal. As it turns out, Graham Linehan is a gamer and his portrayal of the medium is informed by a love for games that stretches back years. So what game does he love?
"I’ve gone through a long period of being completely obsessed with Battlefield 3", he recently told EDGE. "It seems so incredibly deep in terms of different playing styles. And also I love the social aspect of it when I can get online; it’s the first game where I can actually discuss tactics while we’re playing.
"In previous multiplayer games, you can really talk about anything except the game while you’re playing because the game kind of takes care of itself. In Modern Warfare you’re running around these little rat mazes, it seems to me there’s not much room for tactics, but in Battlefield there’s such an incredible range of situations. Every game feels different and I’m really getting a lot out of that."
Anecdote time: Graham also plays Left 4 Dead, and I played a game with him a few years back. He talked about his soundcard problems, and didn't discuss the tactics involved. I'd tell you more, but I've just sold the exclusive to Heat magazine: Linehan's Soundcard Drama!
Battlefield 3 even manages to impress him on the side of his life: in the writing.
"A friend approached me on Twitter and said he worked at a games company that produced a firstperson shooter of some sort, and he worked there when the second Iraq war started. Somebody came into the office and said, 'We’re going to be rich'. That put me off those kind of scumbag, racist games. But the thing that’s really clever about the campaign mode in Battlefield 3 is that you’re following behind two of your squad, and one of them is kind of coming out with all this liberal, hippie-dippy stuff and kind of being a bit ignorant about the whole reason they’re there. When I sense that there’s intelligence behind the game or when I sense that the writer has actually done some research, then I feel completely ok about playing it until three in the morning."
Sadly the EDGE article is titled "My Faviourite Game", and when he finally gets down to revealing it, he veers into console territory. Something called Zelda? Still, he's a lovely chap and I miss killing zombies with him (call me!). Go read about it at EDGE online.
Image By Stew Dean. Source.
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