Tim Still
(War Games/Military Simulations)

"Aged a mere 26, I've been playing games on computers (NOT consoles!) for over 10 years, right back to the days of the ZX81. As games have got better and better, and the machines with them, I've found myself leaning more towards the strategy and simulator side of things, having little time for platform games and the like. My preference has to be WW2 or modern warfare, having read many books on these two era's of combat. Saying that, I still enjoy a good blast with the current doomclone as much as the next blood-crazed demon with a rocket launcher in it's hands. I've been into comms for a few years now, working my way up from BBS's on my old Amiga, and I log onto CIX at least once a day. I also drink copious amounts of tea, don't drink alcohol at all, and think that the Tasmanian Devil is probably a good role model for any 26 year-old BT engineer."

Mark Arnott
(Flight Simulations)

I was born in Chalk Farm - London, in November 1961 so you can work out my age from that. I work as a civilian PC and Network support engineer on a large RAF base in South Wales. Previously I was an Aircraft Propulsion Technician with the RAF, and I worked on Hunters, Buccaneers, Wessex, Andover and Tornado aircraft - in that order.

You would have thought that I'd had enough of aircraft after that lot - but no, here I am reviewing Flight Simulators. I got the Flt Sim bug when, in 1982, I was on a visit to Spangdahlem Air Force Base in Germany. They had recently taken delivery of Europe's first computer generated Simulator for the F4 Phantom, and I managed to worm my way into a few flights in it. I came away thinking "...must get one." . Unfortunately is was to be a few years until home PC's could shift the graphics around fast enough.

I am an avid Formula One fan, hence the fact that I review some of the driving Sim's as well. I like a bit of Doom now and then. I have two Pentium PC's at home linked via thin ethernet through the loft specifically for the purpose of Deathmatch and head-to-head on the Flt Sim's. My son Luke thinks it's the mutt's nuts.

Finally, thanks go to my wife Anne, who sometimes has to play second fiddle to "That bloody computer".

Richard Brindley
(3D Action Games)

Brin spent his formative years between Tiffin school in Kingston, Surrey, where he gained a stupidly large number of O-levels, and Gina Dyke stage school, where he learned how to dance (yes, ha, ha, Ballet and tap and all that jazz) and act (Oliver! in the West End, commercials, catalogues and stuff), decided to give up the stage stuff to concentrate on his education (sucker!) then completely shagged his A-levels due to becoming suddenly aware of several things:

Women!
Motorbikes!
Alcohol!
Computers!
Music!
Women!

As a result, he spent all his study time creating computer games about women, motorbikes,....you get the picture..., and actually sold some of them to unsuspecting Games companies! Having started earning money from doing what came naturally (!), he re-took his A-levels at North-East Surrey College of Technology (with greater success), and then went into "the business".

Apart from music, women and alcohol, his main leisure interest is PC games, with a particular emphasis on 3D action adventures (System Shock, Alone in the Dark, DOOM, Hexen, Fade to Black) and graphic adventures (Monkey Island, Diskworld, Space Quest, Prisoner of Ice). He also likes racing/driving sims (Fatal Racing / Detruction Derby), the occasional shoot-em-up (Terminal Velocity, Magic Carpet), and a very few platform games (Lemmings (well, sort of platform game), Prince of Persia). He is currently writing the review for Terminator: Future Shock, well he will as soon as he stops playing it!

Stuart Christie
(War/Strategy Games)

Stuart Christie, aged 28 going on 29 and dreading the big 30 :-( My day job is as a salesman for a company making printed cartons so my computer is an important form of escapism for me ! I have been into computers since school and got my first, a TI99/4A when I was 17. Though I used to be okay at basic I have never been much of a programmer and have tended to almost always play games - I dont even pretend to be up on the serious side of things nowadays!

My favourtite games of all time would have to Be: Silent Service II - The game that first got me into to PC's

Air Warrior - The multi player flight sim which got me into big phone bills :-(((

Ultima Underworld - Because it was years ahead of its time and the phony Brittish accents on the intro were great!

I have always tended to head away from fancy graphics and sound and instead concentrate on gameplay, having said that, that if a game is not up to a decent standard in both these, I wont touch it anyway!

Pet hates - Digitised CD-Rom adventures, games that rely too heavily on their 3D Studio Cut scenes and intros, any commercial software which has obviously been written completley in C and suffers as a result

Dave Wadler
(Adventures)

So you want to know about me? Well I'm 42, divorced with two kids. I work in the computer support department of a large research organisation which is nice. How many other people get to work at their hobby? I first became interested in computers in the late 70's when I got hold of a Commodore Pet with a massive 8K of memory :-) The first game I played on it was Rogue - a simple dungeon and dragon type of game which I found addictive. Then I discovered text based adventures and haven't looked back since. I have played games on a wide variety of machines including an IBM mainframe, a Commodore Pet, BBC's, Amigas and PC's. I prefer games where you need to think, such as adventure games, although I do play, and enjoy a wide range of other games. My favourite games, at the moment are Sam and Max, Discworld, Touche and Jazz Jackrabbit. Oh and I'm quite enjoying Duke 3D at the moment much to my surprise.