Interviews// SPOnG Game Stars: TV's Mr Iain Lee

SPOnG mooches around with the stars of stage, screen, radio, pop music, and grunge-core swing break-beat fusion electro funk blues-folk day-in and day-out. Usually we just shoot the shit in celeb speak, but occasionally we ask our 'good mates' about games... we like to call it Game Stars (or GameStars to give it that retro, computer bent)...

This week on Game Stars it's none other than TV's Mr Iain Lee, one of our favourite motor-mouth comedians and perhaps the only talk radio DJ in the land we enjoy listening to on LBC 97.3 weekday evenings from 7pm until 10pm… phew.


SPOnG: Hi Iain, what are your favourite games of the last year or two… and why?

Iain Lee: Obviously Halo 3 has taken over my life. Fantastic co-op play, and a great story. But I can't leave Rainbow 6 Vegas alone. I keep going back to it. I never play the solo missions, just the online.


SPOnG: What are your top three favourite games of all time? Any particular memories they evoke?

Iain Lee: In reverse order:
3) Popeye in the arcade. The first game I ever obsessed about and kept begging my parents for money to pump into the cabinet.

2) Wipeout on the Playstation. The original was the best and it got me back into gaming after missing out on the whole 16-bit world. I was blown away to see that home consoles had made that quantum leap.

1) Elite on the BBC. Genius. Still play it today. Ridiculously huge and detailed. I had nightmares trying to dock my ship without that bloody docking computer.


SPOnG: What are your earliest memories of playing video games?

Iain Lee: I remember my dad bringing home a Dragon 32 one day and I realised that this was my future. It was so new, exciting, mysterious and vaguely magical. I got totally hooked on a game called Alcatraz. I remember playing it once despite having a terrible migraine. I felt awful but just had to get that little bit further.


SPOnG: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC or Nintendo Wii: any preferences and if so can you say why?

Iain Lee: Hmm. I kind of like them all. I must confess I spend most of my time on the 360, partly because it was there first, partly because of Rainbow 6 but I guess mainly because of its excellent online service. All three consoles have their good points, but the 360 does it most for me.


SPOnG: When you are buying a new game how do you make the decision what to buy? Web sites? Word of mouth? Pot luck? Other influences?

Iain Lee: Magazines and word of mouth. I don't really trust the official mags, too often they rate games highly that suck, simply because they have to. I have a friend who, if he tells me a game is great, I ignore; if he says it’s awful, I go out and buy it.