Q&As// UK Developer Mick Stockton

SPOnG: What's worse, Darts Elbow, Wii Tennis Elbow or falling down drunk with darts still in your hand?

Mick Stockton: Darts is more dangerous than we at first thought. We were privileged enough to be invited to some events for pick-ups on the reference photos. Although the sport has of late cleaned up its image somewhat from the 80s in terms of fags and booze, it appears no one has told the hardcore fan-base.

It was a fantastic sight to see these diehard darts fans in full flow at 11am on a Saturday morning. I would not be incorrect in saying these are very thirsty people.

The scene at the last event we attended can best be described as resembling a Viking funeral.

Purely to get into the minds of the ‘athletes’ we were modelling, there were some interesting beer-fuelled experiments reported.

For instance, should you be held underwater in a bath, you can survive by breathing through the plughole; it is possible to suck your own eyeball into a bottle of beer if you create enough of a vacuum and carefully push the bottle up your cheek without breaking the airtight seal. This is very hard for a doctor to do much about, and you do look a little stupid walking into A&E. Thanks to Marcus our resident survivalist for confirming the above.

SPOnG: What have been your favourite games of the year and what are you looking forward to?

Mick Stockton: I was very excited about Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. I got my PSOne chipped back in the 90s just so I could play FFT on import. I love the PSP conversion, though I think I must have had an inordinate amount of time in the 90s as I’m barely anywhere after a couple of months.

A highpoint was the Call of Duty 4 beta, that really sold me on online play as I have been accused of being a very antisocial gamer – mainly because I am crap at everything and the guys here are exceptional and all hate me.

Crackdown is one of the best games ever made and I am gutted there will not be a sequel.

Super Paper Mario was also a highlight, as was BioShock which showed that nothing is more important than vision and design.

Orange Box finally made me appreciate Half Life 2 (I refused to accept its greatness - much to the disgust of our lead artist - based on my PC play through a couple of years ago – I have no idea what I was doing wrong, but I loved the 360 version).

I loved getting my PS3 too, though I have no idea why.

In the coming year I look forward to seeing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Rock Band, Final Fantasy Tactics on the DS, finally playing Super Mario Galaxy, The Club, Talisman on Xbox Live and more news on Resident Evil 5, though already I have such high expectations, that anything short of a DVD case full of angels tears is going to be a bit of a disappointment.

There is also a game called Grand Theft Auto IV coming out that might be worth a punt.

There are so many great games coming out on so many great consoles over the next year, there has never been a better time to be a gamer or a developer (though I would prefer to be a games journalist and get all this stuff for free – I am having to get a very large paper round to cover next year's purchases).

SPOnG: Thanks for your time, Mick.