At the age of 15, while my main source of income was a paper round, I got a ‘job’ as a reviewer for a games magazine. TV Gamer a short lived publication that covered everything from Arcade to Computer games had the ingenious idea of getting it’s readers to write the reviews. You got sent the game and in lieu of payment got to keep it.

For two issues I wrote 3 reviews that due to the wonders of the internet I have found over 30 years later.

Everest my first ever review was a climbing simulation for the Dragon 32. Although I seemed to enjoy it, I didn’t review it very highly and I seem to remember visually it was shocking, written in basic and pretty poor.

Two months later in September I’m back sharing my view of a Pac Man clone with my adoring public. I preferred this game although for reasons unknown I had changed my name from Chris to Christopher!

And then finally a couple of pages later in the review section, my last ever game review 3D Lunattack. Developed by Graftgold one of the greatest 8bit UK developers and written by the legendary Steve Turner. I gave it a glowing review but for reasons known only to my 15 year old mind I gave it only a 3 out of 5 for value!

That was the end of my brief foray into journalism, something I feel the game magazine industry may be glad of.

It was my first slightly tenuous job in an industry that I would spend the majority of my life working in.