Quick Interview: Danny Wallace

Danny Walker vs. Danny Wallace, two great minds collide. (Well one)...

What the hell is Danny Wallace doing in a computer game?

That is what I’ve been asking myself, even now. But no. It’s great. It’s one of those things, I’ve always loved games. I started writing for video games magazines when I was about 13. I was OBSESSED with Sega Megadrive; there were two battles in the 90’s. Blur versus Oasis and Megadrive vs. Super NES. It really defined your friendship really. I was on the Sega side but never did I think games would get to the point where you could have people in them. Acting and stuff. Then one day I was at the awards do and a friendly faced fella came up to me and he said, ‘Hey listen, there is a little project I’m working on and I think you’ll be good for it.’ It turns out it was Assassins Creed II. Huge sort of blockbuster thing. He said, ‘Right, there is a part you’re perfect for, it could have been written for you. You’re perfect for this.’ I go along to this room and there is a little bit of paper which tells me about Shaun Hastings, clearly as he is a man of the world… I read it and he is a nerdy, lonely, intense… is that me is it?

What has been your favourite game over the years?

Well Sonic - I used to love that when I was a kid – and I used to love all those sports games. I like games that you’re really immersed in. Like this. Or ones that you can play with with your mates. Call of Duty, I play a lot of. So November is going to be a good month for me. With that and [Assassins Creed II] coming out. Erm, I went to see some American football games recently and I realised I knew a lot about it. But only through playing games like Madden. I’d be like, ‘That’s a Hail Mary that they’ve just done there,’ basically most of my sport is done on the computer.

What would you say is the worse game?

Well I wasn’t a fan of – actually I better check it wasn’t made by Ubisoft [room laugh] – what was that? I wasn’t a big fan of some of the James Bond games. Like Golden Eye was my favourite game ever. I bought all of the controllers and I spent basically a summer with three mates in a room with cans of beer, playing that nonstop. After that some of the ones haven’t been as good but GoldenEye, we’ll always have GoldenEye.

More in the next RWD...