Loved this! I hate flag shagging patriotism; this is the sort of thing that makes me proud to be a Brit. Our ingenuity and creativity in the gaming sphere is a thing to be celebrated! You’ve reminded me about a lot of games I didn’t realise were British made, especially GTA and Arkham.
My personal list would probably include Psygnosis / Studio Liverpool for Lemmings, WipEout and plenty of other fun titles that made my childhood a blast.
We don't really express ourselves in our art enough, there are so very few British games that are actually about/set in Britain. I didn't put it on this list but The Getaway games for PS2 were like GTA in London where you also play as the police, very evocative of that time in the UK. Glad you enjoyed the article :)
WipEout very nearly took that Forza Horizon spot but I've always felt those games were known more for their music than their gameplay
I think you’re right. This might be one of the reasons I adored Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and its attention to detail of British village life, and Thank Goodness You’re Here, which was just a beautiful piss take of Northern life. More please 🤣
Psygnosis is one of those logos that immediately evokes the weirdest shit I played once in the 90s and then wake up thinking about for no reason decades later
You know what, you’re so right. I need to write about Kingsley’s Adventure one day; I was convinced it was a fever dream I had as a kid until I saw the box art online and knew it existed.
A perfect example - that game looks like someone tried to mod Conker's Bad Fur Day into a full RPG.
It also reminds me so much of Hype: The Time Quest, a Playmobil tie-in game which, aside from the big Ubisoft logo, you'd probably assume to be the most British game ever made based on the voice acting.
My wife took a chance a few years ago and bought me a video game for my birthday. She had never done that before because she's not a gamer and she knew how difficult it would be to pick something I liked. She took a chance nonetheless.
She bought me this game that I had never heard of before. It looked awful, to be quite honest. I installed it and started it out of politeness. I really, really didn't like it. I pretend to play for a bit until my wife had left the room, then I uninstalled it.
Years later I was looking for something to play and for no clear reason, I decided to give this thing another go. Today, Kenshi is my most played game on Steam (more hours on this than on Elden Ring or Factorio), quite possibly my second favorite game of all time and I regularly search to see when the sequel is coming out.
Thanks for sharing! It sounds like your wife has some sharp intuition. Kenshi is definitely one of tho0se games that warrants a second chance for those who brush off; I tried it once, got bored then tried it again last year for my review and it was all I played for a few days.
As someone who was born and raised in Bristol for the first half of my life, I must take issue with your description of that fine city and... admit it seems pretty accurate, actually.
Since you're a retro gamer, I was a bit surprised you didn't go further back to games like Lemmings or ones from the Amiga or Spectrum. However, I think your top choice says it all really. Who would have thought that a small developer just outside a tiny village no-one has heard of would rebuild Donkey Kong into the juggernaut he is today? Same with some of the other franchises you've listed too, showing how well the British games community can match the rest of the world.
Lived there for a long time too, it has its charm but good God is it run down these days.
I'd probably be called a fake retro gamer by some haha, I am primarily retro but generally 1994-2005 is the bulk of what I play, really like that early 3D era and the more advanced 16-bit games; I find NES and other 8-Bit retro content to be done to death on the internet. I would have included them but apart from Lemmings, I really haven't played very much of those early PC games at all, they can be a nightmare to get working too.
It's funny that Twycross: the home of modern Donkey Kong happens to be known for its zoo as well
Not a SINGLE Dizzy game??? I was considering forgiving you paying pitiful lip service to Tomb Raider but this is unimaginable.
I'm kidding, of course - the real unforgivable sin is not mentioning a single Bullfrog game, and you can't even make the otherwise permissible excuse that Molyneux doesn't deserve mention on a list of 'best anything' because you included Fable. You want to talk about genres kept alive or resurrected, how about Theme Hospital and Tycoon games, Dungeon Keeper and cozy farming sims, or Magic Carpet and flight simulators?
...okay, thinking about it again, maybe we shouldn't mention Bullfrog after all.
Great article! I for one am shocked to learn that GTA is made by a British studio, it's always felt American to me that I just assumed it was made there.
A lot of people don't realise, mind you, I believe most of Rockstar is in the US these days but Rockstar North in Edinburgh is the original studio and still has seniority as far as I know
Loved this! I hate flag shagging patriotism; this is the sort of thing that makes me proud to be a Brit. Our ingenuity and creativity in the gaming sphere is a thing to be celebrated! You’ve reminded me about a lot of games I didn’t realise were British made, especially GTA and Arkham.
My personal list would probably include Psygnosis / Studio Liverpool for Lemmings, WipEout and plenty of other fun titles that made my childhood a blast.
We don't really express ourselves in our art enough, there are so very few British games that are actually about/set in Britain. I didn't put it on this list but The Getaway games for PS2 were like GTA in London where you also play as the police, very evocative of that time in the UK. Glad you enjoyed the article :)
WipEout very nearly took that Forza Horizon spot but I've always felt those games were known more for their music than their gameplay
I think you’re right. This might be one of the reasons I adored Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and its attention to detail of British village life, and Thank Goodness You’re Here, which was just a beautiful piss take of Northern life. More please 🤣
I've always liked how the swamp area: Velen in The Witcher is basically just Devon/Somerset, complete with accents lol
Psygnosis is one of those logos that immediately evokes the weirdest shit I played once in the 90s and then wake up thinking about for no reason decades later
You know what, you’re so right. I need to write about Kingsley’s Adventure one day; I was convinced it was a fever dream I had as a kid until I saw the box art online and knew it existed.
A perfect example - that game looks like someone tried to mod Conker's Bad Fur Day into a full RPG.
It also reminds me so much of Hype: The Time Quest, a Playmobil tie-in game which, aside from the big Ubisoft logo, you'd probably assume to be the most British game ever made based on the voice acting.
My wife took a chance a few years ago and bought me a video game for my birthday. She had never done that before because she's not a gamer and she knew how difficult it would be to pick something I liked. She took a chance nonetheless.
She bought me this game that I had never heard of before. It looked awful, to be quite honest. I installed it and started it out of politeness. I really, really didn't like it. I pretend to play for a bit until my wife had left the room, then I uninstalled it.
Years later I was looking for something to play and for no clear reason, I decided to give this thing another go. Today, Kenshi is my most played game on Steam (more hours on this than on Elden Ring or Factorio), quite possibly my second favorite game of all time and I regularly search to see when the sequel is coming out.
Thank you, Britain! Absolute magic.
Thanks for sharing! It sounds like your wife has some sharp intuition. Kenshi is definitely one of tho0se games that warrants a second chance for those who brush off; I tried it once, got bored then tried it again last year for my review and it was all I played for a few days.
As someone who was born and raised in Bristol for the first half of my life, I must take issue with your description of that fine city and... admit it seems pretty accurate, actually.
Since you're a retro gamer, I was a bit surprised you didn't go further back to games like Lemmings or ones from the Amiga or Spectrum. However, I think your top choice says it all really. Who would have thought that a small developer just outside a tiny village no-one has heard of would rebuild Donkey Kong into the juggernaut he is today? Same with some of the other franchises you've listed too, showing how well the British games community can match the rest of the world.
Lived there for a long time too, it has its charm but good God is it run down these days.
I'd probably be called a fake retro gamer by some haha, I am primarily retro but generally 1994-2005 is the bulk of what I play, really like that early 3D era and the more advanced 16-bit games; I find NES and other 8-Bit retro content to be done to death on the internet. I would have included them but apart from Lemmings, I really haven't played very much of those early PC games at all, they can be a nightmare to get working too.
It's funny that Twycross: the home of modern Donkey Kong happens to be known for its zoo as well
Not a SINGLE Dizzy game??? I was considering forgiving you paying pitiful lip service to Tomb Raider but this is unimaginable.
I'm kidding, of course - the real unforgivable sin is not mentioning a single Bullfrog game, and you can't even make the otherwise permissible excuse that Molyneux doesn't deserve mention on a list of 'best anything' because you included Fable. You want to talk about genres kept alive or resurrected, how about Theme Hospital and Tycoon games, Dungeon Keeper and cozy farming sims, or Magic Carpet and flight simulators?
...okay, thinking about it again, maybe we shouldn't mention Bullfrog after all.
Bullfrog? More like Bullshi-
I can't believe you've done this.
Great article! I for one am shocked to learn that GTA is made by a British studio, it's always felt American to me that I just assumed it was made there.
A lot of people don't realise, mind you, I believe most of Rockstar is in the US these days but Rockstar North in Edinburgh is the original studio and still has seniority as far as I know
Pretty sure Goldeneye on the N64 was made by Rare in the UK? Great article but surprised by its omission
May I humbly nominate Armed and Dangerous. 3 words: Land. Shark. Gun.