Meet the Reader: Tonyyeb

In the hot seat this week is Tony Yeboah, the slightly famous footballer. He’s retired these days, but bless him, he’s still a sprightly chap and here we go for a nice interview with him. On the other hand perhaps I’m making this up…

Who are you, where are you and how old are you?

I’m Chris Eden-Pratt, I live in Hull (or ‘ull to the locals) and I’m 31 and a half.

Hell? Oh, sorry I read that wrong. Hull.

There’s no place like it… Honestly.

Indeed. Your TSA and PSN ID is hugely different to your actual name. What was the source of inspiration for you?

Well in the days of dial up, when I had a 14.4k modem, don’t you know, I needed an alias for my spangly new Yahoo! email account. I wanted to name myself after the greatest footballer (ever to come out of Ghana) ever, Tony Yeboah, but some git had beaten me to it!

So I shortened it to tonyyeb. And so it has been this for every other account I’ve created. Benefit is it is always available (though I know you will go round registering it before me now) but people always think I’m Chinese or something and that my real name is Tony.

So wait… You’re NOT chinese? But you always sound chinese when playing games…

With my lovely Yorkshire twang I’m sure you didn’t really think that.

You really have no idea how my mind does(n’t) work…

No one does.

Games! How did you first start playing games?

When I was 5 my brother had a Tandy TRS-80 which was quite simply amazing… in 1985. I would type in the games in the built in BASIC programming language from a code book and he would play them!

Gosh, you’re so old!

Yeah… But not as old as Ro6afc11!

True. The Grand Daddy of TSA… Which side did you choose to take in the Sega vs. Nintendo wars?

Well from the TRS-80 came a host of Spectrums (48, 128, +2, +2A, +3 – with the disk drive!), then I got the best games machine ever. An Amiga 500! Then a A600, CD32 and then onto PCs.

My first console was a PS1, out of the first batch. Again my brother had one and showed me Destruction Derby, and I was sold instantly. So to answer your question, neither!

Oh, an Amiga 500? So you’re all set for GTA V, then?

I loved that article just cause it mention the Amiga. I love them!

I’m sure plenty of the younger ones were just like “What’s a Miga?”

Yeah, and they probably Googled it without safe search on and found lots of Spanish ladies.

There’s worse things to find. So you got your PS1, and never looked back? Have you had anything but a Sony machine since then? Or just went through a PS2 and on to a PS3.

Got a PS2 just to play GTA 3. Had a Wii for a bit, but hasn’t just about everyone now?

The PS3 came after finding that my recently upgraded PC wouldn’t play GTA IV! In a fit of fury I put the parts of my PC up for sale and bought a PS3 and a copy of GTA IV. A moment of madness that actually turned out to be a sensible decision!

Which has been the most enjoyable GTA game so far for you?

Vice City, I’d have to say. The most nuts of all the GTAs.

To be honest, I’ve no idea about the 3D ones. They didn’t catch me the same way the old 2D ones did.

I tend to agree, but the depth of the newer ones is something else. Though, as you will have seen from my Twitter avatars, I like my retro gaming.

Indeed you do. You’ve got an old F1 game currently, isn’t it?

Yeah it is Geoff Crammond’s Microprose Grand Prix, a PC/Amiga game, still played by quite a few people!

Can it do online multiplayer?

I think I read about a hack that allowed it but at the time of release I think you could use a dial up modem on the PC version and only “take it in turns” on the Amiga version!

Ha! Really?

Yeah no way could anything handle split screens. You would do your 10 laps say while the AI drove your friends, then your friend would take over their car while the AI drove yours!

Still, a clever way around the limitation, I guess… What’s your favourite game of all time? would have segued to that, but I was feeling a little lazy.

Such a tricky question. Of all time it has to be Indy Heat on the Amiga, but of this generation it is Gran Turismo 5 and the game I’ve spent most time playing is Battlefield 2 on the PC. So a mixed bag…

Laziness to the rescue, so I won’t torture you for a more definitive answer than that. However, I will ask if you’ve played Battlefield 3, and how you think the game series has progressed/regressed?

On PC, BF2 was all about multiplayer. I don’t recall there being a single player. 98% of people who buy BF3 will be getting it for the MP (I know cc_star is in the 2% that hasn’t!). So while the single player isn’t great the MP is very good. Really enjoying it, especially when online with some TSA community peeps!

I believe the BF series was all bot matches offline until Bad Company came along. So yeah, BF2 was 100% multiplayer. I take it you’ve been playing on PS3, rather than PC,then?

Yeah my PC is a work laptop so its limited to the games it can run… I mean I’m not allowed games on it!

Is there anything good which you can categorically deny having played on there in recent times?

A free copy of Portal from Steam? But it really is limited to just my software development stuff.