Column: 'Media Consumption: Bizarre Creations' Gareth Wilson'

For this week's Media Consumption, a column that looks at the media and art diets of our favorite industry personalities, we spoke to Gareth Wilson, Design Manager for Bizarre Creations' Project Gotham Racing 3. PGR3 was released as a launch title for the Xbox 360 at the end of 2005, and quickly became one of the top selling titles for the console. The title was later crowned Official Xbox Magazine's Xbox 360 Game of the Year for 2005. Wilson notes that he is currently "working on a new next gen title", but cagily adds that it's "under wraps at the moment". We caught up with Wilson via email to check out the contents of his media diet. Sounds: Music is my second love after video games. In fact for most of my life I've played in bands trying to 'make it' although now I'm touching 30 I've realised rock stardom might not come knocking. Still video games stardom's pretty damn close and I did get a Number 1 with PGR3!!! I've got a broad range of music on my iPod which goes from jazz to dance to metal depending on my mood. Current favourites are The Raconteurs album and a UK band called Hot Chip, lo-fi electronic stuff. In particular I'm looking forward to the new album from 4Hero, a fantastic collective of musicians that manage to fuse jazz and drum & bass together. Check them out on MySpace – I can't recommend them enough. Moving Pictures: Rather predictably I seem to watch mainly Sci-Fi and Fantasy films – after a days work and commute pure escapism is great. However having said that my most favourite films tend to be crime thrillers, Usual Suspects, Heat, LA Confidential and Ronin (which has the greatest car chase of all time, period) - something with a good story. The last movie I saw that I thought was outstanding was Hotel Rwanda – I saw it on a plane flight recently and stayed with me for a long time. Nacho Libre with Jack Black was also great fun – we are huge Jack Black fans at Bizarre Creations. Words: I seem to read more non-fiction these days – I can't remember the last novel I read to be honest. I think I went through a period of reading some really weak books and decided to stick to non-fiction for a while. I can't stand poorly written novels and feel cheated if I start a bad book, as no matter how bad it is I usually finish it to find out what happens. I'm currently reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which someone bought for me. It's really quite good, an idiot's guide to how the world works. I avoided science like the plague at school and I'm enjoying it. Another 'history of everything' that's great is Jared M. Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. It like a real world Sid Meier's Civilisation, which explains why Europe advanced faster than any other region, why American Indians never lived in cities and how 400 conquistadors subdued an entire continent. Games: Before I started work at Bizarre I mostly played racing games. Much as I love them, after a day of working on one I tend to play different genres. If I didn't, I'd see roads in my sleep. I used to be a big PC gamer but since the 360 came out I've been pretty exclusively playing games on that, oh and my DS. I think you get used to the comfort of the wireless controller and playing games on a big TV. Going into the spare room to sit at my computer desk doesn't do it for me anymore. Recently I played Oblivion to death and I probably say after racing games RPG's are my favourite. I'm looking forward to playing Dead Rising, I bought it a while ago but haven't got round to playing it yet. The game I'm most looking forward to is Fall of Liberty by the Call of Duty team. It's the game I wanted to make, a WW2 shooter that changes reality by twisting one historical fact: In 1931, Winston Churchill was hit by a taxi on 5th Avenue in New York. In reality, he survived the accident but walked with a cane for the rest of his life. The game assumes this accident killed him, England fell to Nazis and the Normandy invasion never happens. The screenshots look fantastic with Nazis marching past the White House!