Media Consumption: Majesco Entertainment's Andy Luckett

For this week’s Media Consumption, a column that looks at the media and art diets of our favourite industry personalities, we spoke to UK-based development manager for Majesco Entertainment, Andy Luckett. Luckett has been involved in the game industry since the late ‘80s, when he began working as a playtester for MicroProse Software. “I spent many years at MicroProse, and later Hasbro Interactive,” he says. Currently, he’s working on the localization of Age of Empires: Age of Kings for Nintendo DS with Majesco, noting that “working in Europe one of the trickiest things is to actually squeeze all the localized versions of the games onto one cart”. “The game is great,” he enthuses. “We've got a lot excitement building about it in Europe and there's nothing that comes close to it on DS at the moment.” Gamasutra got in touch with Luckett to ask about the ins and outs of his media diet at this point in time. Sounds: "A bit of everything, usually depending on the mood of the games I'm playing - recently fighting the Horde in World of Warcraft has been complemented by Iron Maiden rocking at 80db, much to my wife's annoyance. PVP can be fast paced, so it’s club type music for then. Raiding can take time and require the use of VOIP like Team Speak, so then chill-out music for that. Instances can be moody and atmospheric, so that's where Iron Maiden comes into its own. I recently got Sid Meier's Railroads! which almost makes you want to listen to country music. Almost. In the office I listen to Radio 1, so chart music. At home my son dictates the music choice, but as he's 5 this can be young biased pop music. My favourite albums are things like AC/DC’s Back in Black, Prince’s 1999 and Queen’s Greatest Hits. The new Tenacious D offerings have got me a little excited. It’s just fun and doesn't take itself too seriously!" Moving Pictures: "My favourite film is Sin City - style, violence with a cerebral edge. But I like all sorts. It doesn't have to have been reviewed too well as long as I get enjoyment out of it - films like Serenity, for example. I grew up watching Star Wars, Halloween, Superman, and Ghostbusters, but the latest film I enjoyed was Open Season - good humor and lots of little details, like using the rabbits as gas masks, etc." Words: "Mostly science and nature - I just want to know "why" I guess. Things like Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, New Scientist’s Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Questions, and John Brockman’s What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty. Though, at the moment the World of Warcraft Dungeon Companion is getting a lot of my time! Right now I’m reading The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. This book is the only form of entertainment that you will ever need if you haven't got your games console to hand. As it quite clearly states on the rear cover this is for boys from eight to eighty. The authors have tapped into the current discontent with modern life and have shown us how to enjoy the simple pleasures in life again." Games: "I do enjoy strategy games - this stems from my time at MicroProse working on games like XCOM and Civilization. My time there gave me the exposure to the best strategy games, and once I left I realized I was hooked to the genre. I was a huge fan of the games from Ultimate Play the Game (now Rare), but two games from them stood out as favourite - Knight Lore and Underwurlde. Gameplay, subject matter and amazing graphics - for their time - drew me to them. I like RPG games such as Baldur's Gate - I play these games because they really do maintain the suspension of disbelief. After all this time in the games industry that's the main reason I still loving playing games - to go to places and do things you can't in real life. I’m also into arcade action, and sports, to name a few genres – I’ve never really been into FPS games though. Recently, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft - aside from the fact it is a great, fun and polished game my main enjoyment comes from the community and friends I have there. I am in a guild of people who all came over from Star Wars: Galaxies, so we have all been playing MMOGs together for many years now. These are people who I have never met but I still consider them friends - it’s amazing that games can do this. I’m also playing Kingdom Hearts II on PS2 and Ultimate Ghosts 'n’ Goblins on PSP. Due to the interface differences between mouse and D-pad, some games just don't work on PC too well, so I go where the good games are, irrelevant to the platform."