Media Consumption: SilverBack Studios' Jim Bottomley

For this week’s Media Consumption, a column that looks at the media and art diets of our favourite industry personalities, we spoke to Jim Bottomley, Lead Designer for SilverBack Studios’ Made Man. The Mafia-action title has been through some rough times – it began development as an Acclaim Manchester game under the name Interview With a Made Man. Following the collapse of Acclaim, videogame project management and finance company Fund4Games picked up the IP and studio assets left behind, and financed the creation of SilverBack Studios. 15 employees also made the move from Acclaim to SilverBack, and continued working on the title. The team found a publisher, Mastertronic, in June of this year, and Made Man is slated for release later this year. “We're just finishing Made Man on PS2 and PC,” says Bottomley. “Just dotting the i's and crossing the t's, so to speak.” He’s a little less forthcoming on what the team are up to next, though. “The SilverBack police would shoot me dead if I said anything I shouldn't, so I'm afraid my lips are sealed on this score...” We caught up with Bottomley via email to see where his tastes have been leading him lately. Sounds: I'm told by most people I know that my taste in music is a little eclectic. I think they're just being kind and actually mean 'crap', but each to their own. I've not really kept up with the music scene over the last few years so I'm still listening to the stuff I've been listening to for years - Pixies, Soundgarden, Faith No More, Pearl Jam and then stuff most have not really heard of such as Helmet, Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3 and Tomahawk. If you know anything about any of these bands it's obvious I'm a bit of a Mike Patton fan - I just love his approach to music and how he can jump from the sublime to the ridiculous in a space of a few beats. Like I said, I've not kept up with popular (or even unpopular!) music over the last few years so I can't really comment on "what the kids are into nowadays"... Moving Pictures: My all time favourite film is Shawshank Redemption. Ok, it's a feel-good movie, but I thought it was wonderfully done. I also love Star Wars - hey I'm a child of the 70's OK? - even though Mr Lucas's recent outings didn't quite light the fires that the original trilogy did. Other than that I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies - a good mix of fun, irreverence and Star Wars quotes (did I just mention Star Wars again?). The last movie I saw (and enjoyed) is probably Underworld Evolution on DVD - not exactly a masterpiece, but I liked the way it didn't come across as a bolted-on sequel. I don't get to the cinema much nowadays - young kids have a way of evaporating your former (free) life... Words: I don't really have much time to myself nowadays, but I do love Jostein Gaarder's books and am currently (for the last few months - yes, that slowly) reading Maya. To me, his books are fairy tales for adults and like a lot of folk in this industry I'm basically just a big kid... Games: Any game with a good and involving storyline is pretty much my thing. I'm going to be really boring and tell you that I loved The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on N64, but that's basically because it was the last opportunity I really had to devote a lot of time to a game and get truly engrossed. It was pretty awesome. I spent so much time with that game that my wife started referring to herself as a 'Zelda widow'. I think people enjoy games for a lot of different reasons, time and place being a lot to do with it as much as the merits of the game itself. Lately I've been playing games I can dip in and out of more easily such as the latest Burnout, and top fun it is too...