back to article God-game creator granted Bafta gong

Lauded game designer Peter Molyneux is to become a Bafta Fellow at this year's British Academy Video Games Awards. Molyneux began his career in 1982 distributing Atari and Commodore 64 titles on floppies. Soon after, he created a text-based simulation game, The Entrepreneur, which failed to take off, pushing him away from …

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  1. Ian Ferguson
    Thumb Up

    Well done Peter

    Apparently when he picked up the gong it came away from its base, and he noted that it hadn't been polished, but the organisers promised him that the next one he won would be finished properly.

    1. Jayw
      Thumb Up

      Nail on head

      That really did make me laugh out loud. Utterly SPOT on.

  2. Andy Farley
    Thumb Down

    The only God moment I've had playing one of his

    is "God, where's the game".

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      FAIL

      Unfortunately...

      ....only one downvote is allowed.

      Maybe I can buy more at the Moderatrix' emporium.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Unfortunately

        Did you play black and white?

        when you finish slapping your pet, making it dance and play fetch, you soon realise he was so busy with all that, he forgot to build in a game.

  3. Drem
    Dead Vulture

    Bulldog?

    I quite agree that Molyneux is a Bulldog, in that he gets his teeth into things, but the company was Bullfrog was it not?

  4. Linbox
    Go

    Nice guy. Don't mention the shoelaces...

    I met him a few times during his Bullfrog days as I worked with his sister, Jane.

    He always wore shoes with the laces undone and when I mentioned this, I was told that he loved wearing lace-up shoes, but had never learned to tie them...

  5. LinkOfHyrule
    Joke

    What about Milo?

    What about Milo, the Kinect pederast simulator?

  6. EddieD
    Thumb Up

    Good.

    Populous was phenomenal.

  7. Avatar of They
    Thumb Up

    Populous

    Populous, OMG that brings back annoyed memories arguing with little people on a screen. Awesome and highly addictive game.

    I am off to load up my megadrive and play that (or look to see if there is a linux clone)

  8. Saucerhead Tharpe

    I wish Original Populous was still around

    Or even Pop II at at pinch, nice, simple God Game without too many fusses

    Very playable

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uhm

    No mention of Syndicate, wtf?

    That game was (and still is) mighty brilliant, one of my fave games ever

    1. Robin Marlow
      Linux

      Syndicate

      Syndicate is one of my all time favorite games too.

      I wondered if it would run under wine but looks like there is a linux port in development:

      http://freesynd.sourceforge.net/

      1. AchimR
        Thumb Up

        Synd

        You should be able to run it in a Dosbox without the need of wine, as well as SynWars

  10. ttuk

    blah

    syndicate was great.. and populous also..

    hate to sound old.. but, they don't make em like they used to... there hasn't been a decent god type game out for ages.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Modern games

      From what I have seen, the majority of the modern games are all the same. Wolfenstein 3D / Doom with better graphics. Going round shooting everything. Yes, this will be downvoted a lot, but I have rarely seen anything different, so that's why I haven't bothered with games consoles.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bullfrog was more than just Molyneux

    I worked at Bullfrog from around the Powermonger days to just before EA consumed them. Whilst Molyneux was clearly the leading figure there the games created were far more of a team effort than perhaps people are commonly made aware of.

    In many ways Syndicate was even les to do with Molyneux than some of the other titles and that may be why it was omitted here, but for that matter Magic Carpet had very little to do with Molyneux.

    Still, Syndicate was, by far, the best title I ever worked on.

    Don't get me wrong though, Molyneux is a nice enough fella.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed it was...

      I was there at the same time. And it was the way AC remembers.

      Not that it matters to the punters (or pundits for that matter).

      I think he deserves another gong, though: lifetime hyperbole award.

    2. Tasogare
      Thumb Up

      If you worked on it...

      Syndicate was a superb classic...but as long as a dev's on hand, I have to ask: What's with the AI? I replayed it recently, and noted that in spite of the mission briefings saying that smaller teams attract less attention, enemy agents often make a beeline for me from across the map anyway.

      ...and other times I could walk right past them without them ever noticing.

      (amusingly, the game appears to be unwinnable on a modern machine -- some quirk about the last level makes it load and start playing so fast that the enemies are already mauling me before the display appears. No fault of the dev team though -- technology marches on.)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2

    Dungeon Keeper was a great game too - so good it's being remade. Or reimagined. Or ripped off. One of those.

    Dungeons - http://home.dungeons-game.com/

    "You will play a despicable Dungeon Lord whose job is to create fiendish dungeons to lure and trap heroes who dare to try and steal your treasure. Dungeons was developed by Realmforge, a Kalypso Media studio."

    Mind you, god games have certainly moved on in the graphics department, From Dust looks fun : http://fromdustgame.com/

  13. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Coat

    GOD v2.0 Cloud Platform Edition, Peter? More Real than Virtual too with HyperRadioproActive IT.

    Hmmm? .... I was quite surprised that the following was not thought worthy of mention ..... "Lionhead Studios (also known as Microsoft Game Studios Europe) is a British computer game development company led by industry veteran Peter Molyneux, and acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in April 2006."

    PS ...... The Title is not a Question, It is an Alien Program Proposal ..... and hereby Live BetaTests the Present Power of the Internet to Connect Dots ...... and Transport Subliminal Steganographic Messages Automatically ..... for Future Idealised Projects and Programs requiring the Virtual TelePortation of Super Sensitive Matter for Super Sensitive Matters.

  14. Debe
    Flame

    Bullfrog.

    Ahhh Syndicate, brilliant game. Give your agents some rocket launchers and then go to that mission with a parade with lots of people lining the streets…the explosions, the screams, the little people on fire… *blissful sigh*

    And Dungeon Keeper was brilliant. Beating up heroes and dropping them into torture chambers convert them to your side and use them against their friends, fantastic fun…

    Flame icon because little people on fire make me happy. :>

  15. Semaj
    Stop

    Just Like Mr. Lucas

    He made some truly great things but the latest efforts are awful :(

    Fable II was acceptable - barely. Seemed to care a lot about banning people from their forums and bringing out expansion packs, not to mention putting in achievements that you needed to buy extra stuff to get but didn't much care for actually fixing the game breaking glitches - oh and of course you can't back up the save files easily either.

    Fable III - yuck. Dumbed down kiddy rubbish.

    Stop - making games dude, you had it once but you've lost it.

  16. Tim Worstal

    Good memories of him too

    Years ago (Bullfrog days) he was the only major UK games developer willing to take a chance on some Russian programmers I was working with.

    Nothing really came of it in he end but he was certainly open to trying out new ideas.

  17. Sean Baggaley 1
    WTF?

    Hi-Octane, anyone?

    No? How about Fusion? Looks like Molyneaux's less successful titles have been swept under the Magic Carpet.

    My favourite Bullfrog game was "Flood", even though it sold in criminally low numbers. A genuinely original take on the platform game genre.

    Molyneaux is a PR and marketing man. famously prone to over-promising and under-delivering. A trait that has only gotten worse over the years. He's either a terrible game designer, or an incredibly unlucky manager.

    I agree with the Anonymous posters: most games were already team efforts by the early '90s, and have become even more so. That Mr. Molyneaux seems quite happy to take all the credit for their work too speaks volumes.

  18. Atonnis
    WTF?

    The BAFTA's were Molyneux'd!

    It's almost become a standard for when someone lies through their teeth to promise all sorts of things that don't come to fruition, or when they intentionally mislead people in order to make money, for them to be classed as 'Molyneux'd'.

    After the early games PM has been a steadily dishonest git, and if he'd been given awards for the early games and not the last ten years I wouldn't have minded.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Well done!

    I loved playing The Movies even to this day. I even have the expansion pack.

    The game had much more live to it. It's a shame that they should choose Activision as the distributor and then chose to get eaten up by Microsoft.

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