We have a dedicated creative team here at the Mastertronic Collectors Archive who are just as passionate about Mastertronic as you are. With gaming experience dating back to the dawn of the home computer games era, and years of professional journalism under our belts, we have the experience and passion to bring you a site we hope you’ll enjoy.
Simon Plumbe – Site Editor
Simon has been playing games for a long time… a VERY long time. His first gaming system was one of the early Pong clones released in the 1970s and hasn’t stopped gaming ever since, owning everything from a Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, several Amigas, a PC Engine, various handhelds and consoles from Nintendo and Sega, and most incarnation of the PlayStation since its launch in 1996 and currently has a collection of over 40 working consoles and computers, much to his wife’s annoyance.
Professionally, Simon has been writing for various computer magazines and websites since the early 1990s covering everything from video and computer gaming, retro gaming, the launch of the original PlayStation, computer shows, and everything in between as well as writing for science fiction, health, sports and other publications. With regards to the Mastertronic Collectors Archive, Simon is the Site Editor and one of our two resident experts on the Mastervision VHS range.
Away from gaming, he is a fan of pro wrestling, all things sci-fi, is an avid YouTuber, and lives in a small village in South Wales with his wife, daughter and a house full of animals.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SimonPlumbe
Derek Glen
Author of the most infuriating golf game ever written for the Spectrum, Grandpa Joe Plays The Open, Derek bought his first Mastertronic game in a Dungeons & Dragons shop in Aberdeen soon after the range was launched in 1984, and has been hooked ever since.
Now a lifelong fan and collector of anything and everything with even loose connections to the Mastertronic empire, he is rapidly running out of capacity in his shed, loft and wallet!
Mat Corne
Mat spent his formative gaming years playing on the family’s BBC Micro, and the first game he ever bought with his own money was Mastertronic’s Kane. In 1988 he got his own computer, a Commodore 64, and as a latecomer to the system, much of his gaming library was made up of budget titles, with many Mastertronic favourites among them.
Having been involved in the retro gaming scene for a few years, in March 2012 he began the Mastertronic Chronicles series on his YouTube channel. This saw him collecting, playing and reviewing almost every Mastertronic game for the Commodore 64 over a period of three years. More recently he has completed a similar series for Firebird Software’s budget Silver Range, and also produced the Commodore 64 Budget Publisher Showdown, comparing titles from Mastertronic, Firebird and Codemasters.
He continues to produce retro gaming videos every week, covering a variety of systems and themes, with a heavy focus on the C64 and BBC Micro. His YouTube channel can be found at https://www.youtube.com/@witchfinder1976
Mark Leither
Warren Pilkington
Warren started his 8-bit computing on the Commodore Plus/4, and learned some machine code via the in built monitor to devise cheats for games. He also played a considerable number of Mastertronic titles for the C16 and Plus/4, as they supported the system very well. Later on he got a Commodore 64, and Action Replay Cartridge, and ended up doing POKEs, listings and music hacks for the likes of Zzap! 64, Commodore Format and Commodore Zone between 1988 and 2001.
Warren also still contributes to the High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) where he was also a member of the team between 1997 and 2003, and is a musician for the well regarded C64 demo group Padua. He still has a C64 and Plus/4 to this day, and has a complete Mastertronic C16 and Plus/4 collection, with plenty of exclusive games for that format.
You can find out more about Warren in this interview here – https://remix64.com/interviews/an-interview-with-warren-pilkington-2020-edition
Anthony Guter
Brian Kemp
Brian’s first computer was a 48K, ZX Spectrum, followed by the 128K+2 . The vast percentage of his pocket money was spent on computer games and he fondly remembers playing the Mastertronic games as they were pocket money priced . They were usually rather good and each one definitely had fantastic artwork. He fondly recalls that buzz of excitement at the games shops, when he shuffled through the shelves and purchased a new game. Most of those games purchased were either Mastertronic labels or Firebird and to this day, he still is an avid collector of those.
He now enthusiastically writes reviews of those games to bring back those fond classic memories from the 80’s and 90’s. His aim is to help preserve the retro-gaming era as well as introducing new people to what those games were like. Brian firmly believes that with the latest remakes of those classic computers, that there is still a new future for retro games to be enjoyed to this very day.
Brian writes games in his spare time, although none were ever professionally released. That may well change, with the Spectrum Next and having spare time to spend programming again. A lot of this would be inspired, with thanks to Mastertronic, whose games were and still are an inspiration.
Mark Macrae
Patrick Furlong
Patrick has been playing games for 40 years since the age of 5. His first computer was the Amstrad CPC 464 and has gone on to play many other machines over the years. His collection now comprises of an Amstrad CPC464, Amiga 1200, Atari STE, Commodore 64 and Spectrum Next in addition to consoles.
Patrick has been a keen player of text adventure games and has recently started writing them – titles include Amtix Antics and Shuttlepod Alpha and is having a demo of a forthcoming multi-part adventure (Wild West Movie Hijinks) featured on the upcoming Crash Christmas covertape.
Besides gaming, he enjoys science fiction shows, writing stories, lots and lots of reading, doing computer stuff for his local church group (and educating friends on computers) and lives on the south coast of England with his cat.
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