Not Ian

Top 5:
TV shows that should've been made into games

1. Grange Hill

Throwing sausages around in the canteen, letting off fire extinguishers in the halls, innercity tension, massive fuck-off rucks with rival schools, growing pains, period pains, teenage suicide, shagging, drinking, piss-taking and pregnancy. All things that should be seen in games more often, Grange Hill is/was perfect for a nice bit of videogame tomfoolery. Even though it's a kid's show, the main characters portayed in it have usually been a hundred times more well-rounded and believeable than the standard gaming protagonists. Add in the fact that games have never ever told an adult story half as well as Grange Hill told Zammo's descent into heroin addiction. A loveable lead-character who ends up smacked out in a youth-club toilet has also been a surprisingly underused theme in gaming. Sort it out, industry.

2. Red Dwarf

"Kryten, go to red alert"
"Are you sure sir? It does mean changing the bulb"

With games going ever further down that moronic 'square-jawed space-marine lights a fag and saves the universe' route it would be a perfect time to send-up all that tedious bollocks, and a Red Dwarf game could be the answer we've all been looking for. The future according to Red Dwarf doesn't consist of hollywood style men-of-action saving the universe from alien peril, but a scouse slob floating aimlessly through the outer reaches of space whilst slacking his way through his role as sole surviving member of humanity. Instead of being backed up by a tactical nuke and a uneasy alliance with an alien race, Lister is joined in time & space by the hologram of a former chicken-soup repairman, a total idiot who descended from the common house cat and an android with a malfunctioning housework chip. A game featuring these elements would obviously be about a million times more entertaining than Halo & Gears Of War combined.

3. The Magic Roundabout

Surrealism is another thing that has been criminally underused in games for a good while now, and drug inspired family entertainment even more so. What better way to combine these two elements than a Magic Roundabout game. Favourite of seventies children and drop-outs alike, the Magic Roundabout is the kind of game I'd actually look foward to playing. Naturally I have no idea how it would work, but controlling a character who bounced around like Zebadee is a sure-fire gameplay winner. I rest my case for the defence right there. Zebadee.

4. Ripping Yarns

Michael Palin and Terry Jones' post-Python show features stuff you'd think would be present in more games - adventure, high-jinks, boys own escapism, and good old fashioned british stiff upper lip-edness. Ripping Yarns was based around the comics of the 20's and 30's where young scallywags would learn the basics of being a good egg and furthering the Empire. 'Roger Of The Raj', 'Across The Andes By Frog' - even the titles get you fired up for a bit of old-school adventuring. Save the country in time for afternoon tea, and do try to keep a bit of British dignity about the whole thing, Jenkins.

Actually, a gaming version of this would no-doubt be horrible, with those stupid mid-atlantic voices and all hints of subtlety and wit systematically ironed out so as to become understandable to idiotic american teens. But I still wish they would give the idea a thought.

5. The Sweeney

"Hello son, we're the sweeney"

I'm too young to have watched it at the time but the idea of The Sweeney has always appealed to me, drive around seventies London in a cortina using massively over-the-top violence to arrest platform shoed no-gooders. Games like The Getaway were obviously going for this angle (with a modern day twist) but unfortunately never pulled it off, mainly because they were so fucking stupid and 'Guy Richie' about the whole thing. This idea may be hampered somewhat by the fact that John Thaw is dead and therefore unavailable for voice-over duties. Still, that's no reason for the gaming industry not to cash in on an iconic series is it?

Well, it never has been before.

Honourable mentions:

Mr Benn, The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin, Quantum Leap, Bullseye, The Prisoner, Doctor Who, The Wire, Rentaghost, Pat Sharp's Funhouse, Noel's Houseparty, Knightmare (DS, obviously)