David McCandless is a
journalist perhaps best known for his work on
Dennis Publishing's succession of
computer games magazines. The young '
Macca' started out on the
Program Pitstop section of
Your Sinclair, progressing to
Zero,
Game Zone, and
PC Zone magazines through the 1990s. In the early days of
PC Zone he championed several key games including
Star Control II,
Ultima Underworld, and the game that changed everything,
Doom. Macca's Doom skills became the stuff of legend, earning him the
tongue-in-cheek nickname 'UberFragMeister' and allowing him to take on all comers in tournaments (including one organised by a
rival magazine) until he was beaten by an American teenager.
He provided extensive coverage of the emerging wave of first-person shooters through the mid-Nineties, before leaving to pursue other interests. He won the Q Magazine 'Starmaker' contest with his home-recorded album of guitar pop, 'Smoother and Faster'. He worked for World Productions, creators of the comedy-drama TV series Attachments, editing the (now defunct) tie-in website www.SeeThru.co.uk. He occasionally pens articles on online gaming and related phenomena for games mags as well as the mainstream press.
He's half-Madagascan and once wrote a book of Star Trek trivia questions. He is rumoured to still frequent online shooters, so if yo find someone with the handle 'Maqua' repeatedly fragging you, you'll know why.
www.davidmccandless.com