Name/Alias: Graham "Grazza" Burgess
You live in: Bristol, England
Born: 24-Feb-68
Job: Publisher: Gambit Publications Ltd. It's a small but rather successful specialist chess publishing company.
Hobbies/Sports: Skiing (3-5 weeks a year, in North America, Europe and New Zealand). I used to play quite a lot of chess - I hold the FIDE Master title and have two norms toward the International Master title .
Homepage/email: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gkburgess/ gkburgess -at- compuserve -dot- com
Computer specs: Desktop machine: 2.4 GHz P4. My new notebook is a Centrino with Dothan 745 processor (it arrived while I was filling in this form, in fact).

DOOM config (key bindings, controllers): Keyboard+mouse: WASD for movement, Ctrl/Alt for turn left/right (just for strafe-50 - Windows key disabled), RH mouse button for strafe on, LH mouse button for fire, space for use.
Size of DOOM directory on your hard drive: Total for all Doom directories is nearly 10 gigabytes .
Favorite DOOM Maps: HR, AV, Equinox; hard to pick individual favourite from them.
Favorite DOOM demos: Many, but pn22-123, 30nm3159, 30uv1617 have a magical feel about them, as do many other compet-n and TAS demos by the best players. Overall, Vile is my favourite player, due to his extreme skill and the fact that he regularly takes on tough, long, violent runs and undone tasks.
Favorite Executable(s) to use: By default I use Andrey Budko's modified version of glboom 2.2.4 (with TAS features turned off, of course) with -complevel 0. I only switch from that where there is a specific reason to do so.
Some of your DOOM achievements:   (maps, demos, IRC scandals, etc...) I don't know if "achievements" is the right word, but I've recorded quite a lot of demos, have been reviewing /newstuff for nearly a year (every three weeks) and am a moderator at DW. I regard the following as among my best demos: 6l01np59, en03p245, en04n134, rige-126, sv05n422, trydn338. I'm also pleased to have reawakened demo interest in Icarus.
Other games: I spent a fair while playing Lemmings, Half-Life, Unreal and UT. Otherwise, I've played through a number of games once, and in some cases got bored part way through and abandoned them.

A few questions:
1. Do you play DOOM more than any other game? Yes, by a long way.
2. Ever played multiplayer DOOM? Strangely enough, no.
3. About when did you start playing DOOM?  Early 1994.
4. Do you make maps? No. Well, just tiny little things to test how things work.
5. DOOM3? Haven't got it yet. Not too excited - to me, it's just another new game.
6. Favorite monster / most hated monster? I think they can all the used well, or used badly. The archie is perhaps the most interesting though, due to the gameplay possibilities it introduces.
7. Music you like Mostly metal or psychedelic stuff.
8. Movies you like Most good action or sci-fi films (e.g. the Terminator trilogy).
9. Girl/guy who lights your fire No one you'd know! Amongst well-known people, let's see... Sarah Alexander and Eliza Dushku are both kind of cute.
10. Current type of internet connection 56k dial-up. I could get broadband, but every time the Telewest guys come up the lane to do something, it is far more of a mess than expected... long story.

more info:  any personal info you wish to add.  Olympic medals, favorite songs or movies, favorite chess moves, why you wear three socks to church, etc... I presume "favorite chess moves" was added for my benefit, so I ought to answer it. Actually, I'm not sure. Maybe 23 Rd7 in Gelfand-Shirov, Polanica Zdroj 1998. Of my own, perhaps 26 Bh5 in Burgess-S.Bjerke, Gausdal 2002, even though it wasn't against very testing opposition. Favourite game would be Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow Wch (16) 1985 (just amazing), with Tal-Hecht, Varna Olympiad 1962 as a possible runner-up. Of my own games: from an aesthetic viewpoint I.Clark-Burgess, Weymouth 1989; from a competitive viewpoint Lukov-Burgess, Val Thorens 1988 (first IM norm + tournament victory), and from a "draw with a future world champion" viewpoint, Burgess-Anand, Prestwich 1990. FWIW, I hold the world record for marathon blitz chess-playing.


Apparently, Grazza forgot about Merrill-atari2600 of 1983. (Atari Chess on skill 0 no less!)  But I'll forgive him, because he wasn't there to witness the event. :)
Seriously though, Grazza's a rare pillar of strength in the DOOM community.  Providing a rare point of view full of wisdom, temperance, and empirical information.  While many of his demos are recorded as curiosities or 'special' demotypes, there are also those which any DOOMer would be proud to have authored.  Check out his demos on Eob2s / H2h-xmas / Equinox / Bndaly8 / Marswar / Rw / Poolpty2 / Dna-tech / Aboosysv for a good example of him at his best.

9/2004 -- Opulent