MEET THE GAMER: Rebellion’s Robbie Cooke discusses games and his love of Halo

Robbie Cooke is in charge of all aspects related to marketing for renowned independent developers Rebellion. To date he’s worked on some of the studio’s biggest hits including Sniper Elite 3, the award-winning Zombie Army Trilogy and of course, the forthcoming Sniper Elite 4. If you want to chat Halo, lament the disappearance of the single-player campaign, or scratch your head at obscure music and rugby tweets, follow him on Twitter.

What is your gamertag and the reason for choosing it?

It’s, arm…“Berkalicious”. Any British readers remember the creepy kids show from the late ’80s called “The Trapdoor”? My kind friends gave me the nickname “Berk” when I was 18 and then somehow it got mashed into some Destiny’s Child lyrics at a party a few years later. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, I picked that tag to represent me online for the rest of time.

What is your favourite genre of game and why?

I think if I had to boil down my favourite games to a top 10 or whatever, it would be dominated by first-person games. Games grip you for different reasons. It might be the challenge of something like Super Meat Boy or the story in a Telltale game for example. But for me nothing makes games more immersive than an amazing first-person experience. When it all clicks the sides of the TV just seem to melt away. Stuff like Portal, Dishonored, Alien: Isolation, Half Life 2 are all up there for me. It’s why I’m so excited about VR actually, because it can take first-person games to their logical conclusion.

What is your favourite game so far? It doesn’t need to be an Xbox title.

This is an easy one—Halo—because I don’t think I’d be working in the games industry without it. Until I was about 16-17, games were just a passing thing I fooled around with on my brother’s SNES and PlayStation. I had the original GameBoy as a kid but it was nothing more than a toy to me really. I didn’t even buy the original Xbox to play games! I wanted to watch the newly-extended DVD editions of Alien and Aliens, and back then DVD players were incredibly expensive, so an Xbox just made sense. The fact you could rip music to it was practically space-age back in 2002!

It was my uncle, a PC gamer, who bought me a copy of Halo for my birthday. I decided to give the game a crack one day, and an hour later I was walking around this gigantic world, looking up at these gorgeous skyboxes, shooting aliens and riding shotgun with chirpy Kiwi space marines like I was in a James Cameron movie. I was 100% sold. That was the moment I realised I was going to spend a lot more time exploring what else gaming had to offer.

What is your most memorable gaming moment?

I don’t really remember specific “moments” from games all that well. I was never a particularly skilled player so I don’t recall any really epic boss battles or multiplayer streaks. I’d say I have a memorable gaming “era”. At my last year of university I moved into a new house and I was very much the “new kid” as they’d all lived together for two years before I moved in. I was probably a little shyer than usual. It was around then that I grudgingly decided to get a Wii because I couldn’t afford a 360, but in retrospect I’m so glad I did. We must have spent hundreds of hours, seven of us packed into my room having a few drinks and playing Wii Sports on one of these fat 11-inch (yes 11) Argos CRT TVs all students used to have back then. It became a kind of ritual before a night out and helped me integrate a bit quicker!

Which achievement has been the most frustrating to obtain? How long did it take you?

I’m not a big ‘chievo hunter to be honest, I mainly look for achievements that push you towards a certain playstyle you might not have tried. So right now I’m re-playing the Dishonored campaign trying…and failing…not to kill anyone. One personal gaming achievement I’ve been wrestling with for years is getting Platinums or Golds on all the tracks in all the Trials games! I’m surprised my controllers are still intact to be honest!

What is your gamerscore and how long has it taken you to get it?

It’s a very modest 31,166 over about 8 years? It was much smaller until recently, as I used to own five different consoles and split time between them. Now that I work for Rebellion and get to talk, play and live around games all day, I’ve focussed down on just the Xbox One at home, so my gamerscore should go up! People with higher scores amaze me though. I feel like I already own and play a lot of games!

What is your gaming guilty pleasure?

My wife and I adored Rabbids Go Home on the Wii. I feel like no one really got it except for us. You control anarchic rodents, racing a shopping trolley across dour American shopping malls, playing fast-paced gypsy funk out of a Tuba…wearing women’s underwear. 10/10! Every time I pick up a trolley at Tesco I want to make the “Brabrabrabroooooooom!” noise the Rabbids make when they speed boost.

If you could pick a video game character, who would you be and why?

Faith from Mirror’s Edge. I’m not great with heights and I imagine even worse with hand-to-hand combat and parkour. She’s got this level of ability that feels just about plausible, so she’s more grounded than many other games’ characters. Also, I’m not brave enough to get tattoos, but her’s are pretty cool!

If you could pick a location, from any game, to visit, where would it be and why?

I’d fancy doing a leisurely 360 degree charity walk around a Halo ring before the whole apocalyptic galactic war thing kicked off. Or maybe I’d kick back on one of those idyllic little mini-worlds in Mario Galaxy with low gravity and really shallow seas and spend my days leaping into the air and circumnavigating the globe in a single jump. Simple pleasures!

Finally, where do you see gaming heading in the next decade?

I think the games we know and love are here to stay, but game genres and subjects are going to get broader and that’s really exciting. Personally, I’m very excited for VR. Like a few gamers I’ve seen peripherals come and go, but I honestly think VR headsets are here to stay. As soon as I tried an early demo of our Battlezone title on PSVR at Rebellion I was absolutely converted.

For me it’s the cultural recognition that’s going to be the biggest change over the next 10 years. Games will become a bigger part of daily life, discussion, art, education—everything really. Even today, when Minecraft is basically the biggest entertainment thing on the planet, people still talk about there being a sect of “gamers”.

Amazingly, I still have friends and relatives who are surprised when I tell them I actually play games, I don’t just work at Rebellion for a pay cheque. They’ll normally say something like “I just don’t get games”. To me that’s a really weird thing to say. You’d never say “I don’t get books” or “I don’t get the appeal of music” to someone. It’s definitely a hangover from the way the big broadcast media treats games in their coverage—either as kids toys or social pariahs.

Someone who seeks out film or music isn’t labelled “a cinemagoer” or a “live music listener”, they’re just kind of accepted as an art form that most people enjoy one way or the other. I think in 10 years time games will be integrated the same way, and in some ways they’re already there.

Special thanks to Robbie Cooke for taking the time to answer our questions. Keep an eye on the website and Twitter for information on how you can feature in the next Meet The Gamer.