Man completes game after 23 years
DEADEND - A man has gone into the record books this week after taking 23 years to complete a computer game.
Leslie Olson of Deadend, Bristol told of his torment and subsequent joy at completing the game, raising his blistered hands and fingers in the air and fisting defiantly to mocking neighbours.
CGI hasn't really changed in 30 years
The classic twenty level platform game, Manic Miner, first popularised on the ZX Spectrum in 1984 has proved to be Leslie’s greatest challenge. After making a playful bet in December 1985 with his only son that he could complete the game first, 63 year old Leslie would not be denied, even after his son grew up and moved to Sao Paulo. “[My son Charlie] made the bet with me. Like all good fathers I wanted to ram it down his throat. I don’t care if [Charlie] was six or twenty nine. He won’t be laughing now.”
Despite Leslie’s achievement, the success was marred with personal tragedy. Leslie lost his first wife Sandra and his second dog, Chewie because of his addiction. Sandra cited Leslie’s obsessive nature as the catalyst in their separation. She said “[Leslie] would come home from work, eat and then just play on the computer all night. Sometimes he would even bring the computer to bed with us. It was degrading.”
“It will leave a large void in my life,” Leslie Olson told reporters. “Maybe now I can live a little.”
