I would like to present to you, an interview with one of the most well-respected and talented players that Day of Defeat has had the pleasure of being home to. Please give a big e-hand to the one and only Paul An1maL Brocklehurst!

Paul is a former member of the legendary 1.3 team unplugged! and he was known for his exceptional skill and friendly personality. He was one of the few Europeans that attended the Cyberathlete Extreme Summer Championships LAN @ Dallas, USA in 2005, along with his team-mates Zoanth and Steve.

I have always known Paul to be a great player, but having never had the pleasure of seeing him play apart from in frag movies and never having spoken to him prior to this interview I had always thought it would be nice to know more about him. So, thanks to Steve I was able to contact him and ask him a few questions. Here is what he had to say.

Hey Paul, could you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Hey, I'm Paul Brocklehurst, I used to play in unplugged! In day of defeat 1.3 under the alias An1maL =)

Nice to meet you. First of all, what do you do in your real-life? Mainly concerning studies/job and things you may have achieved?

I graduated with a Masters in Mathematics a year and a half ago. I'm currently studying for a PhD full time which is about half way finished. Trying to publish some papers at the mo! Subject matter is fluid dynamics and hydro elastic waves if there are any mathematicians out there :)

Sounds cool but how about your future? What do you have planned?

Well, I have the option of staying in academia and becoming a lecturer, or packing it in and doing something in industry. Hopefully when I graduate the economy will have sorted itself out and I'll have lots of options in the capital, being an actuary or something else in finance. However, that will likely be fucking boring :D I do enjoy the challenge of research so we'll see.

What are your hobbies? What do you like to do in your free time?

Any kind of sport! Though not recently since I fractured my metatarsal ;( been resting last few weeks. Mostly football a few times a week, and tennis, athletics, anything else involving a racquet. Massive interest in music, learning loads of Andy McKee stuff on guitar. And of course gaming!


Paul on his graduation day.
Ok, now let's move onto gaming. How did you start playing games and was DoD 1.3 your first competitive game?

Good question! Well I got an N64 for an early birthday; I remember being very excited about that. I think I was around 10 or 11. Prior to that my brother had a SNES. Lots of classic games like super mario world, street fighter 2, sensible soccer :D I still play them from time to time. First FPS would have been goldeneye. What a game! Later, I remember playing my first online FPS at my mates house, a half life mod called front line force. It was a fast paced and awesome game. I got a PC of my own, and played a bit with my 56k connection. One of my other friends recommended day of defeat, which at this stage was very early in development (like, beta 1.0, dod_hill, seg3, oslo etc). I was terrible in those days, only pubbing and not clanning. Later, 3.1b came out and I gave up because my comp was too bad :D

Seeing as though you were a 1.3 player, could you please give us some history of the teams you played for and mention some of your achievements?

Well, finally I got a better PC and started playing 3.1b again. I got a bit better and my first team was called RGR, later 82nd . Lots of fun in those days, classic maps like cherbourg and zafod. I started getting a bit better and taking it more seriously around the time retail came out. I remember forming a team called aDversity with my IRL mate James, aka Charlie, and Bez, jimerson, john etc. Eventually joined SOE with chewie, nimzicki, fish and co. After they folded, I joined unplugged, and was there for a good two or three years. Won lots of opencups and eurocups, which are probably my main achievements as they were generally considered the most prestigious cups. It was always really fun to represent my country, though we always got dominated by my clanmates from Sweden and Finland.

What are you playing these days?

Um, I pub occasionally to see if I still have it, and I've been known to play a few cs 1.6 gathers. We have a wii and that’s pretty fun. Been playing a lot of pro evo 2010, that's amazing. Not a huge fan of any recent FPS.

How did you come to use An1maL as a nickname?

Haha, well that was a team we formed with the guys in aDv; before we changed the name the clan was called 'the muppets'. We all had different names of muppets. I was animal, and obviously added the 1 and L to make it sufficiently cool, those being the days of HeatoN and the like.

How come you changed from playing rifle to heavy?

Eh, that was a relatively small chapter of my gaming days, after source had come out, towards the end a lot of top teams folded. We had joined begrip in the hopes of going to the summer CPL BYOC 2006. River had left and as I recall there weren't many decent heavies in the scene, so I took it up for a while. I made an 'ok' heavy :D there wasn't funding for us to go to cpl in the end, but if we had gone I would have played rifle I imagine.

What would you say is your biggest achievement in gaming and what is your best memory? Also, have you gained anything from playing competitively?

Lots and lots of memories! Sometimes people view gaming on a high level as a detriment to your personal/social life, but I couldn't disagree more. I was always active in lots of other interests and socially, and never let it affect my education. But it was a large part of my life growing up, and I wouldn't change that! Some of the people you meet online and compete against / with can become some of your best friends, even though you never get to meet them! I did get to meet Olli and Niko (Zoanth and Stiiv) however and that was a really good memory. Other good memories.... when the scene was nearing its peak around 1.3, competing with teams like TWR, dw and PO&CO, that was amazing. I've done lots of other things, extreme sports, competitive sports, but nothing comes close to the adrenaline rush you get when you go on some mega kill spree in an important game with loads of spectators :D. Best achievement was probably winning EC XI, dominating zP and dw in the semis and final.

Do you agree with a lot of old school players that you are now rated as one of the best players to ever touch 1.3?

Hmm, there have been lots of amazing players in 1.3. I used to be quite erratic and inconsistent. Later when I settled on low sensitivity I sorted that out. I think around the time of EC XI I was probably joint top rifle, along with the likes of nuker, jaunty and exel. They were all so good that it just depended on who was having a good day as to who would be the best. I think I finished that EC with an average of around 23 frags a round, which was probably the highest of the top teams. But the reason we did so well was the seamless teamplay, not the efforts of one player. Without an awesome team I wouldn't have been able to frag so much. My style of play probably has led people to think I was better than I was; I would basically rush a lot, go 5 deaths without any kills and then suddenly go on a massive killspree. My style of play definitely suited frag movies.

Could you tell us about your experience attending the Cyberathlete Extreme Summer Championships 2005 LAN in the USA?

Thrawn generously offered to fund us to head over and compete for them. Zoanth, steve and I teamed up with our Canadian friends. It was amazing to meet everyone and definitely a worthwhile experience. I didn't play as well as I'd liked. Looking back I wish we'd gotten a chance to play more. We ended up playing only 4 matches, 2 of which were chemille which we hated! I should have brought my own pc to the BYOC section to practice on. But we did manage to take down exigent, I played some decent dod in that match, and we almost beat pandemic on harrington. We came up against a well organized RATS team on chemille and we just had no chance. Mostly I took away good memories of hanging out with olli and niko at the gaylord hotel :D


Paul in his hotel at the CPL in Dallas.
What is your favorite 1.3 movie? Also which of your own do you enjoy watching?

My favorite 1.3 movies were often movies from my team mates, jaunty's and jizz's etc, zoanth and river's movie was amazing. It really highlighted what a great heavy partnership they were. I really liked a movie that had nuker featuring exel. I think it was britney xx 3 or something. That had some sick frags in it. Exel rarely featured in movies; hence he was a bit underrated so it was pretty good to see. Nothing came close to Hn final chapter, although not a 1.3 movie. My favorite of my own is easily an1mal 4, easily my best. It's quite fun to watch from 1-4 and see how I progressed as a player.

In your opinion what is the best all time 6 from 1.3?

If I had to pick a dream team, it would be something like the team that won EC XI, steve, zoanth, nuker, jaunty, river. That's quite boring so I'll do a different one without my team mates.
jizz exel Oops
shr nightmare
zsilts
They were all very good players.

What do you think of the recent news that zpgaming.eu will again be covering the 1.3 scene again after all these years?

My first reaction was “There's still a 1.3 scene?”. I didn't realize people still played matches. There are a few decent publics around still. But it's nice to hear, because the game was just amazing. It's one of the most addicting and fun games ever, as those who played it will attest. I hope a little scene develops and people can still get enjoyment from it.

Along with the news of the return of 1.3 to zpgaming.eu you can see a few old school players like s0x interested in coming back to play, is this something you might do for some fun? Maybe even get some of the guys for a re-form of unplugged! or something?

Hmmm, I might play one or two games if I get the chance. My connection is shared and pretty lame these days so I would likely suck! Unplugged coming back is definitely not gonna happen, I see steve and jaunty around, but not heard from zoanth, river, kami or jizz in a while!

Ok, now onto Source. How come you never made the move over?

My initial reaction was indignation. No sprint strafing? Ironsights that slowed the game down? No stopsound? Terrible cone of fire? I want my bullets to go where I aim, thanks! Everything seemed to be intended to aid lower skilled players, and encourage slower play. It was pretty hard to judge the game on its merits and not compare it to 1.3 which I thought was the most amazing game ever. I overreacted initially so I thought I’d be fair and gave it a try a few times. I just decided that the end result was, in my opinion, just not as fun to play. In 1.3, if there's someone proned 100 yards away, 9 times out of 10 you could pop out and kill them before they could react. Not realistic, but IMO more fun :) I couldn't do that anymore, and it changed the whole dynamic of the game. No disrespect to anyone who thinks differently, but it just wasn't for me. I could have probably forced myself to play it, but if you don't enjoy it what’s the point? My days of competitive gaming were coming to an end in any case, no motivation or time.

Did you know that there was a fake trailer of "An1maL 5" re-made on dods? What did you think of it?

Haha, yeah I saw that. The original one that a bunch of frenchies did for 1.3 was well funny. I was inundated with people saying 'nice trailer' and I was like wtf mayte? It was pretty well done!

Are you up to date with the current dods scene? If so, what do you think of it?

Noooo idea, I sometimes read zp! From time to time and the scene seems to be going okay, so good for them!

Are you aware that the current dods UK line-up (consisting of turtz, bourne, jo3y, Lindo, RiN, mattiiii, boom and LUK3^) are playing in the ESL Nations Cup and are tipped to do very well after losing a close game to France in the Grand Final last year. Do you know any of these players and do you think that they are capable of winning this year?

I've heard of turtz from 1.3, and RiN who I think used to play in DBDUK waaaaay back in the day? Good for them if they're doing well, certainly better than the 1.3 UK team ever did! What’s going on, England and France doing well in an NC final? What are the Scandinavians doing :D

Well, thank you very much for your time and all the best with both real life and gaming. Do you have any last words or shoutouts?

No probs, thanks! Shoutouts to any of my old team mates still knocking around, and keep playing 1.3 as long as it’s fun!


Paul on a camping trip.
So thank you for reading but there is one more thing left to do. Like Dav3 in his previous interview with nkr. I have decided to ask some former team-mates and opponents on their opinions about Paul as a player and as a person. I hope you enjoy!

Steve about An1maL:
Paul is an amazing guy, whether it is on ventrilo or real life, i always enjoy his company. He is really friendly and never brags (seriously), which is rare from 3l1t3-pr0 players. I had a blast at cpl with him, even though he was busy with his fans all the time :D As a player he really doesn't need introductions. He doesn't have a weakness, he is a machine. He is the best rifle in day of defeat's history and one of the best all-around players. Playing with him makes you and your team look good.

Januty about An1maL:
About An1maL as player: Back to days when he was active, u all know he was unstopable. After many years and many teams its easy to say he was the best rifle player i've played with and best rifles there never been. He never had a bad day and he had great team play too. He is the person who did bring alot things to dod and im sure he is still one of the fantasies for some nerds that are out of here @ 1.3 :)
Outside dod: As a team mate he was funniest persons i met during my dod carreer - in game and outside.
Hopefully we can see him ingame again sometimes, would be great for community and scene activity i guess =)

---

Links: #zP! on Quakenet