Well, in all honesty it probably wasn't the Queen herself who decided to honour Codemasters founders the Darling brothers in her birthday honous list this week. We're sure she's never picked up a copy of Colin McRae in her life and we're certain she wouldn't approve of the blood-thirsty zombie fest that is Clive Barker's Jericho, but obviously someone in the higher echelons of soceity deemed the pair worthy of the accolade of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE); and rightly so.

Richard and David Darling founded the longest running UK based publishing house back in 1985 where they established themselves in the ZX Spectrum market with the likes of Dizzy. The rest is history, as they say, with a long list of titles on all platforms since, including the McRae franchise, TOCA series and Operation Flashpoint. More recently the company has secured the rights to develop games on the Formula One franchise.

Last year the Darling brothers sold their remaining 25% slice of gaming history and left the company with an extremely bright future, having secured substantial investments.

My own personal memory of Codemasters over the years brings me right back to 1988 and the legendary management strategy game, Rockstar Ate My Hamster. That game was rubbish, but back then I thought it was gaming gold.

Congratulations to the Darling brothers. We hope more people in the industry get recognised and receive their due credit in future lists.