Armchair sports stars

Shaun White, snowboarded

I love gaming: it takes my mind off everything. It's the only thing I do that's not totally physical - I snowboard, I skate, I surf. So sitting down to play games is the best feeling.

I first appeared in a computer game when I was 13. I think it was called Cool Boarders. I thought it was going to be the coolest thing to be in a game, and it was quite awesome - but I had this image in my head of what it was going to be like and it didn't turn out the same. I figured I'd have this cool character who could do this and do that. Instead, my guy had this awkward haircut, a weird Afro thing going on, and was wearing clothes that I wouldn't wear. You know, in a car game you can choose the red car that's fast but doesn't turn so well, or you can choose the blue car that turns great but goes slow? My guy was the slow guy! It was kind of a bummer. Why would you want to be me in the game? I think the worst thing was playing against friends who were better than me. They would beat me as me.

Would you want to be me in a videogame? No. I don't think so. So in my game, Shaun White Snowboarding, you develop your dude, pick the style of clothing, the board you want to ride. Making my own game, I can choose the music, what people say, what people are going to look like. In this game you don't get to play as me, you play as you. And I get to come in and make fun of you the whole time.

Snowboarders are difficult to motion-capture, because the sport needs so much space. But Ubisoft wanted to motion-capture everything at one point. You know, even my hair was full of those sensor balls. Most of it was motion-captured walking. I did a lot of walking. I had to ask myself: 'Is my walk cool?'

I've had videogame injuries, mainly from throwing the controller against the wall. I had to tape my thumbs once, because I played Tony's game [Tony Hawk's Skateboarding] so much my thumbs were cracking and bleeding.

I even played games at the Winter Olympics in 2002. We played a lot of Call of Duty in the Olympic Village. Me and the USA guys, storming Normandy against the Germans. And then we go down to lunch where we see the German team eating and we were like: 'There they are...' It was weird.

Jamie Redknapp, TV pundit and former footballer

There's so much dead time in football. Hanging around and waiting, especially in the hour or two after dinner when you're at the team hotel. There was normally a tactics meeting at 9pm on a Friday night, so for those couple of hours before that we'd whack a game on. It used to get quite competitive, especially in my Liverpool days. David James, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and me - we all used to play Street Fighter. David James was different class to the rest of us, he knew too many special moves. But I remember he was quoted once as saying it had affected his goalkeeping.

They can bite you, computer games, you can get a bit addicted to them - get your mind racing and make you not concentrate enough. But we always did it in moderation, as a bit of fun. It was good for team spirit, getting the boys together, better that than going down the pub for a beer, even if David James did end up in Gamers Anonymous. No, I'm joking. That doesn't exist, does it?

Street Fighter carried over into England squads as well. You spend a whole week in a hotel, and you have to break the boredom factor. Monday to Friday and the game's not until the Saturday. There's only so many videos and DVDs you can watch.

The current crop of Premier League players are all into playing wirelessly against each other on the team buses. I don't know whether it's football games they play, but they get right into it. It's all very technical now. The Wii, what you can do on that! My little boy was never a fan of golf or anything like that, but when he plays it on the Nintendo he gets right into it. It's a nice way to introduce people to sport without pushing it too hard.

I have never enjoyed playing football games. Playing football with your hands doesn't seem right. Maybe they'll invent something where you can use your feet. Maybe that'll be the next big thing.

Andy Murray

For his inclusion in tennis game Top Spin 3, says Murray, the game developers 'took loads of pictures to base my character on'. The results pleased the console-obsessed Scotsman. 'I'm happy with the size of my calves. They're pretty large.'

Lewis Hamilton

The F1 driver has an ongoing PlayStation battle with his brother, Nick. 'I cannot help being competitive,' says Hamilton, explaining how he often wins their console duels by playing as his rival Kimi Raikkonen. Now that's hunger.

Tiger Woods

'An obscenely confident gamer', according to one opponent, Woods refuses to play as himself in his eponymous golf games. 'It's just too weird,' he has said. Instead, Tiger creates two regular characters: one is a skinny man in cool clothes and another is a character who is 'really big and fat and round'. He gives them both beards because, he says, he can't grow facial hair himself.

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