For those of you who have been messaging me and asking what I'm up to nowadays, I've taken up the editor's post at www.gamesindustry.biz, which is a trade-focused news site.

But I'll of course still be hanging around here, checking out what the UK team are up to!

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to you all, as today is my last day at GameSpot UK.

The past 14 months or so has seen a remarkable change in the way that the UK team has integrated into the overall GameSpot offering, and there's still plenty to come. From taking part in Xbox Live matches against the US and Australian teams, to covering local console and software launches, working on "soccer" games in a British accent, looking after studio visits in the UK and Europe, putting together video features, chatting to you fine people on the UK forum, and my personal favourite, the setting up of the GameSpot UK podcast.

It's been great fun for me, and a pleasure to work with the rest of the UK team, and of course I'm immensely proud to be able to have counted myself alongside the exceptionally talented team in the US who we've all known and loved for so long.

I leave you in the more than capable hands of LozzaGS--I'll still be around here writing the odd blog post, and I can't wait to see some of the team's plans for the future come to fruition!

In the meantime, take care y'all, fly safe, happy gaming, etc, etc.

Cheers

Phil

Over the Bank Holiday weekend I splashed out on a new TV for the study

I spent most of Monday thoroughly engrossed in various HD incarnations of my Xbox 360 games, and pretty soon I'll sort out digital TV in there too.

Which means I may never have to leave the room again, except to eat, sleep and visit the loo.

Well, I have to say, that was pretty good fun. For those that missed it, we decided to set up a few games against site users earlier in the week, in order to celebrate GameSpot UK's 1st birthday.

Admittedly, it was a fairly low-key event, but it was the first event of its kind that we've tried, so we wanted to keep it manageable. We posted in the GSUK forum for anybody interested, and pretty soon we had seven others signed up for some decent Xbox Live multiplayer action on Gears of War.

Now, if I'm honest, FPS games aren't necessarily my primary choice of games, although CoD2 was my only 1,000 pointer. Still, I haven't actually played that much GoW, due to frustrations with the control system (for getting in cover) and I've played it online very little.

Anyway, enough of the excuses. We played three matches--two teams of four, randomly selected, in a 1st-to-15 round target. Guy was to GSUK staffer playing in the first round, and he actually came top on points. I was second, and came last. And I have no idea how Alex fared, as I had to go grab a train home.

Point being though, that it was great, and everybody taking part got prizes and emblems. Due to the fact that it turned out so well, we're currently looking to do more in future, so keep looking out for opportunities in the GSUK forum, and we'll try and give you plenty of warning

Please note that ideally, while we'd like to mix up the platform and game genre as much as possible, we'll make the final decision on what we play based on practicality, and what we think would produce a good event.

Finally, I managed to vanquish the final boss on about my tenth attempt, and that ends what's been a most enjoyable month with my head firmly in puzzle-RPG land.

I've been playing the game on every train journey to and from London, as well as a fair few hours at other times too, and it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. If you're into puzzle games like Tetris or Bejeweled, and enjoy RPG tales with a sense of humour, then you should definitely check Puzzle Quest out. Where's the sequel already?!

Next up I'll be playing through Innocent Life: A Future Harvest Moon. It's billed as a mystery-cum-farming adventure. Or something. I started it today, and so far I've learned how to cultivate and harvest virtual potatoes. I kid you not. But don't worry, I'll let you know how my agricultural travails proceed in due course...I know you'll be dying to hear...

Ok, job done. Picked up a GeForce 8800 with 320MB DDR3 RAM this evening. Runs pretty smooth, temperatures pretty stable, although one of the cores did peak at 75 degrees, which was a bit of a surprise...but no crashes or glitching.

Fingers crossed.