I host and produce the GameSpot UK podcast, and today’s edition should be up by the time I post this. This episode includes guest appearances from Atari’s Lee Kirton and Roxana Etemad, who talk about everything from Phil Harrison to Test Drive Unlimited 2.

I received a random call on Friday night from a writer at The Telegraph. He was going to try out a new gaming vest that replicates the feeling of getting shot by channeling sharp blasts of air into concentrated areas.

Maybe it was the fact that I was being prevented from going down to the pub at this point, but I told the journalist at the time that it sounded like one of the worst ideas I’d ever heard. I get about a million emails a week about new gaming peripherals, and the ’3rd Space Vest’ sounded like another crackpot inventor making a product just because he could, regardless of whether or not he should. Call of Duty 4′s quite real enough without the sensation of being shot, thank you very much.

Sadly, that quote didn’t make the article. Instead, I seem to have gone into full-on PR mode.

“I haven’t tried this particular product. Whether it is successful may depend on whether its creators can get the support of major developers so that new games are specifically programmed to make the experience genuinely more realistic.”

The full article is available online here.

I was recently lucky enough to be invited down to Rockstar’s offices to play Grand Theft Auto IV for the first time. My preview was embargoed for a decent length of time, but it’s now available over on GameSpot.

From the article:

“Grand Theft Auto IV is looking superb. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s looking finished. The millions of eager fans who were disappointed by the game’s postponement can rest easy, because bar a major catastrophe, the game should make its planned April release date.”

This is Start/Select, a new show that I’ve been doing for GameSpot UK. We’re now on episode five, with the latest edition seeing us transported to Montreal for a first look at Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Far Cry 2. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I may be imagining things, but the last time I was at Sony’s 3Rooms ‘brand space’, there was a PSP encased in plastic above the toilet. Yesterday at a LittleBigPlanet hands-on event, they’d mysteriously disappeared. Had the East-London property been burgled? Was there an electrical failure? Can you solve the mystery of the disappearing PSPs?

Sony’s 3Rooms is still a remarkable place though — pretty much anyone’s ideal flat if they’re at all into technology or gaming. Sony uses it to show off its new releases, and with an abundance of large flat-screen TVs and PS3s, there’s never any trouble finding something to play with. Impressions of LittleBigPlanet and PlayTV should follow shortly, and in the meantime here are some shots of 3Rooms from an earlier event.