Once upon a time there was a website called boomtown.net. But sadly that site died. But for those of us who worked on the site this was not the end. We wanted to continue the ethos of honest gamer-centred reviews and entertaining copy. So we continued the good work here at BTX, because we are Boomtown's Exes, and we can't let go...

BoomtownX's goal is simple, to provide timely entertaining accurate news and reviews with a dash of humour. We aren't sponsored by a large corporation and we don't take kickbacks to score reviews highly. Honesty is our motto, as is getting to the pub by 6pm at the latest.

But who are?

Managing Editor - Harry Neary
Harry's start in the topsy turvy world of videogames journalism was founded at Lancaster University when studying for a degree in Politics & International Relations in the early nineties. He maxed out his credit card on a PlayStation and some games and then made a complete cock of his degree. Videogames journalism was his only hope from then on.

Since then Harry has written for such illustrious concerns as FGN Online, Gamespot, Daily Radar, Computer Trade Weekly, Next Generation Online, IGN, MCV, Telefragged and many more. Harry was co-editor of the ridiculously successful PS2Faction. He's had stints as a motoring journalist and movie reviewer for Supanet, been the project lead on Xploder.net.

Since 2004 he was the UK Editor of Boomtown.net (RIP) and has become so fed up with being owed money by companies such as Telefragged, Xploder and Boomtown that he's set up shop here to not pay himself instead.

Deputy Editor - Adam Hall
Adam hails from the south coast city of Brighton, where the grass is concrete and the girls are out of his league. When he's not drawing or secretly watching romance films he finds the time to write about video games, thanks in part to his journalism degree which, among other things, highlighted the prevailing lack of journalists these days. Wait, what?

Adam served as a reviewer for Boomtown (RIP) for many years, first of a waste of space who never got reviews in on time and then the hardest working and easily the most talented writer on the team. We're not sure what exactly happened to the original Adam, we think Adam 2.0 may have killed and eaten him. We like the new Adam though, even though he makes us feel like we can't write for toffee.

Reviewer - Jakob Paulsen
Jakob's a proper journalist and used to be Harry's boss at Boomtown, but the worm has turned and he's contributing his encyclopaedic knowledge of videogames to BoomtownX. An industry veteran, Jakob held the post of International Content Manager at Boomtown for two years and stayed on as Download Manager for many more.

He began reviewing games on a 60 MHz Pentium. Yes, he's that old. One of his very first reviews was GTA 1 for the PC and burned it with a score of three out of ten. The publisher was extremely pissed off, but lets be honest, it wasn’t until GTA moved into 3D graphics that it became the brilliant game series we all know and love. Anyway since then he's reviewed around 400 games mainly on PC, Xbox and Xbox 360.

Since he's an old bastard he tends to enjoy hardcore strategy games where reactions matter less than brains. He loves his share of shooters (especially the Call of Duty series) and racing games too. Jakob has a sad addiction to superhero MMO’s. But he did the clever thing and got his girlfriend hooked on them too, so for Jakob it’s not a problem to spend all night in spandex (mostly in-game of course).

Reviewer - Graham Clifford
Graham Clifford is a relative newcomer to the gaming industry. Lacking in experience, but eager to learn he gained the position of reviewer at the old Boomtown site. There, under the tutelage of Harry Neary, he almost perfected writing complete sentences. His wealth of knowledge of PC games - in particular strategy games - is hugely valued by BTX.

Graham hails from Limerick City which was described by a Frankfurt newspaper as the worst city in Europe. Boomtown X has a strong Limerick connection as editor Harry was conceived in the same city but thankfully he was spawned across the sea in Manchester. We're not sure what this means for the site, perhaps things can only get better?

Additional Reviewers
Allan Walsh
Joe Bennet
Gloria Preston