Hi. I’m Chella, the GiN Playmate. Welcome to my playpen people, but watch out for the console and Category 5 wires.

Yes, that’s right, I’m a girl and a gamer. Tricky concept I know, but one I’m sure you can get used to. As we say a fond farewell to Ken and wonder how Mrs. Ken will cope with all that quality Ken-time, it’s time to dry our tears, stop snivelling and get on with the important business of playing, discussing and generally digging games.

I’ve been reviewing games for GiN from over here in the United Kingdom for sometime now and I must be doing something right, because the gang at GiN have given me the opportunity to pick up where Ken left off – a mighty task indeed. So the long and the short of it is that we’re stuck with each other for now, so let’s try and play nice. My column will run every other week opposite one written by General Bladerunner – aka Todd Hargosh.

Anyway, I like games and you like games. We all hate crappy games that play worse than a geriatric football team. That sounds like a basis for a healthy relationship if you ask me. So I am sure we are going to get along just fine.

Now, I’m from London, so you’ll have to excuse the fact that I may make oblique references that make you go, "Huh, what is she blathering on about?" Let me assure you though, at no point will I be saying, "Cor blimey Mary Poppins!" Mainly because nobody in the KNOWN UNIVERSE talks like that!

But the cool thing is you’ve now got a hotline directly to all the best game shenanigans in the UK and Europe (yes, GiN big cheeses, that is a hint for a trip abroad). Parties, launches and all the inside info I can get my clammy mitts on will be winging their way straight to you. And of course there will be the obligatory features of me on soapbox, sounding off about game-type affairs. Sometimes I’ll just write about what its like to be a girl and a gamer, and perhaps give you boys out there a few tips about how to treat me and my gaming sisters.

Some of you may be raising your eyes to the heavens right about now, shaking your fist and crying, "why cruel fate do you curse us with some silly tart who thinks she’s into games just because she’s heard of Mario and has maybe seen a PlayStation once time in some guy’s bedroom!?!"

Well, to all those pale, nocturnal bedroom dwellers who think gaming is some kind of secret club reserved for people with an unhealthy fear of social interaction – this is your wake-up call!

Welcome to my gaming Utopia, where brother and sister play side by side merrily kicking the living crap out of each other in Dead or Alive III. Girls and boys around the world suffer from cramped fingers, stiff thumbs and Gamer’s Migraine in equal measure"blah de blah"you get the picture.

So let’s have none of this "you’re a girl and that means you can’t hold a joystick and press buttons in order to control a bunch of pixels on a screen" crap – because it’s just plain daft. And it might even incur my wrath, and trust me you wouldn’t like that.

My career as a game playing kind of gal really took off when I went to University. My first year involved many late nights squashed round a portable TV. We played until we were just plain exhausted. We thought nothing of calling up this legendary guy, who’d actually finished Beneath A Steel Sky, at like 2am to ask how you get past the creature in the sewers. Well, he was probably up anyway, playing some other game.

Alas, these days work prevents such gaming dedication.

But let me tell you, GameBoy Advance is a godsend to a girl on the move. And lucky me, I get some quality gaming done on the bus to work now. The only drawback is when I start swearing at a small electronic box in public, I tend to get some funny looks.

So anyway, that’s it for now. Right now I have places to be fellow gamers because I’ve got to drum up column inches somehow so you lot have something to complain about in your letters to GiN. And you’d better not disappoint us because the guys at GiN are a sensitive bunch and might think you don’t love them anymore if the letters stop coming.

So to find out what gets my console hot under the cover, you’ll have to come back and visit your new GiN Playmate. See you same time, same place next time. I’ll be waiting!