As it's our first birthday, we asked you what you thought of the magazine and of the games scene over the last year. Here are just a few of your replies...

Well, what can I say? Future Gamer is possibly the best thing that's happened to me - honestly. First of all the magazine is free, well written and funny (another quality Future Publishing project). But what really makes Future Gamer stand apart is its reader feedback and contribution. Many of us regular hardcore gamers contribute to the mag every week, and some of the readers have even set up a Clan dedicated to the magazine. I couldn't imagine any other mag in paper format having such interaction with its readers and have spin-offs such as this - logistically, it would just be impossible.

Future Gamer has opened a path for people like me who want to try to enter the game journalism industry and make a name for themselves. The friendliness and willingness of the editorial team to allow and assist us has been tremendous.

The gaming moments of the year have to be (for me personally) the opening the Future Gamer Clan site with my fellow colleagues, and meeting the rest of the Clan and the Future Gamer team at ECTS - that was certainly a great experience that I'll never forget.

On a more general scale, getting a new PC and being delighted by games such as Half-Life, Championship Manager 3 and Midtown Madness has been fun. The PS is still weighing in with some top quality games (on the import area especially) and Dreamcast, along with Soul Calibur, has amazed me at the back end of the year. Gaming lows have to be the continuing demise of Nintendo. The start of the year had so much promise with Zelda, but their promises failed to materialise with Perfect Dark and the general lack of any games. Dare I say they've had it coming?

As for next year, I'm already excited. There's Black and White, FFIX, Perfect Dark, Shemue and so on, and we have another console on the horizon. Certainly the last year of the millennium (which is 2000, not 1999!) should be very exciting. As for Future Gamer, I can see them continuing to grow as they have done this year - after all, they are the future of games magazines.

I hope from a personal view that FGC can continue to work in conjunction and expand with Future Gamer, and I'm sure everyone will agree in saying that we wish the best of luck to Steve Bradley in his new job. Thanks for a fantastic year, Future Gamer.

Rob Wilson (aka FGC_Felix)