Meet our new video games columnist.





Alright. I'm West and I play guitar in the band Neck Deep. When I'm not banging my head and spinning up an F5 tornado on stage, I'm usually sat on me arse playing video games.



I've been sat in front on a TV getting square eyes way longer than I've been attempting to play any form of music, and gaming is one of my biggest passions. From this point forward you'll see my hairy mug on a regular basis, where I'll be giving you the lowdown on my various adventures in the wide world of gaming.



Seeing as I'm away from home a lot it can be difficult to game a lot of the time, here are my top six tips for gaming on the road...



JUST BRING YOUR CONSOLE

We have the luxury nowadays of being able to tour in what is basically a house on wheels, (which usually has a telly in it), so a lot of the time I'll just bubble wrap me PS4 and cradle it among a ton of clothes in my suitcase, hoping that an airline doesn't do a David Seaman and boot it down the runway.



HANDHELD IS THE WAY FORWARD

The obvious choice for gaming on tour would be to bring a handheld console with you, I rarely leave my house without my 3DS or Ps Vita.



USE YOUR PHONE

Nowadays, your phone is basically a computer in your pocket, so it makes sense to use it to play games with! Loads of console exclusive indie games have been ported over to the App Store and Google Play, a long with a lot of classics including the Final Fantasy series.



REGION FREE CONSOLES

With the latest generation of consoles (Xbox One and PS4), you're pretty much set to buy and import games from any country as they're region free. This is great when touring the US as you'll be able to buy games on the cheap whilst overseas.



STAY UP TO DATE

I'm always checking Kotaku to keep up to date on the latest gaming news and release dates, but it's also good to do a bit of research yourself. For example Yokai Watch on 3DS still hasn't been released in the UK or Europe, but it's out in Australia and they have the same region code as us in terms of handhelds.



PARTY GAMES

Sharing a bus with 11 other people often means fighting for TV time. The best way to counteract this is to bring some games everyone can have a crack at. A recent favourite of ours has been Rocket League, it's basically FIFA but in rocket-powered supercars. Matches only last 5 minutes so everybody gets a go pretty quickly, it's also hilarious to place bets on.



