Hideo Kojima’s much-anticipated Metal Gear Solid V is out today on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and tomorrow on Windows PC, but unfortunately we are unlikely to have a review up for a week or two. That’s because we did not attend the game’s review event, and Konami has not supplied us with a review copy, so we are starting what looks to be a massive game at the same time as some of you are.

As such, we are not yet sure what form our coverage will take. We might publish a preliminary review in a week or so and update it as we progress, publish a full review later, or simply not publish one at all. It’s all going to depend what Tim wants to do – he paid for his own copy of the game, after all. In the meantime, you can check out what our forum users think of it here.

Note: Originally I stated here that Warner Bros hadn’t supplied us with a review copy of Mad Max, but I've since learned that our reviewer received a copy on Monday, two days before release. My apologies to WB. We'll post a review as soon as possible.

Annoyingly, it’s not unusual for us to receive review copies on or very close to launch day (or not at all, we rarely know what the case will be).

Elsewhere, I’ve added a score and some additional thoughts to my review of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, which you can read here. We didn’t score this last week because we hadn’t played online with the public, and in this day and age we think it’s crucial we do so for online modes before settling on a final grade for a game. Too many titles have fallen over on launch day for us to do otherwise.

As for review events, we think in general that attending these is a bad idea. The problem is that the review environment isn't ideal: there are usually PR or members of the development team present; journalists chat with each other about the game; time with the game could be restricted; and the publisher pays for flights, accommodation, food, and sometimes even side activities.

While I don't believe that any of these factors would cause us to inflate a score on purpose – despite what some may believe, we aren't easily-led idiots or corrupt, and we do take our job seriously – we also acknowledge that the overall environment at these events could have a subtler affect on how a game is perceived.

So, should we ever decide it is worth attending one, we'll tell you we went along and also tell you what exactly the event entailed, so you can factor that information into your reading of the review. The Metal Gear Solid V review event we were invited to attend was at the offices of the game's distributor, so obviously that was unacceptable.

One final piece of belated news: the more frequent Gameplanet visitors among you may have noticed that editor-in-chief James Cullinane's byline has disappeared completely from the site. That's because he moved on – in May, in fact. Since then, it's only been thanks to some long days, the contributions of our volunteer pool of writers, and the work of part-time news editor Andrew Todd that we've kept things ticking over.

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of those people now. Thanks guys and girls! As for you, dear reader, thanks for sticking with us, and I hope you have enjoyed the content we've had on-site recently.

Cheers for reading, and happy gaming!