Admittedly we've been a tiny bit lax on the football update front, so we've got quite a bit of stuff packed into this final blog before the big Games 5s five a side football tournament. There's a sneak peek at the team strip design, and, at last, the reveal of the winning team name!

Over the past four weeks we've had a variety of training sessions to help us get ready for the inevitable and merciless crushing of our competition that's sure to take place tomorrow. Unfortunately, the injury count during practice was often quite high, which usually resulted in the office being half empty every Wednesday.

At this week's Develop 2008 in Brighton, videogaming247 quizzed Splash Damage owner Paul Wedgwood about the studio's next project with Bethesda Softworks. The resulting transcript comes in two parts (one, two) and is filled with quotes and tidbits about what gamers can expect from the new title.

QuakeCon 2008 is nearly here and with there being two Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars tournaments this year, we'll be dispatching a few guys there. Both long-time Splasher Jared 'jRad' Hefty and Dave 'ducks' Johnston (whom you might remember as the valiant leader of our ETQW Shackbattle squad) will be there to hang out with the community and hand out a few goodies here and there. If you're going to be at QuakeCon, look out for them and don't hesitate to say hello. If you'd like to arrange an interview with them at the event, drop us a line and we'll make time for you. See you at QuakeCon!

In our continued quest to make great games and multiplatform treehouses of exceptional build quality, we've hired a number of really talented folks to strengthen our development team. Joining Splash Damage's growing bee hive are Olivier Leonardi (Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones and Rainbow Six: Vegas) as Art Director, Chris Sweetman (Black, Burnout: Paradise) as Audio Director, Tim Appleby (Mass Effect) as Lead Character Artist, and Chris Dawson (Driver, Test Drive, Evil Genius) as Producer. You can find all the juicy details along with assorted quotes here in the official press release. We've got loads more job openings available across all major development disciplines - take a peek in the Jobs section.

Splash Damage's Lord of Software and Technology, Ben "Randles" Hopkinson, is the subject of this week's staff interview. Officially known as IT Manager, Ben came to us from popular Game Server Provider Rackage. He generally gets to buy lots of expensive things for the office and is often surrounded by open PC cases, random graphics cards, and stacks of DVDs. Ben also makes sure that Things Don't Break and can often be seen picnicking in our server room - machines have feelings too. :|

To find out more about Ben's work here at Splash Damage, his Rackage adventures, gaming exploits, and things he does to PC vendors, read the complete and riveting interview in his fully updated and virus-free staff profile.

We'll be extremely present at this year's Develop Conference and Expo taking place in Brighton, England from 29 - 31 July. Studio owner and Creative Director Paul Wedgwood is set to be part of a panel titled "Why We Sold Our Studio - And Why We Didn't" on Wednesday the 30th discussing exactly that, while newly crowned Audio Director Chris Sweetman will be giving a talk titled "Sonic Stories", dealing with the challenges of sound design for next generation games the day after. And if that wasn't enough, Splash Damage will also have a booth on the show floor itself (at C14) - if you're interested in working at Splash Damage or simply want to chat with us, don't hesitate to drop by.

With Metal Gear Solid 4 (mostly) behind us, we're slowly starting to feel the gaming lull of the Summer months. The appropriately named Buzz! probably made the biggest splash here in the office in these past two weeks with impromptu 8 player quizzing sessions spontaneously forming during lunch time and after hours. Aside from that there aren't that many new releases sprinkled throughout this update and if you ask anyone what releases they're looking forward to in the next four or so weeks, you'll usually be greeted with one or more shrugs and a distinct 'ummmm....'. On a side note, animator Chris 'Hauser' Bull untangled his hands recently and makes his first ever blog appearance in this update. Words:

At long last, the QuakeCon hive mind has announced this year's event line-up, including not one, but two Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars tournaments. Six player squads will get to battle it out on both the PC as well as the Xbox 360 for a total of $25,000 in prize money. Information on sign-ups and official tournament rules is said to be appearing soon, so keep an eye on the QuakeCon website.

This week's staff interview baton is passed to Senior Game Designer Ed 'BongoBoy' Stern, who not only runs with it but also manages to knock over several pigeons in the process. Ed has been with Splash Damage since the early days of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and while coders code, modellers model, level designers design levels, and artists ... art, we're still not entirely sure what Ed does.

Luckily that very question is the opening volley in the full interview, which also covers how Ed ended up at Splash Damage in the first place, his tips for designery types wanting to break into the industry, and his very average musical skills.

The chaps over at Game-Rigs have rolled out some really funky looking Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars console skins for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. Aptly titled Battleskins, they protect your console from scratches and other wear and tear, while also covering them in great looking ETQW art, so it's pretty much a win-win for everyone. And should you ever long to clad your console in rosier attire (perhaps featuring pinatas), the skins will come off without leaving any marks. Head on over to the Game Rigs site for more information on the QUAKE Wars Battleskins, including larger images and where you can buy them from.

Update: For a limited time only, you can grab either Battleskin for just $19.96 (QUAKE's release year, incidentally) at GearTab. These guys actually ship worldwide, so you can dress up your console even if you aren't in America.

From the colorful depths of our art department comes Laurel 'Tully' Austin, the shining star in this week's episode of our on-going series of staff questionnaires. Laurel is a Concept Artist here at Splash Damage and helps shape the artistic vision for our environments, characters, equipment, and the like, and her art helps guide and inspire the rest of the development team. Not content spending the whole day creating video game worlds at the office, Laurel often spends her spare time building what people from the '90s might refer to as totally rad maquettes (think smallish statues) of dinosaurs, demons, and whatever else tickles her fancy at the time.

To find out more about Laurel's work, how she ended up here at Splash Damage, and her after-work demon creation extravaganzas, read her full interview in her profile. Don't forget to surf over to our newly established outpost on Flickr where you can find all kinds of photos of Laurel's various creations!

Snap to Grid is back and this time it's personal! This week, ETQW Mapping's fearless captain Terry 'Salteh' Seidler takes a look at the alpha release of Donnovan's Retake of the Andes map for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars and checks out the latest alpha release of the highly anticipated Wheels of War mod. To top it all off, the saltiest of Terrys even throws out a challenge to all the aspiring zombie crushers / destruction derby participants out there in the form of Wheels of War's freshly added global lap times leaderboard.

On to the words: