I have seen the future of press trips, my friends, and it's online. I've been to many places, seen many things and performed many 'acts' in the name of professional games journalism during my time. However, combining death sports, Japanese street festivals, a wedding and a massive 30-man ruck with a giant snow wolf in heat probably ranks as one of my more surreal afternoons out of the office.

The idea, from Square Enix's point of view, was to take handfuls of journalists from around the world and grant them access to in-game characters more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Then, the plan was to make them meet up in the virtual world of Vana'diel and show them the sights, encounter a few of the new monsters, see some of the new game features and then send us back into the real world with a new appreciation of the online iteration of the Final Fantasy series - in time for the official European launch this September. The developer hadn't counted on the British contingent though.