Thomas Puha

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Thomas Puha (known also by his alias Everlast) is the editor-in-chief of the Finnish gaming magazine Pelaaja. He is also a part-owner of H-Town, the publishers of Pelaaja. Prior to this he has hosted a number of game-related shows in Finnish television alongside Miika Huttunen (permanent staff-member), principly on the now defunct MoonTV cable-channel. He's known for being shy and private. His alias comes from Puha's idol Eric "Everlast" Schrody, who was the lead singer of now defunct hip hop group House of Pain.

He started out writing for now defunct American videogames website High Resolution, which tried unsuccessfully to create a bi-monthly VHS featuring game videos and reviews. This was a kickstart to a career in writing for American videogames websites and magazines.

He spent 18 months writing the Europa column for popular American hardcore games magazine Gamefan in late 1990s. He also contributed some reviews and previews for the magazine. The magazine's then editor-in-chief Eric Mylonas wanted to hire him fulltime, but the plan collapsed due to Gamefan's merger to Express.com after which the magazine soon went bankrupt.

Thomas Puha has contributed and in some instances, still contributes to: IGN, 1UP.com, Gamasutra, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Official US PlayStation Magazine.

[edit] Trademarks

Often drops extremely obscure references to American actress Natalie Portman and now defunct hip hop group House of Pain into the magazines and TV-shows he has worked on. This was often the case in the early issues of Pelaaja magazine.

[edit] Gaming shows

Poutanen functioned as critic and host on the following shows on MoonTV.

• PSX-Peliluola - The forerunner of Play which dealt exclusively on Playstation 1 releases.
• PPPS-Peliluola - A magazine type show about games and gaming. Poutanen hosted all the English language segments of the show.
• N64-Peliluola - A show dedicated to Nintendo-related topics. Only aired briefly before the start of Play.
• Play - A show dedicated to the reviewing of console-game; later replaced by Elias Poutanen and changed to Player afterwards
• Game Planet - Suplemented the PPPS-Peliluola and notably one of the first all English programmes on the channel
• Konsoli Planeetta - Split from Game Planet and later fused with Player.

[edit] Other shows

• URL (MoonTV) - His last show on MoonTV, co-hosted with Miika Huttunen. On the show, Poutanen and Huttunen reviewed internet-sites sent by viewers.
• Play (Nelonen) - A different programme which shared the name with the programme shown on MoonTV. The original pilot was shot a while after Puha had left MoonTV and featured now well known Finnish television personality Meri-Tuuli Lindström as the co-host. The show got picked up by Nelonen almost two years after the pilot was shot. When the show went into production both hosts Puha and Miika Huttunen were already working on Pelaaja, but due to a gentleman's agreement they decided to work fulltime both on the television show's first two season's and Pelaaja magazine.