All bets are off!

Okay, okay, who had 1.14 on the 8th of January for Peter Molyneux to start making big huge bullshit hype claims about big games that will ultimately never be realised upon release and end up as 7/10 this-game-had-some-great-ideas-but-totally-cacked-up-the-rest?

Did anyone have that late in the year? No? Looks like 2011 will be a rollover!

To be fair to the guy, as much as we kid, Civilisation was an awesome game.

Needed: Fanfiction

Well the Hunk competition is over. After two years we've had no entries. This can be taken as proof that you can't trust the Machinima community. Fuck you Machinima community. Fuck you.

How will the fanfiction guys fare? We're running another competition (wow now we're just like the official Mega Man site!). As you may well now, Wesker is to appear as a rip off DLC pish in Lost Planet 2. What we want to know is how did he get there?

Feel free to dick around with the "Resident Evil Canon" as Capcom so frequently do but do make sure your fic. contains the following elements:

1) Barry Burton's daughters Polly and Moira.
2) Tits McGee from Dead Rising.
3) Dante slicing a whole train in half.
4) A non racist justification for Sheva's totally racist costume in RE5.
5) Jill and Rebecca talking about who they fancy in S.T.A.R.S.
6) Cheryl Jones' supplementary mission in it's entirety.
7) A recurring joke about how Mega Man is into Moira Burton.
8) Tofu.
9) Morrigan x Nemesis.

Don't make it too long. 14 pages should be about right. And remember, be sure to make sure that the story isn't outlandish and we don't want to see any High School AU, Cookie Cutting, Mary Sues or OOC. You have until October 2011.

Cheers.

Sigh!

Yes people an exclaimed SIGH! This is the cause of the now doubly exclaimed sigh!!.



We are literally sitting two clicks away from a whole section on wikipedia called List of Disney video games by genre Mickey Mouse Series.

The REAL reason why EDGE-Online's Whole Team Quit

Because copying and pasting articles from the magazine and news from Kotaku can get really really tiring quite quickly.

Resident Evil Degeneration: A review

This weekend we got a copy of Resident Evil Degeneration, the new CGI Resident Evil film. Despite watching the first ten second trailer a hundred times we managed to stay away from any kind of exposure of the film at all. After watching it, here are out thoughts on the film and exactly where capcom got it all exactly wrong everywhere. Warning: SPOILERS, although technically there has to be a plot in order for it to be spoiled at all.

What we wanted. You may remember this post (before all the Wow gayness) about our hopes and fears for the film that takes on the most precious game in the entire world, Resident Evil 2. Here was our wishlist:

1) Will Smith cast as the face of Marvin Branagh.
2) Zombie and/or Claire tits.
3) Herbs.
4) The line "That guy's a maniac, why'd he bite me?"
5) The exact same plot as Resident Evil 2. In fact don't spend money making a whole new film just record someone playing Resident Evil 2 and stick it on DVD that would be best.
6) A cameo from Dante.
7) A reference to Okami, Viewtiful Joe or at least We love golf.
8) An explanation of those other Resident Evil films like it was all just a dream or something.
9) The nemesis fighting 104 Hunters.
10) A bonus feature with Hunk dancing to 'Umbrella'11) Taking all this stuff about SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS [Jill being dead] back.

Suffice to say none of this made the film at all. Although there were no Claire/zombie tits there is a bit at the end which is pretty titilicious. In fact, I think Capcom just used the model from Tits Mcgee in Dead Rising. Almost makes up for lack of C/Z tits but not quite. For a while it looked like the film was going to have the exact same plot as Resident Evil 2 until the film 'goes all japanese', 'jumps the shark' and is just shit. In fact here is the film in dead rising text size graph form.

The film starts off not very exciting at all with the tired old format of using fake news clips to fill in the blanks between Resident Evil 2 and 4 and present day. Then there's an airport and Claire and some kind of fake ethnic Sherry Birkin. Then umm zombies appear from nowhere. Literally, from nowhere. And then a plane full of zombies arrives. The airport gets all zombied up. Turns out Claire, fako Sherry and fako Brian Irons make it to some kind of safe room. Then ah, Leon gets sent in to rescue the survivors and is joined by newbie titsmcgee and zombie fodder Greg or Griggs or something.

Then there is some zombie shooting and the reunion of Leon and Claire (complete with the RE2 'get down' scene). The reunion is completely downplayed depsite the fact they could have had us crying tears of blood if they'd dealt with it properly. Essentially Leon kinda says "Oh hi" and that's it. Then there is some running and shooting and then you should turn the film off and pretend it was just a cutscene they forgot to put into RE2.

Unfortunately, I stuck with it. They get out of the airport and Claire, Tits, Leon, and Brian Irons meet fako Billy Birkin. Fortunately, ethnic Sherry dissapears so Claire can do more than hang around protecting her.

Then theres some talking and the T-virus and some vaccine and it turns out Brian Irons and fako Birkin are the good guys. Then there's an explosion and all the vaccine is destroyed and it turns out that it's all terrorism or something and the guy probably responsible is none other than tits' brother Curtis!

Then weirdness happens and Claire jumps in a car with fako Birkin. Leon and Tits decide to go to the Mcgee family home to find her brother despite the fact that she hasn't seen him in four years. Fortunately, the Mcgee family home seems to be quite near the airport.

Claire and Birkin go to some fako Umbrella facility which seems to be lacking in security and also quite near the airport. Birkin hits on Claire a bit, tells her they have the G-virus at new umbrella and then Claire phones Leon just as the building blows up with Claire inside and it's allegedly Curtis Mcgees' fault.

Meanwhile Leon and Tits go to chateau Mcgee to find it's been burned down by Curtis. Fortunately, despite the fire a family photo manages to escape the blaze and lay in wait in the exact spot Tits falls to her knees crying. She picks it up and gives us Curtis' utterly predictable sob story. Leon and Tits then just hang out for a bit not doing much. They then watch the airport burning until Leon gets Claire's call.

Seconds, minutes, hours or even days later Leon and Tits arrive at new Umbrella and split up to find Claire or to do something. Leon finds Claire and tells her to escape which she nearly does. In one sequence Zombies appear for no reason whatsoever outside a lift. We suspect it's so that some action happens because it's been talking a lot recently.

Tits finds her brother and for no reason anyone on this earth can work out he has injected himself with the G-virus and turns into a lanky William Birkin. The mysterious squad of troops for no reason appear from nowhere on nobody's orders and start to shoot him for no reason. Fako G-virus Billy Birkin takes most of them out before Leon turns up and kills him about a hundred times but never conclusively. Then Leon and Tits fall into some water and kiss for no reason. Meanwhile, Claire didn't escape she just went to the control room and for no reason decompresses the building, the only result being the roof goes a bit saggy.

After a million times burying him with rubble, knifing his eye-arm, blowing him up with flames and dropping him in a bottomless pit Leon and Tits finally kill fako g-virus Birkin (after the obvious brother-sister drama and the reappearence of coincidence family photo) and then Leon and Tits hold hands (mega gay and what about Claire? Disgusting).

Then they work out that non-g-virus Birkin was behind it all and using unseen detective powers they manage to find him on a cliff just as he arranges to sell the T-virus and G-virus to some guy from Ghana. Justice.

Then in the morning, Leon and Claire decide to not change clothes but Tits decideds to change into a dress to show everyone why she is called Tits. She also lets her hair down. Leon, Claire and Tits then stand on a Cliff looking at the fako new umbrella facility, complete with deflated roof and say some stuff.

Tits then flirts with Leon IN CLAIRE'S FUCKING FACE and then Leon and Claire walk off. Leon gets in a helicopter and Claire gets in a Limo with fako ethnic Sherry and fako Sherry's aunt. They don't kiss or cry they just kinda say "see you later" and it sucks. Again, could have been crying like a depressed girl with allergies in the height of summer just after her fiance left her at her whole family's funeral. Alas was not to happen.

Later we see the new new umbrella cleanup team (from Resident Evil 5) find a bit of the new fako Billy Birkin and put it in a box. Cue credits.

I wish the above description was exaggerated or made up by a bitter fanboy like myself but no. That's the film. The one consolidation is the blooper reel on the DVD but by the time you've watched the film it isn't enough to get the FEELING THAT ME AND MY MORON FRIENDS COULD HAVE WRITTEN AND SHOT A MUCH BETTER FILM THAT AT LEAST MADE SENSE IN ABOUT FIVE MINUTES.

There is no Capcom as far as we are concerned.

Going underground...

As you are no doubt aware the end of the world is nigh. If we don't deforest it to death we'll all poor ourselves to death. Fortunately, for the moment the recession seems to be hitting people who have more than one houses and mortgages and savings hard. So for the meantime gamers are safe. For now.

However, Midway are not safe. Apparently they risk being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. This is bad apparently.

Obviously, this sucks for Midway employees and for that we are sorry. On the upside we hope to god that the IP rights for Mortal Kombat are lost in the ensuing sell offs and folding because we, for one, think the world would be a much much better place without the poor man's Street Fighter.

Good bye Mortal Kombat.

And good riddance.

Touch Dic

Lol, Just LOL

xxx

Omastar Comics #19

This week Omastar travels to a universe where copyright and anachronisms don't exist.



Christ! Just what the fuck is wrong with the people who upload shit to deviant art? For God's sake, it doesn't even make sense. Why would this happen? Who appreciates this abomination?





































/fap

O-o

Whatever next? My brain age isn't 20? You mean these things aren't telling the truth? So Aeris isn't dead? The Arabs aren't all bad? Frankly, if you are appearing on morning TV because your child was a bit annoyed because her Wii told her she was fat then you must have very very little in your life to worry about otherwise.

Oh well, let's hope Ninty send chubby a check or something.

Overheard on the tube....

Aussieman: So I'm really tired today. I was up till four last night playing GTAIV.
Aussieman's friend: Oh yeah? Any good?
Aussieman: Well it isn't as good as Gears but maybe I haven't played it enough yet.
Aussieman's friend: I used to play Vice city on my housemates PS2. It was sweet.
Aussieman: Yeah well it's okay but there was another game on the 360 that was much better. The graphics were smoother and the story was better. No one I know has ever played it though so..
Aussieman's friend: What game was that?
Aussieman: Saint's Row.

O-o. So yeah GTAIV. I had a bit of a throw down with it the other day. It's good but as you are pissing around you know that this game is huge and you start to feel a bit scared and overwhelmed. The side missions, cheevos, hidden packages? and silly easter eggs. But as Aussieman shows maybe GTAIV isn't such a big thing for the casual gamer. Oh well time will tell but at least someone may notice when Saints Row 2 comes out. Crazy world we live in.

P.S. Fuck casual gamers.

Dear Gamers on the internet #727

Boo hoo hoo. Boo hoo hoo. Waaaaaah waaah a boo hoo hooo. That's all we ever hear from you. Boo hoo hoo Blizzard hates my class. Waaaah waaah waaah Capcom won't respond to my letters. Boody hoo hoo "they" ruined Star Wars Galaxies. Yes it's pathetic but fortunately it's mostly from the PC gamers. Until now...

Since the release of Mario Kart Wii a number of sources have complained about the return of the blue shell. Even EDGE which usually flounces above such gamer whining, whines about it (Mario Kart Wii 6/10). Well you know what? The MBAs at That guy' s a maniac, the Second Greatest Video Game Blog of all time, have voted it the most bestest amazing pick up of all time. Read that last sentence again. Not just videogame pick ups. ALL pick ups. Be it pick up lines, picking up a prostitute or a pick up truck, the blue shell beats them all hands down. Here's what the Master blog artists had to say:

"It is our generations great leveller. Our grandparents had the war, our parents had the AIDS and we have the blue shell. It is a metaphor for our lives. You may have just saved enough money for that trip around the world and then boom! An astronomical council tax bill from four years ago. Bailiffs are coming round this second to beat you and take your property and money. And who wins from that situation? Some smug pencil pushing council twat. He doesn't see the look on your face. He doesn't gain anything from it but from his hopeless position in a dead end job he has irked you somewhat. The blue shell is the digital version of that twat. It'll ruin your day. Guess what punk. Maybe today you won't win. Boo hoo. But life goes on".- Cunzy1 1

"The beauty of the blue shell lies in its relentless desire to keep balance. Though the N64 blue shell was better."- Richie

So there we have it unequivocally the greatest pick up of all time. Move on loser.

We got carried away with LEGO

Yes we (I) did. If it's all part of LEGO's masterplan to get 20 somethings who grew up with lego to use their now disposable income to buy more LEGO after their Dad threw away all the original old LEGO whilst they we were away at "university" then it is working. Here's the story:

I picked up a copy of Lego Star Wars II the other day. It was cheap in Morrisons and it was kind of my birthday (in a few days anyway) so I thought I would treat myself. I have the original one and seeing as we're not proper gamers here at Thatgirls anymore (thanks Giant Lego Hamstring Enemy) I wanted something to play to make me feel like I was being an accomplished gamer.


Spontaneous review based on the first four levels: It's good. What you expect although the cantina could be more populated, especially with the old save characters. Also, it would have been nice to walk around the hub as your custom character but whatever it has multiplayer without having to go online, do you hear that Xbox multiplayer without being called a spazzy gay the whole time. 8/10.

So then I was thinking about LEGO so I checked out the LEGO Universe website. AND JESUS CHRIST THAT LOOKS AWFUL. Here's the thing: People would only want to play a LEGO MMO if it was all about LEGO and everything was in LEGO. What's all this mushroom bullshit about? Where are the studs? Mushrooms. Did they ever see a lego set? So I was kicking about on the LEGO website in a rage and I checked out they're current products. Not Very Good I thought. Too expensive too themey. What happened to the nice space and medieval themes without the bullshit one piece dragons?? Anyway. Then I discovered you could download a program to make your own set! Sweet. So I designed one.

It's called The Owl Pretends Not To Watch it's inspiration comes from the night Richie! and I came up with the brilliant idea to do a blog together. The owl represents you reader!



The program to make sets is nice. In fact it is like a game itself. Look at the adventures one can have!!!! This is the time we went for some buggery in the mountains. We ate fried cheese almost every day!



This is the time we bummed to oblivion! Oblivion kinda sucked! The owl was sick the whole time which really put a downer on the whole thing.



This is when we recreated a scene from Zeldor The Windwaker Chronicles which was a popular game on the N64. We don't really like the Zelda series at all but we paid homoage to it anyway.



Then, and check this shizzle, I found out you can order the frikkin set you designed so, fingers-crossed, two sets of The Owl Pretends are now winging their way to TGAM towers. You can even design the box art! Here it is*.


So, see LEGO execs, it really works. Keep up the good work and fire everyone associated with LEGO Universe now. Btw completely unrelated, we are available for consultancy work on upcoming games so call us on 555-7849. Thanks!

Also, whilst "researching" these post I was reminded of the awesome Brick Testament for those who have hours on their hands to waste and also the formidable Brothers Brick which is worth a look at every now and then.



*Richie is the one with the hat.

Time to die snake

Ok. Enough now. This is a public notice to all game developers currently in the "hype" stage of development. Please stop dropping the "We've got some great AI" bomb during interviews UNLESS. You do have some great AI. FPS are by far the biggest culprits of just throwing that line in there after they've talked about the graphics and the story. A recent playthrough of the Turok demo shows that those cheeky guys at Propaganda games are living up to their name. Check this whole article about it over at IGN.

Fair dos you might thinking. Now, this would all be believable if after about two minutes of play you couldn't sense that all of that talk about AI was absolute bullshit.

Chuff_72, the man allegedly made of pure candles, waxes lyrical:

"WHY can't people who make these things try something a bit different, like, the raptors that attack you, they look cool and move nicely, and look dangerous, but behave like any normal retarded FPS enemy, i.e. there are 5-6 onscreen at once, they run around and you shoot them till they fall over... very exciting. COME ON, these are not SUICIDE TERRORIST RAPTORS, they are animals looking for food, why not have a pack of 5 raptors, that individually look really cool, that stalk you for the whole level, nipping in and out to fuck with you, showing some glimmer of self preservation! Wouldn't it be so much cooler to really feel like the hunted? No, no it's much more exciting to have them glitiching through each other knocking you over ALL THE TIME and then fall over dead from all the bullets you supposedly hit them with while firing randomly. "

Richard "Richie" Richeese, co-author of TGAM and wife to the stars, has this to say:

"Nope. Predictable. Um"

That guy's a maniac are still waiting for some decent AI in FPSs (and hack n' slash games like Dynasty Warriors). What exactly does an A.I engineer do? When I think of good AI, I don't think of a squad of bad guys patiently waiting their turn to have a go at you. I also don't think that one guy in ten tokenly taking cover mid fire fight every now and then counts either. I certainly don't believe the much used lie that "enemies adapt to how you play". Utter bullshit I say. I also don't think that cheap tricks like "move the horse slower to avoid attention" really ticks the AI box and the classic "grunts dramatically clambering over walls it would take them less time to walk around" is really what next-gen AI should be about.

FPSs could take a leaf out of WoW's recent AI developments. The AI is modelled on movements and behaviours observed in PvP play. The main problem with doing this for FPS is that armies of AI grunts would resort to sniping you from halfway across the level or employing the terribly efficient tactic, used by real life marines in 90% of combat situations, of circle- strafing. With the end result that the protagonist has to wade through legions of enemy units circle strafing you whilst you circle strafe them in some kind of elaborate co-ordinated dance more at home at a Bah-mitzvah. Circle strafing i's a natural reflex for many FPS players, so much so, that friend of TGAM, Robisgay, has real trouble with FPSs because his brain is apparently wired up wrongly so instead of naturally strafing left or right he can only strafe backwards and forwards. Suffice to say this tactic doesn't work so well. Of course, the fundamental flaw with AI is that the game has to be playable. In a real life situation it is unlikely that a squad of 12 men can storm a small town defended by 100 grunts a la Call of Duty 4, but a game where you are mercilessly sniped before you have a chance to fire a bullet isn't that much fun. The trick is to make the AI stupid enough so they don't take you out straight away but clever enough to have an air of believability. Alternatively, AI engineers could program enemies to incessantly call you a fag whilst tea-bagging your lifeless corpse. At least that way you could be forgiven for thinking you were playing against another "human being". But whatever you do developers just don't lie about what your game can and can't do just to sound good in an interview because gamers can see straight through it and it just makes you look like a tit from marketing.

C1 1 out.

P.S On the topic of lies, Kotaku just won't even pretend that they've got no news this month. Slow news month guys?

What is it?

Yes! TGAM bringing you the same joke over and over again. See you same time next year?

That Guy's Are The Worst Wedding Guests

Last week, Richie and I travelled to snowy Estonia for the wedding of our old friend Randy McSporran. Suffice to say the event was chaotic and it's probably a good thing that Cunzy and Richie are normally seperated by several hundred miles. Memory is still a bit hazy but here is the summary;

Stansted at midnight, vodka, coke, Pokemon Diamond, smking, checking-in, vodka and red bull at 3 in the morning, legendary battle, Ponyta, Omastar, Focus Band, Cunzy afraid of flying, airport dimensia, immaturity, Doug and Liz, Easy Jet, flying, landing, Randy and Ollie, new friends, sniffer dogs, bus, 'fit' or 'fat', hotel, mini bar, spluff on beds, snooker, MacDonalds, Kat, supermarket, Seaman's shot, Absinthe, Dark Dog, cheese waffles, Kent fags, drinking, raging, stupid cocktail, some other liquer, mixers, bull pish, more absinthe, Richie vomit, pub, Pokemon talk, stag night, kissing men, fighting, beer, Richie wiping things of his shoe onto a girl, strip club, lots of money spent, private dance, arguing with Tom, Randy showing us the venue for the wedding at stupid o clock in the morning, Cunzy vomit, phoning girlfriend, girlfriend laughing, dropping my phone in the toilet, sleep, MISSING THE CEREMONY, shame, hangover, champagne, smoking, medieval restaurant, elk, bear, wild boar, salmon, spicy lentils, wine, more smoking, memory card for sale, alcoholic homeless man, barmaids, singing, speeches, rose pudding, bit drunk again, no money, reception, champagne, vodka, beer, bubbles, bubbles in Chris's beer, smoking, Mulan first dance, vodka, dancing, kidnap, arguing, drinking, Will in the bogs, shouting, kidnap of bride, vodka, singing Wet wet wet, return of the bride, chicken wings, cake, heroin addicts, evolution, pokemon theme tune, no PQT :(, dancing, smoking, dancing, drinking, message book, not racist limmerick, bride dancing in underwear, Richie no top, Doug no top, no tops hugging, smoking, dancing, Richie finishing tab, bad mood Richie, crazy barmaids, horrible jaded, jealous little man, horrible jaded medium sized man, wake up in time, taxi, airport, airport, immature, Jpod, plane, water, Family guy, half an episode, UK, smoking, home, tired, tired, liver failure?

Overall it was great but team TGAM only have another two weddings in us before we die of alcohol abuse so if you want us at your wedding book early. Also, there's every chance that we won't make the ceremony.

Omastar Comics #10

It's the long awaited return of Omastar Comics. In this week's edition, Omastar tries to make us feel better for this.


Yeah. Thanks but no thanks Omastar. You are fired. Get out and leave all those PPUps I've seen you taking from the stationery cupboard.

I'm not being racist or anything but fucking water types.....

The Oblivion 1000 point challenge. Pt 4

Challenge failed:

Yeah I kinna gave up after Friday, after spending 2 hours gaining ‘cheevos in Oblivion I decided this was not the proper way to spend a Friday/Weekend night and as such proceeded to party the rest of the weekend away.

Also, it was AV bonus honour weekend so what little gaming I did over the weekend was spend grinding honor.

Anyway this is my final score for 1 week (just under 10 hours gameplay :S):


Apprentice, Fighters Guild (10)
Apprentice, Mages Guild (10)
Arch-Mage, Mages Guild (50)
Assassin, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Associate, Fighters Guild (10)
Associate, Mages Guild (10)
Bandit, Thieves Guild (10)
Bloodletter, Arena (10)
Brawler, Arena (10)
Cat Burglar, Thieves Guild (10)
Champion of Cyrodiil (110)
Champion, Arena (10)
Champion, Fighters Guild (10)
Closed an Oblivion Gate (50)
Conjurer, Mages Guild (10)
Defender, Fighters Guild (10)
Delivered Daedric Artifact (50)
Destroyed the Great Gate (50)
Eliminator, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Escaped the Imperial Sewers (50)
Evoker, Mages Guild (10)
Footpad, Thieves Guild (10)
Gladiator, Arena (10)
Grand Champion, Arena (50)
Guardian, Fighters Guild (10)
Guildmaster, Thieves Guild (50)
Hero, Arena (10)
Journeyman, Fighters Guild (10)
Journeyman, Mages Guild (10)
Listener, Dark Brotherhood (50)
Located the Shrine of Dagon (50)
Magician, Mages Guild (10)
Master Thief, Thieves Guild (10)
Master, Fighters Guild (50)
Master-Wizard, Mages Guild (10)
Murderer, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Myrmidon, Arena (10)
Pickpocket, Thieves Guild (10)
Pit Dog, Arena (10)
Protector, Fighters Guild (10)
Prowler, Thieves Guild (10)
Shadowfoot, Thieves Guild (10)
Silencer, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Slayer, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Speaker, Dark Brotherhood (10)
Swordsman, Fighters Guild (10)
Warder, Fighters Guild (10)
Warlock, Mages Guild (10)
Warrior, Arena (10)
Wizard, Mages Guild (10)

Total
13/50 Achievements
210 Gamer points