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.

Top ten genicon gaming characters.

It's Monday okay! Much easier to bash out a dirty top ten than it is to do any actual thinking. Here are our top ten characters to get you 'there' if your current humpee ain't doing it no more.

1) Q Bert
2) Merchant from RE4
3) Zangief
4) Lickitung
5) Ms Pac Man
6) Aeris (dead).
7) Zelda as Sheik.
8) That tranny from Neir.
9) The gorilla dude, above, from Alex Kidd when he loses a game of paper, scissors, stone (and also his undies)
10) Murdered maidens in Tenchu.

All of these are tried and tested winners according to our girlfriend.

Total Cunts

Total.

We got a reply!

Remember that lost post when we emailed LEGEND Graeme Norgate? Well he only friggin emailed back, which to be honest has made us gush like a mucopurulent teenage girl at a Jonas Brothers gig under a waterfall.

Here's what Big G had to say:

Hello,
Thanks for the email, glad to hear you like my stuff...going all the way back to KI too, that is retro :)

the "is that too loud" bit is just me messing around with sounds and for some reason putting them on the gameover screen of Timesplitters 2. I can't quite remember the reasoning behind it now, I think it stems back to when I would listen to vinyl as a kid, and sometimes you'd get a "hidden" message right at the end.

Thanks again
Regards
Graeme

This email gave us lots of useful information about Graeme. Like, if we want to be like Graeme we'll say KI instead of Killer Instinct. Also, we got a fricking emoticon. I'm never gonna wash my email inbox ever again.

So that's the reason behind the little noise and make sure you go to Graeme's excellent site and make sure you hire him because the man knows how to make a kick ass tune to shoot people by.

The top ten of Iphone games/apps

Yes. I'm capitalizing Iphone and I'm spelling capitalizing like a yank. It's going to be one of those posts. But we mustn't shun the new platforms when they come out we should welcome them with open arms to join the fold. Recently, Steven Gates (is he the apple man? It really doesn't matter) tried to prove that the Iphone was the shit because it had more games than the DS and the PSP.

By that reckoning the PC is then the best gaming device! Didn't think about that Gates did you, you lemon.

Anyway, much like the Nintendo DS, the Iphone does have a whole load of steaming shit available for it with the occasional warm gem hidden in the pat. Nobody is going to suggest that any of them are all time greats but here's a summary of the best presented in the tried and tested Top 10 tradition:

Top Ten Original Iphone Games.

There isn't a single original Iphone game. Every Iphone game is either a port, a clone or in the worst cases an adaptation of a mini game from another game proper. This is fact.

Top Ten Iphone Apps.

Apps sounds stupid. Then again so does Iphone. Iphone with a capital 'I' also looks stupid. Finding the top ten was difficult. In fact I couldn't find more than one. I may have made the top one up also. Here it is, it's called Icunt simulator 2013 and it is an app that turns your Iphone into a sign that says "I'm a massive cunt" every time you use the Iphone inappropriately. These instances include, but are not restricted to: showing people holiday photos in a pub or club, using twitter, messing around with trying to find that restaurant you were looking for for so long that phoning the restaurant for directions or asking somebody walking past or in fact just wandering around until you found it anyway would have been quicker, doing anything other than phoning somebody else. In all of these instances the Iphone would only display the aforementioned sign until it was put back into a pocket. If it is put into a special Iphone holder it continues to display the sign until the batteries run out.

Top Ten Iphone Games.

That Loco Roco clone, the Crash Bandicoot clone, the Mario Kart one, the bejewelled one, the one that is like that better version on the DS, that game that just displays the rude sign, the tower defense one, that one like that PlayStation block game that begins with a K, Kurushi!, is that ten yet? I can't even bring myself to count.

Overall score Because there is always a score. A-haven't-we-played-all-these-games-before-but-in-their-much-better-and-expanded-versions-buying-a-paint-tester-isn't-the-same-as-painting-the-house- 5/10. 3 of those points are for the fictional app game I made up/stole from a stand up comedian?

Sorry. DSi only!

The first DSi only games were announced last week.

I just don't understand why they would do that.

Why so quickly? Why wait until half the world have a DS or DSlite, then bring out the DSi then bring out DSi only games. Wouldn't now be the time to be bringing out the DS games now that everyone can get in on the action?

Realistically, it is probably something to do with the DS having an average attach rate of 3 games. Which means anyone wanting to accrue a collection or play through all the decent/semi decent DS games gets fucked with a stylus but the average punter gets to keep that shit-eating grin on their face.

Everybody sing it with me! [In eastern European propaganda stylee]

R4 cartridge!
R4 cartridge!
Giving the consumer a genuine chance at experiencing!
This wonderful culture!
They killed R4!
They killed R4!
Now the only option is to buy Kirby: Canvas Curse on Ebay!
For a hundred bucks!
R4 cartridge!
R4 cartridge!
Giving consumers the dream!
The only way to play them all!
Before they are discontinued!
And we get some shit that involves the camera!
Because the microphone was so well used before!
Like in Nintendogs and ummm that other game!
So get an R4 catridge today!

They should probably sue Sony

'Free lads' have been arrested for mimicking drive-bys using a 'PlayStation Gun'. The beeb knows the score.

"The gun was found to be a silver plastic PlayStation gun. "

Shoddy reporting from the beeb. Was it a G-con? A G-con 2? G-con 3? Or was it a MadCatz pile of shit? Either way the boys should sue Sony because there is fuck all you can do with a PlayStation light gun these days so what other option do kids have after purchasing expensive peripherals that are in no way supported by new platforms.

In unrelated news:

Here is a list of light gun games for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 you cannot play on the PS3.

Area 51 (Justifier)
Crypt Killer (Justifier)
Die Hard Trilogy (Justifier)
Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas (Justifier/Guncon)
Elemental Gearbolt (Justifier/GunCon)
Extreme Ghostbusters: Ultimate Invasion (GunCon)
Ghoul Panic (GunCon)
Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James (GunCon)
Judge Dredd (GunCon)
Lethal Enforcers 1&2 (Justifier)
Maximum Force (Justifier/GunCon)
Mighty Hits Special (JPN, GunCon)
Moorhuhn series (GunCon)
Point Blank series (GunCon)
Project Horned Owl (Justifier)
Rescue Shot (GunCon)
Resident Evil: Gun Survivor (JPN/PAL versions) (GunCon)
Time Crisis (GunCon)
Time Crisis: Project Titan (GunCon)

Death Crimson OX+ (JP) aka Guncom 2 (EU)
Dino Stalker (EU/NA) aka Gun Survivor 3: Dino Crisis (JP)
Endgame
Gunfighter 2 (EU only)
Gunvari Collection + Time Crisis (JP only)
Ninja Assault
Police 24/7 * Also uses a USB Camera (EU/JP Only)
Resident Evil: Dead Aim (EU/NA) aka Gun Survivor 4 Biohazard: Heroes Never Die (JP)
Resident Evil: Survivor 2 Code: Veronica (EU) aka Gun Survivor 2 Biohazard Code: Veronica (JP)
Starsky and Hutch
Time Crisis: Crisis Zone
Time Crisis II
Time Crisis 3
Vampire Night
Virtua Cop: Elite Edition (EU) aka Virtua Cop Re-Birth (JP)

Here is a list of light gun games you can play on the PS3

Time Crisis 4 (Guncon 3) (Namco, 2007) 6/10 game at best.

Gotta love backwards compatability! And yes, we can and will keep this up until the PS3 is discontinued (ETD December 2009).

Definitive: Now no reason to buy a PS3

No reason now that backwards compatability is off the cards altogether.













That is all.

Heavy Rain

Hot on the heels of E3, there are a couple of Heavy Rain trailers up on the PS3 network. I've seen em both.

One of them is your typical trailer packed with mysterious sound bites, action sequences and a quite impressive looking dance floor. The other is a demonstration of how the game will play.

Now, we were fans of Fahrenheit for the first hour until Monster Syndrome kicked in. Then we weren't fans. Then we were fans for the dead man sexing bit. Then we weren't fans again.

Heavy Rain does look good but the demonstration showing a rather plaid looking woman going into the bogs to sex herself up a bit did leave us feeling. Well. A bit cold.

The idea of the demo is that she has to sex herself up a bit to, I dunno, sex a dead man or something. So she enters the toilets and then looks into the mirror. At this point a bunch of arrows pop up around her hair, face, tits and cooch and the player has to help her get slutified through a bunch of analog stick movements. So selecting the bag makes her get out her lipstick. A SF fireball on the stick makes her apply it to her bottom lip. An inverse fireball on her top lip. Then with some mascara. Then more prompts to make her unbutton her top, rip her skirt a bit and mess her hair up a bit.

Sure, it looks like a good idea but is it really neccessary? If you are too heavy handed will she smear the lipstick all over her face? Or just tear her whole skirt off? How is following all these prompts any better than say, 'pressing X to sexify'? It's forced interactivity for it's own sake rather than being better gameplay or adding anything to the experience? Which kinda summed up most of E3 actually...

DJ Hero peripherals announced!

Following in the footsteps of non-game series Guitar Hero, now on it's 16th iteration, and Rock Band (are we on 4? 5? nobody cares), the upcoming DJ Hero is also keen to milk the shit out of mainstream non gamers with these three peripherals so you can play with your mates:

DJ Hero Dex- Estimated Retail Price $140 pounds.
This killer dex will show how truly easy the job of a DJ is. Just put on a compilation CD and watch the game play itself. In the meantime you can feel up some jailbait who is on an AK trip.

DJ Hero Manbag- Estimated Retail price 54 euros.
Show off to all your friends how much of a super underground artisan you are with this mass produced man/record bag available at any shitty independent music shop that still sells vinyl. Customise it with up to four slots for anti war and graffiti inspired badges.

DJ Hero Beanie- Estimated Retail price £30.
Look like a youth knob at and away from the console! Has three slots for official DJ Hero 'ironic goth message badges' sold separately.

DJ Hero Tats- Estimated retail price £20.50 each.
Look like the twat you are with these exclusive twattish tattoos for you to show off at your fast food restaurant day job. Variants include that Celtic thing that everyone has, that stupid star design that people insist on getting on their wrists, neck and face and that other tribal thing that sluts get above their thong, which itself sits 4-5 inches above the ass crack and or trouser waistband.

We can hardly wait. We've preordered all this shit and it's all us and our wannabe DJ friends can think about. Until then we'll keep you posted with any news that comes our way about the latest plastic peripheral shit to kill gaming once and for all.

Pachamama

Hotlinking to some news that's been all over my boink today. For those of you who are lazier than we, the premise is to slap a tax on violent video games to ugh cut knife crime, Britain's second favourite national sport.

We don't think the tax is a good idea because a) People who stab other people don't buy games, they steal them at knifepoint duh and b) People who play games don't stab people*. They stay at home and play games.

I'm all for reducing knife crime but I think there is a better way to be going about it, like nuking Britain from space until knife crime goes down or mass sterilisation of people who wear caps. However, I am in favour of slapping taxes on Theme Hospital to improve the NHS and we should tax the fuck out of Train Simulator to keep trains running on time. Taxes on Katamari Damacy to cure cancer etc. etc.



*Excluding FIFA, Halo, CoD, GoW, the other GoW and MySims.

Agatha Christie's And then there were none..

For the Wii.Thoughts in roughly chronological order:

I love Agatha Christie. She was genius, I hope Nintendo release a 100 Agatha Christie books on the DS. That would be sweet.
Oh shit man murder mystery.
Who is gonna die first?
Sailor Boys indeed.
It's the Butler.
Cheese? What do I do with cheese?
I hope nobody notices I am stealing everything from this house.
It's Vera.
Vera is hot.
Glad I didn't miss that.
It's Emily.
Blore sounds like 'Boner'
It's Boner.
Stupid Wiimote safe cracking.
GODDAM STUPID WIIMOTE SAFE CRACKING.
Oh, wrong code.
Goddam AWE and your crashes. Everygame.
And again.
And again.
I should save more.
It's the Judge!
WHY WON'T EARRING MIX WITH CHEESE?
Goats.
Goats like cheese?
Goats like apples?
Goats like honey?
Goats like buckets?
Goats like cocktail shakers?
Goats like books about bird watching?
What do goats like?
GODDAM AWE GLITCHES SHOULD SAVE MORE OFTEN.
Not a glitch actually.
It's the Doctor.
Goats like walking sticks?
Four little 'sailor' boys.
Gross dead bodies.
Not gonna use GameFaqs.
The Goats are hiding Bellman's Universal Embrocation?
Bellman's Universal Embrocation in a bathroom?
Is cheese used to make Bellman's Universal Embrocation?
I've fixed the radio, is Bellman's Universal Embrocation inside?
Used GameFaqs BY THE APIARY OF COURSE ON THE GRASS FOR NO REASON.
Where is everybody?
There's only four of us left why does everyone run off?
Now there is two.
The goats did it?
I love point and click adventures.
Oooh secret ending!
What was I supposed to do with the cheese?
Must read Agatha Christie books.
I miss point and click adventures.
8/10

Games news round up

There's nothing happening in games at the moment. Except for Resident Evil 5 and Dead Rising Chop til you Drop. Everyone else is getting fired. Here's a round up of the top stories this week:

1) I played a bit of Animal Crossing: Let's got to the city. I didn't go to the city, I failed to make a snowman and I only found two pitfall seeds (no fossils). The town was pretty weedilicious too. I did buy the common painting from nook though. I also got a very disturbing letter (screenies later).

2) Dead Rising Chop til you Drop is allegedly out on Friday!? How can this be? We're looking forward to it. I say we I mean I. Richie died a couple of months ago [reminds me, I need to do an obituary post] and didn't 'get' the original one. We (I) am sad that there won't be any photography as there was nothing better than accidentally whipping out the camera and taking a sneaky photo only to find some secret erotica. We (I) are not very bothered about the reduced number of zombies either as Dead Rising is by far the stand out best next gen game so far even with gangs rather than hordes of the undead. We (me still) are also sad that the free structure of the story mode has been changed to mission based which should make it a bit easier for completionists. Still. Worth a buy I reckon.

3) killzone 2 is out also on friday. Which, is like saying that the supermarket has restocked their bread for the week. Or that s expected, water will continue to come from your taps. Some people are excited about Killzone 2. These people are PS3 owners. Nobody else really is. And if they are? They should play Killzone. Then they won't be. We already rviewed it but here is the review again for those who missed it: Unless you are the die hard fan of green/brown/grey and corridors, corridors, warehouses and corridors, give this one a miss. 6/10.

4) Lost Planet 2 was announced to the surprise of one person. That person later realised they weren't really surprised. They had lost planet confused with lonely planet and later apologised to the internet.

5) I read Little Brother on Sunday. It was okay. Readable certainly. A bit cringey with all the references to SilVal faves and I suspect a bit too much of Mr. Doctorows personal fantasy where BoingBoing leads the next non revolution in the spirit of the 60s against 'the man'. Worth a read though, if only once. It helps if you pretend you are a guardian reader too because it makes you feel 'in touch' with the kidz because you know what flickr is. Watch out for the cosplay rape scene though. It took m very much by surprise.

6) This weekend a hundred articles were published in the newspapers and shit about how facebook and virtual worlds make you have a short attention span. And a loner. And a retard. A retard who can't communicate well. And it means you can't empathise with others. What the article really means is that a crap load of middle aged intelligent people are shit scared that they'lll be left out because they don't know all the latest memes. Serves 'em all right. Be scared. Nobody reads the papers anymore anyway. A whole supplement on fashion? Fuck off.

7) This week every developer went bust completely.

8) The Wii sold more games and consoles than there are people in the universe. Some people are still complaining that there are no games. These people are the same people who are looking forward to Killzone 2 and sick of playing MotorStorm 2 and Resistance 2 over and over and over. So far the status of the Wii hasn't been commented on by the 360 fanboys as they are too busy perpetually logging in and out of Xbox live and Games for windows to download trailers and play Dawn of War 2.

9) Left 4 Dead is still enjoying a great deal of coverage from the blogosphere.

10) The new source goldeneye looks shit. It looks like CS which was also shit which looks like L4D which, is also shit. We can't understand the appeal of the knock off Resident Evil Outbreak. So what, it actually works and is online these are not significant factors. Until left for dead is renamed Resident Evil Outbreak Rip-off we will be boycotting all Valve games.

So them's the haps of international importance. Now you know.

The perfect circle: A selection of discs not to choose if you are doing an article on disc art even if it is tongue in cheek

Remember Crispy Gamer? The guys behind some pretty good articles in recent years to be frightfully honest.

This time around it's an article, pre-empting EDGEs upcoming article on the subject, about the best disc art. They then choose some of the worst disc art around but not the worst worst, just the mehhiest worst and put it up for all to see. If they went full retard it would have been fine to see some of the worst disc art around. However, the writer , one Karl Florid seems to have chosen a bunch of discs that were within reach rather than execute any kind of judgement about quality and what makes a good disc cover.

What do we care you might be commenting already? We care a lot. Firstly, there's a lot of Xbox games on that list. Not that there's anything bad with Xbox and it's relation to art on disc covers per se but half the disc is covered with the Xbox banner and the other half is covered with logos etc. Automatic disqualification methinks. Secondly, it is really annoying when you get a platinum game or an Eidos reloaded game and the original art is replaced with just the logo. That's pretty dissapointing and decreases the value of a game significantly if you ain't got the original.

Kylie the describes the gears of war logo as a "spray-painted skull and crossbones". Surely Sir. That's a gear no?

The midnight club, halo 3, katamari and namco museum discs are also poor choices.

This almost tempts us to start scanning some real arty discs in to keep the disc art discussion going. An important discussion that some lazy artist is already no doubt planning an exhibition about. Surely, Darwinia should be on the list (it might be actually I didn't check). Or the Urban Chaos disc. Them's was pretty sweet. However, the scanner is on the blink at the moment. Watch this space.

Back to Black

Two 'interesting' articles went up this week Why are black game characters failing audience on EDGE and Resident Evil 5 Coverage Reignites Racism Debate up on some shit blog we found. It appears that discussion about racism, race and games once again rears it's ugly head for do gooders to send their good thoughts out into the ether. However, this time around it is black history month and Resident Evil 5 demo is live so it's kinda topical.

However, both of these posts completely gloss over the main meat of issues about race in games. We've all played the Resident Evil 5 demo by now and realised that there's nothing there really. Anyone wanting to single out things that they think are racist are overstretching a bit and any gamer who has been around a while can easily cite other games where the race scenario is reversed, irrelevant or ambiguous. And no one got the heeby jeebies then or had to try so hard to fight for race rights. On the internet. On a blog.

No these authors are missing the race issue that quite frankly has gone unaddressed for over two years now.

It's Otis from Dead Rising. He is a fucking annoying prick. And black. Yeah we'd throw that out there for ya. Please send your theses to krisgraft@edge-online.com and who knows? Maybe you'll get a job?

Other TGAM posts in the 'tackling racism from the armchair' series:

Where's the black Wii?
Marvin Branagh (Will Smith) cancels party for Leon Kennedy.
Black lead character only sleeps with dead white man in Fahrenheit.
Barrett in FFVII only character to have a child.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil has a Pig man as a best friend.
Echochrome: The new apartheid?
50 Cent game given awful reviews by racist game reviewers.
Links hatred for dark Link: Nintendo's hidden agenda.

Public Service Notice 48

This public service notice relates to the use of the term "facepalm". The use of such a term is increasing in forums, on blogs and on those motivational poster images. The users of the term may wish to rethink using it as it is only really used by american people who spend more than two hours a day watching cartoon network. Here are some suggested alternatives to use to impress fellow children on the internet:

Gosh that was really embarassing for that person.
Whoops.
Oh dear that was unfortunate that that thing happened to that guy and everyone saw it.

Please help make the internet a cleaner, more respectable place so that alien archaeologists don't have to shift through so much shit when trying to work out whether or not humanity was all that or not.

Delicious Irony

Wow. We are on fire today with three posts n all. Anyway does anyone else find it ironic that a site/franchise called 1Up just died?

We do. Ah haahahahahahahahaha.

Also, it was shit anyway. Yeah.

Have you played as the monkey yet?

Oh dear, rumours abound that Free Radical might be in trouble. Pre-2005 us are very sad indeed. This could be the saddest news ever.

But that is only because we haven't heard this news yet, which in late 2008, will make us kill ourselves. Truer words are not written anywhere else.

Post-2005 us will be holding a fourteen day party to celebrate, if the rumours are confirmed. The whole world is invited and we'll be burning copies of Timesplitters: Future Perfect and Haze and getting high and then getting dead on noxious fumes.

The Facebook page for this party is up so feel free to bring yourself and all the chav kids from the bloc to ruin our house and stab each other so we can be on TV in a filler spot on BBCNews 24, in between the news about how to save money on mince pies and more news about the end of the world.

Where has Richie been?

Gone since September. Ha he been working hard? Doing research? Travelling the world and conversing with the interesting people he found therein? I am proud to reveal the answer in a rare email from the estranged co-author of this blog.

Okay so playing Wow for some of it but not for 3 months surely?

Oh okay so maybe one month. Anything else?

Jesus Christ. Expansions work people is the lesson here.

Some people are just happy in Wow I guess.

Seriously though, I'm informed they are all level 70+. This is a lapse for him. Perhaps we should send over the big ass crane that winches WoW fatties from their bed to his house before he explodes.

Thank god! A casual game. There's hope for her yet. RIP in Richie.

Animla Crossing Let's Got to the City

Has arrived and been played by me. It's good or is it? Well yes I think it is.

You start off and it is all so familiar, you can import your face, hair and some of your catalogue from wild world but unfortunately, you are still back to square one otherwise. As ever, you need to meet the villagers, undertake some tasks for Nook, and then start afresh increasing your box flat to a mansion, destroying the local ecosystem through over harvesting and turning your hick town into a thriving country 'destination'.

Some veterans might be a bit peeved that although your catalogue can be transferred from the DS version, you still lose all your fish, bugs, gyroids fossils, art works, resident potraits, golden equipment and Sahara carpets and walls.
I am peeved at this. I don't mind catching them again to give to the museum but would it have been so hard to have transferred over the data so that it shows that you have, at some point, caught a banded dragonfly, without neccessarily collecting one yet again when summer rolls around. Playing the game throughout the year isn't difficult but it is annoying when you don't play it one month and you've missed three species of fish and two insects.

As for the rest, well it's Animal Crossing. Just goes to show the dearth of quality games out there when I'm excited about doing it all over again, again. Hell, much of my gaming in the last two, three years has been playing the same goddam game and going through the motions on Pokemon, Resident Evil and Animal Crossing. I still buy the things though so I am fully to blame.

From here on, we do a Kotaku style review:

What I loved about Animal Crossing LGTTC or whatever it's called:

1) Swear words are back! Yesterday I wrote a letter that went like this:

Whore Twiggy, I fucking hate you queer.

And I'm pretty sure in AC:WW that would have been censored to read

Whore Twiggy, I fucking hate you queer.

So expect Residents of Gaywood to be cursing each other within seconds. Some people might think that sending the above letter to Twiggy might be homophobic but I sent the letter and signed it 'Nook', I'm angling for some kind of blackmail situation. I'll keep you posted. (UPDATE: Twiggy got the letter and seemed positively pleased with it. Somehow he (she?) knew it was from me and rewarded me with a Lovely Carpet. I don't know what she (he?) is after so I pretended I knew nothing about it and sold the carpet to Nook, just in case).

2) Individual houses again!
For those who don't know, in the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing, each player (up to 4) gets their own house. In Wild World it was a shared house and sharing a house virtually is pretty much the same as sharing a house in real life. Endlessly tidying up after your housemates or coming home to find apples and turnips all over the floor starts to grate quickly. Also, depressingly, my housemates and I spent longer debating the decor of our virtual house than our real house. So thank Ninty for the seperate houses again.

3) The ability to take snapshots.
Yes, providing you have enough space on an SD card you can snap away, taking photos of all your virtual Kodak moments. Expect the SSBB images which have been dominating this site to be replaced with Animal Crossing images. You can also mess around with these images on the Wii Menu, in the photo channel and on the message board. Some of you may laugh but I find it oddly gratifying to do a virtual 48 piece puzzle of Nook asking me inappropriate questions or creating Warhol like images of my Mii holding a football fish.

4) Mii faces.
Mii faces are in, which is a win in my book. Visit the City and Harriet the hairdressing poodle will give you a Mii face of your choice. Unfortunately, the Mii face works as a mask so you can't add accessories or hats without reverting back to your standard Animal Crossing face. Some players may not like this but personally I am in love with the idea of wearing you Mii face as a mask. Or better, wearing your friends Mii face as a mask. And committing evil deeds. And taking snapshots of it. And posting it on the internet. Along with offensive letters signed in their name.

5) Bigger and better museum.
The museum has had a massive makeover and looks great! Small thing I know, but it matters to me!

6) Some Wii controls.
Digging holes and catching fish can either be done on the nunchuk, wiimote or using motion controls. Forcing motion controls would have ruined the game so it's good to have all the options available. Much like SSBB, there's no point forcing wiimote controls if it really doesn't add to the game.

7) The City.
Although relatively small and certainly not enough added extras to justify a whole new game the city is a cool place to visit and increases the daily to do list as well as centralising some of the pointless occassional visitors to the town. Now Crazy Redd, Katrina, Gracie and Dr.Shrunk can be found in the City instead of randomly turning up in the town. Also, there is a lot more for "endgame" play (endgame in Animal Crossing!) with the ridiculously expensive lavish sets and accessories available at Gracie's store. Yesterday the gorgeous set was on show. To buy it all will set you back approximately 1,000,000 bells if you were to go for the whole shebang.

8) Online stuff.
As well as Wii to Wii compatability (via the DS suitcase) there are a whole slew of features for online use. Auction house, HRA model room and wii messages are there for those who have friends that play Animal Crossing online and who are happy to share friend codes. As a 56 year old without an internet connection this will not be me but I don't feel like I'm missing out on too much for it to be grating at all.

9)Pattern designs.
Sounds totally gay (and it is) but the pattern designing is still in and slightly expanded, it is now possible to design the individual elements of a shirt whereas before, if you were to design a shirt to look like a naked body, you would end up with nipples and belly button on the front of the shirt, the back and the sleeves. Now it is possible to design the elements individually. Again, little thing but a nice inclusion. Also, for the Animal Crossing playing football fans (we know you are out there), you can create a football shirt now. Also, for the perverts who play Animal Crossing (perhaps a bigger demographic) you can now run around with your top half naked. Also, for the alternative crowd who play Animal Crossing (????) you can now run around with your tribal tats and piercings for all to see. etc.

10) Everything you were already used to.
Everything is back in there, the residents, the town hall, the bulletin board, Nook's Shop, Able Sisters shop, the Town gate and the museum. Even Resetti is back and he thanked me for buying Animal Crossing Wild World. Which is nice. People don't thank me enough for buying their games and throwing hours of my time into it when I should be doing the laundry, or paying bills or whatever it is grown-ups do. On top of that the politically incorrect holidays are back so we can all celebrate Christmas and Halloween again. I've not checked but hopefully La Di Da day is gone forever.

What we hated:
1) Losing all the stuff from the catalogue which is just a tad unfair.
Collecting the fossils and fish again isn't too hard but collecting all the insects and rare carpets, wallpapers, resident potraits and paintings is a bit galling. Although, if this stuff did all come over there would be a lot less to do once the mortgage was paid off etc...... Richie once described Animal Crossing as a single player MMORPG complete with grinding (with collection in the stead of levelling) and he was absolutely right but imagine having to start a new character from scrath to play every expansion. Then you get some sense of how annoying this is.

2) Tom Nook.
Seriously, isn't against the Geneva convention that this guy throws you into so much debt against your will because basically, the dude can't be bothered to collect fruit, items, insects and fish on his own?

So expect some Animal Crossing updates in the future. I haven't decided what the fate for Gaywood is yet, I've been watching the wire a lot recently so I might make it into a mini Baltimore. We'll see.

Ask a silly question....

We're thinking of doing a big 2008 retrospective because we are lazy, like to recycle content and love to use any opportunity to show off our unforced 'whacky' comradorie?, comradory?, comodorarody? and witty office banter.

So I've been going through the archives, pulling together bits for this epic post about what we did this year, shifting computers every time I finish checking through a month in order to up our unique visitors. Whilst doing so I found this piece where we managed to stay focussed enough to ask our future selves some questions.

Now it is the future and I will answer our pastselves' questions for my own pleasure.

1. Did all the above games come out in 2008 (Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 5, Silent Hill 5, Super Smash Brothers Brawl and TGAM: The game based on the blog based on the games that influence our lives.)?
Yes, Not yet, yes, yes and no. After seeing the shitty Penny Arcade game TGAMTGBOTBBOTGTIOL got shelved.

2. Were they good?
Yes, don't know, ish, hell yes, N/A.

3. What were the surprise releases of 2008?
Megaman 9 was a bit of a surprise. The least surprising releases were probably Little Big Planet which, if you are a follower of blogs, was so over exposed you felt like you'd played it, discussed it and got bored of it before it was even out. We are surprised that Killzone 2 still isn't out and Home is kinda out but not really despite being on of the Top 10 gadgets of the year according to Time magazine. In fact this was probably the year of least surprise as publishers paid through the nose to hype and advertise shit before it was even finished.
Perhaps the true genuine surprise this year was that Microsoft so brazenly copied the idea of Miis and got away with it.
If we were truly hilarious individuals we would have just answered this question with Fifa 09 and been done with it. Unfortunately, we can only aspire to Gamespot-esque levels of humour.

4. Is Richie still playing WoW?
Hard to say. Our one avid reader may have spotted that Richie hasn't really contributed to the blog since before September. So probably yes then but no one really knows for sure.

5. Is there yet another expansion for it?
Yes which might be the cause of above.

6. Did the Wii’s sell out again this Xmas?
Looks like it, who would have thought. Well past us clearly.

7. Is the Wii any good yet?
Totally depends on which console you are a fanboy of. I reckon this year both the Xbox 360 and the Wii have had a good run of it and both are worth owning if you are truly a discriminating gamer. Although the Wii doesn't have the sheer number of games the 360 does, they do tend to either be classics or shovelware. The 360 has a fuller spectrum of quality from classics through mediocre to crap. But if you like No More Heroes, Mario Kart, World of Goo, Super Smash Brothers, De Blob, Okami (cheating), Warioland, Chocobo Dungeon and boomblox then yes, in the UK at least 2008 has made the Wii good.

8. Is the PS3 still shit?
Yeah totally. Such an awful year and so many hopes dashed as PS3 exclusives went multiplatform, weren't noticebly different to 360 versions, delayed, slagged off as difficult to develop for or just plain ol' cancelled. Just look at this gamespot top 2008 PS3 games list. Take out the multiplatform releases and there is nothing worth forking out for a PS3 for. Truly sad times.

9. Does TGAM still exist?

Barely. Posts are just juvenile rants or copied from other sites. Richie doesn't chip in anymore, we lost our only full time troll and the spelling and punctuation has gotten worse if anything. But technically we're still here so yeah, woot us.

10. Does Cunzy own any next-gen machine (or powerful PC) yet?

Maybe depends if you include the Wii as 'next-gen'.

So there we have it past selves. Happy now? Here's some questions for our future future selves.

1) Did Killzone 2 come out yet?

2) What new element, colour or precious stone will the next pokemon games be? Where do you go after platinum? Maybe radioactive elements? Or poisons? Pokemon Antimony would be pretty sweet.

3) Was Home any good?

4) Did it save the PS3?

5) Has 'next-gen' managed to expunge any of the following from games yet: Crates, Barrels, indestructible scenery, childish or cliched storytelling, bullshots, too much hype, dodgy AI, lies about different storyline/morality system, too many wii peripherals, lava, ice and water levels, lense flare, bloom, FPSs set in linear corridors, boring tutorials, unskippable cut scenes, online abuse, PC gaming frustration, annoying cameras, boring MMORPGs? Or is it still all about the graphics looking nice but sticking to 1990s game design.

6) Did the gaming magazines finally go under?

7) Did everyone realise that Metal Gear Solid 4 was a bit silly really?

8) Was Resident Evil 5 really racist?

9) Did LBP finally sell well?

10) Is there still a TGAM/habitable planet?

Gender issues in Games

So it seems from my all important viewpoint that a whole bunch of losers insist about worrying about gender in games the whole frickin time. "All girl characters in games just look hot or cry except when they are big and fat". And someone will whinge about it if they are all, any or either of the above. So what? Get over it. Male characters have a raw deal in games. So there. All genders get a raw deal when depicted in games. But that's no surprise the same is true in children's drawings, advertising and every other medium ever. Street signs have better narratives than most games the only good thing games have is shiny graphics and a distraction from daily life or news of stabbings, economic crash, climate change. Do not look to games as a fulcrum in your hack paper on gender in games. I mean you Terra Nova.

No. The losers mentioned above use their internet moaning like a horde of "liberal" zombies to skirt around the real gender issue in games. This my friends is the big one. The meat of the sandwich. Is Jigglypuff from Super Smash Brothers a girl? That my friends is the killer question.
Originally, I thought no. Sure he is cute as a button but not a girl right? There is something not very girlish about him. Definitely a boy.

But then he does have this hat. It is a girly hat. 7/10 to be sure but then maybe Jigglypuff is just a trendy boy which pretty much gives you free reign to wear a girls hat, hell you can even get away with girl hair too (it doesn't work the other way round though, girls with boy hair look like those freaky bald cats).

Then there is this hat. This hat is more like 8.5 girly. But perhaps its just a ruse so the other competitors don't hit him to hard with a baseball bat or eat him huh? Yeah. A ruse by the 'puff no doubt and you all fell for it. Losers.

Yeah so what. Don't tell me you have never worn a cocktail flower umbrella thing on your head and tried to seduce Kirby? You liar. You unscrupulous liar destined for the lowest level of hell. Or highest. Or the worsest one wherever that may be.

Myth Busted! Proved by the use of science and screenshots from here reproduced here under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. However, with gender issues in games now solved it does mean that I have some pretty homoerotic screenshots on my SD card to get rid of.

Impressions.

This weekend I had a chance to catch up with two new games on the Xbox 360, the alleged "real console". Saying that will make PS3 owners scoff, Wii owners laugh in their gazillions and PC owners head straight to their favourite forum to rat me out for the console loving luddite they expect me to be. Turning on the spot is over rated any case. Anyway, as we are in the midst of the winter of good games after the seemingly eternal summer of absolutely shit games I was anxious to try out two of the games I was particularly looking forward to.

Gears of War 2. DANGER DANGER! SPOILERS IF YOU COULDN'T GUESS THE GIST ANYWAY

Having enjoyed Gears of War after it came out and long after most Xbox 360 owners had changed their 20 second attention towards something else a little bit different (Does anyone even play Halo 3 anymore?) I was looking forward to the second one. I'd read a bit about it and Cliffy B spouting off about the story and it being, bigger and better etc. etc. The usual hype. My initial impressions are that calling it Gears of War "2" is a bit generous really. It should be called Gears of War "The corridor" or Gears of War 1.5.

The original Gears was good because it had the reloads and the cover system and a storyline that was less than an inch deep. But it didn't matter it was fun and co-op and generally okay and for those precious months that people were interested it was great to play online.

With Gears 2, they decided that players had too much freedom and the storyline was a bit too deep. So GoW2 has the lovable Fenix and co. travel through one large corridor from start to finish. You don't even need to know your objectives because you follow the one path you can take and inevitably it takes you to it. "Avoid the acid vomiting penises" is the objective and hey, look the next six minutes of the game is walking along a tight corridor lined with acid vomiting penises. Stop the Brumak from attacking the convoy drill thing and voila, you are stuck on a rooftop with nothing to do except shoot the Brumak who is bearing down on the convoy. And it goes on throughout the entire game. Alternative routes are cunningly cut off with such staple barriers as 'doors with metal planks over them' or 'shit loads of debris'. In fact there is more freedom to explore in Link's Crossbow training, that is how on rails this game might as well be.

I played it single player but maybe it is better in co-op because you get those pointless options to choose a left or right route. Take the right route to use the mortar to let the guys on the left route through. In one section you take the left route to turn off the automatic security guns on the right route. Why? Why do that at all? How about everyone takes the right route so we don't need to use the mortar at all or alternatively, everyone take the left route and just walks past the switches avoiding the stupid automatic security altogether? Criminally, once you choose which route you want the game plops you firmly on that side with a magical door blocking your route back should you want to change your mind. Generally, there's no backtracking either, doors cruelly close the second you walk past them or, in the worst examples there are steps which are a little too high for the unjumping marines to climb back over.

As for the storyline, which Cliff is so desperate for you to care about? It is as piss poor as even the stupidest of Gears fans could have written and uploaded to a fan fiction site. Shitloads of cliche and mm deep exposition, or as Marcus puts it in one section of engaging dialogue, "more like 10 shitloads". Every character who isn't one of the main characters dies from one cutscene to the next. At one point whilst searching heavily guarded "prison barges" the only two prisoners you find are one of the main characters from the first game and a secondary character who promptly dies. You start out with a whole army, by the third level theres five of you and by the end it's probably just Dom and Marcus left. And Cole who returns to "damn" and "shit" every four seconds after he appears. Maybe it is a testament to your skill as a player that lets your unit live whilst thousands of COGs die around you. Or maybe it's all scripted. One long scripted set piece corridor that occassionally forces you to stop to take in a set piece. TAKE IT IN, LOOK AT THE HELICOPTER OH THE HELICOPTER GOT SHOT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU BY A HUGE MONSTER. LOOK AT THAT CONVOY DRILL THINGY OH NO IT EXPLODED RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! Occasionally the corridor is blocked off so you have to stand around and shoot two waves of locust that happily run out in front of your fixed position like a shooting gallery. Then you get to do it again and again. Everything seems to happen at the exact rate it takes you to kill two waves of locust. Quick! Kill two waves of locust until Jack can open the door. Kill two waves of locust until Bobby pulls a lever. Kill two waves of locust until this door randomly unlocks. Kill two waves of locust until Dizzy fixes the truck. Kill two waves of locust until Epic decide to give you another cutscene. It should be a new SI unit.

However, Epic do seem to love Capcom almost as much as us! Remember the Leviathan level in Devil May Cry 3? Well so do Epic because they lovably replicated it all in GoW2 and they started doing files as well. I wouldn't be suprised if you find Brian Irons diary on one level. They even put Hunters in this one just in case you missed them from Resident Evil. I didn't play through to the end but I have no doubt that Viewtiful Joe and Frank West join your unit only to die at the next cutscene. Actually, thinking about it Carmine kinda looks like Viewtiful Joe...

Is it fun? Yeah totally but just don't try to claim it's innovative or god forbid you to try to speak of its story telling merits or that it is anything more than a no frills continuation of the first game. I just stopped caring half way through as you lurch down the corridor to another firefight in which you have to use cover to pick off two waves of enemies.

Left 4 Dead.

We have high expectations of this one and judging from ever trustworthy favourable internet coverage it should be something to look forward to. However, judging from watching a friend play the demo single player on the Xbox 360 it ain't all that. Not at all. Now I know some of you are going to have issues with me drawing conclusions from watching a friend play the demo single player on the Xbox 360 but I would have issues from people drawing their conclusions from playing the game at Valve with valve employees for three days straight.

What we were expecting: A game that finally cracked engaging co-op play a la Project Eden but with zombies. A FPS Resident Evil Outbreak that actually works. A new era of 4 player games that had you do more than play deathmatches against each other or heaven help you, capture the sodding flag.

What I saw: A very easy arcadey run n' gun that might as well have been a single player minigame. Each zombie takes about two shots to kill. You can just run straight past them, run and hold down fire, or you can just stand around and the AI buddies will take care of them. Occasionally a boomer or hunter or tank will turn up but holding down fire whilst aiming at their face does the trick.

Maybe it is because its a demo that it is so easy. Or maybe it's better on PC for no discernable reason. Some of you may even say that it's better in co-op and you shouldn't play it single player. But that's no excuse. A lot of games make the mistake of adding in co-op as an after thought. It's essentially two people playing through single player mode and the second character magically dissapears in the cut scenes. Left 4 Dead seems to do the opposite. It is so geared towards mulitplayer that one player just feels a bit souless. In fact based on the demo it looks like the full game could be done single player in about an hour and half. At one point my friend just stood around watching. The AI buddies were frantically shouting and screaming and firing and getting caught by boomers and saving each other. He got punched once by a zombie and the AI buddies took care of it half a second later. They do a good job at creating what looks to be panic but if you take the time to step back it is contrived.

We'll reserve final judgement like any good cop out would until we play the final release whereby we plan to make a weekend putting it through the paces but from the demo it seems that, like Gears 2, the hype is exactly that. Unwarranted excitement about games that aren't so much as breaking the mold as trying to copy capcom and failing. BADLY.

Garry's Mod

Click the title if you don't know what it is. It is a silly place with so much potential but it is rarely ever realised. For every 14,0098 awful videos like this this and this there may be one good video or idea. Concerned comics is one such idea as is this simple one stolen from here.

The rest however, is a fetid mess. Like a child's bedroom. Banal, derivative nonsense. It is horrible to behold yet it is often followed by clammy sweaty palmed comments of "LOL" and "AWESOME" and it looks like they genuinely mean it. It's what games would be if fan service overwhelmed everything else. Glimpses into the psyche of these morons shows levels strewn with melons (LOL MELLONS) or with G-Man doing the retarded and cliched Gmod dance. What do I care though? I'm seventy going on dead but for you. You poor sorry souls. For you these people are your future.

:( Indeed.

Lets join that Bandwagon

Yes! This seasons bandwagon is four player vs. lots of enemies jobbies. A couple of seasons ago it was vehicles in FPS and the season before it was war games set in Vietnam.


Left 4 Dead, Horde mode in Gears of War 2 and the recently announced zombie mode in CoD:WaW have all recently been announced. Basically it's 4 player co-op vs. waves of things meaning players have to co-operate rather than fight against each other or be on each others teams but not really co-operate. Suspiciously, I should say, that these three games have all spontaneously come up with this idea. Is this innovation? Did we really have to wait until this gen to do these things? The answer to both of those questions is no. Basically, it's a bit of inspiration from Serious Sam, Timesplitters 2 Arcade challenges and virus mode and Project Eden mixed in with a bit of zombie love that has become the flavour of this dev cycle.

Sure, it's a nice feature but we'll all be bored to death of it after the tenth game offers up a "wave mode" and the technology could be used to do some more interesting things. This isn't innovation. This is making very small steps outside of the basic practice of copying what was done before.

At least Left 4 Dead tries to take it somewhere new. But until then we'll be sticking to our tried and tested Timesplitters 2 virus mode level we made (current max time 4 minutes 34 seconds after 6 years of trying.

Series of games that need to stop

With the recent """excitement""" around Megaman 9, thatguys would formally like to register a list of series that should just stop. In the alleged billion dollar game industry it is time to reallocate some of the money from employing people to 'make shit shiny' and 'copy what Halo did' to coming up with some new IP. That's right Nintendo, I'm looking at you!

Series that should have stopped a long time ago:

Megaman- Lets be fair, everyone since the first one has been the same. Come on Capcom.

Zelda- Ditto

Metroid- Yuh huh

Pokemon- Same

Halo- Lets just hope that three was the last remake of one.

Resident Evil- See above.

Tomb Raider- Should have left it after the first one.

C&C, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo- All four of these games haven't changed in over twenty seven years.

Every Mario game- If you have a SNES that still works there has been pretty much no reason to buy a new Nintendo console.

Fallout- Seriously. WTF.

Earthbound/Mother. Come on now.

9/11 Conspiracy Bush Obama Viagra Naked

Apologies for the brash and somewhat gratuitous Post title.

But we at Thatguys are very aware that our traffic has been increasing, as much as we would like to think there are actual people out there that think, "man these guys are informative ironic and funny". Deep down part of us knows that through pure persistence, much like a kid constantly screaming for attention from their mother, people are just coming back to us.

WTF people who are you? what do you do? do you like us? do you hate us? did you vote for bum in willy or willy in bum?

We wanna know... Tell us what you think... Take 2 seconds from your day, get off your high horse and leave a comment..

Love and hugs,

Richie X.

EDGE magazine still taking the piss!

Due to our important role as a barometer for games due for general release we get sent shit loads of stuff in the post. Games, consoles, merchandise, costumes and magazines. As a consequence we get sent a copy of EDGE magazine. It's not that we would buy it anyway but when you are on the crapper you need something to read that isn't Games TM.Not so long ago you may remember that popular digital culture magazine Electronic Dreams Games Enema (EDGE)published a rather piss poor article about Menu screens. At the time we came up with a list of other piss poor articles that lazy writers could put together but in a valiant show of defiance they went one better and this month's EDGE carries an extremely "interesting" article about booklets with games.


The little books you get with games. Honestly of all the topics ripe for an article about gaming. On top of that the editors seem to think it is a good idea to fill ever increasing chunks of the magazines with developer and career shit. Once again this month seems to focus on the North East. Again. Time to rerun the Scandanavian article again guys? Nobody reads it anyway.

This paucity of decent content indicates that they are really stuck for ideas over at EDGE during these harsh empty summer months when all the people who can make decent decisions are off on ironic holiday in Wales. Which is why we took 49 seconds out of our precious day to put together this helpful list for some ideas for future (ha ha) articles:

An article about the best font used in a game and the best colour combinations. Is white on blue the new black on beige?

An article about the little shapes on the spine of the Nintendo game boxes and what they mean. I know what they mean! I know!

An article about some of EDGE's previous worst articles from the Prey review to the overly glowing preview of Mirror's edge.

An article about why all "Official magazines" are a big pile of wank even though most of them are written by the same seven people at future publishing.

An article about the worst control systems ever with special mention for games that don't let you reconfigure buttons or invert the y-axis so we can't play FPSs like a flight simulator.

A behind the scenes article about how Future Publishing's Bath office is always empty.

An article about the last month's issue of EDGE with interviews with last month's writers and Kieron Gillen.

An article about memory card icons from the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 days.

An article about the 'notes' sections within game booklets.

A cutting article about the best Prima strategy guide.

A two part article about how Beyond Good and Evil was better than Ico and how Ico was better than Beyond Good and Evil even though both were better and worse and overhyped and underhyped and overappreciated yet underappreciated more and less than SODDING PSYCHONAUTS.

Once again guys, feel free to use any of these ideas whilst wondering why the magazine sales head ever closer to oblivion. Cheers drive!

Go here and read this

What a prick

The people who are actually excited about Mirror's Edge

In no particular order:

Electronic Arts.
People who didn't get the memo about free running "the fad" being over.
15-17 year old skateboarders.
EDGE magazine until it's rated [6] even after such a glowing preview article.
PS3 owners who don't yet realise it is multiplatform.

Review Based on Wikipedia Page
It had so much potential but despite promises is very linear and frustrating. The camera isn't quite FPS perspective which leads to some odd moments where arms are inexplicably long. Animations of legs and looking at the floor the whole time grates. 6/10

Future Publishing: NOW HIRING

Wanted: 'Ideas' person for EDGE magazine.
Job Description: To think of game-related shit for writers to fill three to fourty pages with.

Menu Screens. Menu screens. The latest issue of EDGE includes an article about menu screens. You know, the bit in games before the main game. Not only is the appreciation of menu screens long overdue but it is plagiarised from us, with our prestiguous best menu screen award of DEC 2007 and our love of alternative menu screens hinted at here in August 2006.

Furthermore, it's boring. It's okay for the losers of the world's 715,214 most popular-as ranked by Technorati- blog to write about it. However, unlike TGAM I don't have to waste my life and £4.50 to access it. Just my life and a bit more of my life to write it. In order to help EDGE magazine staff out so that I, and maybe you, don't waste further pennies and minutes here are some more ideas (some of which may have already been used, I didn't check) to fill the mag with through the empty, empty summer months:

An article about the best game boxes. Jewel cases the lost art form? or Why do the Japanese get all the cool boxes and we get cardboard crap that doesn't stand the test of time?

An article about the little shapes on the spine of the Nintendo game boxes and what they mean. I know what they mean! I know!

An article about some of EDGE's previous worst articles from the TIME EXTEND articles about the most obscure overhyped games which they rated 5/10 in previous issues to the endless Scandinavian dev articles.

An article about GAMES TM and how they are total copyface copies. Big copy cats! But more pages.

An article about the best use of the square button. Light kick, taunt or all-the-way-back-to-the-first-menu-screen? Perhaps Simon Pegg and Daniel Craig could vote for the winning use.

A behind the scenes article about how Future Publishing employs about four people who write all the mags but take on different personas for each one: child minded wacky fun goers for ONM, trendy flat cap wearing dropouts for EDGE and psychotic e-number addicted savants for N-Gamer.

An article about itself with images of Molyneaux, who holds placards with Fable 3? 11/10 written on them in various Wario Ware poses.

An article about chess and monopoly and why American Monopoly is so wrong.

A two part article about how Beyond Good and Evil was better than Ico and how Ico was better than Beyond Good and Evil even though both were better and worse and overhyped and underhyped and overappreciated yet underappreciated more and less than SODDING KATAMARI.

There's just some for starters. Don't fret about using them, they are free!

Diablo players: Busting the myths

That's not what we're going to do here children. No sir. You see, the group: "gamers" can be divided up into neat little slices and everyone within a particular slice demonstrates exactly the same behaviours and acts in a similar way. Schools in America and "the man" will have you believe that we are all different. We're not. Most of us can be neatly pigeonholed and our every behaviour predicted from a mile away. "Diablo players" is the name of one such pigeonhole-slice as is "gays" and "the sikhs"*. So for example, if I said "All the people who like Diablo I, II or III are keeping gaming from becoming a progressive medium in the modern world", I would be: a) Correct and b) A total wanker.

All the people who like Diablo I, II or III are keeping gaming from becoming a progressive medium in the modern world.
It is true. Don't believe me? Check this utter piece of shite over at MTV Multiplayer. I read it and thought that it was a send up. Are there really people sad enough in the world to photoshop screenshots of Diablo III to show what the game "should" look like? Yes. Yes there are. With nothing else to do until launch sometime next century, they cling to what Blizzard drip feeds them and then, in true Blizzard-fan style they whinge and gripe to such an extent that the Xbox 360 and PS3 fanboys temporarily put down their pitch forks to cringe and point at the PCtards. Here is a selection of comments from the MTV Multiplayer article to cringe/laugh yourself to sleep with:

"Diablo III? All I’m seeing in theses screenshots is WoW from a top-down view."- SHIT MAN it's time to call the national papers! Actually I agree with this guy. WoW is Diablo with a slightly lower camera which makes it a little bit easier to click on the bad guys. Diablo is hardcore.

"There is Warcraft influence and that is my main problem, they even reused a sound effect that was incredibly out of place in Diablo from Warcraft 3"- I'm no Doctor but from the comfort of my Gamerzzz(t) chair I can tell you that no, that is not your main problem. Your main problem lies elsewhere. In fact, I imagine that the Warcraft influence in Diablo III is perhaps the least problematic part of your entire life which is why you shouldn't complain about it young lady.

"Why do these fans want the game to look like Killzone 2? We don’t need any more games with no color!"- OMG! Someone from the 90s who remembers the Killzone 2 FMV short feature. Retro, solidarity brother!

"To me, Diablo III looks very much like Diablo II."- HERETIC! Next they'll be claiming that Diablo II looked like Diablo or that all three of them play like a less mainstream version of minesweeper.

"I love hearing people go insane criticizing about a game which isn’t even out yet."- I love being the smarter prick who loves to hear the smart prick who loves to hear people go insane criticizing about a game which isn't even out yet.

"I do suppose a blend of each style would be best… People aren’t understand the “Diablo feel”. It’s not just about gothic unsaturated looks. It’s about bizarre and disturbing things. Think about the music in Diablo I, it’s just insane."- I am understand the Diablo feel, thank you very much! It's the feeling that you should be doing something else like maybe tidy the house or go outside? Something with a clear end goal and a bit of variety. Maybe email some of the guys you went to school with to see if anyone wants to catch up and remenisce. You know, about the time when you had a life and when you could put things into much better perspective.

I think SOMEONE needs to explain the appeal of Diablo to me. Maybe I just didn't "get it" but to me Diablo is unappealing, boring, laughable, monotonous and attractive to people who are losers. You know like Doctor Who fans.

POP QUIZ: Which, TGAM has committed the ultimate sin of online gaming and "met up with a guildie, in real life" leaving the other member to do posts about games he hates with a passion.

* This is meant as a joke everyone. After what happened last time these things need clarifying. Besides, the Sikhs are pretty diverse. One Sikh I know plays FPSs. All the other Sikhs are like "Twitch!".

Doing the Dailies

Brain Aged and weighed, village weeded, plants watered, fossil collected, furniture bought, pal-parked, nintendogs fed, watered and walked, berries picked, trees watered, lottery entered, vocabulary expanded, ribbon obtained, berries given, letters written, battlegrounds grounded?, shadowcloth created, dungeon cleared, food cooked, fish caught, BMI checked and mystery gifts collected.

What dailies* have you done today?


*First one to say wank earns the arcade award Most Useless.

TGAM top 50 ultimate TGAM top games best list of best games of all time ever: Number 43

Yes. This is still going on. Today at number 43 it's Ed Fedemeyer's Haunted Maze. That shit was made in thirteen day y'all. Play it now. It's still the number one Net Yaroze game according to us in this list.

Here's our low down on it almost two years ago! We don't change very much do we.

The already bored of but will see the end of Top 50 list as voted by TGAM readers on our fora so far:

44: Resident Evil "gay den"
45: Final Fantasy VIII
46: Resident Evil Genesis
47: Dino Crisis 3
48: Dead Rising
49: Resident Evil Confidential Report File 1
50: Biohazard 4D Executer

Expanding the family tree!

Every now and then the internet helps us to find family members and lost friends. We rediscovered Miss Bea Havin from 90s game magazine Playstation Pro and we even found our sister. Our real sister not the one we made up . And today we may have found one of our cousins "droolingmaniac". We found him commenting on some bullshit post over at Game Daily? (Who? The site looks like IGN and reads like joystiq so were not even linking it). Anyway the article is about reviewers "seven deadly sins" but the author of the post forgets that writing a review isn't some kind of herculean task. Anyone can do it. Few can do it well. Our cousin, who we will refer to as "drool" put him in his place with this lovely comment:

"This piece of superficial nonsense doesn't inspire confidence in the gaming press. So much of it points to the author's inability to follow his own advice. He's conscious of some of his transgressions, but at the same time his own recommendations often display a sheer lack of judgment when it comes to evaluating the criteria he proposes. For example, in "Forgiveness," he suggests it's the job o*****ame reviewer to be "crotchety nit-pickers." In the very same paragraph, he writes that he finds the flaws in Grand Theft Auto IV to be "inconsequential and beneath mention," an absurd, defensive posture that's out of touch with the game's many, many shortcomings. He *forgave* a plethora of serious design flaws - clunky controls, save structure that forces boring repetition, and a broken cover system, among others - because of what? Because the game had an impressive depiction of a city? Because other aspects of the game were fun? Is his proposal that reviewers should nit-pick, but then reason that their own nit-picks are beneath mention? Why bother nit-picking if that's the case? Similarly, how can the author make a call for exciting, involving reviews with top-shelf writing quality when his own article is steeped in cliche and fluff? "Seven Deadly Sins of X" is . "Score like you mean it." "Afloat in a sea of hype." "Doses of PR and Internet enthusiasm in my bloodstream." "Life's too short to doubt your feelings." The author is alternately insultingly trite and hopelessly lacking in apt analogies. Can we expect an engaging review from this person? It's difficult to imagine. Is he representative of his peers' writing aptitudes? That remains to be seen, but I can't say that the majority of game reviews I read are any better. Even putting aside his poor use of writing as a form, his lack of logical support for his arguments is apalling. "Make your arguments and back them up," he demands of his fellow members of the gaming enthusiast press. Yet in the same article, he argues that someone giving a review that's "out of step" with the rest of the press means "so much more" precisely because they're in disagreement with the others. That argument has no logical basis. An opinion has no more meaning just because it's contrarian. The review scores would mean "so much more" if they dared to give the game a score it deserved when everyone else would not. Because they would have journalistic integrity. But the author explicitly states he doesn't care whether it's a review that's more honest than all the rest or one that's simply "a feeble grab for attention." The author is pounding his shoe on the table, calling for reviewers to go out and have an opinion. I have news for him. Having an opinion isn't going to rescue a profession full of gaming-man-children-turned-pseudo-journalists. Maybe someone out there should be calling for reviewers to have *honest* opinions. This one could take or leave the "honesty" part. Speaking of things that aren't going to save gaming journalism, there's nothing in this article that's going to repair its problems. How incredibly out of touch it is for the author to call for reviews that "tell a story" and aren't "totally thorough," and expect his article to be relevant. These aren't seven deadly sins of game reviews. Half of them are just things that make game journalists ****** writers. That's not the actual important problem with game journalists. The problem is that they review games like kids with game consoles instead of like professionals. What are their real deadly sins? Not actually studying journalism. Having no structural division between their department and their outfit's bizdev department. Accepting advertising money from the same industry they critique. Becoming "fans" of particular game franchises or companies and losing objectivity. Giving every new AAA title of the last 3 months a perfect score and believing that that shows they've evolved in their thinking and now finally recognize art and industrial revolution when they see it, while simultaneously failing to evaluate those titles on anything but the most superfluous level, and not taking them to task for their pacing, writing, or craft (GTA IV's story is predictable and hackneyed? Who cares? MGS4 constantly interrupts gameplay with insipid dialogue? Big deal!) the way a film critic would for his medium. Equating high production values with artistic substance. Being so completely clueless as to think that their industry's problem is a need for a bill of rights, or not using enough of the "universe of adjectives." There's your problem. How about you get together and get all that figured out. Start building up an industry of professionals instead of fans. Then you can take some extension school English classes."

Tl;dr but hey! He is family after all. Welcome to the clan drools.

This shit is real (probably)

Silly daily mail.

Although by googling "daily mail al qaeda" I fear I am now on some kind of to be watched list. See what I do for you reader?

Everyone has AIDS

Stupid gamers. Stupid stupid gamers. Nobody cares about anything you think is important so stop wasting the internet filling it up with trite and pseudo-intellectual bullshit like you are debating the future of the human race. Like masturbation, building cathedrals out of matchsticks, and knifing grannies, gaming is a hobby. Some people enjoy it, others don't. the difference being that most other hobbyists don't obsess about it to such a horrifying degree There's a lot of "debate" at the moment around video games here they are all summed up and solved by yours truly hopefully freeing up the internet for some more hand drawn Tifa porn pictures.

Games need stories. By far the most popular whinge by game developers themselves. However, here is the lowdown;No they don't. Game makers want to be wanked off by the film and movie critics and the only way to do that is to make your game arty and cinematic and wanky. A film gets released and there are glamorous award ceremonies and leading men and women gagging on directors and producers cocks to get to feature in the next film. A game gets released and 14000 retards on the internet do a review and boil the whole experience down to a number out of 10. So it's obvious that they want to push the emotional, artistry good stories angle for more cash and blow jobs. But games can't do stories very well and virtually every game released has a story that boils down to "save the world" by killing/collecting everything. Think of some of the greatest stories you know and virtually none of them feature a macho bullshit marine fighting aliens. Games don't do depth or emotion and attempts at morality are laughable. Even the long and varied story in GTAIV is comparable to a poorly written high school creative writing essay. Anyone who claims to have cried over Final Fantasy VII is lying. If they did cry it's only because all the hours put in to levelling up a character were wasted not because, you know, they miss Aeris. Anyone claiming to like Ico or Beyond Good and Evil is just bullshitting to make themselves sound cool because these games are "unknown". So fuck off with this games need stories crap or do something about it.

Hardcore vs. Casual gamers. This issue doesn't actually exist does it? People do what they want, there is no point obsessing over why there are or aren't games for hardcore gamers anymore. People who consider themselves hardcore gamers can be read all over the internet complaining about Nintendo and non games. But then presumably some of the same gamers consistently choose LOZ Ocarina of Time as one of if not the greatest game of all time so make your bloody mind up. Either way, there's no point whinging about it because "casual gamers" have real lives and don't spend hours on internet blogs and forums writing about their "hobby". They just don't care so stop whining it's not ever going to make a difference and there's a bazillion more dollars in casual games than hardcore games so unlucky son, poker and tetris beat Portal and there's nothing you can do about it.

Games need to be mainstream. If, like me, you read the EDGE letter pages every month for a good old chuckle, there are lots of losers waiting and hoping that games will one day become mainstream so that they can confidently say that their hobby is gaming at parties and be welcomed and accepted as a normal human being and not shunned or sniggered at for being a manchild who probably doesn't have insurance or a mortgage. These people are retarded. Firstly, they clearly haven't ever been to a party because people don't stand around talking about their hobbies. It's as if the people who write to EDGE have garnished an idea about what a party might be from watching television or playing the SIMS. This is not how parties work and if you do go to parties and talk about gaming then you have social interaction issues. Secondly, for all intents and purposes, gaming is mainstream unless you miss the 40 foot adverts everywhere, references on TV and in film, televised award shows, multi million pound industry, Radio shows, academic publications, governmental scrutiny, newspaper coverage etc. etc. What isn't mainstream about gaming? The fact that you can't just strike up a conversation with a stranger about Portal? So fucking what? People have different interests to you and whilst you are busting Bioshock they are talking about mortgages, eating dinner, travelling the world and playing squash. They don't endlessly obsess over all of these things so why should you obsess about gaming so much?

Wii vs Xbox vs. Sony. As Yahtzee put it in the Smash Brothers Mailbag the console wars is born from parents only willing to buy their children only one console. They all have their merits, but by and large offer similar experiences. The wii is fun, especially for groups of real people, the PS3 goes well with a giant TV and surround sound system and the 360 is a piece of shit one trick pony for schizophrenic retards who can't focus on one game for more than two weeks. It's quite simple really and if you really cared about the gaming experience/lifestyle/disease you'd have all three. By whinging about it on Youtube and in forums you are openly confessing that you are poor and bitter because you can't play N+/Echochrome/Mario Kart.

Games as Art. This non issue occassionally rears its head from time to time. But look at it this way, pissing on yourself, a video of fruit rotting, thousands of beetles glued to a ceiling, graffiti, paintings of and on tits, cans of food and drawings of boats are all art, so fuck it, games are art too. Case closed good for games.

There we go. All nicely summed up.

???

Is this article a joke that we are too stupid to get? For those of you too lazy to click the link it is an article on Next Gen, the home of EDGE online about paper advertisements in the American Press, "The Best and Worst New Game Ads". At first I thought it might be interesting if their were some godawful ones because we all know that game ads can be pretty shite because marketing people assume that games are only played by young men with violent tendencies. It isn't that though because all the ads are pretty standard. The "worst" isn't at all bad and the best is a bit generic. Then I thought maybe the analysis of the ads might be interesting. But it isn't that either. Here's the bit next to an ad for World in Conflict, the ad is a picture of the box and "Strategy Game of the Year" in big letters:

The product has been well-known to this audience for some time. Half the page is devoted to the text “Strategy Game of the Year,” with a large amount of additional space dedicated to backing up the claim with various review awards. This is more an ad for the new budget price point of the game than the game itself, and the game did get a larger marketing push when it was new, so once again the hard work was done earlier and isn’t being repeated here.

See? It's not funny or clever. It's a literal description of the ad next to the ad itself. What's going on here? Maybe I expected more from the internet, maybe I expected more from EDGE? Either way this article is pretty bad so I guess EDGE are looking for new writers or some news so apply now. Here's my review of the review of the paper ads in American magazines in the style of the article because gamers are so intellectually retarded we can only express ourselves through reviews of things:

The article, written by Joe Keiser, is on three web pages and on each page there is an image of a magazine ad with a description next to it. The descriptions describe the advertisements without any humour or further comment about the nature of advertising. The webpage currently has one comment. I added another one but it probably will be edited out because the comment is quite rude. This article could be much better through such a little change like inserting the word "friggin" in front of every noun. That would be friggin ace in my friggin opinion. As it stands it is perhaps the most boring article related to videogames I have ever read although saying that I stopped reading after a while because the article wasn't really going anywhere. 4/10

YOU CAN TAKE THAT REVIEW TO THE BANK JOE KEISER.