Warning new term approaching: Kuntaku

As some of our more diligent readers are aware we don't like Kotaku very much. For those of you who are not so diligent and here because you were linked here, these are the reasons we don't like it:

1. The colour scheme.
2. The half truths and rumours. The dodgy reporting and then reposting their own failed reporting as some kind of flaw in 'games journalism'.
3. The dross you have to sift through... Nobody cares (and if you do, you really need to rethink your priorities) about the latest maximum risky doll from a 10 year old jRPG.
4. Day/night note. We thought we killed it off but it has come back. Remember kids, you should buy Arcade Mania.
5. I have never laughed with Kotaku, only at it. To say it is devoid of genuine grown up humour is being overly generous.
6. It's too American. Way too much attention on tits. There are even better parts on a woman (hint:around the armpit and pantsu regions work well) and almost no talk of the wang despite 25% of their writers being gay.
7. Pictures and post headings are not always appropriate.
8. It reads very amateurishly, especially when compared to the other Gawker sites, Gizmodo, io9, and ironically WoWinsider.
9. We resent having to trawl through Kotaku, and only Kotaku for news. Can someone set up another site which filters out all the shit?
10. They get more hits than us and a lot of better sites.
11. Their "Just ignore them and they'll go away" approach to Thatguys. We've sent them at least 300 excellent tips about real news and we've only ever once got a reply.
12. The constant navel gazing.

13. Too many Brians and not enough Keiths.

14. The 'crazy times' of Stephen Dorito who seems to have died as a good writer at the hands of the frat boys club.
15. The properly rubbish and ONMish TGS coverage.

16. The ballbreaking effort required to post comments, get a conversation going and track who commented on what. It's like the battery farm of the deaf except nobody numbered the cages. This and the neonatal amnesiacs which seem to make up the readership makes it a vile inhabitable wasteland for the thinking gamer. A churlish "forum" and god-forbid other 'inclusive' features do a great job at weeding out the dissenters.

17. The incessant inappropriate advertising which brings feedreaders almost to a halt. Or did.

18. Uninventive and boring tags.

But the most annoying part is they recently did a couple of posts without even a nod in our direction:

Exhibit A:
Kotaku:Use of the word: Underboob.
Thatguys: Coined July 2008 by Thatguys.

Exhibit B:
Kotaku: Some drossy article on sexism in games.
Thatguys: Satirical review of sexism in the industry from 2007.

 

Cunt and Otaku,

Richie and Cunzy11 XX

Keith Vaz again (groan)

Theif and MP Keith 'clueless' Vaz, having got over being ridiculed for various tedious and hyperbolic lambasting of games based on no evidence whatsoever once again gets in the Daily Mail off the back of "outrage" at a big game launch this time over Modern Warfare 2.

Read all abaaaaat it here "Outrage as new video game lets players kill civilians in terror attacks".

Bored, bored, bored. Surely Mr Vaz has more important things to be sorting out? Or maybe he could plough back all that money he skimmed from the tax payer into fixing Leicester before attacking games?

Change the tune Vaz. You're so out of your depth once again. How about instead of knee jerking every time you want a bit of press coverage, you do some proper research into the non issues you soap box? God knows the UK government is so shit at supporting the games industry, to be even more damaging when you make moronic comments is insult to injury. Do you want to drive the games industry abroad? Idiot. Find a real issue to campaign on.

Killzone 2 Hands off review

Man, do you remember Sentient? Jeez that was a pretty sweet game. They should totally update it and release it again that would be sweet. Oh dude, dude remember Colony Wars? That was ace. Someone should either bring colony wars back or make some kind of similar game. And freedom fighters! Whatever happened to freedom fighters? Hours of 4 player fun. And Project Eden! Fuck Left 4 Dead that was proper co-op.
And wipeout? Why is Wipeout 2097 better than Wipeout Pure. Oh and G-police. That whole universe was great. And Syndicate wars? Where's the new Syndicate wars or anything like it? That was awesome on the PlayStation. As was micro maniacs, crash team racing, mashed! Properly good games that still get played today.
Oh man killswitch was cool and the original Red Faction was amazing. Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Dino Crisis 1 and 2. Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Burnout before it got ruined, PaRappa the Rapper, SSX FUCKING TRICKY, Timesplitters, Ring of Red, Beyond Good and Evil oh oh and remember playing blitzball on FFX. That was pretty sick. Music and vib ribbon were pretty cool too! The warriors genius, Star Wars Battlefront, the orginal WWF Smackdown. God those were the good days.

Hey, remember the utterly average Killzone that scored less than Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Urbz: Sims in the City? It even got worse reviews than Resident Evil Outbreak which was actually fully fully broken. Imagine spending all that time working on a game that got received worse than some shit capcom just cranked out at the last minute for outside of Japan. Yeah. It was pretty crappy.

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.

Steelseries World of Warcraft MMO Gaming mouse

Right so I may have been outed as a bit of a WoWophile with my many characters and such. I usually play with the Belkin Nostromo N52, which is a great piece of hardware, nicely customisable and extremely functional.

So when the Steelseries WoW mouse with it's 15 mouse buttons was announced I have to admit I was straight in there with a pre-order. Which incidentally was pegged for a November 2008 release date (to coincide with the release of the latest expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King)



After over a few weeks of waiting on December 11th I get this in my email:

Array with kind regards, SteelSeries Order Support


Seriously that is all I got just the word "Array", so I reply:

Hi there, Not sure what 'Array' means, is the mouse now available?


They reply:

The demand for the World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse has been much higher than anticipated, even compared to our most optimistic forecasts. As a result, the mouse is still delayed, despite our best efforts working around the clock to ramp up production. We are writing this update to inform you that the order is still on-track to be delivered before Christmas. We are doing everything we can to get it to you as soon as possible, but cannot give you an exact date at this point in time.


Blah blah Merry Xmas, Steelseries brings the gift of Lies.

So I wait a while longer levelling my Death Knight with (shock-horror) a 3 button mouse. Finally on 31 December I get the mail saying that the mouse is now available so I do my thing, enter my credit card details, and part with my hard-earned £90 and play the waiting game for it to arrive. And it does so on 6th January, but since I was a bit pre-occupied with post New years festivities I didn't get to try it out till the following weekend. I messed about with the software a bit, and jumped right in, not overly impressed with the buttons or the lack of customisation, but it did have a cool flashy LCD that changed colour and that kept me entertained for a while. The next day however I noticed that the buttons were a bit sticky and squeaky, and as the WoW session proceeded I noticed that the buttons were actually sticking down and staying there pretty much rendering the mouse useless!

Raging that the mouse was actually impeding my gameplay I had to switch back to my laptop's mouse trackpad!

The next day, still bitter that my mouse had turned into a £90 paperweight, I wrote an email of complaint to Steelseries:

Hi There, I recently bought the WoW MMO Gaming mouse. Upon receiving my mouse I noticed that the main Left and Right buttons were squeaking when they were pressed, I figured that this may just be teething troubles but last night I found that the buttons are now sticking. I have used the mouse only a few times since receiving it last week. Could you please send me details on an exchange for the mouse.

I also decided to drop a mail to WoWinsider.com to get their view on the situation be warned the following article has content of a WoWish nature:

Hey, So I pre-ordered the WoW MMO Gaming mouse from Steelseries. And after 2 months of delays due to demand, it finally arrived last week. To begin with I was impressed, the buttons are accessible, despite being made out of metal It is very light, and the software that comes with it is very easy to use. However after a few WoW sessions using it I'm starting to get well more than a little disgruntled with it. Firstly the software is a little... annoying, it has given you many pre-programmed macros and basic commands, but rather than binding it to the actual functions it manually types commands in. For example you can set up a single button press for dismounting, which is essentially [Return]/dismount[Return]. I think I was actually hoping to set up the mouse to specific functions in the WoW keybinding interface as "Mousebutton 12" or just actually bind it to a keyboard function. Also when the software is active it seems to remap everything in WoW e.g. I pressed "M" to bring up my map screen and my character jumped. Secondly the hardware, I mentioned it was light, to be honest it is too light, It just seems odd that a mouse with so much metal feels so flimsy. It's corded, yeah I know that response times go up with direct connections but seriously, corded just seems a little archaic nowadays, though the cable is pretty funky it is covered in material and makes it seem like a USB rope. Finally, and this is my biggest gripe, the main left and right buttons are broken... After 1 week playing (2-3 times), the buttons started squeaking, I figured it was teething problems, but it eventually got so bad (after about an hour) that the buttons would click down and then take a few seconds to un-click like there had been chewing gum jammed under the buttons. Right now I am in the process of enquiring about their exchange policy, but I'm wondering if I shouldn't get a full refund. I was wondering if you or any of your readers had similar problems with this mouse? P.S. I didn't mention it does have a cool LCD light thing that you can change to any colour for any character, but to be honest it is rather here nor there, it's cool enough but since you hand is covering it up 99% of the time it is somewhat defunct. Regards, Richie. /dismount

3 days later and I still had not received any word back on this process, I had also googled to see if anyone else had the same problem and I found very similar complaints on a number of sites. Which was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back, I decided that i just wanted a refund.

So I checked the site out again, It seem that they had updated it and they now had a rather ugly On-line form for processing support requests. Since my previous email had fallen on deaf ears I submitted another request (13th January):

I recently bought the WoW MMO Gaming mouse . Upon receiving my mouse I noticed that the main Left and Right buttons were squeaking when they were pressed, I figured that this may just be teething troubles but last night I found that the buttons are now sticking. I have used the mouse only a few times since receiving it last week. I'm not overly happy with the product at all and upon googling my problem I have found other users with similar issues. As such I am unsure if a replacement would satisfy me especially after the delay and the money I paid. I would like to request details on obtaining a full refund.

Which I actually just (15th January) received a response to:

Thank you for your interest in SteelSeries Professional Gaming Gear. This is a known issue and SteelSeries has already taken the necessary action to correct this problem. This is not an official fix, though other customers have found it successful, however please try this: Lift the left & right click mouse button up with your finger nail after half an inch until you hear a snap, then let go. If that doesn't help you, please go back to your original point of purchase to get a replacement unit or credit. If you bought it directly from us, please provide your order # on this request and we will contact you back for the RMA replacement once we have the replacement units in our warehouse. Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for understanding. Thanks, SteelSeries Support

SNAP THE BUTTONS!?!??!?! Yeah... fuck that! Voiding Warranty much? Again... FUCK THAT!!!

Steel Series will shortly be receiving another request for a REFUND an I will capitalise since they seem to have misread it before...

So just to reiterate, Thatguys.co.uk does not reccommend the Steelseries WoW Mouse.

Love n Hugs,

Richie

Drawn by the Undertow

Undertow as an apology… I don't accept it for 2 reasons:

First up… I was not EVER inspired by a fucking side scrolling shoot-em-up with memaids.

Secondly… What is the deal with the reviews it's getting? It seems all the Internet based games journalism has rated it the upper percentiles, yet the non-www media rates it as pish.

The user ratings are quite mixed too ranging form piss-poor to Awesome. Of course I should download it and review it myself properly. But fuck that, it have plenty of games for my 360 that I ACTUALLY want, rather than freebie pish.

I was one of the unfortunates who actually lost their gamer Tag in the ether as I "recovered" it a mates house, and since I couldn't recover it over the whole of Xmas I couldn't play my Xbox for the whole of Xmas. Undertow is a poor, poor apology.

Just a quick FYI to Micro$oft: When Blizzard fuck up, they give WoWers free days on their accounts, I would have been much happier with that since, in theory, I still have to pay for the days I couldn't use Xbox live, so I'm actually kinda paying for Undertow anyway. Pish.

Kevin McCulloch on Tetris

I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys.

It's called "Tetris" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the blocks into the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "blocks" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of. Short ones in big holes, long ones in short holes, some blocks can fit into more than one hole at a time.

The objections to such filth should be simple to understand.

Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what blocks look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's blocks tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?

Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "Tetris" sounds like a war game with a deadly T-virus that is spreading unless the S.T.A.R.S team are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and its covert war plan. By its design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.

But it IS marketed for the Gameboy, perhaps the most visually stimulating gaming system ever made. The software for such allows the blending of 4 shades of grey and the manipulation of actual pictures so that an alternate reality engulfs the fifteen year old boy playing it without much objection.

Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own Collection of blocks are copulating like jack rabbits with other L-blocks, T-blocks, and even “straights” they can "put into play."

I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Shush! Please! For the love of god, it’s just a game, and I bet good money you haven’t even played it?" Figures, he's a libertarian.

In the race for President there has been a lot of discussion about faith and its impact on the lives of the individual candidate. Some pretty inane ones like Carl Cameron's less lucid moment this past week when he posed the inquiry about marital submission to Governor Mike Huckabee.

Yet here's a question that deserves to be asked, and in all likelihood will not be: "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?"

I hear the nay-sayers claiming I'm being the wild and crazed cunt I've always been - but it’s a worthwhile question isn't it?

If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the blocks DO submit without choice, are made to appear as straights, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the blocks in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.

We now know because of the lengthy track record of Kevin McCulloch that addictive use of pornography was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do.

And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Tetris" can be customized to sodomize whatever, and however, the game player wishes.

With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual 4-block rape is just the push of a button away.

Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008, when the game came out nearly 20 years ago, but how refreshing would it be for a new Cunt to prove to the nation that his ownpenis was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such blockery in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?

As technology continues to push the limits of imagination and interaction more and more, the brain, the emotions, the feelings will integrate with physical responses in reality (Ed: He genuinly write this bit... too much Star Trek me thinks Kev?). And while the makers of such trash seem to be pushing our next generation of young men through the gates of hell as fast as is humanly possible, it needn't be that way.

Here's hoping that as the next Cunt in charge of America will be forced to deal with this continual emerging reality, as opposed to starting fake wars in the middle-east - an enemy that has set its site to our destruction from within - that we will have elected a cunt of such character that he will have precision in the clarity of his response.

How would that be for a bold and uncompromising "Tetris?"

Help Wanted

Please! There's been an accident and we need help from all comers. Gamers across the web, please unite. It seems that after all those close calls, depsite everyone's warnings, the people over at Terra Nova have finally FALLEN HEAD FIRST UP THEIR OWN ASSHOLE.

For those of you who don't know it Terra Nova is a blog about virtual worlds. Fair enough you might say. There's a few of those about. However, the problem with Terra Nova is that they take it way too seriously. The blog is written by various contributors who have tenuous job titles or tenuous connections to 'virtual worlds'. They only ever discuss Second Life, WoW, Guild Wars or EVE online. In addition there are a few crackpots who go on and on about MUDs. Anyway, so what you might say, you do a blog about old capcom games and sex toys. Yes. This is true. But we don't take ourselves so painfully serious and we don't make sweeping assumption about virtual worlds, catalysed by the matrix movies and littered with Alice through the looking glass sound bites.

These guys and girls are so out of touch with games companies and the majority of game players that when they do the classic "what do we mean by computer game" post it comes across as unneccessary wordy bollocks serving to put the MMORPGs that they play and write shitty books about into a special little box seperate from say Gears of War or Halo. And they love referring to pen and paper games like Dungeons and Dragons. Which, they consider the origins of todays virtual worlds. Every two sentences.

However, they seem to be blissfully unaware of the significant body of academic work in this field by the people here at that guy's a maniac that served to define all this crap they like to circle jerk each other about. So here's a summary TNers. Read this list and either go an do some real work or start properly talking about virtual worlds rather than postulating each other stoner philosophy questions about your favourite virtual cyber spots:

1) Pen and paper games were in no way the actual, spiritual or theoretical forefathers or origins of games. They were simply a thing that a strange and lonely subsection of America did in their basements. Just drop it now.

2) Furthermore, following this petition in 1997 it was agreed by 79% of gamers the world over that we are officially to ignore any "computer games" before the GameBoy release of Tetris. By and large they were all shit and not very fun. Get over it.

3) Stop trying to define things. It isn't important. Also stop pretending that you don't just use MMORPGs to get cyber girlfriends. Stop pretending that what you are doing is real work either. Also, stop pretending you have any sway over what the real game companies are doing. Change your name from Terra Nova to Pseudo Academic Circle Jerking and you can carry on the way you are going.

4) Try looking at virtual worlds other than the 4 MMORPGs you always rail on about. When you are writing your latest piece of wank, think "Do these sweeping statements apply to Ed Fedemeyer's excellent Haunted Maze developed on the Net Yaroze?". If the answer is no, kill yourself.

5) Try doing something in these virtual worlds. At the moment the Something Awful Goons are far more creative and interesting with the stuff they get up to. More "people" know them too. Stop hanging on the coat tails of the stuff they get up to by trying to define them all the time. The stuff that you label as "griefing". That is when you can agree on what you even mean by that.

6) Include more screenshots. People like pictures and it makes it more believable too.

These are just for starters. See how you get on. Then we can talk again.

KK THX bye!

Chuff_72 Speaks Yet Again: Assasin's Creed review

Yes, here at TGAM, we have lost the plot a bit. We don't actually play games anymore but we like to think we are characters in a Douglas Coupland book*. Fortunately, Chuff_72, our man on the street, does play games. Here are his thoughts on hyped to the max Assasin's Creed. SPOILER_O_RAMA

Dude, I rented Assassassassinssss Creed over the weekend and busted that bad boy right open - CAUTION, OPINION WITHIN MAY NOT BE OF THE POPULAR VARIETY.

First off, I DO like this game, it is fun and looks pretty. However, it is also, misleading, rushed, boring, repetitive, annoying and overrated.

Fun. I finished this game and enjoyed it, I liked the story and the characters, I thought the future elements were nice and especially that you are a Bartender called Desmond (Spoiler?), though very divisive (this game is basically a setup for a new franchise, even EA would be ashamed of the obviousness of this) and the game felt cool to play, it does a good job of making you feel like a badass (except the main dude swings his hips a little too much.)

Looks pretty. Oh yes, this game is a looker, shame all three cities are essentially exactly the same boxes tinted blue/yellow/green to differentiate them. There are no interiors in the game (well there are a couple but essentially all the buildings are just pretty boxes - there is also no interaction, you can't remove a plank bridge to stop people following you for example.) The docks in Acre look are sweet though - except you can't fucking swim, not even a doggy paddle, I'm not gonna go on about this, we all know how frustrating is.

Misleading, because while you play an assassin, and are told to avoid conflict and generally attempt to be stealthy we know this is a lie because there is no "hide behind shit" button, there are no real sneaking sections in the game, and when you upgrade between missions, reclaiming weapons and ranks (Spoiler) they are all for extra fighting mechanics, not stealthing mechanics. So really you play a role more akin to Rambo, on a horse (Part III, but without the Russians and guns), I must have killed over a 1000 guys during play, all open combat. This extends to the Assassination missions themselves, all of which I did by running directly up to the target and stabbing them in face, except then they ran and I stabbed them in the back.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but to call your dude an assassin is a bit of stretch, you are more like a crazy merc or something, a killer for hire, taking on all comers face to face, rather than a stealthy-stealthy-catchy-monkey type ninja, this is not Tenchu.

Rushed. There are some odd glitches (though funny), I fell into a table and stayed there with my legs pointing skyward, fell through a couple buildings, and into the floor. I guess the main problem with the whole game is that you only do the same six or seven activities in each section of each city, over and over and over. Example, "Save Citizen" this occurs nine times (approx) in each section there are three sections in each of the three cities, so that’s 81 (approx) save citizen missions, this is not fun. Well it IS fun as the fighting is pretty coolio, but it's lazy design-wise and is a strong representation of how the rest of the game is structured.

Boring. The future bits are nice as the story expands but are dull as hell to play. We have already covered the repetition of the main game.

Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Repetitive. Even the dialogue is the same for EVERYONE who is not a main character. You do the same shit from start to finish with no change in pace, except for the very end of the game which ups the pace a notch.

Annoying. God damn this game can piss you off! On the whole the controls are really well though out and considered, however to run up a wall you need to hold the right trigger and "A" however "A" is also the jump button, so if you forget to release "A" (and you will because most of the game you are running up walls) you try to navigate up a tower and accidentally push "away" from the tower you will leap off the building, yay, broken legs.

The mental cases and the drunks, these dude stumble around not harming a fly until you happen to wonder too close, when they push you as hard as they can, this has two effects; 1. it's just fucking annoying as they don't push anybody else, so it feels kinda personal, 2. Say you have just assassinated some dude, and are trying to get away without being busted, all you need do is press "A" and you look at the floor and put your hands together, this fools people… I know. However while in this mode you walk real slow, which means you can't get away from the drunks who home in on you like you're a walking kebab, when they push you it breaks your magical "I am not an assassin" mode and all the surrounding guards fucking pounce on you which instantly fails you mission. Some of these mission require that you assassinate five dudes in under three minutes, which can be tricky, especially when you have just busted the last dude and the above happens. HOWEVER, this is not the end of this particular rant my friends. You see, now you have to kill/escape from the soldiers, once you do the mission resets, you go back to the dude, which reinitiates the mission, great! BUT the fucking bodies of the fucking guys you previously killed are still there which means that the guards are on high alert the whole time and the drunks/retards are still stumbling round pushing you! Arrgghhh. My advise, hit that reset button and all will be gravy once more.

Now for a major issue I have with the game. The big assassination missions that round out each city section are LAME, you would think you would have to do something interesting, maybe sneaking up on a dude over roof tops, silently taking out guards, clearing away defences, scoping out movement patterns etc. But no, this is how most of these missions pan out:

1.You collect a bunch of bullshit information that sounds cool but doesn’t actually affect the gameplay.
2. You trot over to the flashing mission marker on your radar (yeah you have a radar, because you are really in the future and anything other that a radar is too difficult for us retards to work out, like I don’t know, following an eagle to your kill or making Altair gesture the desired direction? But whatever.)
3. Cut scene initiation, that's right, while a whole bunch of games these days allow you to carry on open play while the story telling happens around you and makes it feel unobtrusive - see Half Life 2, here the game stops and we get a whole monologue from the bad guy, while you are left scratching you balls thinking "now if I were an assassin I would have taken this opportunity while the target is entirely distracted to maybe fire an arrow through his face." Oh yeah, you're not allowed a bow and arrow, even though the "bad guys" have them, and the whole game takes place in the open, where a bow and arrow type deal would be real useful.
4. Cut scene ends, you run up to the dude/chase dude for maybe a minute at most and stab him in the neck. You then get another monologue in "cyber-space," I shit you not.
5. Escape. This is so easy it's frankly pathetic - climb up a wall, threat indicator goes orange (you have threat indicator because, did I mention this? it's really set in the future… blah blah bollocks,) climb in a box, sit on a bench, stand with some monks, whatever. End.

Overrated! Every magazine and website who mark this game over seven should be fucking ashamed of themselves, yeah yeah I know Jade Raymond has tits and all, I guess the magic these exude should not be underestimated, well I ain't buying it Jade, fuck you.

Also the end boss fight is rubbish, you go from playing a (semi) realistic game, with a good strong story line with a smidgen of biblical mythology to a stupid fucking derivative video game, I wonder what magic (yeah, magic) the guy will use? HOLY SHIT, he goes invisible when you hit him, he can make multiple versions of himself, and laughs manically all through! (Spoiler) The only interesting bit is when you fight a bunch resurrected dudes (Spoiler).

So overall, like I said, I really did enjoy playing through this game, it was in turns fun/original and boring/repetitive. I guess I'm just a bit steamed that all the press has been glowing, except UK IGN, WAY TO STICK IT TO THE MAN, GUYS! I swear it's the power of the boobies.

C_72 out.

p.s. Fuck Halo, CoD4 rokz.

*I apologise for the literary reference. With hindsight it was wanky and uneccessary. Sorry.

Homophobes

Although we all try our best to be inclusive, some gaming websites just can't handle the gays or women. Imagine my disgust at seeing this this morning:

For those of you who can't read or don't want to click the above image, essentially I was banned from Kotaku before I'd even had a chance to shine. For those of you who don't know it, Kotaku is a website on the internet that has lots of news about games, it's what Joystiq is trying to be . It was going to be the platform from which we launched BRAND TGAM!

But it's ok, I won't cry too hard because as fate would have it I already voted for one of the co-editors, Brian Ashcraft as Games Writer Twat of 2007 in the RAM RAIDER Awards 2007. How do you like that Brian? Imagine the dissapointment on the spunk filled rubber faces of your "family" when they hear you won that award from the only decent, respectable, industry recognised games award ceremony.

Unfortunately, I think I reffered to him as Brian Bashcraft but I'm sure RAM RAIDER can work it out.

Women are all the same

No matter how far you run or where you run to, they are all obsessed after one thing.

Stupid Fucking Employers

Well it is a sad day indeed. I have recently learned that SFC (Stupid Fucking Customers) is dead, gone, deceased.

In all seriousness it looks like the SFC guys were busted [via truth of the peasant], a blogger's worst nightmare. However, it just goes to show the short sightedness of the slave driving employers we've all had.

They could've seen it for the tongue in cheek reflections of the dull dreary and endless jobs that we've all had and given the guys the go ahead to mention the name of the store as a kind of underground marketing exercise. But no, they decided that someone who had worked there for five years, pulling all kinds of overtime and extra shifts was worth firing because of a blog they had that gets people who work in the games industry chuckling. Seriously, did anyone not go to the store because they read SFC? I think if everyone knew where the store was we all go there to buy games and have our fingers crossed that we would be worthy in the eyes of Mario Mark and Phorenzik. Maybe we would have met sandals man? Who knows?

What a brilliant decision. Perhaps they'll employ some gangsta talking nobhead who can't string two words together in the future?

It is a sad day indeed but the show must go on. And if it's any consolation TGAM is happy to host any of the ranting and raving and humour from Phorenzik or MarioMark. It's not much but it is all we can offer :(

Nintendo are lieheads.

More Nintendo lies this month with this post over at the "Official" Smash Brothers Dojo. This site is so fake they can't even get the name of the game right. The real name is Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Anyway we brought you the scoop on the real SSBB characters and stages two months ago (check it fool).

But! Whoever is behind the farcical Dojo site is fucking cruel. It's OK to goad the Fire Emblem geeks but picking on Sega fans is a crime against humanity. Don't build their hopes up. I can here the frantic bashing of keyboards already as they plan their Sonic Faninima's shot with SSBB to add to the steaming pile of Sonic Machinima that already exists.

Be advised Dojo webmaster, I'm emailing Google to get you taken off the listings. You've taken this joke too far now.

Whilst we are on the subject of shitty fan made crap, this following public notice is brought to you courtesy of our latest "if you can't beat em join em" tiresome parody of an already tired meme:

Get it done AMV freak monkeys.

N.B Casual readers may have noticed the use of many 'hyperlinks' in this post. More than you are probably willing to click. However, our hyperlinks are sponsored by Children in Need. Everytime you click one of our links another Z-list celebrity will sign up for the hideous hammy shit that is the awful Children in Need event. Please click gratuitously and perhaps we can inspire at least some of the middle class to commit suicide when it is screened.

*Sigh*

The internets! You dissapoint me. Following our request here I was expecting a torrent of videos this morning. But alas:

I DON'T SEE IT THERE DO YOU?

I had high hopes for the GMV/AMV (Game Music Video/Anime Music Video) Community. I was thinking that you all made derivative Naruto videos with a Linkin Park/Evanesence soundtrack only because no one was making good suggestions for you to use some creativity. This is your chance! A video of this design would bring you your internet five minutes (people online have a shorter attention span) of fame. You might have even got a five star video as rated by real people, not the fellow animu weabos from the forums. You might have made the front page of Kotaku. Do you want to be remixing your shitty video for the rest of your life in the name of fan service? We threw you a bone and this is how you repay us? Well, AMV community, we'll see to it that none of you work on the internet again. Fuckers.

You've got one week before we target AMV sites for blog wars. But be advised we have never lost!

Keeping the Torch Burning!

Ha! Look at these two it's all going tits up for them. I blame it on the war we had which now means we won. So now we are two for two. However, as the good ship H.M.S SFC starts to sink with Phorenzik jumping ship leaving MarioMark to desperately plug the holes in the hull with spare copies of Resistance Fall of Man we would like to steal some of their traffic and re-iterate one of the most poignant sentiments so beautifully put into words.

TALK TALK YOU ARE CUNTS

And Google never forgets! Ha! Live on SFC, live on!

Special Message to the guy who's job it is to google Talk Talk daily: Hi mate. We don't want to cause any big trouble we just want the traffic so please don't hack our accounts to shut us down. Just send us an email and we'll take this post off. Okay?

Next Gen Please

I'm sure I did a post like this before but couldn't find it in the tons of shit we put on the internet in our humble year and a bit at TGAM Towers (TGAM Small Bedsit would be more appropriate, one of those ones with a totally illegal kitchen cum bedroom-lounge, with no official arrangment with the landlord other than you gave them four grand when you first moved in and since then they have managed to avoid fixing the bathroom like they said they would when the 12 year old crack head in a suit that was your "estate agent" showed you round). Anyway we've been part of the 'next generation' of consoles for quite a while and they are totally fucking dissapointing, the short sightedness of developers and marketing people is absolutely fucking astonishing. Why won't someone, anyone do anything about it? Well I found this secret memo on the internet and I think it tells us all a tale or two:

Three Years Ago

THINGS FOR NEXT GEN by games making people.
1) Better graphics. Done 2007
2) Too many boxes and crates! Explore proper level design. Added note: let's postpone this and address it with next next gen. Designers are pulling their hair out over where to put coins, ammo and medi-kits.
3) Get rid of cheap non destructible backgrounds and objects. Everything should be interactive! Added note from Sony, we can do this! Check out our duck demo. Added note#2 Sony is looking for people to make games for the PS3 to fulfil this
4) Scrap all kinds of escort missions. Market research has shown that not a single gamer likes escorting a handicapped asthmatic blind retard through a warzone. Added note: Designers want this back in to this gen because there isn't anything to do in the levels between the on rails shooting bit and the bit where you split off in two paths which are really one path with a wall in between.
5) Stop relying on cut scenes to tell stories. Added note: Too many players are skipping cut scenes as it is! How are we supposed to tell out grandiose story through game play? Cut scenes made unskippable again 2007
6) Be engaging, innovative and emotionally moving with storylines. Added note from EDGE, sorry guys we were all excited about this in 2006. Turns out the new thing to be excited about is the DS so scrap this.
7) Sort AI out there should be no NPCs getting stuck on walls or running in circles or glitching through hedges in next gen games. Added note: We tried this and it didn't really make a difference. Plus the processing power for AI could be better used on lens flares and shiny surfaces. Scrap this
8) Let's try to really crack single screen co-operative play for consoles. Project Eden was good and Crystal chronicles was ok but there is so much more scope. Added note Microsoft: No one even remembers those games it's all about online now. In fact we're going to use our online figures as a way of saying we're better than Sony.
9) Let's not whore out endless sequels for successful franchises like Guitar Hero, SIngstar or Buzz. Added note: But real people play these games a lot. Also does an 80's version specifically aimed at those 20-30 somethings who aren't normally considered gamers count as a sequel?
10) No more patches ever. If it's so broken, don't fucking ship it at all. Added note: This is impossible we can't even get the games fully tested by testers in the ridiculously short production cycle deadlines we set ourselves. Scrap this.
11) Make all glass shatterable. Added note: Test with this showed that shattered background glass was 50% less aesthetic than really shiny motion blurred lens flared background glass so we're sticking to this. Also, how are people supposed to review our games from untested YouTube videos if all they can see is shattered glass everywhere?
12) Make sure that text size falls within all recommended Disability Discrimination Act suggested standards with or without HD Tvs. Added note by Capcom: Fuck off we'll do what we want especially as we're the only fuckers making consistently good games for all platforms. Fuck off Bungie with your one trick pony you cunts
13) Let's try to copy Halo and GTA less this gen. Added note: We did this! We've now got free-form sandbox games in the future, in the jungle and in mexico. Also, we've made Sci-Fi pubescent action shooters on Earth instead of on a Halo. One of them is even set in a church! Ha ha ha Fucking Christian noobs. We hate christianity ha ha aha ahahahah
14) Nintendo-Action Point. Let's sort out distribution to Europe and Australia and try to balance it so that there is a good game coming out for the Revolution every 1-2 months, let's not have another Gamecube, or N64 for that matter. Added note from Nintendo: Fuck you you europeans! Why do you always ban our child touching sims? We're going to make non games from now on.
15) Sort online play out. Stop all the shithead minority that ruin the experience for the rest, it's do able. Also, let's not rely on playing online or an online connection for support, profile saving or as an excuse for releasing a game with a really piss poor single player campaign. Added note: Market research has shown that insidious 12 year old americans have more access to disposable incomes than sensitive moms, middle aged dads and 'thinking gamers' and power through word of mouth on forums and message boards so we'll be making it easier for abuse with this gen of consoles.
16) Sony- Action Point. Players were really fucked off with spending hundreds of pounds on peripherals and accessories. Let's try to cut this down and earn money through selling top rated games this time! Update: Still on track July 2007!
17) Action Point for All. Let's just tell every company that wants to do a game tie-in with their latest derivative CG kids film to just fuck off unless they are planning on releasing a game that isn't some half arsed party game or a platform game a la Spyro the Dragon. Added note from Sony's accounting team: We're caving to these guys because although they do make shitty games, we're having some technical troubles with LAIR, Heavenly Sword and all our other games which were launch titles. At least these guys are putting stuff on shelves.
18) No more fire levels, ice worlds, warehouses, disused train stations or generic 'caves' to be used for levels. Let's spice it up a bit? Added note: Ok Kameo and Call of Duty were already in production but no more after that OK?

LOLCATS

Fuck off cats more like. Here is the definitive LOLCAT and I don't want to hear anymore about it. CLICK FOR THE TRUTH

The war that nearly was

So recently we were involved in a bit of a spat with those kooky fellas over at Stupid Fucking Customers and then we were graced with the presence of both of the two angry men from Two Angry Men and then some minors and anonymooses popped over to say things like "Cunts" and other such pillow talk. However, it didn`t really end up as a fullly blown blog war for the following numbered listed reasons:

1) That bint at HR made a cock up with the annual leave arrangments so both Richie and I were on holiday at the same time. ROOKIE ERROR. Never abandon your post just after leaving childish comments on other two male 20 something oh-I´m-so-witty-in-my-own-head white text on black background blogs. The only time in history we´ve had more than one reader (including authors) and there was no one around to call other men gays. HR bint has subsequently been fired and she can think about her mistake as she packs little Johnny off to school with clothes four sizes too small this term.

2) There was no real war to be had. You just can´t generate good rapport when everyones stance is "Your {sic.} gay more like". Someone needs to be trying to take the moral high ground before being reduced to our level. It just breaks down if everyone is pretending to be everyone else.

3) Our hearts weren`t really in it either. Stupid Fucking Customers and two angry men are both good sites which we read regularly. In fact I`d go as far to say that the problem was we (us and SFC) were too similar. We all hate the Wii, we`ve both had pictures on UK:R (Ours was uncredited!), we all have way too much time on our hands, both sites have the gay man-straight man set up and of course the white text on black background. We are all cunts it`s just that they are the other side of the counter.

4) Still we got a bit of traffic from the exchange so our new epitaph will read "Did that shit blog which had a bit of traffic that time". Yeah, we are going to be buried together, homôphobes.

So that was that. It filled the blog out a bit during a time when there are no good games out at the moment absolutely nothing. Bioshock doesn`t count as people are only buying it because they think it is Biohazard. Stop trading on Capcom`s good name. Cunts.

Next week on TGAM:

Sony talks about thinking about releasing some games. Nintendo thinks about talking about releasing some games. Punisher 2 reviewed: SPOILERS this time it`s set in Alaska and the punisher is a woman with superhuman strength who takes on evil polar bears who may or may not have stolen some of her food from her tent whilst she was ice hole fishing. PLUS: We use Ice hole fishing as a very un-subtle euphemism for frigging.

Until next time!

Burnout Revenge

You have probably all seen this by now, the thing about the burnout ads. By probably I mean I know because I have spoken to Richie and the other reader of the blog and you've both seen it. Also, the blackhole of all gaming news kotaku has also had a post about it so all the stupid people have seen it too.

Basially 37 people complained about the posters for the new burnout claiming that it might inspire people to vandalise or crash cars or somesuch. My initial reaction is to flinch into a rage because it's something negative about gaming and I'm a gamer and it makes an easy post to write and everyone else is writing about it. However, I've had a think about it and the thing that really irks me is the 37 London commuters who think that they are some kind of moral guardians for society. What kind of person, whilst waiting for their no doubt late or packed tube train, glances up from their London Lite and sees the ad and thinks "Jesus Christ! No. Not again. Don't they understand that people who are stupider than myself will die if they see this ad? I have to step in and save humanity. I'll ring the ASA when I get to work." If this is how advertising works then I'm thinking about running and advert that shows people who phone the ASA on behalf of society hanging themselves.


I'll tell you what kind of person. The kind of person who hates their life. If they had their way the only game you'll be able to play are realtime ones where you don't do to well at school and have to abandon your real life dreams and so you end up working some shitty job fucking some ugly partner you don't really want to be with whilst fantasizing about throttling your own children and escaping to a life in the sun sipping alcoholic free cocktails. When you reach middle age in the game there is a twenty year minigame where you actually write to advertising authorities about how you find any kind of media that is slightly exhilirating a direct stab at how shitty and empty your life is so you have to complain about them so that everyone else is a bored and tired and lonely as yourself.



I follow adverts and I'm thinking of phoning the ASA to complain that according to adverts the world is largely filled with beautiful vacuous people. In fact the converse is true but adverts have irresponsibly led me to believe and expect waif beaties and generic hunks to be lurking on every corner with their chest, boobies and camel toes out. In reality it's 10 year old cretins who pronounce ask "arks" and who will stab you because they are part of a 'gang' and you said "Excuse me" when you tried to get past them, which on the street clearly means you are dissing their South London Hood, which is probably called Waverley Crescent or some other non ghetto name.


In other news:

Mortal Kombat is still the worse game series in existence. It was good for 2 seconds in the 90s until the novelty of really bad blood drops wore off. The films were OK.

Nobody does a Daily Mail like the Daily Mail

If you haven't heard or read it by now the Daily Mail has gone bonkers over the Launch Party for God of War II. Here it is. Using my skills obtained through my GCSE History I will now highlight how this article is mostly gibberish and how the Daily Mail needs to stop feeding Daily Mail readers with this shit and turning them into those women who get angry when they don't have the correct change for the bus and then they start shouting at the bus driver as if it's their fault when in fact it's probably a bit of mid-life crisis mixed in with Post Natal Depression. Well, if you will have children at 45........

It starts

"Electronics giant Sony has sparked a major row over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by using a freshly slaughtered goat to promote a violent video game."
Has it? Does this major row appear anywhere other than in the Daily Mail? No. Perhaps it would have been better if the goat was a freshly slaughtered, then frozen by birdseye and then bought from ASDA? Probably not because then the Daily Mail would blame all the "bloody foreigners" that work at ASDA to fund terrorism and cause cancer.

"Critics condemned the entertainment giant, which produces scores of Hollywood blockbusters each year, for its "blood lust" and said the grotesque "sacrifice" highlighted increasing concerns over the content of video games and the lengths to which the industry will go to exploit youngsters."
I don't think ageing MPs count as industry critics. From reading this It says that critics condemned Sony for its bloodlust? If I were a critic I'd condemn them for their shitty release schedules, that fuck up with the backwards compatability and all those lies. Quite how the killing of a goat relates to exploiting youngsters is also mistifying. Maybe the goat was sacrificed to the Gods of retail sales? That's probably it. Also, I guess I'm a bit guilty of this too. On Saturday I ate chicken sacrificed for my Thai Curry. Yesterday I ate chicken sacrificed for a pizza. At least the Sony goat was sacrificed for something a bit more exotic than hunger.

"At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal – procured elsewhere and intended to resemble the goat’s intestines – from its stomach."
Oh SHIT!

"The International Fund for Animal Welfare said it was "outrageous" that the animal’s death had been used "to sell a few computer games"."
OK assholes, this is where the arguments really beging to fall to pieces. I don't believe that a single attendee from the launch party from the goat to the topless women is ever going to have to buy a copy of God of War II. All the journos and such probably have their own copy given away free or review copies. The models were probably payed with copies of God of War II. The goat is almost definitely a Wii owner so it won't buying God of War II anytime soon. And what about the rest of the world. Well, there might be a case that the PR stunt would raise the profile of the game to sell a few copies but I'd only buy that if God of War II wasn't one of the most anticipated games of the year, with one of the most acclaimed prequels ever and almost unanimous very high scores. I doubt there is a sinlge PS2 owner out there who, until photos of this launch party were printed in the OPSM, didn't either know about how good this game is meant to be or that it even existed. Also, do the Animal Welfare people say anything but "outrageous?". I think that it's outrageous that the International Fund for Animal Welfare is using the animal's death at a high profile brand's launch party to "get more attention". Don't they have better things to do than comment on the use of farm animals for eating at a party? Hey, Animal Welfare guys! If you really wanted to be outraged check the meat section of Tescos. They use the sacrificing of thousands of animals to sell even more sacrificed animals! It's never ending there. Dicks.

"Former Minister Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East and a long-time campaigner against violent computer games, branded the stunt "distasteful and irresponsible". He said: "The slaughter of animals is not something that should be done to advertise a product."
What a surprise! Ex-MP (wanting a profile) with a history of using the false link between violence in video games and the degeneration of society (has to appear anti games) dissaproves of PR stunt by game giant (thus getting in the newspaper).

"The Sony spokesman said the animal had not been slaughtered for the event but had been bought from a local butcher by the Greek company hired to stage the event."
Oh, unlucky guys. Looks like animal welfare and former MPs are protesting against the procurement of meat from animals from butchers. This is going to be a tough nut to crack. We should genetically modify animals to be made of vegetables. Alternatively, butchers could sell veg? Oh but hang on. We're the Daily Mail, we instantly object to anything with 'genetics' in the title because it sounds a bit to much like science outside the realms of domestic science. Also meat gives you cancer.

"The offending article will be removed because of the "sensitivity of the general public over issues of animal welfare"."
They caved. But, come on. Who really cares about eating meat? The general public are too concerned with stabbing shooting and beating up each other, grannies, cats, everyone and rival 'gang' members. The average UK citizen would prefer "10p to phone me mum cunt" than write a stern letter to Sony about the eating of a goat bred for food, killed by a butcher and sold via the normal route of such food products.

"And in November, Europe’s justice commissioner Franco Frattini was so shocked by the "obscene cruelty and brutality" of Sony’s Rule Of Rose PlayStation game that he wrote to all EU governments urging tighter controls on the "dreadful game"."
Yes and he was pretty much branded a bit of a wanker by everyone in the games industry, all literate website and blogger people and even us. Then he didn't do anything and no one else did either because although all kinds of people who want a career in politics but who are too lazy to campaign about real issues that demand a grasp of a subject or some kind of research time after time it is found that: "A number of studies, including research published by DCMS today, have found no conclusive evidence that video games can influence children's behaviour. Due to ethical difficulties associated with exposing children to adult material, it is difficult to secure conclusive evidence either way—difficult, but not impossible." From here, by Keith Vaz himself. So what Keith is essentially saying is that he suspects there is a link between violent video games and fucked up children but he can't prove it because it's hard to commision research to let kids play games that they aren't legally allowed to buy for themselves in the first place. I think the same could be said for drinking, driving, pre-teen pregnancy, smoking, boxing, mountain climbing or theme park rides with a height restriction. Oh, point proved Keith. Point proved.

Sony in AIDS remission?

No, of course not. That's impossible but check this screenshot.


Big Whoopdies I hear you cry but look at the big version.


You see them? At the bottom there. AMMONITES. They could have been dinosaurs, granted, but ammonites are halfway there. This is from some game called LittleBigPlanet yada yada but it's all about the prehistoric organisms. Sony you have managed to fuck up a bit less.


For those of you who don't believe me, or think they might be snails here is a zoom in using TGAM patented technology:

Chuff_72 Speaks: THE BIG ONE

Richie and I have been dealing with a big court case at the moment because of this post so we haven't been able to blog about Fifa 07 or the latest fake WoW :( .
However, you may remember that Chuff_72 was doing an important mission, as a maniac, but on behalf of all gamerkind (That's you readers). Have you tried to buy a game in real life recently? I'm not talking about the brand newest games I'm talking about old games that have been out for a fortnight or something? Impossible! Mr.Game only sells 5 types of EA game so where do we go to buy the underated classics like Tomb Raider 3 or Resident Evil Code Veronica X? We go to the Indie stores, at least in theory we do. I would argue that if game developers want to sell their games they should make sure their games stay in fucking stores for longer than a week. Chuff_72 went to scope out the game shops in Europe's capital city, London. London must sell some ace games right? Right?
Here are his findings in one big chunk, Chuff_72 That Guy's Salutes You, working to save gamerkind....

Ok, so Cunzy has told you what my mission was but here are the rules;
1. Only stores that appear on Yell.com when the words “Computer Games” are entered
2. Only stores with an underground station within easy walking range
3. Only stores that are actually stores and not firkin internet cafes – I’m looking at you Digital Underworld

So, off on the journey, 7.30 am out of the flat and down to the Post Office to pick up a bundle of PS1 stuff, I was to carry these for the rest of the day as a form of good luck charm – fat lot of good that was.

First stop was Lewisham, initially to get a train but hey, the Flagship GameStation is parked here, and while it has never let me down in the past today was a different matter, nothing of interest, this was a sign of things to come.

From overland to underground and to Holloway Road in The North, Zone 2, on the way to my first port of call I spied a Cash Converter, I once bought a Master System and 20 games all boxed for £30 from one of these places so I cruised inside – Guys, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling, if you put em behind the guitars, in a glass cabinet with a bunch of DVDs in front NOBODY IS GONNA BE ARSED TO LOOK, if we can’t see the games, we’re not gonna buy the games. From here I found myself outside a Blockbuster, with a co-joined GameStation, now, I like these style stores, I have fond memories of picking up SOS for £3 in a similar store in Chatham. Seriously though, two guys in a GLASS BOX with an Xbox on the wall and two racks of games does not constitute a Computer Game shop. Needless to say there was fuck all in there, though they did have a copy of Fifa…

On the way back to Holloway Road I happened to pass a market, now I gotta say, I’m not the sort who frequents markets, the cries of “awwwww shit Champ Man 8 awwwwww” from all the addidas wearing chavs tends to keep me away but for some reason I decided to cruise through. I found myself in a dirty tent with a woman, clearly tripping off her tits, with a baby crawling over her, “nice” I thought to myself, however I spotted an unboxed copy of Lylat Wars (a game I personally despise) and never one to walk away in the face of a bargain and not wanting to be seen leaving empty handed for fear of insulting the locals and thus ending up in a giant man made of straw on fire, I purchased said game. It was marked for £5, here’s a tip – always haggle with the druggies, they always give in, so I got it for £3 and that was the first bargain of the day, not that it’ll EVER get played mind you. There was also a NES in reasonable condition, but it goes against my personal religion to purchase hardware from a market… and it had no wires or pads…

On to Wood Green, the home of Tim and Daisy, where you can allegedly rent a two bed flat for £90 a week… It is also in Zone 4 and therefore officially off the map (my A-Z) here my friends, there be monsters. But this place had FOUR Computer Game stores, it is Mecca for all the Computer Games Pilgrims. This was gonna be intense, I could tell, my main worry was how was I gonna resist all the bargains and rare treats…

So first up was Shekhana World of Games, seriously they should just call it Shit World of Shit, infact drop the “World of.” How best to describe Shit Shit… There’s a piece of ripped brown corrugated card ON THE FLOOR the proudly states, LOOK, PSX GAMES, NEW, written in a shaky hand with black marker pen. Import games? Specialising in Gamecube, or PS1? Any other retro crap? No. There is nothing for sale in this store that Game or Gamestation don’t sell. The only reason I can see to buy anything from this store would be out of some kind of misplaced urge to give to charity, seriously, save it, sponsor a dolphin or something, at least that’ll send you one of those I Love You letters.

Next on the list and inside the awesomely named Shopping City, was Awesome Games… frankly you’ve got to be fucking kidding, Awesome Games? Not to over use the theme but lets call it Shit Games, in fact lets lose the Games. So, Shit then, in side Shit they have a copy of Gran Tourismo on Playstation, it looks quite new, nice and shiny, it costs £25, that’s right readers, £25 whole English Pounds. This sums up Shit. Anything else? Any games that I can’t walk into any number of other stores and buy, you know stores like WHSmith or Woolworths? No? Ok here’s an idea for the owners of this tragic waste of space (we all know you’re reading this), try selling games that are harder to come by, you know the games that Game and Gamestation have refused to stock, Gradius V, DS games, Rez? Just think of the flock of gamers frustrated by the elevated eBay prices flooding to the store. Oh yeah, they had a copy of Abe’s Odysee too, it was also £25, I don’t want to talk about it.

Downstairs in Shopping City (gotta love that name, it reeks of a Zombie infestation) was the tyrant of the Computer Game retail world, the Pink Master, and lets face it, we all know what’s gonna be in a Game, yet we always wander in. It’s got something to do with brand recognition or some bollocks. But how does this Gaming Giant handle the Gamecube faithful, here’s a picture…

Awesome isn’t it, 14 games, and 4 of them are Zelda – which are only labelled Coming Soon, Bratz, Sims, Sims 2, Ice Age and Fifa, I’m so glad the Wii is GC compatible.

So off to my second choice for all game purchases (Game Focus, you have nothing to worry about) GameStation in Wood Green, disappointingly not in the Shopping City, but a little ways down the road, it’s one of those small GameStations, you know there’s not gonna be a lot to choose from, but always the possibility that there’s fried gold somewhere on the shelves – or in one of their legendary glass cabinets. And low and behold, Chuff_72 picks up Shenmue, still in it’s card sleeve, and Nightmare Creatures for the combined price of £7.99 SIIIICCCKKKKK. Not to mention the the Turok 2 / Dinomaster Party combo that could have been someone’s for only a fiver, but someone wasn’t answering their phone that day. Ok I’ll admit, I mark out to GameStation on a regular basis, it’s somehow managed to get a chain of over 11 stores with Zone 1-6 alone, and yet still manages to hold on to that indie store appeal, there’s always the hope that something will slip through and you’ll be the one to get THE bargain, Point Blank 3 for £5 anyone? SIICCKKKKK.

By now I was pretty depressed by the state of the indie scene, the work FUCKED, springs to mind. It was in this state of mind I checked my “to do” list and saw there was one final store in this part of London, a little further up the track, right on the edge of Zone 4, Southgate, M R Games. I knew it was close to the station because I had checked the day before, but once again I was map less. The power of TGAM propelled me down a random road and through a Blockbuster, only to be greeted with the site of fake boobies. Not just any fake boobies, these were Anime boobies, some might say, the best kind of boobies, but these people all live in capsules and have robot dogs.

The boobies were part of some Anime display in a glass cabinet – at TGAM the glass cabinet is king – any store with a glass cabinet with cool shit in it scores big, and this cabinet had everything from Gundam to Streetfighter, no games but who cares. Inside the place was tiny to the point of being silly, a double sided shelf in the middle of the floor ensuring only single file movement and moving round the store in any other direct than clockwise was impossible. The tight confines were exacerbated by the insufferable twat hanging off the owners cock cooing about Metroid Pinball (which I have just found out was never released over here, another reason to delay my DS purchase – Cunz, still not used my Jag).

Ok so this place is small but somehow all the bases are covered and everyone is represented, yes even the Gamecube, but amongst the sparse collection were a few gems, I picked up Crypt Killer (a game I’ve never see in any other store) for £3, a bargain, well it’s got to be really since it’s shit and isn’t compatible with the G-Con (so it’ll never get played) but that’s not the point! Rare games are represented here, in this tiny haven for the true game fan (and don’t forget the boobies). Bestest thing in the store? Gotta be the twin joystick arcade style setup for the PS1, “for you sir, £30” to which I went hmmmmm DrWo would cream himself if he saw this… And not wanting to be covered in the good Dr’s man juice I left it for some other lucky game hunter.

It had been a long day, I had seen a lot of shit, but there was some ray of hope in the chavtasticly named icon3games (changed from M R Games), my feet were killing me and its surprising how heavy and spiky eight PS1 games can get when you’ve been carrying them all frikin day, but that’s what it’s all about readers, that’s the dedication expected of a TGAM Man In The Field. And so one last store beckoned, calling me to it, after all it was only one stop from London Bridge, ten minutes tops…

From Bermondsey station it was about a twenty minute flat footed walk, under a couple of bridges, down a couple more roads and then, in the distance a row of shops, a couple paper shops a Co-op and a butchers. No, it wasn’t a butchers, it was infact Tower Games, it was the Blue neon in the window that confused me… and the complete lack of games… and the bongs in the window. After walking all that I there was no way I wasn’t going in, even if all I came away with was another hash pipe.

I was greeted by three fat sweaty fucks, greased up to the max, bathed in the blue glow, playing CoD3 on PS2 (Next-Gen has yet to arrive in Bermondsey), the store itself was sparse to say the least, I think they had a copy of Fifa, but can’t guarantee it was ’07. Needless to say I don’t recommend anybody wasting their time visiting this store (that’s what TGAM’s for!).

And then I went home… to crack one out over my copy of Shenmue. On the strength of the above Indie Computer Game stores can go fuck themselves, except for Game Focus, we love the GF – hopefully it won’t start erasing our collective memories about how we were all once in an orphanage together.

Join me sometime in the near future when I will be reporting on the other side of London, until then C_72 out.