Ditto was in the news again!

Apparently, Dittos* are going extinct, according to yesterday's newspaper the METRO.
.
This is stupid. Everyone has a Ditto right? And they aren't fished, you just catch them in the grass. I have a spare if anyone is interested.

Or find them at music festivals. But they aren't very good. By the time you have wasted a turn you are then in the unfortunate position in that your foe knows all your moves.

We hate it when newspapers get all their shit wrong. Stupid newspapers. Sadly I only worked out Ditto wasn't great when it dinged level 89.

*We know it should be Ditto not Dittos but we love annoying those wiki pricks who genuinely care about it. Because when the aliens find part of a server floating round in the space where Earth used to be, they're really gonna be concerned about the correct way of pluralising a fictional monster. Anyway if it does go extinct we won't have to worry about that.

So boring

Read it here. Basically, former who-is-that-guy-again? leader of the tory party, IDS has pulled a Vaz. This time though, avoiding Vaz's idiotic mistake a few weeks back, he appears to be aware of all the laws about selling stuff to people who aren't old enough to buy it all. He just says nobody pays attention.

He also comes out with:

“We are driving children to lose their childhood, and some video games are incredibly violent, like Grand Theft Auto. They are meant to be 18 but nobody cares what it says on the label."

Fuck off IDS. Just fuck off. When was the last time you took a bus after 11pm in this country? That's violence right there. Real actual violence. In fact for anyone living in London they probably see violence every week. I know I do. And then of course there are violent films on TV all day every day which anyone can watch with no restrictions whatsoever. Oh and books. When was the last time you got ID(S'ed?) for a book? And even then. Even if 1997 game GTA is destroying childhood why don't we tap into that powerful interactive medium that has such a brainwashing effect as to distract a member of parliament (and tipped to be a cabinet member) and use it to improve our youth's obesity problems or teen pregnancy problems or crime problems or literacy problems? Is that going to be on the agenda? Because the last couple of government funded video games were SHIT, didn't appear at all or were worse than educational software of the early 1990s.

That is the end of the above news item. The following news item is the Top Five Things About The 1997 PlayStation Game Grand Theft Auto Which Are Better Than Chingford, The Constituency Of Iain Duncan Smith:

1) The police actually catch you if you do too many crimes. They don't just put you on a list and then maybe accidentally pick you up or anything. In 2005/2006 only 25% of crimes committed were solved.
2) It is harder to get a gun in GTA than it is in real life in Chingford and Walthamstow.
3) It is impossible to commit a sexual offence in GTA but in 2005/2006 year there were 278 sexual offences in Chingford.
4) It is impossible to steal anything from a car in GTA but in 2005/2006 there were 3155 theft from a motor vehicle in Chingford.
5) It is impossible to commit a burglary in GTA but in 2005/2006 there were 1962 burglaries in Chingford.

So there we have it. Two unrelated random pieces of news.

1m Xboxes may become ex-boxes

Was the front page news the Metro was running today. Is it the first ever gaming news front page in a publication with semi-decent circulation? Probably. Anyway to the story as reported by the Metro.

One gamer, cut off by MS had this to say:

"I was gutted, completely gutted. It's like telling someone their dog's just died"

Our thoughts on this. 1) Why is only people in newspapers say gutted. They are always gutted about things in newspapers but we all know nobody actually says gutted since the late 90s. 2)It is not like telling someone their dog just died because normally dogs last longer than a console generation, you can play with your dog any time regardless of whether you are connected/Xbox is working, you can entertain more than two people with a dog at any one time without having to set up Rock band, people know what a dog is, a dog is fully compatible with any dogs you may already have, girls are interested in dogs, you can take your dog outside or on holiday and you can train a dog to lick your balls.

Ways in which dogs and an Xbox 360 are alike: Both can get red ring of death. None have any decent RPGs for them.

Final analysis: Go microsoft. Brick the fuckers. We hate piracy.

Breaking Timesplitters 2 Noise

This is breaking news. This news occurs nowehere else on google. It is regarding a weird noise you get when you die playing through Story Mode on Timesplitters 2.

Here's how to access the noise. Start playing through story mode on Timesplitters 2. Die and then the restart/quit screen comes up with a big floaty blue thing in the background with some loud music.

Just put the pad down and listen to the music. It trails off and then you get some scary noises. Then right right right at the end after the scary noises a woman's voice asks "Is that too much?".

In the interest of full disclosure here is the email I have sent to LEGEND Graeme Norgate for info:

Hi Graeme

Huge huge fan! Huge. I became aware of your work through Timesplitters and restrospectively found out you did the music on Killer Instinct too! What a legend. We used to listen to Killer Cuts all the time until the CD wore out.

Anyway fandom aside I was playing through Timesplitters 2 again last week (Siberian Dam if you must know (on hard as well)) and I died. I went away to make myself a cup of tea and when I came back the you died screen was making scary noises and then a woman says "Is that too loud" or maybe "Is that too much?".

I had noticed the scary noises before but never listened to it all the way through to the end. My question is what is that noise and who is the woman?

I'm your biggest fan CZY1 1

Until Big G emails back, you can try to find the noise yourself!

The Feed Reader

This post is one of those 'interesting' insights into our lives posts. Ignore it if you are just looking for that Sheva nude cheat or for more of our ultimate top 50 greatest games of all time posts. It ain't here.

Recently we went on holiday for a bit. This meant that there were thousands of bits and pieces of stuff to read on our feed reader. There's no way to read it all now. We're way too busy so here's a little insight to how we rationalised it:

Deleted everything from the Escapist. The only reason the Escapist is on there at all is for Zero Punctuation. And that comes out every Wednesday. And we know that. Should really get round to unsubscribing.

Deleted everything from Capcom Entertainment. Which was a total of 1 post. Why do official developers and publishers websites suck balls so hard?

Deleted Omastar Twitter feeds. Self explanatory really. Although, Omastar currently has 200 more followers than TGAM does :(

Deleted everything from Penny Arcade. It stopped being 'a must read' about two years ago. And that's just the comics.

Scrolled through everything from Kotaku in a minute. The skill is spotting the bits in between the bitslag ('opinion' posts, non news, press releases, otaku soft porn, anything that the mail order wife man says, anything anyone called Brian says, anything that was copied from another good website, all of those Kotaku community shits posts etc. etc.). It turns out there was one article worth reading. And that was only for the pretty pictures.

Read all three posts from UK:R. But to be honest it's just not etc. etc.

Read the title and author of the Terra Nova post. One day there will be something read-worthy that doesn't read like your Dad* wrote it.

Deleted everything from EDGE magazine. Because what isn't in the magazine is of significantly worse quality.

Spent a moment wondering why Richard Cobbett, Amber Night, Dr Hamhock, Beppin Legacy, Field Marshall Bennett, James by Pentadact or Nondrone P. Carrikter don't update as much as I want them to. Came up with an equation for the relationship between quality of writing and frequency of posting. It is an inverse relationship if anyone had any doubts.

Skimmed Dinosaur Comics. Ryan North still has not apologised for etc.* etc.

Read the Sunday paperses from Rock Paper Shotgun. Frankly, the rest is filler.

Caught up with Richie's Xbox blog. Which is like gamer spying, hexic HD Richie?

Caught up with my own Xbox blog. Just in case someone uses my profile*. Which they didn't.

Deleted everything from Videolamer. Because I write the only decent stuff anyway.

Read everything from QBlog. Which is by far the most interesting blog out of the whole lot, excluding Harvind1 blog and this one. The consistency of entertainment and frequency of posts is astonishingly high. I may start to stalk Bartle in the hope of some his skillz rubbing off on me.

Wow, you must think. How does he find the time to grace TGAM with posts in his hectic, jam packed Rock 'n' Roll lifestyle. I do it for you all out of love*








*I would say your Mum but she has her mouth full at the moment.

Little Big Planet and Spore revisited

So....

Spore. Guess we were right about that one then. Anyone still playing it? Anyone at all? No. Told you so.

Little Big Planet. Team TGAM doesn't own a PS3 for a number of reasons, the one we most like to pretend is true is because we have standards. The real excuse is that the fucker is still too expensive and there still aren't anywhere near enough decent games to justify a purchase. Anyway, if we did have one I would probably get LBP because I like creating shit in games like gay little designs for Animal Crossing, Crap Levels in Timesplitters or Miis that look like Charles Darwin. We do have some friends (21 to be exact). And some of those friends own a PS3 (12) they aren't gamers in the classic sense. They are normal people with cars and houses and the like. They don't obsess over games or write 2 and a bit games blogs. Aside from dusty copies of Resistance they all own LBP and without exception:

1) Haven't even tried to make their own levels. Some don't even know that you could.
2) Haven't gone online and tried any of the community levels. Or even now that they could or if they did, didn't realise that the levels were made by real people.
3) Played it online at all.
4) Bought any of the DLC.
5) Designed their own sackboys.

Which is sad but also it goes to show that if you are going to go for the casual audience you should give them a paint by numbers book and some crayons (Wii Sports) rather than a blank canvas and a selection of media to use (LBP).

In related news:

Also, none of our PS3 user friends have even heard of Home let alone tried it out. Which is a shame because in a year or two I predict it'll be doing some very interesting things. The same is true for things like Flow, Flower, Echochrome or Pixeljunk. I feel bad helping Sony out by spreading the word about these things.

This is comparable with all of our Wii owning friends who haven't downloaded a single (free) Wii channel or ever browsed the Virtual Console or WiiWare libraries. I've now done it at least eight times on friends consoles. Maybe Ninty should educate people about the expensive things they bought?

Maybe we could get paid for some of this community work too? Just write a check out to TGAM and send it to hotmail.com.

Thx thx bye!

Is the PSP worth getting yet?

Let's check. The last time we paid any attention to the "little handheld that could" there was nothing going on.

From field data gathered by observing people using it on the bus and on the train it seems that 98% of them use it to watch Family Guy or South Park episodes. The other 2% play GTA.

Apparently, it can connect to the PS3. Which is a shame because the PS3 is probably the least useful thing an appliance could ever connect to. In fact plugging your PSP into the ground probably offers up infinitly more exciting gaming opportunities.

And what of those "games" that Sony used to do?

Hmmmm Tekken is the best game for the PSP according to Gayspot. Looking at Metacritic there has only been one game post launch better than Lumines and Wipeout. Thems are four years old y'all.

Well I do not know about you but I certainly can't wait for PSP Go! to play those four year old games on. Can you?

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

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

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.

A very Wii-k

For reasons not to be divulged here, I had a week off of work and for reasons too painful to recount here I spent most of it on the sofa playing games. Sad perhaps but a week I thoroughly enjoyed as I relived the glory days when I could really get my teeth into some games rather than snatching the odd hour or two or playing games and then dreaming of playing them for the rest of the week, the routine that modern life forces us into. I played the Wii exclusively, proving that you don't need marines in space or space marines on planets or future marines fighting nazis to have a good game session. Here's the synopsis for all none of you out there who are at all interested:

Dead Rising chop til you drop (or shop til you drop as one googler who found this site typed in). I still can't decide whether this is a good game in its own rights, a yorke notes version of a good game or just a bad game. Having played through it all of four times now, I am still none the wiser. Perhaps this game has lodged itself in that part of my brain that pokemon used to inhabit but I find it really hard to exit to the Wii menu after the credits roll and not start the whole game over again. A few notes and addenda to this quasi-review: The convicts are in the game although beating them is now a QTE affair. For those who battled them in the original version this is no great loss at all and may I dare say it is actually a minor improvement. You can put hats/buckets on zombie heads by shooting them until they are stunned. Later on in the game this becomes impossible as even the hangun blows legs clean off but still glad the feature is there. After the first playthrough the "odd jobs" minigame is unlocked and after progressing through odd jobs "second amendment" series of minigames using the rifles is unlocked. These mini games and challenges are a sheer joy and really show off the possibilities of the game and the ingenuity of capcom. The single complaint is that there just aren't enough of them but trying to get S ranks on them all adds some replay value. Following extensive playtime I did have pretty vivid dreams in dead rising but most of them concerned me running into walls and having to press A+Z to turn around, only to run into another wall. The number of times A+Z flashes up on the screen during the is quite high so I imagine I've been subliminally programmed by Capcom. The next time I pick up a mop I'll let you know if I try to A+Z first.

Tomb Raider Underworld. After Resident Evil, I've always had a soft spot for Tomb Raider even with Angel of Darkness being the Outbreak of the series. Similarly to DRCTYD, the problems that many reviewers were keen to point out just don't seem to be big issues. Sure the game is "slightly" broken (the Wii had to be unplugged twice and reset half a dozen times) but ultimately it is a pleasant game to play with some nice links to the other games in the series that came as a nice surprise. I can't see how issues with the camera remain after two minutes of playing the game and there's not really a great deal else out there for such fluid runny, climby, jumpiness on the Wii. Extra kudos for incorporating a vehicle section that wasn't hideous or jarring at all.

Animal Crossing LGTTC. My residents reminded me that it had been a good couple of weeks since my last visit. A number of my friends with the game seem to be miles ahead of my current progress so with time on my hands I decided to not be beaten at a game I recommended to them. After much weeding, planting and fossil hunting the town is back up to a reasonable standard. I just hope that at some point this week Nook offers more than the measly 66 bells for turnips otherwise I might have to burn down the Nookingtons, deforest the town and generally be rude until everyone moves out. You have been warned Nook. On the bright side, my measly room was the model room for a while and I was surprised that my Mii looked quite so fetching in a wedding dress.

A lot of the family were around which meant that Boom Blox, Mario Kart and Link's Crossbow training got a lot of play. All three games relatively simple, all three games unrivalled by other extant consoles for sheer multiplayer fun. Genuine enjoyment was had by all. I also put in a lot of time with Mario Kart online which is addictive. I normally fear online play for all the usual reasons but I had to psychologically yank myself away and stopped when my race and battle points broke the 6000 barrier, worried that my luck might suddenly change. Two quick public service anouncements for Mario Kart Wii online players. Firstly, if you are driving the bikes do some goddam wheelies for the love of christ. Secondly, Moo Moo Meadows is but one track. Just at least try voting for one of the other 31 tracks at least once in four hours. You might like them.

Wii Fit, Sports and Play also got some serious playtime. I finally got a gold medal for bubble bursting and edged nearer to being a pro in more of the sports games. Wii fit is just silly fun, albeit with a depressing lining when you are reminded just how fat you are, how fat you got since your last workout and how crap my reaction times are compared to my younger relatives who must view me as some kind of Grandad, completing the image with some worrying creaking and cracking during the football heading game. The Offical Nintendo Magazine ran an interesting article on playtime and other statistics on Wii games this month which prompted me to return to these simple, yet fun games.

Lastly, I beat Destroy Man on No More Heroes. Unlike the other games which I try to consume at high speed in the precious stolen hours late at night, I've been savouring this game taking each ranked fight at a steady and enjoyable pace. Everything about this game is a delight it's a shame to see that from reviews at least, Madworld and House of the Dead Overkill find balancing mature themes with overall quality a bit of a challenge.

Game on friends and we'll see you all at the next Wiimbledon and this time we'll remember if we're left handed of right handed before the second set.

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.

Beat the credit crunch and/or recession

Ten ways to beat the recession if you are a gamer:

1) Play all those games you haven't completed yet. This will probably see you through until 2010.

2) Laugh at your friends who spent their money on houses, cars and children instead of games. Your games haven't devalued over time, in fact with the current glut of mediocre games and sequels they may even have grown better with time. Your games won't leave you and take your children because you can't afford the lavish house and expensive food bills anymore. That's why games are great and real people selfish and 'orrible.

3) Invite all your friends who are saving money by not going out to trendy bars, clubs and to foreign countries for holidays over to your house for some mashed sessions. Show them that gaming has been valuable all along not just when you don't have anything else going on.

4) Pick up some cheap games that real people are desperately selling on Ebay. All those real people who bought a PS2 as some kind of life accessory. That'll be one of the first things they will sell so pick up all the limited editions and a few of the glaring omissions from yor back catalgoue.

5) Replay all the games you busted. This time getting alternative endings.

6) Play Blitzball.

7) Play 24 hour le mans races in real time.

8) Don't ever buy any tissues or napkins. Just use the back of your hand or the inside of your boxers. This will save at least £2.50 a year or £14,000 if you are, or live with, a girl.

9) Try speed running your favourite game.

10) Watch everything over at GomTV.

All of these things can be done for absolutely no cost and will last you until there is no recession again. Enjoy!

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.

How many emails does it take to get a rise out of Kotaku?

Almost exactly a year ago, we started emailing tips to tips@kotaku.com for those of you who don't know, Kotaku is a gaming news site, probably the best one actually at least in terms of volume and frequency, not neccessarily consistency. Anyway the above email address is for Kotaku readers to email in tips or rumours so that Kotaku can copy and paste the post on their site with some insightful sentence of commentary from one of the editors, 80% of which are called Brian. From here the escapist and then EDGE copy and paste all their news.

So, for the last year we've been emailing in 'tips' sometimes once a day, other times once a month. But we did get a rise out of Brian Crecente once before they presumably blocked any email we send to them anymore. Question is can you guess after which one we got a response? Answer is on the reverse.

1. Hot Tip

If you look at the ground in Golden Eye on the N64 you run a tiny bit faster.

2. Another Hot Tip

In the videogame Halo, jumping around can make you harder to target by those who would "do you in".

3. An Even Hotter Tip

When playing Final Fantasy games, unlike real life, it is always prudent to talk to dogs and children. They may help with story progression.

4. An Even Hotter Tip

In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis on the PlayStation pressing square and down will make Jill Valentine (or Carlos) turn on the spot for a quick getaway!

5. Another flaming hot tiperoo

In the Wii game, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, on the driving 'boss levels' both A and B buttons can be used to sound the horn and to get those pesky cows and baboons to get out of the way.

6. A Scorching tip today

Sorry for the lack of tips. Man's been ill for a couple a days. I'm making up for it with a scorching hot tip though!

In most videogames, just like in real life, characters cannot perform normal tasks whilst crouching. If you find your character isn't interacting with the environment, walking very slowly or not reloading weapons, check that they are not crouched down. If they are, try standing up and many of your ailments should dissappear.

7. A burning tip, burning. Flaming hot tip.

If you're gonna do a post about a video game drinking game, make it the original hardcore drinking game [prison rules version]http://www.thatguys.co.uk/2007/09/pokemon-drinking-game-prison-rules.html

8. Hotter than the surface of a hotplate tip today..

...just for you Kotaku slaves. Don't pass this tip on else everyone will be using it THUS NEGATING THE BENEFIT FOR YOU.

In Command and Conquer: Red Alert, you can tell you are about to be attacked because e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g l-a-g-s. Use this early warning system to bring back all your exposed whore trucks*.

*This is what all the cool kids call the ore trucks. Calling them whore trucks to other C&C Red Alert players instantly identifies you as "in the loop".

9. This is the hottest tip you ever received. Scorchio!

This is a tip for the fellas! Many women you come across may find your gaming "hobby" or worse, "lifestyle" a bit immature or sad. All that money wasted and you have nothing to show for it, except a bunch of save files! Don't fret though because many women like to spend extortionate amounts of money on shoes! Shoes! But there's more, it's not even shoes that enable walking, it's often shoes that cripple their feet, prevent them from walking over 1mph and cause them to whine after an evening out because their feet hurt! Now that's a waste of money, shoes that deliberately don't enable the very simple function of pain free walking. Mental.

10. Coming atcha like a volcano, truly the most burning tip yet

This one is for the ladies. In Dead Rising, when the yellow anorak cultists turn up, allow Frank to be "killed" by them (they should spit a powder in his face at which point he will black out). Instead of dying you'll awaken in a box in just your pants! Check out some schweet man ass and bulge for free!

Just don't tell anyone I told you!

11. Yesterday must have been cold without a hot tip so here's one that's been scorching a hole in my face

Don't bother with Second Life.

12.It's winter outside but here's a tip to warm you up

Shaking trees in Animal Crossing and Animal Crossing WIld World may reveal some furniture or better yet a bag of bells! Watch out for bees! If your quick enough you can catch the bees and sell them to Tom Nook for EVEN MORE BELLS!

13. The weekend looms, why not make it better with this tip!

In FPS (first person shooters) you should always strafe left to right. This makes you a harder target to shoot. You shouldn't strafe backwards and forwards because, although half the time you are becoming a smaller target, the other half you are becoming a larger target!

14. This tip comes for free but boy is it a hot one!

In the UK at least most gaming chain stores stock titles for little under a month before they are replaced with the new and shiny titles and piles of multiplatform releases like Catz or Cheggers' Quiz. Shopping online for games can be risky too because it's always disheartening to open up a second hand game you've received to find a scratch on the disc and jam all over the instruction booklet. Fear not though gamers because pawn shops often have a nice selection of games, in good nick and all the best titles aren't snapped up the minute they go one the shelves. This weekend I bought mint condition Code Veronica and Resident Evil Outbreak (I know! But I had to) for the PS2 for £6 ($12056US). Bargain!

15. I'm back from the centre of the earth, a journey that ook days to discover this hot tip!

Gamers, why not use valentine's day as an excuse to revisit Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil 1 and three and Soul Calibur? Why? You might ask. Well to play as Jill, Vincent and Ivy Valentine! Yeah, yeah, put that in your stand up show, I'll let ya.

16. Just a tip but you might want to read this one.

If you get low on ammo in Resident Evil games, fear not because you can use the knife!

17. This tip is so hot men and women want it

In Resident Evil Outbreak press start to skip the cutscenes. For most other Capcom titles select works too!

18. England has had the Typhoid again so there hasn't been any tips for a while.....until now

In Crash Team Racing for the Sony PlayStation, make sure you always jump off of ramps and ledges. The higher you jump the bigger the boost you get upon landing!

19. I've been to the Congo, where I found this tip for you

In Brain Training for the Nintendo DS, holding select when you touch the Brain Training exercise lets you select the activities on which your brain age will be calculated so you can avoud the ones you find hard.

Blog that mofos, I'll be out tip hunting on your behalf.

20. Slow news day huh?

Well here's a fricking tip for you so post this so the readers don't die of not enough posts to devour! In the game Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles the RING OF FATES, make sure you "Add material" when making weapons and armour from a scroll. If you are not going to add material then the man next door will sell you the armour ready made for cheaper.

How did you like that tip kotaku? Because I tell you now. THERE'S PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM SON-SHINE

21. YET ANOTHER HOT TIP

How do I do it you ask? Well, that would be telling. Today's tip is for the game "Mashed".

If you aren't very good at mashed then always choose the red car. It's a little bit faster.

No, don't thank me, really. Just be glad to have the knowledge. It is power.

22. A new year and a new hot tip.

Wasn't dead guys just out, tip hunting.

Took me fourteen months of research and 10 years of work in the field. In that time I saw generations come and go. I saw the dawn of a new millenium but nothing would stay my hands and eyes looking for a tip in the event that you could do a post about it. Many times I wanted to give up on it all you know? Jack it all in. Live an easy tip-free life. But every time my heart drew me back in. I've seen things you can only dream about one of your friends dreaming about. I saw the face of god but I did not know madness. Very well, you may say but give up the tip. You can have the tip in a second but bear in mind the awful cost it took to get it. Use it wisely and it will guide you to a better place. Use it frivolously and life won't ever be the same again. Very well gentlemen, the tip:

If you get stuck on a wall in Mario Kart, reverse yourself until you can go forward and get off that wall or something.

No need to thank me but look into the eyes of your children tonight and know that you did best by god.

23. Here's another tip I trust you will take it?

In most Doom games you can pick up a weapon called a BFG. It is a very powerful weapon but do not use it at close range because you will kill yourself.

Just some L337 tech for ya to help you up your game, y'know?

24. A tip pure and simple, from me, to you

Hey guys another tip, free of charge for now. I'll put it on your tip tab yar?

Just drop the Day Note and Night Note yeah? No one likes it. Not even Crecente. And Bashcraft is like. "Dude me an my japanese wife who is japanese are in japan and we saw something that you only see in japan and we were in japan and my son who was in japan asked if japan is the same as America and I turned to my japanese wife and said in japanese no it isn't."
And Crecente is always like. "Great. I uh. Yeah. That must have been great". Then Bashcraft is back on the "SO WE WERE ALL IN JAPAN THE OTHER DAY AND WE WENT TO A JAPANESE PLACE AND AtE SOME JAPANESE FOOD AND IN JAPAN FOOD IS DIFFERENT THAN IN AMERICA AND IN JAPAN THEY HAVE DIFFERENT TRADITIONS AND STUFF. buy my book".

It's rarely about games at all. No one is particulalry interested and we all have friends who live in countries but who have made no attempt to ingratiate themselves. How about you change up the format? Like try and play some kind of videogame themed word game or six degrees of megaman. Anything else really. Give it a shot. Thank me later dudes.

It's a game for all the family! Cunzy1 1

Some of the problems with MMORPGs

I'm not an MMORPG fan. This you may know and I'll say it upfront. Some of the stuff that happens in MMORPGs is interesting to read about and there are some creative folk who can spin a nice tale around something they experienced in an MMORPG. For me though the problem is that the worlds just aren't compelling enough.

Okay, that isn't entirely correct, the worlds are compelling but as soon as you set foot in it the effect rapidly wears off. The cutscene generates excitement but then grinding and questing and PvE events etc. etc. work to make the game into some kind of numbers and skills drive. Nice if you like it, total immersion breaking if you don't know what you are signing up for in an MMORPG.

Case in point? I recently had a look at WAR. It looked nice and everything (immersion breaking HUD aside). My friend (playing as a Magus) summoned his disk of Tzeentch, left the beautiful crystal cave he was in and then crested a hill to end up in the middle of an Elven fortress of some kind. "Cool" I said as the encampment stretched out in front of us, lined with archers, warriors and war machines. Meanwhile, the Elves seem pretty unfazed so we fire balled one and got his attention. A couple of seconds later, the guard was a burning corpse and the rest of the defense force......just stood around. Apparently, not at all fazed that their colleague had been killed and that the base was under some kind of attack. We then saw that a guildmate was in the area so we IMed them and met up. In the middle of the camp. An Orc and an evil wizard stood in the middle of an enemy encampment, shooting the shit, and not getting any trouble from the guards.

"I'm looking for a guy with a sword drop" Noggle IM'ed us.
"Yeah he's named, he's up on the ridge" Was my friends reply.

Both then went off, walked past about 30 guys, who weren't interested (unless you violate their personal bubble of about 2m diameter) greased the named guy and collected the sword. And so it went on.
If this was a game of any other genre, that kind of AI would be game breaking. Maybe Solid Snake and Sam Fisher had it all wrong. You don't need stealth just an air of confidence and you walk straight into the heart of the enemy, kill the bad guy and walk out the front door.

We then went into some kind of capture the flag PvP variant (escort the explosive barrel to the enemy base while they were trying to do the same deal) and the whole universe of Warhammer is shattered when you see 15 disorganised evil doers bundle 15 disorganised 'good guys' for 15 minutes straight. Running around like an idiot, jumping about, clicking icons and keeping your eye on four or five bars is not exactly my definition of fun. There were no tactics, no plan, no communication. Just 15 players spawning, buffing themselves (self gays), running into the fray, dying, respawning. Occasionally someone would pick a barrel up in which case there was some vague sense of escorting them to the base but everytime the ensuing melee would leave everyone, barrel carrier included, dead to start the pointless trial again.

It strikes me that a group of well organised players could dominate most of the game, until that is they hit bad guys of sufficiently higher level which is where MMORPGs suck people in. Leveling. I hate it. And these days, everything is leveling, spells, skills, renown, the guild blah blah blah.

It seems to me that MMORPGs could put their pretensions away for a while and learn something from other genres and dare I say it, console games. Here's a list, as ever, numbered:

1) More mini games.
I'm not talking about wiimote waggling mini games proper mini games that are engrossing and a whole new game in their own right. Remember the FFVIII card game? Addictive as hell. Why every MMORPG hasn't just ripped this off is bewildering. Or Blitzball!? I knew a guy who spent practically two years solidly playing blitzball in FFX. In a game like WAR the obvious mini game would be blood bowl. Imagine it. In fact, there's a whole new class, a Blood Bowl coach. Crap in combat but get some special items from a few quests to boost the coaches performance in a match and if your regional team beats another regions team, the whole faction gets a boost (in various things) until the next match.
Imagine hundreds of players congregating weekly to fill the stadium to watch a game. Hoping that their team wins. Hell, go down this road and you could have your own hall of fame per faction of players of renown.

2) Better Exploration.
A fraction (I won't hazard a guess as to how many) of MMORPGs cite exploration as reason for playing MMORPGs. Problem is, exploration in MMORPGs is shit. They need to take a cue from GTA and Oblivion (Fallout 3 too). Make exploration interesting. As Chuff_72, friend of TGAM says: "Anything, why isn't there a catapult on top of the highest mountain with a parachute to fire you around FOR FUN, or a ski slope, you could argue that this breaks the atmosphere but frankly that's a cop-out. A mini orc circus or fair, with a shooting game, SOMETHING other than walk miles, hit a guy in the face, walk some more." As someone who spent hours exploring San Andreas I fully agree. Reward the players with hidden areas and hide them so well that only the most avid explorer will find them. It could even be built into the game, if you get a guild of explorers together they can go off and discover whole new continents, unlocking new items globally.

3) Persistent worlds.
The ultimate MMORPG lie. Play Animal Crossing for a month and you have a real feel that you have changed the town. Swap records with friends in Pokemon and you are occasionally surprised to see a TV show talking about the feats of one of your friends from undertaking a hardcore feat through to the ridiculous. Play any RTS and you really get a feeling for your base, think carefully about where you build your new buildings and where you put bunkers etc. Play an MMORPG and the hub is the hub is the hub. Some areas can be 'captured' in MMORPGs but often this results in everything being blue to being purple, until the good guys recapture it. Why not launch an MMO where there are no settlements whatsoever. Players can then band together and start to build one. Harvesting resources and building villages, towns and cities in the shape they want. Take the building design thing from Spore, and the resource management and city creation from SimCity and Command and Conquer and you'd be on to a winner.
Players who build their own settlement will be much more connected to it and you'd start to get some interesting conflicts over resources for building between factions and between settlements.
Don't like the main city the players created? Find fellow players unhappy with the status quo and set up your own colony. Every building can be destroyed meaning that to get a big illustrious city you have to defend it pretty well. This means that if you went to a different server the world we be completely different depending on where the factions built their settlements. One server might be a classic setup with good in one corner and bad in the polar opposite. Another server might have one faction building cities whilst the other faction exists in a guerilla state, relying on thieving and raiding to live in nomadic like settlements. It would be great, trust me.

4) Better character customisation.
Okay a potential problem for PvP players because you need to recognise what class you are up against to work out if you are on the right side of the paper, scissors, stone triangle to bother with the fight. But come on. PlayStation games offered superior customizations than your typical MMORPG and they were games you weren't expected to spend 2000 hours looking at the back of your characters head. Character customisation is so dreary, you'd be hard pressed to tell one MMORPG from another from a screen shot, but you would be able to tell what class they were. Some might worry that you lose the sense of a universe if all the buildings and inhabitants looked completely different, but then most universe seem obsessed on making you kill 24 frogs, or rats, or crabs or XXXXs for rewards. At least make everyone start out generic but allow them to customise their character as they progress. That way players would know to instantly fear the giant electric pink gimp, not because they were a gimp but because they'd spent a lot of time in the game to customise their avatar to such a degree.

5) Dispense with leveling.
I don't know how this would work. Leveling keeps players playing and buying expansions and keeps MMORPGs in business. Dispense of it and it becomes another throw away game. Leveling as a means of progression is very cheap though and an easy way to prevent players from running from the starting hub right to the last stage or phase of the open world. Some other mechanism of unlocking new areas, items and skills would be desirable and help to take the genre away from being a basically tarted up numbers game.

6) Persistent worlds II
Did you beat the big bad boss that everyone in the last village was complaining about but didn't get the drop you wanted? It's fine, just come back later and he and his minions will be there again. Every day, round the clock. Narrative breaking. Immersion breaking. And sad to think that villages are kept in perpetual fear by the ever-respawning local bad guy. By the same token it would be a pretty poor game if you spend the whole time trailing the servers leading group, coming across the still warm corpses of all the big bad bosses. In some MMORPGs this system is so broken that you have to queue up to fight a particular battle. Game breaking indeed.
A way around this is, if you beat the local bad guy, you become the local bad guy. Taking their place either permanently, choosing to settle in, decorate the place and choose your own army of minions or by leaving a copy of yourself. This way, it at least makes sense in terms of the storyline and in theory could result in some interesting dynamics.

7) More server wide celebrities.
There may be some MMORPG 'celebrities' but unless you play every day and haunt the forums, you'd be hard pressed to pick out any kind of achiever, arch nemesis or hero on any given server. NPCs should be programmed to chatter about a particular player character who has been causing havoc recently. Some MMORPGs have a king or lord which is one way of drawing attention to successful players but more effort should be put into recognising individuals. If one guild consistently defends a settlement from being razed to the ground then the villagers should start singing their praises. And if the town is overtaken it takes a while for the citizens to stop complaining that things were better under the "I love willies" for example. This would help players build attachments to areas of the world and also add a bit of comedy when NPCs become attached to a particular player.

8) Get rid of the HUD and try to make things look more exciting.
I'm not offering up any answers to this but some of the stuff going on in EVE Online sounds amazing. Watch a video though and it looks like a poor screensaver. The same is true with fantasy MMORPGs. Watch the top players play against each other on GomTV and die of boredom as two avatars jump around each other until one falls over. The HUD and little numbers hovering above players heads need to go. Again, it all makes you take one step back from the universe and just looks , well crap. Also, we all know about bullshots in console games but compare the FMV of most MMORPGs and compare them to the game itself. They are two completely different entities. One is dramatic and exciting and leaves you wanting more and the other is boring and silly with little people firing blue crap at each other whilst hopping around. Plenty of other games manage to disguise or hide menus and lifebars so MMORPGs should look to do this so that regardless of whether or not you know what dps is, the fights look good to everyone not just the people behind the clicking or people who know exactly what is going on when 'the green shit appears on one guys head and the other guy keeps spinning on the spot". Hard to pull off but I think it would help in the long run. Perhaps a bushido blade system should be implemented. It would be hard and tip the scale in the favour of skill, over level and would probably drive most MMORPG players away.

So there we have it. Anyone in the know will probably go through this list one by one picking out why each of the above is either impossible or game breaking so we'll just stick with what we've got thank you very much. That may be fine but until then myself and a few others will remain skeptical that MMORPGs are little more than poor copycat machines designed to keep people paying subs. It's not that MMORPGs aren't popular of course but they could be a hellovalot more compelling IMO.

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.

???

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.