That guy's a Maniac...

I got ill for Christmas. Cold sweats, runny nose, the lot and because I was in lands-a-foreign, the only thing I had to see me through moments when I wasn't delirious was a DS and a random selection of games. I needed to play a game that wouldn't mind me running away to snot every few seconds and also one that I could play in all three positions (laying on my front, reverse cowboy and neck propped up). Turns out Final Fantasy III was the only game that I had on me that fits the bill, annoyingly. I say annoyingly for three good reasons. Firstly, in something that might be called RPGitis I've been stuck on the same bit for years now. If you ever played an RPG, particularly a Squeenix one, you'll have no doubt experienced something similar. When I load up my game I find that I'm outside a city. I go into the city but from the way everyone is welcoming my guys like heroes, it's clear I've just finished what I needed to do for these city dwellers. I have no godl

Dear Cretins. We've received just under 15k* emails regarding why our 'best of' link leads to an under construction page and has done for the last couple of years. Well, now it is fixed. Ish. Here it be . A year by year break down of the highs and lows of TGAM over the last four years (up to 2009). We laughed. We cried. We even did a couple of good posts. You can also find our lists of lists to date (up until 2009). I think you'll find we've been consistently excellent these last four years justifying our position as 50% of the living gaming celebrities on Earth. *Well 15k worth of emails were shipped. Ha topical joke that we be incomprehensible in 5, 4, 3, 2.... what the hell does it mean?

In Games, snow: 1) Makes nice footprints that disappear after a while 2) Makes everything a bit slidey. 3) Is always accompanied by music with bells in it. 4) Makes penguins and snowmen appear. In real life, snow: 1) Makes women stand indoors no matter where they are/ where they were going to. 2) Blocks all forms of transport. 3) Causes horrific traffic accidents. 4) Kills old people. So there we have it. Snow in games is much nicer than in real life. SUCK THAT SNOW IN GAMES NAYSAYERS.

Do we go: Pretentious Wanker and choose the most obscure flash game, that essentially recreates one alrightish mini-game from an Amiga game once? Nearer the truth but Crass and choose CoD? Back to our roots and choose a Wii game that we might be able to play with another normal human being and not get embarrassed because tits/violence-that-adolescents-find-amusing comes up and undermines all that envangelising about how games are worthy or wider appreciation? Democratic and just say WoW? Completely wrong and say Alan Wake? Like a proper fucking man and say Gran Turismo 5? Full retard and say some iOS game? Or with our heart and say Monster Hunter Tri? Decisions decisions.

We're quite disappointed with the current generation of consoles, particularly the HD ones. What they gained in processing power they mostly squandered on pretty graphics but gameplay by and large still riffing on what we'd been introduced to in the PS2 days. We're being harsh. There were some leaps forward, mostly in terms of online connectivity but here's four features we believe should just be standard. In all games. From now on. 1) Screenshots. LET THE PEOPLE TAKE SCREENSHOTS. For the love of christ. Not only does it mean that we can share such lovely in game memories as the one above but it makes writing, blogging and social networking about games sooooo much easier. Especially RPGs. You want to cherish those precious memories long after the internal memory has perished so just let us take a screenshot wherever and whenever we want. Whilst we are at it also, why every single game doesn't rip off Halo 3's Theatre mode we don't know. Our ratio of playing

You've all seen these: The standard retail display for UK game sellers. There's a bunch of games, maybe organised alphabetically and then in pride of place a selection of 10 or 20 games next to some big numbers. This particular display was snapped at Currys/PC World/Tech Guys type store. You see them everywhere though, GAME, Gamestation, Toys'R'Us. This is the frontline of game retailing. The burning question is what the fuck is the reasoning behind the numbers? Is one better or worse than ten? Let's take a closer look at this particular display, snapped on the 13 December in detail. At number 1 is Wii Party. Could it be top seller? Or maybe a new release? At number 2 we have Just Dance and the Prince of Persia Wiimakes. Possibly top sellers still? Although I didn't think PoP did half as well as Just Dance. Nor was it half as fun. In at number three we have the Force Unleashed 2? Number 4 is both Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics and that classic game, Big

Yes. Good. We heard rumours that Capcom was ditching the gratuitous tits shots in upcoming games. PUT THAT RUMOUR TO BED.

I shit you not! this is the box art for a Nintendo DS game in Japan.  The Game is called "Fly Mr.Science - Great Expedition of the Earth! Challenge the Mysterious and Strange Creatures." Mr Science is the man with no skin on the right. :( Love and visible sinews. Richie X

You know I used to play a lot of PC games. And one thing that bothered me was PC input of Joypads. You dont get it so much nowadays, as most are cross compatible with the 360 Joypad. ut for those games that still demand a Keyboard mouse combination. I always wanted a "Multiple input" translation. I wanted things like do the Hadouken input to relate to a function or even the Mortal Kombat controls like Up, Up+B top to be translated to a keypress. Admittedly this harked back to the days when I played WoW and I wanted D, DR, R+HK/MK/LK to relate to the different types of fire spells I could cast as my mage. Just... Why hasnt something like this happened? It may not be entirely useful, but c'mon, we're all gamers here. Surely some technophile out there wanted to run a browser or something using Street Fighter moves? :/ Well anyway. Love and Shoryuken!, Richie X

You know I used to play a lot of PC games. And one thing that bothered me was PC input of Joypads. You dont get it so much nowadays, as most are cross compatible with the 360 Joypad. ut for those games that still demand a Keyboard mouse combination. I always wanted a "Multiple input" translation. I wanted things like do the Hadouken input to relate to a function or even the Mortal Kombat controls like Up, Up+B top to be translated to a keypress. Admittedly this harked back to the days when I played WoW and I wanted D, DR, R+HK/MK/LK to relate to the different types of fire spells I could cast as my mage. Just... Why hasnt something like this happened? It may not be entirely useful, but c'mon, we're all gamers here. Surely some technophile out there wanted to run a browser or something using Street Fighter moves? :/ Well anyway. Love and Shoryuken!, Richie X

A common counter argument for those trying to interpret games, either with an agenda or without, is that they haven't played enough games to warrant their opinion being worth even contemplating. In a post which has just vanished from Kotaku (who knows it may or may not be here ) Salman Rushdie has something to say but, you know what, he hasn't played as many games as us so let us just discount everything he says. But exactly how many games does one need to play so that the gamers will listen. Here's our handy guide for when you want to say something about games but may be worried you aren't qualified enough. 0 Games- Rogert Ebgert or whoever, resides here. You ain't got nothing. You got no stock. Anything you say will cause knee flinching reactions and anywhere up to six months worth of everyone chipping in, ironically, about how you have nothing to say on the matter. 1-10 Games Alright Johnny casual? We hate to tell you but Farmville, Snake, Angry Birds, Wii Spor

So Pokemon Black and White are now out in some parts of the world and there's now a whole bunch of new Pokemon to go after for the impossible task of catching them all . As ever when there's something new of different people will fear, hate and even write essays on their own wiki discussion pages. Team TGAM is split on the new critters. Richie is excited about some of the new type match ups and I just look at this page and slowly shake my head until my neck aches. However, love them or hate them this new generation has finally given us that last Pokemon with the specific characteristics needed for us to create this image which we've been dreaming of making for years. Click for its splendor to fill your screen. Okay. Time for a new dream!

Like all aspiring middle class people the only paper we buy is the Graudian and the Observer and every week we get a little bit angry that games are never covered in The Review supplement. That Travel and Sport get their whole own separate supplements is a bog post for another day. Like a lot of other gamers we're still waiting for an audible 'ding' to alert us to the fact that yes, games are now socially acceptable. If you so wished you too could hijack a dinner party/pub lunch with a boring lecture about games in the same way that it is acceptable for wine bores, travel bores and I've just popped a child bores to do. Even though games probably already are socially acceptable we're still waiting for the ding. The batman signal in the sky, the ironic t-shirt that becomes an unofficial trendy uniform, the endless historical documentaries on BBC4 or even our own OBE. Even more frustrating is that the Guardian do have a fairly decent crop of games writers who don't

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are happy to announce that the Barioth from Monster Hunter Tri is the latest video game character to enter the 'Jumpy Twat Hall of Fame'. Barioth is the latest video game character to have solicited over 1 million frustrated calls of 'Jumpy Twat!' and thus eligible to enter the JTHoF joining such luminary jumpy twats as all of Bowser's children, Half Life headcrabs, Alien facehuggers and eliminators from Resident Evil. Jumpy Twats all. Why can't you just stand still for a second? I'm just trying to do something.

CLICK THIS SHIT.

...another whinge about the problem with pre-owned games. Our stance is very clear and we've bored each other (and hence 100% of the readership) silly with it but until news posts about it desist we won't desist looking on in amazement. Our problem with retailers is that they, in no way, really try to offer up the best of gaming. Older platforms vanish from shelves within weeks and new games enjoy the spotlight for a couple of weeks. We for example are keen discerning gamers at the time of life with a little bit of disposable income yet time and time again we have to head online or buy second hand games to get the kinds of games we want to play. At all. There isn't a brand new copy sitting on a shelf with convenient distance that I'm ignoring. I prefer to buy games brand new (although not on launch day and certainly not at the ridiculous prices some games are). In most cases, these games aren't obscure or limited run games. They're fairly big releases (recent ex

NOT BEN10 that hideous cartoon that isn't as good as all those cartoons we grew up on M.A.S.K etc. but a charming little Belgian film. When we're used to getting excited about, analyzing and dismissing media before it has even been released it was nice to be taken by surprise by this little film. I hadn't heard of it and in fact wasn't really aware of it being at all video game themed and a quick Google seems to suggest it wasn't picked up by the monolith of websites calling themselves video game blogs. It's a touching tale 'based on real life events' that quite heavily features video games but not in a brainless sense a la Gamer or a massive advert a la Wizard but featuring a video game ( ArchLord , missed that on the wikipedia page didn't ya, wiki cunts ) as part of a normal life. Dare-we-say-it even in a positive light? For gamers out there I'd recommend giving it a watch. Not only is it the best video game related film out there at the moment

The unreliable eurogamer has an interesting piece just up about some guy who made the blogeadlines back in 2007 by ranting against the Wii at GDC. That's fine, each to their own but what Hecker does go on to say is the kind of idiotic rhetoric that gets our goat here at TGAM. From the linked article: "Game design and gameplay is not separable from CPU power," he told Eurogamer. "You can do more interesting games with a faster CPU. Nintendo made an underpowered platform, relative to what you could have made at the time. This in itself is theoretically uncontroversial but is moot in reality. Where are all these 'more interesting games?' on other platforms? We've said it time and time again but the reason why at least one of us isn't writing off the Wii as an acceptable console is because now, perhaps more than ever there is a real dearth of diversity of good games across all the current generation of games. Furthermore, the quality of graphics with Xbo

Three working days is up bitches so I'm posting my letter to Konami here. Then maybe we'll put it on twitter and start a facebook group and maybe make page 416 of the Guardian Guide this weekend until Konami reply to us. Dear Konami, We here at the blog That Guy's A Maniac have been debating buying the new Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Game. It has received excellent reviews all around and we are a fan of other Konami games. Silent Hill is excellent. Not so much Metal Gear Solid but each to their own. Anyway, despite being just over a month old it is already retailing for less than £20 in some places. LESS THAN £20! How is this sustainable? I'm a discerning gamer and the above game price is not even for a second hand copy but I bet the game cost a fair million to make and is already discounted to a half/third of the price. Perhaps a bit longer pride of place in the spotlight would be better for the game? I couldn't see a copy on the shelves of the largest GAME store

So editor of Gamespot UK, and owner of a name that still makes me giggle, has come out and stated that the 360 should be gadget of the 21st Century: As a gadget fan with an iPad, an Android phone and many of the other gadgets on this list, there's still only one thing I'd take to a desert island -- my Xbox 360 S. With a flat screen TV, an Internet connection and a copy of Halo: Reach, obviously. Surely the flat screen and "teh internets" is cheating? but yeah, ok 360 as Contender for Gadget of the 21st Century? It's a big claim! I mean we are only 10 years in (I assume this must be some sort of rolling competition?) anyways. I love the 360, i prefer it to the PS3 and the Wii. So yeah if a console is gonna get the Gadget of the 21st Century, I would vote for the 360. Honestly though, I don't see a console winning. The contenders consist of the usual Apple products, a selection of Phones (some as outdated as the Motorola Razr), some Cameras/Camco

Watching the goggle box yesterday was almost like watching the PS3/Xbox360 ads channel with the occasional television programme in between. PS3 are gunning for attention with an Assassin's Creed Brotherhood ad with music and very mild violence ("exclusive features for the PlayStation 3" presumably means you can play as a Sackboy). Meanwhile Kinect ads ran almost every single break. I don't know if it was deliberate or not but every single advert had a glitchy blip at the same place when the 360 logo came up at the end. Maybe they've changed their branding to be more in line with the Kinect experience. Anyone else notice that (for reference, during Vampire Diaries- yes now you can JUDGE ME ON MY TELEVISION WATCHING HABITS)?

Guitar hero is shallow. 6 versions later and not much has changed whatsoever. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Guitar hero 6 has brought in a slapdash "plot" element the "Quest" mode, akin to the story mode in previous versions. You pick a character, play a few songs from their setlist, get enough stars, unlock the encore song, and also unlock some new outfits/character designs. Later Rinse, Repeat, till Final boss. There is also a plethora of cheevos to pick up on the way. Quick mode offers challenges, more fun cheevos  and a rather nice addition, a full collection of all the songs from the other Guitar hero titles (and DLC) giving me 200+ Songs in one place. The Setlist is different this time round; It seems neversoft have decided to stay in the Rock Genre, which is a good Niche, let Rock band have the Family Fun appeal.. In Short, the game cost me £20 brand new, it does not add much to the series, just some nice aesthetic changes and some fun

Oh Great Jaggi how Great are you? Not that great anymore the Great Baggi is greater than you you are still greater than jaggis and jaggias though So comparatively, your name is apt. The first time I tried to hunt you, you won. And the second time. Not the third time, although I did have help. Stupid shoulder barge That used to take off 80% of my health. Now it does very little. Go ahead. Call your buddies. All they do is dance around. Baggis spit ice stuff at you and make you sleep. Unless Cha Cha helps me. Cha cha never helps me. I'm gonna leave you in the village next time you little shit. Maybe I should sell all that Great Jaggi stuff In me box. BUT MAYBE I'LL NEED IT LATER. I'll hang on to it for a bit. See you around 'Great' Jaggi. In the meantime I need A Rathian Plate.

Trailer for Goldeneye Wii or whatever it's being called: What is interesting is that it uses quotes from actual gaming websites rather than quotes from News of The World (Fallout New Vegas "All bets are off"). Or nuts magazine. For example. Trying to bring some 'hardcore credibility' to the marketing of a Wii game or just good practice finally aligning marketing with gamers who might buy games rather than the everyman who actually sees the News of the World as some sort of trustworthy advocate for things....?

I actually resent giving these slimy vaginal pus buboes any kind of media coverage whatsoever. But yeah for those of you that care (ideally the imbalanced ones with a sniper rifle) these faecal ridden lesions will be in Covent gardens on Saturday the 13th. Love and resentment, Richie X 

"The video games industry was born in Japan and then exported overseas." Kaz Takeshita quoted from this article over at the Beeb. Okay there's some wiggle room with 'video games industry' but seriously now?

Last week David Cameron was widely covered in the newspapers surrounding his ambition to create a Silicon City in East London. Although you might expect us to be excited about this it actually left us feeling a bit deflated and annoyed. Why, why is it time for a bulleted list? Yes yes it is. Reasons Why David Cameron and Silicon City annoyed TGAM. Video Games weren't mentioned at all in the coverage we read and we've just finished reading the excellent excellent Replay: the History of Video Games which is not just a damn fine book but it is so meticulously researched that we had revelation after revelation about how games came to be but also how games ended up being responsible for a great deal of the technological stuff that we now take for granted (including operating systems, twitter and facebook). To omit games seems a little bit short sighted when in fact we do have a good games industry in this country........ Especially with the increasing frustration over the scrapping

As the other three people in the UK who stop to actually use the other Wii channels may have noticed, via a message from ninty, that playable Wiiware demos are back! It used to be the case that you could try a handful of the download service games helping you decide whether to buy or not but for unknown reasons nintendo stopped the service which was annoying. We have issues with all of the downloadable games platforms on all the current generation of consoles but demos work really well on the Xbox 360 and used to on the Wii. Otherwise, of course, spending those Wii points on an unknown entity can result in players never using it again (missing out on gems like Swords and Soldiers, World of Goo and our favourite Lit). So we welcomed the change. Furry Legends (Gamelion), Jett Rocket (Shin'en Multimedia), ThruSpace (Nintendo) and Zombie Panic in Wonderland (Akaoni Studio) are currently available. We managed to scrounge up enough free blocks (sorry Today and Tomorrow channel but you we

We bemoan the game retail industry. How is it that the cool world of games that independent blogs and magazines show us never manages to translate to the high street? The meatspace (ugh!) frontlines? We were in London this weekend (in 'town' the cool kids call it) and the excitement around Wednesdays Kinect launch was zero because HMV had closed its demo area. Also nice to see in John Lewis amongst the six DS games and five Wii games on sale was an amazing selection of 3D televisions with no 3D glasses available. The future is poorly staffed it seems......

Report just in from our very occassional reporter on the Street. Chuff_72. I swear this just happened, no exaggeration. In Game, Central London: C72 - Hi, I'm looking for a copy of Monster Hunter Tri? Man1 - *Blank look" C72 - It's on the Wii. Man1 - The Wii? C - Yeah M1 - Have you looked in the Wii section? C- Yeah, couldn't see it M1 - Sorry what was it called C - Monster Hunter Tri M1 - Monster Hunter Trial? C - Tri, T, R, I M1 - Right, I'll have a look C - *Waits for a few minutes* M1 - Sorry can't find it… What was it called again? C - Monster Hunter Tri? M1 - *To Man2* Ever heard of The Monster Trial? M2 - Monster Hunter? M1 - Trial M2 - No. Have you have a word with Steve? M1 - *Bearing in mind they are standing next to me!* No. Turns to me, yeah we can't find it. Holy. Sh*t. I know we have this all the time but come on dude! At least get the f*cking name right and don't then ask a guy about it in front of me and essentially lie about whether you

'MCV is the leading news site for the game industry. Check out our news, press releases and interviews.' Is the annoying tagline that comes with the first line of every news story from MCV from the comfort of my feed reader. I don't know but (checks...) yes. MCV's website is one of those horrible Gamespot format ones where it looks like someone has nose spewed onto the page and then garnished it with adverts mid- fucking-article. Just let the whole story through the feed reader and not just a tagline and let me choose whether or not I want to read more than two lines of your stories.

This time of year is normally a bit short of news. The Christmas big hitters have yet to start the hype machine. WELL 2010 IS THE YEAR THIS CHANGES. Look at these interesting news headlines. The Official Nitendo Magazine drops a News bomb with Pokemon Snap wasn't originally a Pokemon game Kotaku drops it like it is hot with Super Mario Bros' Controls Were Originally Different And at least 40000 different sources are confirming that PSPGo is getting a price drop. Are they still making the PSP? I thought that died ages ago. Still, exciting news if you want to catch up on two Metal Gear Solid Games and watch Family Guy on the train to work. What's worse than an industry of writers with nothing to write about? A writer writing about it. EXCITING TIMES GUYS.

We're talking away. I don't know what I'm to say. I'll say it anyway. Today's another day to find you. Shying away. I'll be coming for your love, OK? Take on me, take me on. I'll be gone. In a day or two. So needless to say. I'm odds and ends. But that's me stumbling away. Slowly learning that life is OK. Say after me "It's no better to be safe than sorry". Take on me, take me on. I'll be gone. In a day or two Oh the things that you say. Is it life or just a play my worries away. You're all the things I've got to remember. You're shying awayI'll be coming for you anyway. Take on me, take me on I'll be gone in a day or two 8/10. Worth a purchase!

We get literally a dozen emails every four years asking us how we manage to write at least two hard hitting posts a month. Well reader here's a behind the scenes look at a post in progress, with directors commentary at the bottom. That's right, we're opening up the creative process to you the readers. Not at all because we can't be bothered to write anything proper. Who knows? This may inspire you to start up yet another video game blog because there aren't enough of those around!!!!!* Here it goes: With my wife away on business, I've spent hours and hours with my mistress. There's nothing quite as thrilling as sitting in my pants, opening a bottle of wine and spending the night with another woman. However, this other woman isn't Tracy from accounts, it's a woman called Cunzy1 1 who is mighty handy with a bowgun. Yes, after months of waiting I finally picked up Monster Huntr Tri for the nintendo Wii and I've gorged myself on it this last week and

So Capcom spoke out about a couple of their older Franchises, back before Resident evil was a wannabe 1st person shooter, and dads searched for Zombrex for their infected daughters whilst wearing a mankini and riding a little pink bike. It seems Onimusha shan't be seeing a remake/reboot any time soon, and well... Dino Crisis: " while Dino Crisis has the unfortunate problem of nobody at the company having "a burning desire" to "light that franchise back up again.". Nobody cares :( This was all of course in response to the Devil May Cry Reboot, with that fake Dante. Love and Burning Desire,  Richie X

Just Monster Huntering. In the meantime, here's an image and some tasters for posts I won't write anytime soon 1) About the time I went to buy Monster Hunter 4 months after it was released and couldn't find a copy. 2) About the time I 100% Zack and Wiki after swearing a lot. Really really a lot. 3) About how there are no good British games bloggers left anymore now that Kieron Gillen left. 4) About how I tried to play Monster Hunter Tri online but was too scared.

Married now though. Which has nothing to d o with the absence. I gave up games for three weeks voluntarily. Because I AM IN CONTROL. Did go here though: So. What didi I miss?

Say hello to the new Dante... My CG-Man-crush is over in fact, Any flirtations with this "New Dante" would force me to sign some register. This is apparently a "Reboot" of the series, due for release on 360 and PS3. Though from the pics over at the Capcom Urinary , I am unconvinced, this looks like A prequel, prequel, set before DMC3 I don't see "the island, the setting of DMC1 .  The other option is that this is actually Nero instead, but nobody wants to think about that. Well I'm excited there is a new DMC in town, but ambivalent as to the approach.  Ambivalent Love and Hugs, Richie X

Since 66% of this blog is situated in Scotland, and I am actually in the games Industry, I suppose we are expected to comment on this one. For those of you who don't know, APB flopped, and as such RTW went into administration. Now, did anyone NOT see this one coming? I certainly saw this... not as a pessimistic prediction, more a painfully apparent inevitability. I have seen many people come and go from this company, each time I would pose the question, "why, realtime worlds?". Just to be met with an almost blind ignorance that this company could 'do no wrong', when specifically they were working on a supposed WoW-killer MMO. An ambitious task, anyone would agree. And the premise of this WoW-killer? Cops and Robbers. Realtime worlds I roll my eyes at thee. Though I do have to tip my hat to them, during the time (years) leading up to the launch they did manage to create some hype about a 'GTA-like MMO' (lies), and at one point made micro-transactions s

Last weekend was my stag do, which was organised by my gay partner, Richie! Unlike your traditional stag do there was not a stripper in sight. Or going out. At all. Instead it was this groom to be and his bezzy mates playing the games that we all grew up with. I couldn't have asked for a better stag do, I laughed until I cried, I drank until it hurt and we had one last gaming session with all my Slads in one (well, two rooms). Sadly on Sunday I realised this would probably be the last time we'd all be together with nothing but time for playing the games that we cut our teeth on. But enough of the gay stuff! AWARDS TIME! Group Awards. CLICK FOR BIG IMAGE. This will mean very little if you weren't there. Some of the games that came out: Quake 2, Mashed, Mario Kart, Boom Blox, Geometry Wars, Resident Evil 5, Timesplitters 2, Puzzle Fighter, Blazblue, Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur, Pod Racer, Red Faction Guerilla, Wii Sports, Army of Two and even a spot of doorsies. The weeke