That guy's a Maniac...

Bank holiday Monday is for plans, plans, plans and then those plans getting totally scuppered by The Yesterday Channel (the past is always present) and back to back episodes of Nazi Hunters. Spontaneous thought for the day: when will games be able to 'do' the liberation of concentration camps with the due gravitas? Looking to the awful (single player) Modern Warfare 2 (awful game, awful story and awful schlock tactics) which in many ways is the (inappropriate) poster child for games if not gamers, I'd say not for another decade at least. So instead of generating actual new content now that the bank holiday has been practically spent, I'm going to write up my thoughts of the MCM expo whilst they are still fresh in my mind. Firstly, the day involved at least five types of queueing but fortunately, impromptu games of identify the cosplayer made all the queuing a bit more palatable. For a ticketed event, you would assume that the venue would have been a little bit more prep...

Bank Holiday Monday blogging! Once again, we've been watching the Nintendo Channel so you don't have to. Can we get a "slow news week"? Now the love affair with Monster Hunter is over there's not a great deal of new or good stuff on the Nintendo channel since last week . Those ace Warioware: Do it Yourself videos continue with Todd Lewis, that chap from Scribblenauts who makes a rather lovely micro game but who comes across as very very nervous under the pressure. Worth a watch and again, we hope these videos keep a coming. Penta Tentacles is a colourful flow-a-like from the 'artstyle' family which looks a little bit derivative if we are honest. Still, we'll reserve judgement from when we've had our hands on it and more than likely we'll find ourselves still up at 4am in the morning collecting floaty bits. There's a Dragon Quest IX trailer up, which as you can imagine looks like what you'd expect a Dragon Quest IX trailer to lo...

Syndicate Wars was the first PlayStation game I ever owned. I had played Syndicate at a friends' house and it was with some excitement when my brother and I popped the PSX version in for the first time. Up to 4 player co-op, manga signposts, awesome soundscape (we loved Neotokyo on Timesplitters 2 because of how Syndicate it felt), bank robbing, pursuada-tronning, setting trigger wire traps, getting into a hover car and flying about, setting crowds on fire, the meaty spit when the LR rifle liquidises a person from range. That whole game was amazing* and we'd poured hours and hours into the game (occassionally accompanied by the good Dr. Wo). We played the Eurocorp Agent missions because, hey, guys in trench coats are so much cooler than the guys with the shoulder pads. Apparently, I've just discovered, there was actually a proper 'plot' according to wikipedia but I never read any of the mission briefings and still loved it. Eventually, we managed to get to the las...

It's Cammy dressed as M.Bison. Newly released DLC costumes! Fucking awesome. I don't have SFIV or SSFIV, but boy am I reconsidering that! More pics of the other cameltoe-tastic costumes over at the Capcom Urinary . Love and Transgender Roleplay. Richie X.

Gears of War 2: So yeah as you may of noticed I'm a fan of Gears of War and try and play online with select friends as much as I can. With that said I am yet to claim that I am any good at the game. It's the kind of game that if you take any extensive break from it, your skills become far less sharp very quickly. I find at the moment I've not been regular enough to claim to be good, although occasionally show flashes of the old magic. So on to the glory. This particular match was in Execution mode on the 'River' map. The game was tied at 4 rounds each and the final round had started. I went off to the hut/tower to get the Torque Bow while the rest of my team picked up grenades and congregated at the Boom shot. As it turns out we didn't get the Boomshot and with one "Boom" my entire team was taken out. I was alone. Alone in the hut with five Locusts hunting me down. Almost instantly one of them came eagerly ch...

So APB... For those of you who don't know; for the past decade or something! A little company in Dundee called Realtimeworlds has been wasting its time trying to make an MMO based, essentially, on Cops and Robbers.  It went beta a while back, and seems it may even get  released this year! Do you care? Probably not, you hear MMO you automatically thing WoW, it's a reflex. As pretty as this little MMO might be, apparently they have a whole team dedicated to clothes physics, it's far from a WoW killer, especially with Cataclysm: AKA WoW2 on the horizon.  They recently released a statement that the game may receive mixed reviews . Woah, really? you think some people will like it and others won't. What a marketing strategy, why not just say, "our game is average". Though in my experience, Developers are meant to hype their games? *glances at Molyneux* Does that mean that its worse than average? Surely not? A game that has been in development longer ...

World of Warcraft. As much as I hate to admit it, WoW makes it on this top moments in gaming, one of the best moments in gaming was downing Ragnaros for the first time. I first joined the guild for Molten Core at level 58, as they were missing a ranged DPS, I didn't contribute much, but still, I was better than nothing... It was fun because, I was a lower level, I was a bit of a liability, as I had a bigger agro radius, and the guild were having fun with it too, using warlocks to summon me past nasty mobs, which we were just ignoring for this run. A while into this run a few folks noticed that I was set up to do fire spells, this was all very amusing to the guild, a little fire-mage in "Molten core", a place full of fire type enemies.  Suffice it to say, very shortly after that I proceeded to get to level 60 and I was helping the raid out with my continued Fire DPS on a weekly basis. The guild had been having a go at Molten core for a few weeks by the time ...

Continuing from last weeks theme, Painful Moments in Gaming, we shall be moving on to the more positive side: Glorious moments in gaming. Without bragging too much, we shall try to detail some of best moments we have experienced in gaming, those moments where you punch the air in elation, where you scream and hug the person next to you, no matter their gender (you know like what the "normals" do when their team scores a goal or something).  4 years of that guys! who'd have thought it... Love Thatguys X

Prostitutes. More specifically, killing prostitutes. Having sex with a prostitute and then killing her and getting your money back. This is but one thing you have been able to do in Grand Theft Auto games since GTA III. Sure, you could view a thousand beautiful sunsets, save lives as an ambo paramedic, drive a motor bike off of a fuck-off great mountain and parachute to earth or, if you were so inclined, elope with a white priest on a yacht to a secluded stretch sea for some serious inter-racial homosexual making out sessions*. There were thousands of things you could do in GTA which is one of the many many reasons why the games flew off the shelves. It's kinda what 'sandbox game' means. Sadly it seems none of those other possibilities piqued the interest of newscasters, alarmist journalists or lazy politicians quite so much as the prostitute scenario. To labour the point, you could, if so inclined, you could just drive real slow and careful, looking for blacks . But of ...

Treasure Island Dizzy: The pain isn't over yet... The year was 1989, I had a Commodore 64. Games like Outlaw, Double Dragon and Bubble Bobble frequented my tv screen. My favourite however was Treasure Isand Dizzy from Code Masters and the Oliver Twins. The plot was basically, you're stuck on an island and want to get back to the 'yolkfolk' . Through a series of inventory based puzzles you build a boat and get off the island by paying the shopkeeper character 30 Gold coins (which you have collected throughout). For those of you who are unaware, this was seen as the most difficult of the Dizzy Franchise, unlike the predecessor which you had 5 lives and the sequel which had 3, in Treasure Island Dizzy you had one life. Consider that for a moment, one life. One life, with no ability to save the game, it was all or nothing. This also wasn't an easy game, you had to essentially memorise the side-scrolling map, often jumping blindly in to the next...

As if this week wasn't painful enough, LEGEND Dr Wo 69 has an eleventh hour entry! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee got a 419 in North East Banana Grove. It took a stupid amount of concentration to get to Vice City in the OG GTA and when it came onto the PS2 in full 3D glory it was the version that I played the most and enjoyed the most in a murdering sense. I tried San Andreas but it was just too god damn big! Yeah you can do all this crazy stuff in it with bikes and parachutes but I could never recognize a landmark to let me get my bearings. Vice City, 3 islands, couple of bridges, airport all you need to have fun in. I took a vow on this game that I would NEVER CHEAT! EVER! Not one for anything, if I needed a weapon I would go and find it, if I wanted armour I would buy it, if I wanted an Apache Gunship I would have to steal it. The reason for this, is that I wanted the best Criminal Rating possible and by entering the cheats your rating gets a rapin...

Thank god Most Painful Moments in Gaming is over. Not only did the frustration of my individual pains come flooding back but the pain of my right honorouble friends made me cringe anew. However all this frustration will be offset with next week's feature-creeping best moments. In the meantime, I'm going to take a quick butcher's at some of the stuff currently up on the Ninty Channel at the moment. I'm a big fan of the Nintendo Channel, I know not everybody is, but if I have some spare time I try to check it out once or twice a week to see what's new. This week: Monster Hunter Tri still dominates the channel with a massive 19 videos currently up. The latest video, bizarrely titled Hunting Jhen Moran Online is actually just a cutscene from the game (a fucking cool one nonetheless) advertising the now closed(?) event quest. The World of Monster Hunter Tri parts 1 to 6 and the World of Monster Hunter Tri Hunting Grounds set the scene for MHnewcomers but also st...

Dead or Alive 4: FUCK YOU ALPHA-152 Fuck you, you cheaty, cheaty fuck! Alpha-152 is the final boss of Dead or Alive 4, so I had played the "perfect game" i.e. I had played through to Alpha-152 with no continues (if I defeated Alpha-152 without continuing I would earn an achievement). I get to Alpha-152 and she pumps me, like seriously; Teleport, unblockable combo, teleport, throw, death. But never mind I remain calm it was only a crappy achievement, I knuckle down to do this boss yet again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... *Twitch*... and again.  RAAAAAAAAGE! I WAS FUCKING FED UP OF GETTING MY ASS HANDED TO ME BY THE CHEAP CHEATY EXCUSE FOR A "CHALLENGE". I frantically search for something to take my anger out on, I contemplate kicking the 360. No, it's to expensive. I see a pillow, I could totally punch that, no I need to break something. Then I see my phone, the Sony Ericsson K8...

Final Fantasy X-2: No, my "worst moment" is not actually playing through this hyperactive girl-power dross, though it is a major factor. When I bought the game I knew there was a "New Game+" mode so I was determined to complete everything I could on the 1st playthrough, reaching for the FFX2 equivalent of the holy grail; the Mascot Dress Sphere , which would be playable in New Game+. To get this, it involved getting an Episode Complete on all levels.  When I reached the point where I should have unlocked it, it did not happen... Now after a load of research as to why or how this could possibly be. The only thing I can surmise is that; very early on in the game there is a mini-game where you have to protect some crates on a wagon from bandits, I must have not saved enough crates. And well, the game can FUCK RIGHT OFF. It was a poor excuse for a sequel and considering the main bulk of the game was like I had just been brutally anally shafted with a 13...

The Simpsons Game: Now this game was a fun romp, I really enjoyed the storyline, parodying many other games, even referencing their tropes (every so often Comic book guy would pop up, announcing that a video game cliché such as "Double Jump" or "Exploding barrels" had been found).  I had been playing it (couch) co-op, and after an epic session taking us to 5am, we were approaching Matt Groening's mansion, to what felt like a final boss character. Given the late hour, we decided to call it. The next day we resumed, or so we thought. Cue that wonderful message; "Your Save File is corrupt". And sure enough, exit to the dashboard and check the file, big yellow exclamation mark. RIGHT. BEFORE. THE. FINAL. BOSS!! Personally I blame EA for this one; "This game features and Autosave feature". And boy does it, it saves every couple of minutes and after every pickup etc. Constantly writing over the same section on the hard-drive over and...

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion   Oblivion was one of my first experiences on a 'next gen' platform and looking back I was a far more innocent gamer. I wasn't bothered by achievements, or consulting any guides to make sure I didn't miss out on any weapons or plot developments. I was just happy exploring the world and seeing what happened. I remember the first time i was afflicted by Vampirism and having to abandon the main plot while I dealt with this truly surprising plot twist, I miss that innocence and it was only a couple of years ago. Anyway I digress. Oblivion for me was a return to the days of Diablo, which lent itself to multiple playthroughs where you could share equipment across save files and over time I had amassed a huge collection of equipment. This hoarding nature was quickly appearing in Oblivion too. As I ventured innocently across the world of Cyrodill I started to acquire a lot of cool shit, Unique Weapons, Daedric artifacts,...

Too painful to talk about again. /sigh

*Oh spoilers, but if you haven't fucking played it by now, I have no sympathy for you and I really shouldn't cater to you* There is a bit in the game later on, where you have to get by some whirlpools by equipping and unequipping the "iron boots": Time it just wrong and you get a KO from being sucked into the whirlpool and you return to the start of the whirlpool. Which happened over and over and over, keep in mind that to equip or unequip the boots means menu juggling, so it was getting more and more frustrating, till eventually I, out of rage, grabbed the controller and twisted it.  As I did so, the the 2 moulded halves of the controller prised apart However it didn't snap, or break... It did however revert back to it's original state very quickly, the controller snapped shut, the 2 sides closed together pinching a strip of skin on the palm of my hand. Well, not just pinching it actually scissoring the strip right off, forcing me to wear a ...

Pretty much my whole family plays video games but occasionally, my brother and I would end up having little competitions. I still have all the old notebooks with the score for various one v one competitions that would span hours and sometimes days. My brother was an absolute demon at (bizarrely non cart based) driving games and anything to do with the Second World War and I was competent at beat em ups, kart games and FPS so often the competitions would be quite tight. One time we started to argue about who had 'completed' the most games. It was a stupid argument but he had completed more games than me so I insisted that it didn't count unless you had the save game to prove it. So we end up going into the memory card management screen of the PlayStation and counting up all the provable 'completions'. My brother argued that this system wasn't fair especially when games he liked took up more than one slot. In particular, Gran Turismo took up 5 slots, a third of a ...

SSX: Tricky The Year was 2002 and Richie! and Cunzy11 had been playing SSX:Tricky with various Portsmouthians on the PS2 all year. Summer came along and Richie! introduced it in to my life and thus started many many hours and many many sessions of Tricky. Now although we all completed the game to get the best boards/characters etc, the main focus was one of the first tracks, Garibaldi. The tracks simplicity lent itself to a points frenzy, so the game was simple; how many points can you grab in one run by hitting as many x2, x3, and x5 multipliers as possible. Over the months, we poured endless hours in to devising the best route that gave the best pay off in points. Often we would incorporate part of eachothers run in to ours, constantly refining the process. We even theorised about what score a 'perfect run' would yield. The right of passage target (before you were considered a contender) was 1 Million points, however quickly 2M was achieved and everyo...

Viva Piñata: Trouble in paradise: This cutesy game is really fucking good, there is very little like it out on the market, and as it turns out, it's hella addictive! I had come quite far in the game, I had managed to collect most of the species, even managing to collect the elusive Choclodocus . However disaster struck, I load up my "garden" and get presented with "Your save data has become corrupt", Motherfucker! I had spent fucking ages collecting those piñata species! But Salvation! As it turns out there is also a rolling save, and it had registered my progress with collecting species and their stats. So I proceeded to start a new garden, collect the remaining species, send them off to parties, essentially completing the game. Except, I was missing one entry... the Choclodocus... Which, as it turns out it is, in effect, tied to your Gamertag. Restarting the whole process for collecting him again would not allow me to re-obtain him. He is lost in...

I can't remember quite how but one of our group of friends had managed to get hold of a not so legal version of the PlayStation game, Thrill Kill. Thrill Kill, for those of you who don't know was infamously unpublished, at the time 'unpublishable' due to its violence and mature content. BDSM, cannibalism, Gimps and various circus acts duked it out in such gritty locales as a sewer, a car park, a car park sized mental institution and a car park in hell. Remember kids, this was back when Carmaggedon had to be heavily edited in order to see release. Thrill Kill obviously piqued our interest because of the 'senseless violence' promised but more appealing to our small gaming clan was that it was essentially a four player beat em up. Yes, the amazing Shaolin offered up to Eight player fighting (still one of the best multiplayer experiences ever) and later Gekido allowed for a similar four player fighting experience but for this one day we had Thrill Kill, a chipped P...

Cast your mind back 10 years to the heady days of the Nintendo 64, and that gem: Goldeneye. I'm sure we all remember it well, it had 4 player deathmatches, on the same screen! now that is tech! So one afternoon there are 4 of us lounging about playing deathmatches, one of the modes you could get was "The man with the golden gun", where one shot was an auto kill. At that point we were playing 1 vs 1,  one of the guys  got the Golden Gun, retreated to a ramp where my only hope of killing him was to climb that ramp.  Every. Single. Time. boom dead, boom dead, booooooom dead.  Now I'm a persistent guy so I kept going at it, he had accrued a score of around 50 kills and I was getting madder and madder, redder and redder, breathing heavier and heavier through gritted teeth. Eventually at one point I had breached the perimeter where I would usually die, I got closer, scrambled with the controls out of pure excitement. then boom dead, yet again. I exploded... ...

Alright Troops! We at Thatguys decree that this week is National Most Painful and Glorious gaming moments week . As such over the next week we shall be sharing with you some of the most heart breaking and heart warming stories from the Thatguys team. Well actually, it's kinna coming up for 4 years of www.thatguys.co.uk and we thought we'd do a feature, we don't do them very often. We tend to fart ideas and opinions at random, and often offer nothing more save from some rather disturbing metaphors and analogies. Though attempting to go for shock-value on the internet is as retarded as stillborn puppetry, we like to think that we still have the warmth of a fat-man's bowel movement and wit that is dryer than yer maws snatch. Well, gentle readers, we present you a little insight into the best and worst moments in our history of gaming... Love and hugs, That Guy's a Maniac... X

A Tweakquel is a sequel to a video game which is essentially the same as the original except with some marginally game improving new features. Common tweakquel features are: You can now dual wield weapons (e.g Halo) There is a vehicle section (Tomb Raider) You play as another character for part of the game (Devil May Cry, No More Heroes) The torch and gun are no longer mutually exclusive (Dementium) Two player co-op (Resident Evil) Some of the best levels are removed from the game (SW Battlefront) You get some decent songs licensed (Wipeout) Live action is left out (Resident Evil) Everything is shiny. So shiny (Perfect Dark) Remember, you heard it here first.

Avid reader! You may have noticed one third of TGAM hasn't been pulling their weight around here recently. That is because Richie! got sucked into Dragon Age: Origins. Big time. We managed to lure him far enough away from the 360 version of the game but only with the promise of helping explain to you avid reader why 'marmite' Dragon Age was worth playing, how Richie likes to roll (two meanings!) and why all dwarves are scots. How do you normally play RPGs? General dick or worthy saint? It's a tough one and particularly pertinent in Dragon Age as there are achievements either way for the moral decisions you make in the game. And unless you are Save Scumming you are only going to get one half of them on your first play through. But in general, when I play any game, I tend to be as nice as possible, helping everyone I can find, doing every quest I can, but also most importantly getting to grips with the world and it's mechanics, then when I'm aware of the world an...